Sharing Umbrellas: Darren Clarke Wins The Open Championship

They say that winning a first major changes everything, and if that's true, then nothing told the story of how Darren Clarke's life is about to change more than a camera shot not of the golf course, or his swing, but of the sky. A line went straight down the middle of the camera's eye--a threshold of cloud--and our common practice of making sports into life changing events wanted us to think that, with a win, Darren Clarke's golf career, and even his personal life, would swing from stormy gray into sunlit white. We wanted to see it, and we felt some measure of secondhand redemption in his victory; but I would like to ask Darren Clarke if he needed us to be there: Did he need this win to move through the storms of his life or had he already done so, privately, and we're just bringing out old ghosts and flogging them for the hell of it?

Number of the Day: Tom Watson's Ace

Younger men will win the tournament, but Tom Watson's hole in one at the sixth was a reminder to the old and young, the skilled and the hack, why anyone would ever pick up one of those fickle clubs and send all their hopes and dreams sailing into a blast of wind and storm and ocean--hope, we cling to it always.

Let's Go ROR-EE: A Coming of Age Story

Father's Day was good. I spent it with my dad, doing one of his favorite things: watching golf. Rory McIlroy came into the last round up eight shots, birdied the first hole, and we gave up any thoughts of seeing something dramatic, if not awe-inspiring. The galleries at Congressional commenced to laugh tracking the chant "LET'S GO, ROR-EE!" because we are trained to applaud greatness when we see it, which is good. 

Link Scrap

CBS and the SEC sign a record 15-year deal to show the league’s football and men’s basketball games through the year 2023. Financial terms of the deal were not released. The current contract between the SEC and CBS was scheduled to end after the 2008 season. This could possibly end chances of the SEC network, but that won’t be determined until the SEC announces the remainder of its television contracts with ESPN and Raycom. That announcement is expected later this month or early September.

Aubrey Huff cleared waivers and is likely to be traded to a town near you, Bugs and Cranks goes deeper into the possible trade.

The Golf Channel and Sir Charles are teaming up to bring you "Fix Charles Barkley's Golf Swing". This show should be watchable just for the fact that you can watch Barkley's embarrassingly bad golf swing over and over. For a reminder of the wretchedness that is his swing here is a clip.

Field Trip: AT&T National

At&t National returns this week to the nations capitol for the second year in a row. The Tiger Woods hosted event is played at Congressional Country Club. Tiger and AT&T did their best to give back to the citizens of the DC area by giving tickets to all of the servicemen stationed in the area free of charge. My father is a Lieutenant Commander and has served proudly for 29 plus years in the United States Coast Guard. My father was the recipient of two of these free passes for today's Earl Woods Memorial Pro-Am Tournament, he was unable to attend due to work related issues. So I got the free tickets and gladly paid $20 bucks to park in some guys yard in Bethesda(There was no parking at the course, far cry from the Booz Allen days at Avenel). When we (me and the Lawn Chair Girl) arrived we decided we were starving , we ate at the Michelob Ultra Lounge where we paid an inordinate amount of money to eat a bad brat and terrible turkey and cheddar. As we were there we conversed with a coastie who used to live in the same neighborhood as I did in Hawaii. We learned from her we missed the ceremonial first tee shot. They had 3 paratroopers drop down delivering the golf balls from 3 parts of the world, where we are currently in battle (Afghanistan, Baghdad, and I can't remember the third). Fred Couples and two children of Active Military Personnel hit the tee shots, Boom Boom and Cal Ripken Jr. also gave speeches.

Since we had missed the early morning tee-times, we decided to try and find my favorite of the afternoon tee-times Davis Love 3. We were lucky enough to track him down pretty early and Ms LCG got some great photos of DL3. We then happened upon Steve Elkington, who bombed one down the middle and made a couple jokes with the croud(He also had on these money leather red white and blue spikes). He ended up being the most crowd friendly of the day from our standpoint. We also got to see some of the celebrities in the tournament. Hunter Mahans group had the biggest names, or the friends of Tiger that accepted, including Ty Willingham (the shot we saw him hit he chunked about 45 yards), Stuart Scott (he hit a nice approach but left it short in the bunker where he struggled mightily). We did not have any luck finding Michael Wilbon, but we found the range where Ms. LCG got plenty of great shots. We were lucky enough to find Trevor Immelman, Jesper Parnevik, Brandt Snedeker, Lee Janzen, Brian Gay, Camilo Villegas, and Sean O'Hair all practicing at the same time. After the range we decided we had enough of this tournament and made the trip back home. All-in-all Tiger put on a great show for the troops, even letting some of them caddy for the day, and I cannot wait until next year where he will be healthy enough to play.

Tiger Loves the Dodgers

Who watches hockey anymore? Well apparently not Tiger Woods, during a conference call held yesterday for the upcoming PGA Championship. This statement came just hours before the Penguins and the Red Wings triple OT thriller that scored a 4.3/8 rating -- the highest rating for a Game Five since 2002's Finals between the Red Wings and the Carolina Hurricanes.

JULIUS MASON: Mr. Woods, Julius Mason here. We're joined by about 75 of
your closest friends and I think off the top of their head they have one burning
question for you, Detroit or Pittsburgh tonight? In the Stanley Cup finals.
(Laughter.)
TIGER WOODS: That's pretty good. I don't really care, let's talk
about the Dodgers. (Laughter.)
JULIUS MASON: Politically correct as always
and that's what we ?
TIGER WOODS: I don't think anybody really watches hockey
any more. (Laughter.)

To tell you the truth, as a Dodger fan, that is what I am thinking most of the day. Here I will give you some real life examples:

1. When my girlfriend is telling me about this new purse she got herself, I think "I dont really care, lets talk about the Dodgers."



2. During english class, during a discussion on Tolstoy I think to myself "I dont really care, lets talk about the Dodgers."

To be fair he was talking about something much more boring than my girlfriends new purse.

THUNDERBALL

That title is intense isn't it, I thought so. I am a big fan of golf, I play any chance I get, and I am one of the few under 45 that can watch the golf channel without wanting to punch my brains in. I even went to Golf school, but promos like this make me want to hurl. Golf is a beautiful game, but no matter what they do it will never be "extreme". I'm going to warn you now, so that we at LCB HQ can avoid any harmful law suits, for every 5 seconds you watch of this clip you will lose 20 braincells.



Im really suprised we didn't get a Extreme Doritos or Extreme Mountain Dew plug in there.

With Leather