Saturday, July 09, 2005
Wie Gunna Do It.
Yesterday, Michelle Wie missed the "cut" at the John Deere Classic in Illinois. A few points in cased you missed this...
* The John Deere Classic is one event on the PGA tour, a tour that has the top 200-300 people competing on a weekly basis.
* Michelle was four under par when she teed off on the 15th hole... the projected cut line was three under so she had a stroke to give.
* Granted, most of the "top" of the top stars in golf were "across the pond" getting ready for the coming British Open, but there were still a handful of significant names that joined Wie below the "cut" line.
* One of those cut names was David Duval, former British Open champ himself and at one time he ranked as the top golfer in the world. He posted a two-round score of 148. That is six over the par mark of 142.
* Michelle Wie bested David Duval by seven strokes.
* The current number one golfer in the world is Tiger Woods. Tiger has earned nine professional majors and three additional majors as an amatuer. Some... actually most... say that he is the best player to ever carry a putter on a golf course. But Tiger missed the cut in this first attempt. Actually he missed in his first seven attempts, all with scores higher than Michelle's 141. At the age of 15, as great as people projected that Tiger was going to be, he had not yet entered a professional golf tournament.
* Michelle Wie is already a consistent competitor on the LPGA tour, with two second place finishes and a run at the title during the Women's U.S. Open recently.
Put all this together and it becomes a matter of "whens" and not "ifs"... When will Michelle make her first PGA cut? When will she win her first LPGA event? When will she win her first PGA event? Michelle Wie will win golf tournaments and she will win them on the PGA tour at some point. And she very may well become the hottest twenty-something athlete out there when she reaches that age. How is that for gender equality!
* The John Deere Classic is one event on the PGA tour, a tour that has the top 200-300 people competing on a weekly basis.
* Michelle was four under par when she teed off on the 15th hole... the projected cut line was three under so she had a stroke to give.
* Granted, most of the "top" of the top stars in golf were "across the pond" getting ready for the coming British Open, but there were still a handful of significant names that joined Wie below the "cut" line.
* One of those cut names was David Duval, former British Open champ himself and at one time he ranked as the top golfer in the world. He posted a two-round score of 148. That is six over the par mark of 142.
* Michelle Wie bested David Duval by seven strokes.
* The current number one golfer in the world is Tiger Woods. Tiger has earned nine professional majors and three additional majors as an amatuer. Some... actually most... say that he is the best player to ever carry a putter on a golf course. But Tiger missed the cut in this first attempt. Actually he missed in his first seven attempts, all with scores higher than Michelle's 141. At the age of 15, as great as people projected that Tiger was going to be, he had not yet entered a professional golf tournament.
* Michelle Wie is already a consistent competitor on the LPGA tour, with two second place finishes and a run at the title during the Women's U.S. Open recently.
Put all this together and it becomes a matter of "whens" and not "ifs"... When will Michelle make her first PGA cut? When will she win her first LPGA event? When will she win her first PGA event? Michelle Wie will win golf tournaments and she will win them on the PGA tour at some point. And she very may well become the hottest twenty-something athlete out there when she reaches that age. How is that for gender equality!
Monday, July 04, 2005
Fireflies, Fireworks and the Fire Inside
My alarm clock was going off, but it wasn't a workday... not in the traditional sense anyway. I mean, it was Monday... but it was July 4th... that is a holiday in this country. Why, then, was my alarm going off?
After getting to bed late on Sunday night (I was out visiting some friends in Marietta... did you know that they have real live fire flies out there???), there was no way I was going to take to this alarm clock business without a good reason. Then I remembered, I diligently spent the last 15 minutes before going to bed last night laying out my clothes for this morning... including Peachtree Road Race #32615 already attached to my t-shirt. Today was the Peachtree Road Race 10K from Buckhead into Midtown... 55,000+ people up at the crack of dawn to sweat, drink water, cheer, wheel, ring cowbells, drink beer & bloody marys and, oh yeah, most importantly, RUN... in the name of our nation's independence.
