I’ve only hit a bet on a long shot one time. It was the 2007 U.S. Open, and the
field was going off at 50-1. I
came home from the bars a little tipsy on Wednesday night, and put 100 dollars
on the opposition. I felt a tinge
of regret as a made my way to the opening shift at my golf internship the next
morning, but that summer I was making enough money to go full scale
degenerate. I’d make the $100 back
in a 9-point game that afternoon.
I didn’t get to watch any first round tournament coverage,
but I was very glad to see that someone named Angel Cabrera was one under par
and in second place. I thought to
myself, who the fuck is Angel
Cabrera? Maybe the blind
squirrel had found a nut? Reality
set in. Not a chance, I reminded myself. Again disappointed; I threw on a DVD (it was 2007) and went
to bed.
We all know what happened next. Angel Cabrera won the United States Open. He came from FOUR BACK to win The fucking Masters from the
clubhouse. At plus 5. AT PLUS FIVE!!!
Seeing that no money had been transferred into my online
gambling account, I made a phone call to the now defunct bodog.com.
The conversation went something like this:
(A gentle female voice) Bodog
customer service. Can I have your user
ID and your password?
(Me) Yes, log in
HaMmErCoCk696969 password FuckBitchesGetMoney.
How can I help you Mr.
Tull.
I put $100 on the
field for the US Open.
Yes sir you did.
And Angel Cabrera just
won the tournament.
That is correct.
If I’m not mistaken,
he won this tournament from the field.
Give me one second
while I check on that Mr. Tull.
About 10 minutes later, she came back on the line:
Yes sir, Angel Cabrera
did win the United States Golf Open from the field. Congratulations, we will transfer the funds to your
account.
Apparently I had bucked some kind of trend by betting on the
Field in the US Open, but just like that, $5000 was transferred to my
account. I guess that I don’t need
to tell you that I love Angel Cabrera, but I love him so much that I’ll be
redundant. I fucking love Angel
Cabrera. I love when he is in
contention, and I love watching him play. Bullshit penalty or no bullshit penalty, I loved this year’s
Masters.
As much as I don’t want to, let’s talk about that terrible,
horrible, no-good, very-bad penalty.
You can’t have dessert if you don’t finish your bustle sprouts.
Everyone understands that Tiger made a mistake. My social media feeds told me that the
vast majority of casual golf fans thought that Tiger was cheating. Tiger was NOT cheating. The Rules of Golf are extremely hard to
understand, and the rules relating to water hazards are especially
convoluted. If you don’t care
about golf, or for whatever reason you think that Tiger is beyond redemption,
you can skip this part. For those
of you who are confused, here’s my best effort:
In golf, there are two types of water hazards, hazards
(sometimes called provisional hazards) and lateral hazards. At a municipal golf course, a lateral
water hazard would be outlined with yellow steaks. If you hit into such a hazard, it is acceptable to draw a
straight line from the hole to the point where your ball entered the water, continuing
backwards for infinite length.
From a lateral water hazard, relief can be taken at any point along this
line.
A ball that enters a provisional hazard (staked in red at a
municipal course) is treated as a lost ball. In this case you can play another ball from the exact spot
where your first ball was played, or you can take a drop from the closest point
of relief from where your ball entered the hazard. In this specific instance, Tiger was NOT allowed to take
relief from four feet behind where he had played his original shot.
Tiger mistook a provisional hazard for a lateral
hazard. This is a VERY easy
mistake to make, even when your adrenaline is not surging. (Remember that Tiger’s first shot had
bounced off the pin, and rolled back into the hazard, he wasn’t thinking about
correcting a mishit.) It is also
important to remember that at Augusta National, water hazards are not
staked. From what I could see, lateral
hazards were surrounded by yellow paint- provisional hazards had no
distinguishing marks.
He admitted to the mistake, there was no cheating. I was very upset when I saw that people
were calling for Tiger to withdraw from the tournament. This year, the USGA and the R&A
made a rule that penalties called in from TV viewers after rounds would result
in golfers being assessed a two stroke penalty, and that these golfers WOULD
NOT be disqualified for signing an incorrect scorecard. This rule is more than fair (Nicklaus
and Palmer didn’t have to deal with HD broadcasts or DVR’s).
On a base level, people calling for Tiger to take a trip to
Dairy Queen have a flawed understanding of the rules of golf. (This includes you, Rick Riley.) If you’ll
allow me to dig deeper, most of these casual golf fans were just trying stir up
a little controversy, and maybe boost their Klout scores. (Again including
Riley. What the fuck do you do for
a living?)
Tiger withdrawing from The Masters after being assessed a
two-stroke penalty would be akin to me committing suicide to administer my own
capitol punish after receiving a photo-radar ticket. This wasn’t an issue of integrity. Any true fan of golf knows that Tiger scratching in The
Masters would be devastating to the game.
I have to stop; I’m going to get upset again.
What else do I have to say about Tiger? Not a lot. He played well, really well, just not well enough to
win. If he had not been assessed
the penalty, and we assume that fate is predetermined, Tiger would have come in
at -7 and missed the playoff.
I thought that -7 would hold up all day, and it’s not like
someone had let me in on a secret.
If Tiger was closer to the lead would he have dug deeper and come up
with two more birdies? Probably
not. Could he have dug deeper and
come up with two more birdies?
Probably not. Will he win a
major this year? I’d bet my life
on it.
Jason Day lost the tournament when he bogeyed in on
Saturday. Even when he started
with a birdie and an eagle on to get to -9 through two holes, I never gave him a
chance. Despite all the brain
games he plays, the kid still seems like a bundle of nerves. I wish him all the luck in the world,
but I don’t see him racking notable wins anytime in the near future. Great looking beard...
I wish that everyone would stop talking about how well Brant Snedeker plays under pressure. He doesn’t. The Heritage, and the FedEx Cup don’t mean anything; major tournaments and the Ryder Cup mean everything. When he’s not smashing architectural models he seems like a nice enough guy, but let’s face facts here, Sneds-zilla is anything but clutch. I can guarantee that the clubhouse tailors at Augusta’s clubhouse never even looked at his suit size.
You already know that Cabrera got me paid once, and he’ll
always have a special place in my heart.
But I think I’d really like him even if he hadn’t won me money. Watching him play in person in person is
truly something special. Cabrera
CRUSHES golf balls. His shots
travel with a low, piercing trajectory that is the polar opposite of the balloon draws
hit by every other player on tour.
What’s more, El Pato can putt. The dude can straight putt as well as anyone I’ve ever seen. I thought the tournament was over when
my main man Angel forced a playoff with that handsome Aussie, and he was mere
inches from proving me right.
Alas, golf is a game of inches.
Adam Scott. What
a dreamboat. What a performance. An 18 footer on the last hole of
regulation to become the solo leader in the clubhouse. A 10 footer on the second playoff hole
to save himself a trip to Men’s Warehouse. What a tournament.
What a way to end things.
Both Scott and Cabrera did exactly what they needed to do to
win the 77th Masters. On the 74th
hole, one putt fell, and one putt didn’t. Am I bitter?
Maybe a little bit- golf can be a real motherfucker. Mostly, I’m ready to put all of this
behind me. Bring on The Open
Championship, I have a feeling that 2013 is going to be a banner year for golf…
No comments:
Post a Comment