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What a (Jason) Day for Sang-Moon Bae

Sun, 19 May 2013 22:43:00 GMT

Sang-Moon Bae already had a claim to at least a modicum of fame, courtesy of Golf Boys 2.Oh. Dial it up on You Tube and listen carefully, toward the end:

I took a vaycay at Sang-Moon Bae, I got a massage every single Jason Day

The Golf Boys are Bubba Watson, Rickie Fowler, Hunter Mahan and Ben Crane, whose latest video has received nearly 3.8 million views on You Tube, no doubt leaving nearly 3.8 million viewers wondering where this Sang-Moon Bay is located and whether they too should plan a vaycay there.

Assuming they follow golf, they're likely to soon learn that Moon, as his colleagues call him, is not a destination resort, though if his golf swing was contagious, he'd be worth a visit.

"Fabulous golf swing," CBS' Nick Faldo said, after Bae outplayed Keegan Bradley down the stretch on Sunday to win the HP Byron Nelson Championship, his first PGA Tour victory.

His is a game that can travel, too, and it won't be in coach class. Only 26, Bae, a native of South Korea, also has 11 international victories, including three on the Asian Tour and another three on the Japan Golf Tour, where in 2011 he was its leading money winner.

If he or Bradley were stocks, they'd be strong buys at this point. This was already assumed about Bradley, who also is only 26 and already is a major champion and three-time winner on the PGA Tour. But Bae is relatively unknown, having joined the PGA Tour last year, when he earned $1,165,952, a figure, incidentally, that he exceeded with his victory at the TPC Four Seasons Resort in Irving, Texas.

Maybe better than his swing was the way he handled the pressure after squandering a four-stroke lead over Bradley. The last five holes are the most difficult stretch on the course with winds howling and he played them in even-par to win by two.

"We all marvel at this golf swing," Faldo said, "but I marvel at his mental strength as well. He showed great strength today. It wasn't very right for awhile and to face the big five holes to get in and shoot [even], fantastic."

Faldo also predicted that Bae won't be "a flash in the pan." Bae is banking on that as well, aiming as he is to represent South Korea in the Olympics in 2016. Military service is mandatory in South Korea and he has yet to fulfill his obligation, but an Olympic medal or a major championship would exempt him from service.

Until then, and with apologies to the Golf Boys, Sunday will serve as the finest (Jason) Day of his career.

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Rickie Fowler — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 04:00:00 GMT

If you play a lot of golf, a bad swing habit will exact a physical toll no matter your age or fitness level. Here's how I fixed my swing at the gym.

Media: 'I'm stupefied by the slow penalty'

Fri, 12 Apr 2013 23:30:00 GMT

By John Strege

News unfolds at a languid pace in golf, but a languid pace was the news in the second round of the Masters, introducing a note of controversy that provided a seamless segue from the end of the Golf Channel's "Live from the Masters" show to the beginning of ESPN's telecast.

Tianlang Guan, the Chinese teenager who earned widespread admiration for his poise and ability a day before, again was the center of attention on Friday when on the 17th hole he was assessed a slow-play penalty that jeopardized his making the cut. He made it on the number.

Near the end of its show, Golf Channel's Steve Sands interviwed Ken Schofield, the former executive director of the European PGA Tour, regarding the penalty called moments earlier by European Tour rules official John Paramor.

"John Paramor was my first recruit in 1976," Schofield said. "I didn't regret it then and I would not have regretted it in all of my time. John will have applied the penalty in accordance of the competitions of the 77th Masters tournament. Clearly this is very, very unfortunate, but it's a fact of life. Whether the guy is 14 or whether he would have been 60-year-old Tom Watson, John would have applied the rule."

ESPN's Mike Tirico, meanwhile, paid homage to Guan. "The 14-year-old handled it with class, saying afterwards, quote, I respect the decision [end quote], his maturity the equal of his ability, adding to the global admiration for an eighth-grader half a world from home."

Otherwise, opinion was largely the domain of those on Twitter, most coming down on the side of Guan, some curiously so. For instance, Joe Ogilvie, whose Twitter avatar bemoans slow play (a cap with a red circle, the words SLOW PLAY inside them, and a red line through it), wrote: "I'm stupefied by the slow penalty. Hope he still makes the cut."

Ogilvie is among golf's faster players, incidentally, is ardently anti-slow play, and seemingly would be expected to applaud the penalty.

Then there was tennis star Andy Roddick, who wrote, "I understand everyone saying he was warned etc....... My stance is simple to all of those arguments. He's 14."

What does his age have to do with the rules?

Speaking of age...

Given seven hours to fill on its "Live from the Masters" show, Golf Channel featured a couple of interesting interviews, one with Raymond Floyd, once a mentor to Fred Couples. Even at 53, Couples believes he can contend in the Masters, and, indeed, he finished Friday tied for second.