This being my maiden Peachtree voyage, I had spent quite a bit of time setting out my course, from where I was going to park the car (11th & Juniper) to where I was going to catch the MARTA (10th St. Station) to what time I was going to arrive. Because the guidance I received prior to the race came from prior entrants from my work and from the handy dandy Atlanta Track Club guide on "Everything Peachtree" you would think I would have gotten some helpful advice, like DON'T SHOW UP TWO HOURS EARLY because all you'll do is SIT SIT SIT and WAIT. But no one bothered to share this wee little significant piece of advice with me... there I sat at 6:10 a.m. on the curb in the 30,000 - 39,999 stall with about a hundred other suckered souls waiting for something to happen.
Luckily, I chose my spot wisely and got chatted up diligently by a pleasant school teacher from Fayette County who had left her friends in another group to line up in her, "assigned group"... no breaking the rules... or a checkmark was sure to end up on a chalkboard somewhere... Near 7:25 a.m. the crowd began to fill, stand and move towards the front of the chainlink stall... I am sure somewhere, someone was trying to communicate with us on what to do and when, but no one could hear over the half-dozen news helicopters all flying above trying to share with the remaining four-million "smart" Atlantian's exactly how fun this was.
It was when the group was herded towards the start line, that I finally realized the immensity of the event that got people up at as early as four in the morning... there were people in front of us... and LOTS... there were people behind us... and LOTS... there were... Okay... there were a lot of folks... including some moron wearing only a speedo and sneakers... good thing it was warm out... in the chill of a San Diego morning, he would have... well.
Ahead was the start line and I started fiddling with the stop watch on my watch getting ready... the PA starting playing The Charlie Daniels Band, "The Devil Went Down To Georgia"... apparently a hit in these parts... At the starter's booth, a gentleman with a microphone started his countdown... 10, 9, 8... will I pass out after a mile?... 7, 6, 5... what if I get trampled... 4, 3, 2... I hope I get a T-shirt... I mean that is what this whole thing is about, right? 1!!!!
The first three miles of the course are relatively flat, then downhill... My plan was to run/jog the first three miles at a leasurely but consistant pace... not stopping... after the first mile, however... I was thinking of either hailing a cab or looking for a guy with a Rickshaw, because I was already sweating profusely, out of water and getting passed up by nine-year olds and men with oxygen tanks in tow.
Somehow... after grabbing a few cups of water, trying to drink on the run, then ceremoniously crumpling the cup up and throwing it to the ground like the real runners do during the olympics, I saw a sign that said "Mile 3"... Mile 3??? Wow, I had actually made it... but uh-oh... the famed "Cardiac Hill" was coming up. I glanced at my time, 29:58??? I was timing under 30 minutes at three miles? That never happens! Even during training (if you call driving the course in my Honda Accord training) I didn't clock close to that. I continued up the hill towards Piedmont Hospital and finally broke for a walking break near a water stand at about three and a half miles.
The next two miles were intermittent at best... Run, jog, water, walk, jog, run, avoid the Krispy Kremes and Smoothie Factory handouts (I swear, when did a 10K become a trade show exhibition?) all the way to the top of the hill and to Mile 5...
Now we were getting somewhere... heading over the 85 bridge into Midtown near the Arts Center, I got a relative second wind, but was astounded to see that my time was still bearly over 50 minutes... pretty close to my 10 minute pace (a blistering pace for a overweight, hairy guy who believes physical exercise is taking laundry down three flights of stairs).
As I came into midtown and the "teen" streets (17th, 16th, 15th, etc.) I began thinking about how I ended up in this race to begin with... I began to think about the fact that until just two days ago, I had never run further than three miles in my life and how I was closing in on the sixth and final mile of a 10K. In January, when I was in a different life and I thought I was in love (stoopidly in love) with a destructive alcoholic who still acted as if it were still acceptable for a thirty year old woman to close down every college bar hang out and then for some reason, despite the fact that I LEFT San Diego and her behind... continue to haunt my heart and my mind relentlessly... none the less, not withstanding the tangential drivel, I made my New Year's Resolutions for 2005... and among them was to run the NYC Marathon in November. Well, in hindsight, probably not an attainable goal, but I was still trying to dignify myself by getting at least a 10K done the midway point of the year.
