Random thoughts from here and there, hither and yon…

To bad for the Boston Bruins, losing Game 7 against the St. Louis Blues in the Stanley Cup finals. I haven’t watched a Bruins game — for decades, I could probably, if you forced me, to name two Bruins (Brad Marchand and Tuukka Rask, right?) but it still would have been cool to have the Sox, Patriots, and Bruins all holding championship titles at the same time.

…the good thing is, at least now I won’t have to listen to and read countless stories in the Boston media about whether the Bruins should or should not go to the White House and read about all the spoiled SJWs saying they’re not going to visit because Trump is a, whatever. The fact that so many members of the Red Sox refused to go remains a disgrace. Just like with Barack Hussein Obama – who I hardly respected – you honor the office, not the person who occupies it. Had the Red Sox gone as a team it would have in turn honored the Boston fans to see their team celebrating their achievement in the Rose Garden.

For a group of people who demand tolerance for their chosen sexual and social identities and lifestyle choices, I can’t think of any group less tolerant than the LGBTQ etc. etc. etc. activist community.

Today begins, of course, the U.S. Open at Pebble Beach. And while I hate to have to pick him to win (GOLF Channel would be virtually unwatchable) I gotta go with Tiger Woods to win. With the exception of Phil Mickelson, there’s no one who knows his way around that track better than Tiger, and the shorter distances and small poana grass greens ought to work in his favor.

Anyone who actually pays attention to any political polling this far out of the 2020 elections needs to get a life. And that applies especially to anyone who takes any poll by Quinnipiac University seriously. I’m not sure they’ve ever gotten any poll right, like, ever. And yet the bozos in the mainstream media trumpet every QU poll that comes out. They only do it, of course, because Quinnipiac is so left-leaning, but you’d think those folks would have some sense of shame after a while. Of course, they publish the polls solely to get headlines, and the mainstream media lapdogs are more than happy to oblige.

I’m sorry, but there ought to be no joy – and certainly no celebrating – in beating a soccer opponent 13-0 like the U.S. Women’s team did against Thailand the other day. Believe me, I’m no snowflake when it comes to teams beating another decisively, but there ought to be a classier way of doing it than the U.S. showed. They came across as a bunch of classless bullies.

While still on sports, I told you the Minnesota Twins were going to be good this year.

…and the Red Sox are just a lifeless, boring team. I’ve heard of World Series hangovers before, but this one is particularly ugly to watch. It’s not the the 2014 team that finished in last place after winning the World Series the previous year – that was a particularly bad team. It’s just there’s little worse than boring baseball, and the Red Sox this year are B-O-R-I-N-G.

And speaking of lifeless, I knew the knives were going to come out for “Slow Joe” Biden, but even I didn’t think he’s oblige his detractors by running such a lackluster, uninspired campaign. You listen to all the gaffes and lies he drags out on the stump, and you can’t help but wonder if he really believes half the shit he’s saying. He’s going to get run into a blender come debate season.

The only reason why the Democrats are pushing the impeachment of President Trump so forcefully is because they know they’re going to need impeachment to offset the incredible embarrassment that’s hurtling towards them as a result of Attorney General Barr and U.S. Attorney John Durham‘s investigations. It’s increasingly obvious the Democrats were up to their necks in unethical and illegal activities involving spying and dirty tricks that it’s going to make what the Nixon White House did pale in comparison. The drip, drip, drip is just starting, and its going to get much, much worse – not just for Democrats but for the so-called “legacy” of the Obama administration. And for Democrats there will be nowhere to hide.

The big heat has finally arrived here in the Valley of the Sun, heat advisories up everywhere. Hard to believe it’s the beginning of June and this is the first time we’ve seen these kinds of temperatures, but we’ll take it. We’re just a little bit over a week away from the unofficial start of monsoon season. Where has this year gone? It seems like yesterday I was putting the Christmas decorations away.

This is a special kind of heat, when it gets to be 107-108 plus. 108 seems to be the magic number when it comes to heat advisories being triggered. I call it “double bogey heat”. After you’ve lived here for a while, it’s hot but 108 doesn’t seem to me to be crazy hot. When you get to, say, 113 or above, now that’s crazy heat – the kind that pushes your swimming pool temperature to 94, 95 – the highest our pool will go. In 15+ years I’ve never seen it go above that, and frankly, I really don’t want it to.

