A Very Ful”Phil”ing Open Championship! Plus, Tales from the Bar
Dedicated Open Blog Readers! (Yes, I’m talking to all 10 of you)
It’s time for The Open wrap up and I’m sloppily tapping away at my keyboard while driving south from Scotland to London (no worry warts, I’m not actually driving, I’m obnoxiously co-piloting) on the not so soothing 8 hour drive down the A1/M1. My writing style may not flow like the boundlessness of the Euphrates River today because I’m having to look up regularly to check out the horizon in order to avoid vomiting in my own lap. Now THAT is blogging dedication!
Sunday morning while I was blurting out the most wordy and prodigious of this weeks blogs and painting a fabulous word picture of Tigers vulgar out burst in the true oral tradition, I was thinking about what I thought would happen on Sun. Here is what I was actually thinking first thing Sun morning, Honest to God!
Lee Westwood
I don’t believe in him and he upheld his part of that bargain. +4 in the final round doesn’t win majors, he’s been a bridesmaid too many times and until he actually wins one I don’t believe he can win one. “If you had invented Facebook, you would have invented Facebook.” Thank you for the quote DooshBag Zuckerberg (don’t worry, he won’t notice, his friends don’t even like him).
LJ Prediction – Westwood is snake bit and will go down w Monty as the Greatest Golfer to never win a Major, until Sergio joins them.
Tiger
I’m a stats guy, Tiger has never come from behind in a Major. He’s the greatest front runner in history, he’s no Dave Wottle (if you catch that reference, you are officially OLD) so until he comes from behind in a Major I don’t believe he will ever do it. “If you had invented Facebook ..” (how about that swift kick of the dead horse). The big question is whether he will ever surpass Jack Nicklaus and the elusive record of 18 majors. As long as he keeps putting himself in position late in Major tourney’s he’ll get alot of looks at Claret Jugs, Green Jackets, Wannamaker Trophy’s, and US Opens but he’s not closing deals these days.
LJ Prediction – Tiger will win either 17 or 18 Majors in his career but he will NOT surpass Jack and win 19! He will make some great runs when he is really old and is going to thrill us all, but he ain’t gonna get over the insurmountable 18 Major summit.
Ian Poulter
I give the guy alot of shiite but as I mentioned on Thur, he hangs around in big tourney’s. I thought he was too far back after an uninspired round of 75 on Sat but I was actually expecting a move from him on Sun and he did NOT disappoint! When he posted +1 early yesterday w 7 golfers on the course ahead of him and they just kept dropping off, it got really interesting. Then Phil ran away and hid.
LJ Prediction – Poulter WILL see the Winners Circle at a Major! He’ll probably sound like a downright cocky bastard speaking in 3rd person in his winners speech but he’ll win one, “I’m sure you are all very thankful for the opportunity to see IJP put on the GREATEST show in the history of Major Championship golf, you are very welcome! IJP IS OUTTA HERE!!”
Phil!
So I was looking at the Leaderboard Sat night and given that Westy cant close and Tiger cant come from behind, I was looking at the other suspects:
Henrik Stenson? Boring …
Zach Johnson? Too Stuffy
Adam Scott? Too good at making 4 bogeys in a row on the back 9 at the Open
Hideki Matsuyama? Who?
Hunter Mahan? No way, Looks like he oughta be pickin a banjo in Deliverance 2
Which brought me back to Phil. He’s lost from in front, he’s come from behind. He’s ran away w leads, he’s clung to ties for playoff wins and losses. Phil has done it all and my gut was telling me on Sat, “Phil can do this!”. But I didn’t have the BALLZ to write it down!
Phil did do something fun after receiving his trophy and giving his acceptance speech. He actually took a stroll around all the stands and pulled a Mick Jagger by walking right past security into the crowd and started shaking hands and chatting with fans. A brilliant and heartfelt move by the Open Champion.
LJ Prediction – Starting last weekend Phil will win MORE Majors than Tiger the rest of their careers! I know, that is a big call!! And Phil is up 1-0 on Tiger since I’m counting now. Way to Go Phil!!