So here I was ... running in search of myself... trying to free my mind and my body from the insecurities that often told me that I couldn't... couldn't run that far... couldn't ask that cute girl out for lunch... couldn't control my life exactly in the way I visualized it in my pea-sized brain... I was also running for my father... who died in October... six days before my birthday. Not because he enjoyed running, but because he lived his 69 years of life exactly the way he wanted to and never passed up an opportunity to do something a bit crazy, like pack up the family of five in 1986 into a Chevy van and travel up and down the Baja Mexico coast for six weeks. I was also running for the sake of triumph... for every time that I have seen a great sports moment and wondered what that felt like... to accomplish, to achieve, to reach down deeper inside of you and pull enough inner strength and fire to continue even though pain is coursing through your toes, knees and lungs...
To round Peachtree Street onto 10th and see barricades of people behind them, cheering, waving flags (ok... most were drunk from the $1 Bloody Marys at Jock & Jills) and for me to be one of the thousands that was being cheered on instead of on the sidelines. To notice all the other folks running beside me, the ladies running in wedding veil and bouquet, the three guys dressed up as parts of the american flag and the firefighter who ran the entire course in full fireman's gear... to see the bridge of photographers atop 10th & Piedmont taking pictures of each of us as we pass beneath... and to see the giant "peach" colored finish line sign stretched the length of 10th at Charles Allen Drive... and to glance down at my watch as I crossed underneath and see that it read 67:52... that felt like triumph... my body had quite a different idea of what that felt like, but through a few bottles of water, plums and nectarines I was able to get my body to agree.
After getting to bed late on Sunday night (I was out visiting some friends in Marietta... did you know that they have real live fire flies out there???), there was no way I was going to take to this alarm clock business without a good reason. Then I remembered, I diligently spent the last 15 minutes before going to bed last night laying out my clothes for this morning... including Peachtree Road Race #32615 already attached to my t-shirt. Today was the Peachtree Road Race 10K from Buckhead into Midtown... 55,000+ people up at the crack of dawn to sweat, drink water, cheer, wheel, ring cowbells, drink beer & bloody marys and, oh yeah, most importantly, RUN... in the name of our nation's independence.
This being my maiden Peachtree voyage, I had spent quite a bit of time setting out my course, from where I was going to park the car (11th & Juniper) to where I was going to catch the MARTA (10th St. Station) to what time I was going to arrive. Because the guidance I received prior to the race came from prior entrants from my work and from the handy dandy Atlanta Track Club guide on "Everything Peachtree" you would think I would have gotten some helpful advice, like DON'T SHOW UP TWO HOURS EARLY because all you'll do is SIT SIT SIT and WAIT. But no one bothered to share this wee little significant piece of advice with me... there I sat at 6:10 a.m. on the curb in the 30,000 - 39,999 stall with about a hundred other suckered souls waiting for something to happen.
Luckily, I chose my spot wisely and got chatted up diligently by a pleasant school teacher from Fayette County who had left her friends in another group to line up in her, "assigned group"... no breaking the rules... or a checkmark was sure to end up on a chalkboard somewhere... Near 7:25 a.m. the crowd began to fill, stand and move towards the front of the chainlink stall... I am sure somewhere, someone was trying to communicate with us on what to do and when, but no one could hear over the half-dozen news helicopters all flying above trying to share with the remaining four-million "smart" Atlantian's exactly how fun this was.
It was when the group was herded towards the start line, that I finally realized the immensity of the event that got people up at as early as four in the morning... there were people in front of us... and LOTS... there were people behind us... and LOTS... there were... Okay... there were a lot of folks... including some moron wearing only a speedo and sneakers... good thing it was warm out... in the chill of a San Diego morning, he would have... well.