"He has a very good chance to win here because he has maintained his length," Floyd said. "That is paramount. Experience is huge. Huge. The more you play here the better you get a feel for the golf course. I see where Freddie's coming from. I agree with him totally. He has a chance to win here where he might not at any other tour event."

The big question, however, was posed by ESPN's Curtis Strange: "Can his nerves hold up?"

Speaking of slow play....

When the ESPN telecast began, the first we saw of Tiger Woods was on the tee at the par-3 fourth hole, where there was a backup. Rickie Fowler and Jason Day, playing in the threesome following Woods' group, were standing near the tee box and visible in the background.

'The most sin...'

That was all of the sentence that David Feherty got out when Jim Furyk chunked his third shot into the water at the 15th hole.

He was about to say, he said moments later, "the most sinister 75 yards in golf."

Tiger Woods might concur, his third from a similar distance striking the flagstick and bounding back into the water, a stroke of misfortune that would demoralize lesser players. Instead, he took a drop, hit it to within four feet and made the putt for a bogey.

"And that right there is why he is who he is," Arron Oberholser posted on Twitter. "#15th club strongest mind in the game."

On Twitter

David Duval: "The only way to deal with slow play is simple. Give the rules officials the ability to time players without warning them."

(Getty Images photo)

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Rickie Fowler: How I Fixed My Swing At The Gym (Video)

Rickie Fowler — Fri, 12 Apr 2013 04:00:00 GMT

If you play a lot of golf, a bad swing habit will exact a physical toll no matter your age or fitness level. Here's how I fixed my swing at the gym.

Efficiency experts

Derek Evers — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 12:54:00 GMT

By E. Michael Johnson It happens virtually every week: Reports from PGA Tour reps, ads from manufacturers and tweets from golfers all offering claims that tour players are seeing significant distance gains. How is...

Tiger, fraternization and what it portends for Augusta

Mon, 25 Mar 2013 16:51:00 GMT

By John Strege

Photo: David Cannon

There was a time that an athlete detested his opponent, competitive nature trumping friendship. Magic Johnson and Larry Bird might have been friends in the off season, but...

"He was always smiling," Bird said once. "And as I told Magic, my goal my whole career was trying to knock out his two front teeth. Then he wouldn't be smiling so much."

Major League Baseball, meanwhile, even has a rule that prohibits public displays of affection. It states in part that "players of opposing teams shall not fraternize at any time while in uniform."

We bring this up, because in the wake of Woods' second consecutive victory (and third of the year), this in the Arnold Palmer Invitational on Monday, there might be a faction of the PGA Tour membership wishing that golf had its own rule against fraternization.

Related: Tiger's long road back

Two weeks ago, Steve Stricker gave his friend Tiger a putting lesson on the eve of the WGC-Cadillac Championship. What, the competition might be asking, was he thinking, a few weeks ahead of Augusta?

Woods' putting has been brilliant since, notably in Saturday's third round, when he had 18 putts inside 20 feet and made 17 of them, maybe "one of his top 10 putting rounds ever," NBC's Johnny Miller said.

He was locked in with the putter again in the final round on Monday, to wit the pivotal 27-foot birdie putt he poured in on top of Rickie Fowler's 38-foot birdie putt to maintain a three-stroke lead at the 12th hole at Bay Hill in Orlando.

"His putting is better than a machine," Miller said. "I've never seen anything quite like it. At Doral he had 100 putts for 72 holes, the least he's ever had. So he's in a total crazy time with his putting."

Whatever his other merits as a golfer, his putting prowess has been the linchpin to his greatness. Greg Norman once called Woods the "the best clutch putter I've ever seen." Paul Azinger wrote on Twitter that "there was never a better putter on the face of the earth as @TigerWoods."

Related: The Evolution of Tiger's swing

The popular perception is that Tiger is again the dominating player he once was; the evidence cited are three victories in four stroke-play starts on the PGA Tour, his having regained the No. 1 spot in the World Ranking, and the return of his marksmanship on the greens. But here's where we bring out the caution flag: None of it matters until and unless he begins winning majors again.

"The Masters is so important for him," Miller said. "He needs a major. The more this goes on the tougher it is to get the next one."

Woods, 37, remains stuck on 14 majors, four short of equaling Jack Nicklaus' record, and it's coming up on five years since he last won one.

But the likelihood of his extending this streak much longer does seem remote. Woods surely will take with him to Augusta more confidence than he's had heading into a major than at any time in the last five years.

And for this, at least in part, the rest of the field has Stricker to thank.

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May 2013 Table of Contents

Mon, 25 Mar 2013 04:00:00 GMT