I’m in kind of a funny place mentally this year. Maybe it’s because of work (where there are big changes in the wind) and a couple of long-time members of my team at work have announced their retirements. Or maybe it’s because come October it will be (to quote that Sgt. Pepper tune), “Will you still need me, will you still feed me when I’m” sixty-four.” The age feels strange to me. Starting next year I’ll be able to start taking my pension from working at Lahey Clinic for so many years. This fall I have to sign up for Medicare. I’ve had this cough I can’t seem to get rid of for at least four months now and my primary quack can’t figure out what’s going on. I think he’s going to change my blood pressure medication to see if that helps at all. It all just seems kind of weird to me – it’s as if I’m still in my forties but am living an older person’s life.

Maybe that’s why, ever since I resumed playing golf after last year’s Goodboys Invitational week on that warm and lovely October afternoon on the last day of triple digit temperatures, the sky filled with high wispy clouds being pushed out by the remains of Hurricane Rosa, that I enjoyed myself so much on the golf course and have done so since, playing rounds with strangers of all kinds. There’s a kind on anonymity out there: they don’t know – or care – how old I am, I’m not thinking about how old I am, I’m just out there recreating. Sure, I’m trying to reduce my handicap seven friggin’ strokes and am constantly working on refining my swing to get me there, but it’s always a good time, my score gets logged with comments, and I’m back to real life.

It’s not like I’m fixated on sickness and death, but I can’t help wonder from time to time how it will all go down for me eventually. I’m reading John D. MacDonald’s Condominium on my Kindle, about the tales and travails of a condo complex in Gulf Coast Florida during the early ’80s condo boom filled with retirees and shysters trying to take advantage of their ages and situations. Some of them are dealing with illnesses of various kinds, others with money worries or problems, all of them wondering why they’re in “God’s Waiting Room” and how the hell they all got there. And it resonates with me.

Don’t get me wrong – I’ve come to love Arizona and our house and community, but I miss the summers and falls in New England. I sure don’t miss the winters and the springs. But I can’t help but wonder where this all leads. I think about what I would (or could) do when I retire, and frankly, it bores me. Sure, I’d have the time to both play golf – perhaps join a weekly golf league – and clean the house more regularly then it currently gets. Or maybe I would find some kind of part-time work that I’d really enjoy. But I don’t feel ready for that. And what about if I (or, rather, when) I get sick – like, really sick. How would I handle it? Would, say, getting cancer (again) freak me out? Or would I attack it, like so many others do, with a grim determination to fight it out?

I guess it’s different getting older when there are no children involved. For my sister-in-law, she’s got her kids (and grandkids) that she’s constantly communicating (or attempting to communicate) with to one extent or another. I don’t think it’s because she feels like it’s important to leave any kind of legacy, she’s just a mom who cares about her children and it fills her life to some extent. Tracey and I d don’t. It’s not something I regret, and I don’t think Tracey regrets it, either. It’s just life the way it all turned out. Of course, I still have my dad around and my good friends back East, but everyone there – even Dad – has their own lives and situations. Tracey and I did a lot of traveling back in our first two decades of marriage, and, outside of the occasional weekend trip to Las Vegas or San Diego, or the occasional trip back East, traveling really doesn’t interest me much. People are weird, and traveling has become both weird and tedious. For example, I can’t imagine taking a cruise on one of those super-ships they have these days. All they are are floating hotels with young families and kids running all over the place.

I think I like it better here in the backyard where the landscape is beautiful, and at night the colors are lovely and the lights happy. Just like last night where a warm, slightly dusty, breeze from the southwest rustled the palm trees and got the wind chimes all a-tinkling. I sipped a Sam Summer and thought about just how pleasant it all felt. And how I should really try and find a weekend to play another eighteen holes before I go back to Massachusetts for Goodboys weekend next month. I’ve been thinking that next year’s Goodboys will be my last – it will be thirty years of Goodboys golf, and sooner or later everything has to come to an end. But then I catch myself and stop thinking about things too far ahead. (As is, in more than kind of a way, what this post is doing.) I don’t really like thinking too far ahead anymore – it troubles, if not frightens, me. Far better to stick to my mantra of listening to George Harrison’s “Be Here Now” every day before I start work.

Because the now is all there really is, isn’t?

