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Dustin Johnson and Independence Day: ‘What’s more American than a wronged man?’

July 04, 2016
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Stories of interest you might have missed…

Today is Independence Day, and as Cleveland Plain-Dealer columnist Bill Livingston writes, “ Dustin Johnson has arrived at the confluence of style, celebrity, scandal, comebacks and national chauvinism just in time.

“What happened a fortnight ago at the U.S. Open has only enhanced Johnson's story.   “The court of public opinion, as well as the opinion of most other players on the PGA Tour, have freed Johnson from the suspicious minds of United States Golf Association officials.

“But what's more American in these politically charged times than a wronged man at the mercy of uncaring elitists from the government, even if it's only of golf?”

U.S. Women’s Open returns to area with rich history in women’s golf

The U.S. Women’s Open this week is in San Ramon, Calif., south of San Francisco and the Silicon Valley, and Ron Kroichick of the San Francisco Chronicle examines the deep history of women’s golf in Northern California.

“Long before Paula Creamer strolled down fairways, a portrait in pink, there was Patty Sheehan. And then Juli Inkster and Kay Cockerill, Pat Hurst and Dana Dormann, Christina Kim and Dorothy Delasin.

“That’s why it’s striking to think the U.S. Women’s Open, the premier event for female golfers, has come to the region only once before — at Sacramento’s Del Paso Country Club in 1982. This week’s Open at CordeValle marks the first time the tournament has been held in the Bay Area.

“Inkster…as she launched what would become a Hall of Fame career, started to travel around the country for national tournaments. She soon realized there was some cachet in her geographic background. ‘I started learning we had a pretty good stockpile of players from this area,’ Inkster said. ‘It was good to kind of represent Northern California for golf.’”

Olympics: ’Maybe it’s just easier to blame the mosquito’

Paul Kimmage is a former Olympic road racer turned journalist, who attempts to explain why some of golf’s biggest names have decided to forgo the Rio Olympics and feel compelled to blame it on a mosquito.

“Maybe they feel for the citizens of Brazil and the hardships they’ll endure to pay for the circus,” he writes in the Independent. “Maybe they should stop listening to the doctors who say the Games should be postponed. Maybe golf is not an Olympic sport. Maybe next time. Maybe never. Maybe they should round on their critics: ‘Yeah? What the [bleep] would you know about it?’

“Or maybe it’s just easier to blame the mosquito.”

(Caution: Foul language).