The PGA at Atlanta Athletic Club shows again how that once maligned, fourth-sister major, is gaining ground each year. The U.S. Open,with Congressional disgracefully weak this year, has been in freefall for at least a decade. First, the USGA folks killed the excitement with the unplayably hard courses, then swung too much the other way...The Tiger Woods-Rocco Mediate playoff in 2008 was the last memorable open.... Once the PGA had inferior courses, but now the Atlanta Athletics Club proved a much more challenging championship test than Congressional. ...The USGA held the open once at the AAC, then never again, while the PGA has held four championships there. What doesn't the USGA come back?
...Gee, hooked on the Braves again. The Giants-Braves series was a good one. Any lover of good pitching feels sympathy with Tim Lincecum, who has received no runs at all in 10 games this year. He must feel like a great football defense that keeps seeing its quarterback throw interceptions. ..Baseball, at least in the National League, has really shifted to a pitching-dominated game in which one or two runs is usually good enough to win. Baseball dinosaurs like me might like it, but pitching duels likely bore the videogame generation. No doubt baseball can be a tedious event; the other day I grew irritated when a pitcher kept looking around at a baserunner, etc. A football team would have run three plays and an NBA team scored three goals in the time it took him to at last throw a pitch.
..I'm beginning to warm up to Freddi Gonzales as manager, but I still find his batting order screwy. I like Brian McCann, and he's a good hitter, but I don't see him as No. 3. And, while Constanza's been a spark, I'd like to see Heyward playing everyday, no matter how badly he's been going.
...The GOP is screaming about Obama vacationing in Martha's Vineyard. He would be much closer to the people if only he had his own ranch in Texas. ...Government can't create jobs, the conservatives say. The old Tammany Hall Tweed gang, as well as Southern populists like Huey Long, did pretty well in crearing jobs.