Let’s hope I can make the rest of our adventures on Sunday sound even half as interesting as the golf itself. After the expedition on Saturday into the scoreboard w Da Skool Boyz, we came back on Sunday bearing gifts. Beware of Loudmouths bearing gifts – we will own your Soul! And as you can see from the pic below, the lads from Charterhouse School in London are now beholden to, and mentally enslaved by, Loudmouth for life. For 30 years the Charterhouse boarding school from London has run the scoreboard on the left side of the 18th fairway (boys school ages 12-18) and the Cranleigh School in Surrey runs the scoreboard on the right side of the 18 (Cranleigh Sucks! Or at least that is what I heard repeated monotonously by the Charterhouse coven). All the lads wear uniforms to school every day of the school year except 1 day when they are allowed to wear anything they want. To a man/boy they vowed to all wear Loudmouth on their next Open Clothing Day!
PHOTO OF THE WEEK – QUIET!
I have no idea WHY this guy singled me out! There I am, minding my own business, dressed like most of the other patrons in the gallery, and the noise police got right up my arse!! As you can see, I’m mystified … (as is the confused bloke guy behind me).
CHAPLAIN KEN
The European Tour has an Official Tour Chaplain that is permitted to minister, counsel, and sometimes console players both on and off the course at Tour events. I spoke w Chaplain Ken and had a fascinating little chat w him. Apparently there is a core nucleus of about 5 European players that have Bible studies with Chaplain Ken on Tuesdays and Wednesdays before Tour events. Apparently the European events have 5-6 regular Bible study attendees, so African events have a much more pious field and averages 20+ Bible attendees, and the US PGA Tour is renowned for its 35-40 practicing Christian golfers. Early in the week Louis Oosthuizen came to Chap Kenny worried about a nagging neck injury, lo and behold he pulled out after 8 holes at 4 over par on Thursday of the Open. Why do I regale you w tales of Chaplain Ken? Because I’m leading up to the best question I asked him:
LJ: “Chappy K, does God actually take an active role in the outcome of sporting events and golf tournaments down to catching of balls, kicking of goals, and the dropping of putts?”
ChapK: “Son, God has a plan for everything right down to the last putt. We are not able to fully understand his plan for all of our souls, but nevertheless, God has a plan.”
LJ: “So Grand Master Chapster Ken (his rap name I gave him) God is literally making decisions about who wins and loses Major Championships on a shot by shot basis right down to the last putt?”
Chapinator: “Yes my Son”
Me & Chappy kind of disagreed on that one because IMHO it seems to me that God has bigger things to worry about than Lee choking his guts out or Phil dropping birdie putts on 17 & 18. But the biggest reason I’m not jumping on the KenChap bandwagon is that I don’t think even God would mess w Vegas …
ACTIVITY OF THE WEEK – DRINKING AT THE OPEN!!
Yep, we’re going to roll directly from the Tour Chaplain right into drinking, the fruit of the vine no man shall put asunder (recklessly mixing my biblical metaphors). I’m not ALWAYS drinking but judging by the next few pics you would be hard pressed to deduce anything else. I say to thee The Open is Taylor Made (free plug) for drinking!!
On Monday we quickly discovered the Bollinger Champagne tent. It inevitably and irreversibly became our home away from home for the week.
No beer tap was safe from our wandering lips!!
Wednesday we found a Bollinger Sponsor in the unlikely form of Scottish slaughterhouse purveyor Alain (in pink). He certainly wasn’t buying drinks for me, he undoubtedly wanted to slaughter some of the young meat to his right.
On this fine evening in North Berwick your Contributing Blogger became a Contributing Bartender!!
A tasteful pic of a refined champagne drinking group returning to our Bolli nest like inebriated Emperor Penguins.
Who’s our Favorite bartender?? That’s right, Michael!!! At this very instant we hatched a plan to outfit his entire bartending staff in the Club Marquee tent in customer satisfying Loudmouth at The Open next year at Royal Liverpool.
And on Sunday, the 7th day … even LJ rested.
Here here readers for Slogging through this Bloggin every day for almost a week! I hope it was as fun for you to read as it was painful for me to write. Maybe I’ll be guest blogging again sometime soon if I get conned into it.
LJ
[box]Larry Jackson “LJ”
Contributor
CEO of Loudmouth Golf. Bi-coastal resident. SF Giants fan. Private pilot for Loudmouth Air.
His dream foursome would be to play with Bill Gates, Ralph Lauren, Rupert Murdoch. Larry claims he is the best golfer on the Loudmouth team.[/box]
I am glad someone finally had the guts to call out Hunter and the fact he looks “not right”. I cringe everytime I see that commercial that shows him as a kid. Seriously, they could not dig up a picture where he did not look like a complete dork?