Target Handicap: 20.0
Location: Trilogy Golf at Power Ranch
Score: 51 + 51 = 102
MyScorecard.com Handicap: 26.8 / Change: (+0.8)

The last eighteen-hole round of golf here in Arizona before Goodboys Invitational weekend, and my head is still shaking after a day of missed opportunities. No way did I think I had another 89 in me (as I shot last week) when I teed it up at Trilogy Power Ranch on a warm Saturday morning, but I also didn’t think I would shoot such a disappointing score after having arguably my best driving day of the year.

Golf is a funny game. Two weeks ago I had those “infield fly rule” pop-ups creep into my driver, and I never thought I’d ever be able to hit that club ever again – that’s how lost I felt. Today, I hit eight fairways and just barely missed a few more. But the number of fairways hit doesn’t tell the story. You know what tells the story? The fact I had seven – count ’em, seven – green-in-regulation opportunities (meaning, I’m standing in the fairway with an iron in my hand and the opportunity to hit the green in two on par 4s, or in three on the par 5s). Seven opportunities to make birdie at best, par most likely, or bogey at worst. And how many did I convert? One.

It’s so frustrating. Last week at Kokopelli, I drove the ball OK but it was my iron play that really made the difference. This week it wasn’t until the 17th hole – a softly-faded 6-iron into a crosswind from 147 yards – where I hit an iron onto a green. Before that, I couldn’t hit an iron to save my life. And the same with my Cobra 4-hybrid, which is about ready to be consigned to the deepest recesses of my garage closet to join his brother 3-hybrid. I can’t toss my 6-iron out because it’s a beautiful club, but today I couldn’t hit it. Couldn’t hit any iron, for that matter – everything was thin or skulled. I think I figured out way too late that I wasn’t staying on top of the ball and turning my hips, but who knows? It’s just damned disappointing to have so many chances at GIR and perform so poorly. I played those seven holes +15, including two quad bogeys and two triple bogeys.

The first missed GIR, on the short par 4 #2 wasn’t so bad – my 170-yard drive left me dead center of the fairway and 146 yards to the pin. I skulled a 6-iron to 60 yards, but couldn’t get a pitching wedge on the green. I two-putted for a double-bogey six. But it was on the 364-yard #5 that things went beyond absurd. A blistered (for me) 214-yard drive left me with 150 yards left-center of the fairway. I pulled 6-iron again and pushed it short and left of the green. I then yanked a sand wedge (another club that is causing me grief) into the sand bunker right. It took me three tries to get the ball out before two-putting for quad-bogey snowman. (BTW, I’d also push another 6-iron from a perfect position in the middle of the fairway on #9 into a pond left, leading to a triple-bogey seven.

What was frustrating about all this is that I couldn’t identify the problem and fix it. Which was too bad, because all day I hit my driver and 5-wood very solidly – perhaps the best I hit both clubs all year. My short game wasn’t as tight as it was last week at Kokopelli, but I’ve come to expect that there will be good days and bad. The 34 putts I made wasn’t awful, but once again I missed two putts from a foot out – something that has plagued me all year.

The back nine was a carbon-copy of the front nine. I was in GIR position on a four out of five hole stretch (13-17) and made triple, par (on a long par 5, no less), quad, and another par. The quad was especially offensive: after a 240-yard drive (best of day) I had 6-iron (again) in my hand. I skulled it into a waste area of deep grass, got it out of the grass but was left with 60 yards to the pin. I skulled my pitching wedge over the back, duffed my attempt to chip back on (my only real poor chip of the day then three-putted (the last a foot-long). You can’t shoot good scores if you’re going to play golf like that – it’s the worst kind of sloppy golf, and after a while it just beats you down.

That’s looking at the glass half-empty. On the glass half-full side of the equation, the fact is that I gave myself all those GIR opportunities to begin with. Which tells me I am in a much better place than where I was even at the start of the year. The fact that I’m no longer satisfied with a pair of 51s tells me that I know inside I’m capable of so much more. Others may disagree, but that’s just the way I’ve come to see things.

I’ve played a lot of golf over the past two months, and with the real heat now here I don’t expect to do more than perhaps hit the range or play nine holes between now and Goodboys Invitational week. It’s been a roller-coaster ride: these changes I’ve committed to with my swing have their good moments and their bad. It’s just tough to go out and play and not know what parts of your game are going to be working and what ones aren’t. I still like the changes I’ve made and remain committed to them, but a day like today – an OK enough score that could have been so much better – still leaves a sour taste in the mouth.