Ahead was the start line and I started fiddling with the stop watch on my watch getting ready... the PA starting playing The Charlie Daniels Band, "The Devil Went Down To Georgia"... apparently a hit in these parts... At the starter's booth, a gentleman with a microphone started his countdown... 10, 9, 8... will I pass out after a mile?... 7, 6, 5... what if I get trampled... 4, 3, 2... I hope I get a T-shirt... I mean that is what this whole thing is about, right? 1!!!!
The first three miles of the course are relatively flat, then downhill... My plan was to run/jog the first three miles at a leasurely but consistant pace... not stopping... after the first mile, however... I was thinking of either hailing a cab or looking for a guy with a Rickshaw, because I was already sweating profusely, out of water and getting passed up by nine-year olds and men with oxygen tanks in tow.
Somehow... after grabbing a few cups of water, trying to drink on the run, then ceremoniously crumpling the cup up and throwing it to the ground like the real runners do during the olympics, I saw a sign that said "Mile 3"... Mile 3??? Wow, I had actually made it... but uh-oh... the famed "Cardiac Hill" was coming up. I glanced at my time, 29:58??? I was timing under 30 minutes at three miles? That never happens! Even during training (if you call driving the course in my Honda Accord training) I didn't clock close to that. I continued up the hill towards Piedmont Hospital and finally broke for a walking break near a water stand at about three and a half miles.
The next two miles were intermittent at best... Run, jog, water, walk, jog, run, avoid the Krispy Kremes and Smoothie Factory handouts (I swear, when did a 10K become a trade show exhibition?) all the way to the top of the hill and to Mile 5...
Now we were getting somewhere... heading over the 85 bridge into Midtown near the Arts Center, I got a relative second wind, but was astounded to see that my time was still bearly over 50 minutes... pretty close to my 10 minute pace (a blistering pace for a overweight, hairy guy who believes physical exercise is taking laundry down three flights of stairs).
As I came into midtown and the "teen" streets (17th, 16th, 15th, etc.) I began thinking about how I ended up in this race to begin with... I began to think about the fact that until just two days ago, I had never run further than three miles in my life and how I was closing in on the sixth and final mile of a 10K. In January, when I was in a different life and I thought I was in love (stoopidly in love) with a destructive alcoholic who still acted as if it were still acceptable for a thirty year old woman to close down every college bar hang out and then for some reason, despite the fact that I LEFT San Diego and her behind... continue to haunt my heart and my mind relentlessly... none the less, not withstanding the tangential drivel, I made my New Year's Resolutions for 2005... and among them was to run the NYC Marathon in November. Well, in hindsight, probably not an attainable goal, but I was still trying to dignify myself by getting at least a 10K done the midway point of the year.
So here I was ... running in search of myself... trying to free my mind and my body from the insecurities that often told me that I couldn't... couldn't run that far... couldn't ask that cute girl out for lunch... couldn't control my life exactly in the way I visualized it in my pea-sized brain... I was also running for my father... who died in October... six days before my birthday. Not because he enjoyed running, but because he lived his 69 years of life exactly the way he wanted to and never passed up an opportunity to do something a bit crazy, like pack up the family of five in 1986 into a Chevy van and travel up and down the Baja Mexico coast for six weeks. I was also running for the sake of triumph... for every time that I have seen a great sports moment and wondered what that felt like... to accomplish, to achieve, to reach down deeper inside of you and pull enough inner strength and fire to continue even though pain is coursing through your toes, knees and lungs...
To round Peachtree Street onto 10th and see barricades of people behind them, cheering, waving flags (ok... most were drunk from the $1 Bloody Marys at Jock & Jills) and for me to be one of the thousands that was being cheered on instead of on the sidelines. To notice all the other folks running beside me, the ladies running in wedding veil and bouquet, the three guys dressed up as parts of the american flag and the firefighter who ran the entire course in full fireman's gear... to see the bridge of photographers atop 10th & Piedmont taking pictures of each of us as we pass beneath... and to see the giant "peach" colored finish line sign stretched the length of 10th at Charles Allen Drive... and to glance down at my watch as I crossed underneath and see that it read 67:52... that felt like triumph... my body had quite a different idea of what that felt like, but through a few bottles of water, plums and nectarines I was able to get my body to agree.