Now that Attorney General Bill Bar is, as to be hoped, on the case as far as the origins of the “Russia collusion” hoax are concerned, here’s hoping that he’s not weak in the knees enough to not just settle on the fact that the likes of Jim Comey, John Brennan, James Clapper, and a bunch of rogue FBI top-levels played fast and loose with the law and tried to torpedo Donald Trump’s presidential campaign and cripple his presidency.

And the same holds true for those involved in using the foreign intelligence operatives in trying to entrap those associated with Donald Trump’s presidential campaign over that silly and phony “dossier” that was used as bait for obtaining FISA warrants against Trump associates. It was all total bullshit, of course, and the clowns listed above knew damned well it was bullshit. This also needs to be looked at, fer shure.

But personally, what I’m hoping for is that AG Barr not just stop there and extend his investigation to determining where the actual dossier originated from. Someone wrote it, and someone put it together – it wasn’t just created out of thin air. Because I’m guessing that what those mentioned above know full well but are unwilling to talk about (at least not publicly or on the record) is that it was the Clinton campaign that started the ball rolling. And the question then becomes (to borrow a famous Watergate era phrase), what did Hillary know, and when did she know about it? Red State’s Elizabeth Vaughn lays out the evidence as to the dossier’s origin, and it’s classic Clinton politics, rotten to the core:

It’s become crystal clear how it all originated. The Russian collusion conspiracy began the day the Clinton campaign and the DNC made the decision to hire a former British spy to produce and then propagate a dirty dossier among the powerful and the influential in Washington. While the Clinton machine managed to add several degrees of separation between themselves and the dossier, there’s no denying that it all started with the fictitious, salacious and unverifiable document which they had commissioned in the spring of 2016. It is therefore inconceivable that Hillary Clinton has, so far, managed to escape scrutiny.

Hillary and the DNC, which she essentially controlled, tried to hide their culpability by using the law firm of Perkins, Coie as an intermediary. The lawyer who represented both the DNC and the campaign was a partner at Perkins Coie. He arranged for his firm to hire Fusion GPS, an opposition research firm owned by Glenn Simpson, which then hired Christopher Steele to produce the dossier. In this way, they were able to “disguise the operation from Congress and the public, and in its Federal Election Commission (FEC) spending reports.”

Once the dossier was created, Simpson and Steele began disseminating it throughout the political community. In September, Steele shared the story with several journalists, one of whom was Yahoo! News’ Michael Isikoff, who broke the story at the end of the month.

There’s no way this kind of thing could have gotten produced and distributed without at least a nod from Madame Hillary – in the history of American politics there are few who are as immoral and ruthless as Hillary Clinton. She may have made for a rotten candidate as far as presidential politics goes, but there’s no denying her inherent quality of seeing herself as above the law and able to act without scrutiny – hell, she’d been doing it since she first arrived in Washington riding on husband Bills coattails more than a quarter century ago. One look at the way the criminal enterprise known as “The Clinton Foundation” operated, where Hillary served as head shakedown artist as Secretary of State, will tell you that. The whole purpose of the private e-mail system was to cover up “pay for play” access, and everything went – even if it involved classified information.

Hillary Clinton knew she could operate with virtual impunity because of the extensive network of Clinton enthusiasts, suck-ups, and political operatives who served within the framework of the entire federal government apparatus. As The Federalist’s H.A. Goodman writes:

At a certain point, it can’t be mere coincidence that every major figure involved in probing Trump’s campaign is linked to Hillary Clinton in some manner. Christopher Steele was “desperate” to prevent Trump from becoming president and was paid $160,000 by Democrats before he compiled his infamous dossier.

DNC lawyers met with FBI officials before a surveillance warrant was granted, raising questions as to why the FBI would meet with a political party’s counsel, yet not inform Trump his campaign was under investigation. Fusion GPS, the firm that hired Steele, was paid by money from Hillary Clinton and the DNC, funneled through a law firm, to compile the Steele dossier.

Clinton allies gave hundreds of thousands of dollars to the political campaign of Andrew McCabe’s wife, yet the former FBI deputy director only recused himself from Clinton’s email probe one week before the election. Even before the FBI obtained a FISA warrant on Carter Page, Bruce Ohr of the DOJ informed FBI officials that the Steele dossier was connected to Hillary Clinton and filled with political bias. Ohr’s wife, Nellie, worked for Fusion GPS and now her emails are linked to controversy.

Crowdstrike, the only entity to analyze the claimed DNC email hack, was outsourced and paid by the Democratic National Committee. Australian diplomat Downer informed the FBI of a conversation with George Papadopoulos, where Downer stated the Trump campaign official was given information by a Russian operative about the DNC emails. Downer isn’t mentioned in the Mueller report, was never interviewed during the Mueller probe, and is linked to the Clinton Foundation.

Along with the Crowdstrike assessment that Russia hacked the DNC, the FBI used the Steele dossier to obtain a FISA warrant to surveille Page—without informing FISA judges the dossier was linked to funding by Hillary Clinton. Then of course, former FBI agent Peter Strzok texted “we’ll stop” Trump and wrote about an “insurance policy” that he had spoken about with McCabe.

At some point, any investigation that William Barr authorizes that doesn’t seek to probe deeply to the Steele dossier’s origins won’t be worth its salt. And it is essential that those associated with Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign are included in that investigation. Those “in the know”, know, and it is critical that the truth comes out. I would hardly expect to see anyone named Clinton behind bars – that would be asking to much – but it’s important that the American electorate – both Republican and Democrat – see how the Clinton campaign used its political muscle to lay waste to anyone who sought to get in Madame Hillary’s way during the 2016 campaign. Because it wasn’t just Donald Trump’s campaign that was a target, it was Bernie Sanders’ as well. And identifying the source of the dossier, how it came about, and how it was used as a political weapon, will help folks understand just how far the Clinton campaign was willing to go to ensure her election.

And it still astounds that, with everything they were able to do, with virtually no opposition of any kind from a vast and supportive mainstream media, she still couldn’t get the job done. Amazing.

There are going to be D-Day tributes and remembrances flowing from all corners of mainstream media and social and political spectrum, so I won’t bore y’all too much with my own thoughts. Needless to say, this is a special day – one that deserves at least a moment of quiet contemplation and prayer for all those who, willingly or unwillingly, faced those beaches head-on and supported those who did so in every imaginable way three quarters of a century ago. So many of them are now gone, precious few still walk amongst us. But they all deserve to be remembered and thanked in our own private ways.

There are those out there who say that America was never great or never that great (you can guess, I’m sure, what part of the political spectrum they come from), but it’s hard to think of many moments where greatness as defined by courage and self-sacrifice was ever more evident. They deserve our deepest awe and respect.

May God bless all those who fought and died and survived D-Day for cause of freedom and everything that was right and just. May you all be held by Him in His eternal light and peace.

It’s a busy work week, but here I am at 63, and two of my most valued and veteran employees, whom I’ve worked with for the past fifteen years, announced their retirements on successive days. Kinda serves to remind me just how much I’ve got left in the tank and when my time will come. Will it be on my own terms or someone else’s? It wouldn’t surprise me if its the latter – things are changing so rapidly in my company and industry that it’s all just a numbers game now. And when your number is up, well, it’s up. We shall see.

…at any rate, a few thoughts and items worth blogging about on what looks to be the last week before the serious heat gets here. That, too, was bound to happen, right?

Why Chick-fil-A is so popular and so successful.

Poor sleepy ol’ Joe Biden – once a plagiarist, always a plagiarist. Not a very impressive campaign so far for a so-called “veteran of the wars”, at least as I can see.

A good journalist would have tracked the perpetrator down to find out what club he used. I’m betting something easy to swing – perhaps 7-iron.

Such is the problem with liberals and liberalism in general – sooner or later everything you touch starts looking like Venezuela.

…unless, of course, you’re the one who is making the rules.

…but only liberals could destroy a place with incredible amounts of natural and human resources like California.

See, here is what I think is going on and going to happen down at our southern border. Trump is going to enact tariffs against Mexico. Congress will fight it and, in all likelihood, end up overriding the President’s veto since most of them are in the pockets of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other cheap labor supporters. Trump issues an executive action and closes the border and taxes remittances back to Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador. Immigration thus retains its major issue in the 2020 elections, and a surprising number of Republican congressmen and even senators are not only primaried but ultimately defeated. Immigration is the issue of our time, Trump is on the right side of the issue, and folks are going to be shocked at the carnage dealt those who refuse to support the President’s actions.

…but if you truly want to help, do as I did and contribute to We Build The Wall. It truly is making a “YUUUGE” difference.

…I’m hoping Mitch McConnell is smarter than this.

Heh. It’s a few days old but I just saw this. Elizabeth Warren is such a fraud. How Massachusetts is willing to put up with such an elitist, phony loser is beyond me.

I always look forward to the RBC Canadian Open. Like Jack’s Memorial Tournament, I love seeing a the trees and greenery. Goodboys Invitational weekend is just six weeks away, and I’m already looking forward to playing some New England golf. Sure, the balls far left and right don’t bounce off the subdivision walls like they do around here, but that’s part of the thrill, right?

“San Fran Nan” Pelosi, the gift that just keeps on giving. Reminds me of her statement that they had to pass Obamacare “to see what was in it.”

I’m going to go out on a limb here and disagree with Hank Haney’s suspension from the SiriusXM PGA Tour Radio channel for what some saw as racist comments made about Asian (in this case, Korean) LPGA competitors. Most certainly, comments that culturally stereotype any kind of group based on skin color, race, religion, gender, political affiliation, etc. etc. etc. are and should be seen as improper. But while Haney’s comments could be construed as insensitive in that regard, they not only weren’t racist or sexist, there’s more than a shred of truth in what he was alluding to in his comments. As Golfweek’s Geoff Shackelford writes:

While I agree with and understand the outrage over Haney’s remarks, particularly from players in this week’s U.S. Women’s Open at a terrific venue with strong fan support, I’m conflicted about the characterization and direction of the outrage that quickly turned to some very strong words.

…The flippant comment he made on his satellite radio show, which was in response by a remark from his co-host apparently referring to the number of women named Jeongeun Lee (there are six), is, one that I’ve heard mentioned hundreds of times over the years — including jokingly from Koreans or Korean-Americans — about the number of women with similar sounding names from Asian countries dominating the game. Sometimes it’s a compliment to the incredible depth and the devotion to craft by these women. Sometimes it’s not. This does not make Haney’s comment acceptable when expressed in condescending fashion and his disdain for the state of women’s golf may be tinged with some sexism, but the leap to racism seems like just that: a leap. I’d lean more toward ignorance of the LPGA Tour or international cultures than anything else.

I’m no big fan of Haney (while his book on Tiger Woods was entertaining, it also smacked of someone telling tales out of school and somewhat tawdry – if not unprofessional – given his profession), so it’s not like I feel any big need to defend him here. And while I’m guessing the LPGA’s powers-that-be would never discuss this publicly, anyone who doesn’t think the ladies’ tour doesn’t have somewhat of an image (or at least perception of image) problem with the amount of Asian players dominating their ranks and their leaderboards on a week in / week out basis is deluding themselves.

Look, I enjoy watching ladies golf, always have. To me their games and the way they swing and approach the game is much closer to what amateur golfers would do well to replicate. Unlike the men’s tour, it’s not just a power game of “hit it as far as you can and go make birdie”. But anyone who has been watching the LPGA telecasts on a regular basis for years knows that, apart from a handful of players, many of the Asian players who now dominate the ladies’ tour – most especially the Chinese and Korean players – are (how should I put this?) photogenically boring to both watch and play. Before anyone accuses me of being sexist, I’m not talking about appearances. If you like (or not like) watching Asian chicks play golf that’s your business – me, I could care less if I’m watching Asians or Martians. But, like most, I’m also looking to be entertained and watch players who appear to enjoy what they are doing for a living and bring something more to the telecasts than just executing (or not executing) shots.

And I don’t mean to generalize here, for there are Asian golfers who I do enjoy watching: Inbee Park always seems to have a smile on her face, Pornanong Phatlum sparkles with her ’60s go-go dancer outfits, and the Jutanugarn sisters Ariya and Moriya are always in the mix somehow. But I’ll be frank here: the Chinese and Korean chicks mostly look the same to me in the way they look, dress, and go about their business with a dour, widget-like efficiency that does nothing for me. And the fact may have similar-sounding or identical names only serves to emphasize the point. And there are a lot of them like that, and they dominate the tour from week to week.

I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with them as individuals, but collectively – let’s put it this way – they’re not Lexi Thompson or Michelle Wie. The LPGA needs more players who not only know how to play, but bring personas that help them to stand out over the rest of the competition (one of the reasons why Paula Creamer is so popular), and the influx of Korean and Chinese golfers appears to work against that in a medium that demands such if you’re going to pull in occasional golfers and non-golfers. Haney’s comments could be construed as awkward and culturally insensitive, but they weren’t racist or sexist (sorry Michelle, but you’re way off base here and you should be more careful with your own comments!), but it doesn’t mean he was wrong.