Another relaxing and laid-back weekend.<\/p>\n
Friday we wrapped up the rainiest week of a rainy summer by, yep, having more rain. By the time the storms stopped Saturday morning we were at six inches of rain through the first 15 days of the month. Which seems like a lot. The good news is I haven\u2019t had to water the yard once so far this summer.<\/p>\n
Friday evening S and I went to a party one of her old high school chums hosted. This wasn\u2019t just any party, though. It was a rescheduled White Elephant party they have every Christmas. And since S\u2019s high school buddy has a lot of Clark Griswold in him, he filled his home with Christmas decorations, cranked up the Christmas tunes, and greeted everyone with a hearty \u201cMerry Christmas!\u201d at the door. I threw out all my normal qualms with holiday music being played outside the season and was fully onboard. The pandemic has changed everything, folks. It was a fine evening.<\/p>\n
As I\u2019ve said before, the NBA playoffs and Finals are often too late for me to see the best parts of the game. I did catch the last four minutes of Saturday\u2019s game five, which we an absolute thrill ride. Again, I have no rooting interest and can\u2019t force myself one way or the other. So it was terrific fun to watch Phoenix slice a ten point deficit down to one, have the ball with under 30 seconds left, and have the crowd going bonkers. And it was equally fun to watch Jrue Holliday strip Devon Booker then throw a ridiculous alley oop to Giannis for the clinching bucket.<\/p>\n
Sunday was a nearly perfect day. The sun was out, it was warm but not hot, and the humidity had finally broken for a bit. We spent nearly all day in the pool with a couple nephews. Any time it got just a little toasty, a slight breeze would kick in to refresh you. In fact, I\u2019m sitting out on the porch putting this together around 8:00 Sunday evening and it\u2019s damn-near perfect: 81 and breezy with low humidity. You can actually sit outside without sweating into your chair. We don\u2019t even have the ceiling fan on. Oh, and the normal, annual cicadas have been emerging over the past week so we have a nice soundtrack to this lovely evening.<\/p>\n
I watched quite a bit of The Open Championship Thursday through Sunday. Pool time kept me away from the tail end of the final round, although I did have NBC on our outdoor TV. Unfortunately it doesn\u2019t face the pool so I couldn\u2019t sit in the pool AND watch golf. Travesty. We should tear our porch down and start over to fix this error.<\/p>\n
Anyway, another disappointing Sunday for Louis Oosthuizen. I wanted him to win just because of all the other close calls, but he looked shook pretty much all through his Sunday round. I think even laid-back Louis is going to rue his missed opportunities in the summer of 2021 when he looks back on them.<\/p>\n
Jordan Spieth also kicked his chances away with some uneven play early Sunday and some terrible play at the end of his round Saturday. But he still made a little run and if a couple more putts had found the hole Sunday he could have been right there. He didn\u2019t win a major this year, but it was great to have him back contending again.<\/p>\n
Winner Collin Morikawa cemented his place as an absolute ace and perhaps the best player of both the under 25 and under 30 crowds. Which is saying something because both of those groups are filled with remarkably talented players.<\/p>\n
On the weeks he putts well – as he did this week and a year ago when he won the PGA – he\u2019s damn tough to beat. That\u2019s the biggest flaw in his game, as his putting can be very erratic. Tighten that up and get it more consistent to go along with a fine long game and probably the best iron play in the game, and we just might have the generational star we\u2019ve been looking for since Tiger fell apart.<\/p>\n
Although as talented as the sub\u201330 group of golfers is, I have a hard time seeing Morikawa or anyone else running away and winning five, six, seven majors over the next decade. There are just too many insanely talented young guys in the game right now for one guy to dominate. Plus, \u201cold\u2019 guys like Brooks Koepka, Dustin Johnson, Rory McIlroy, etc aren\u2019t just going to let these young guys win everything. Well, Rory might\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Another relaxing and laid-back weekend. Friday we wrapped up the rainiest week of a rainy summer by, yep, having more rain. By the time the storms stopped Saturday morning we were at six inches of rain through the first 15 days of the month. Which seems like a lot. The good news is I haven\u2019t had to water the yard once so far this summer. Friday evening S and I went to a party one of her old high school chums hosted. This wasn\u2019t just any party, though. It was a rescheduled White Elephant party they have every Christmas. And since S\u2019s high school buddy has a lot of Clark Griswold in him, he filled his home with Christmas decorations, cranked up the Christmas tunes, and greeted everyone with a hearty \u201cMerry Christmas!\u201d at the door. I threw out all my normal qualms with holiday music being played outside the season and was fully onboard. The pandemic has changed everything, folks. It was a fine evening. As I\u2019ve said before, the NBA playoffs and Finals are often too late for me to see the best parts of the game. I did catch the last four minutes of Saturday\u2019s game five, which we an absolute thrill ride. Again, I have no rooting interest and can\u2019t force myself one way or the other. So it was terrific fun to watch Phoenix slice a ten point deficit down to one, have the ball with under 30 seconds left, and have the crowd going bonkers. And it was equally fun to watch Jrue Holliday strip Devon Booker then throw a ridiculous alley oop to Giannis for the clinching bucket. Sunday was a nearly perfect day. The sun was out, it was warm but not hot, and the humidity had finally broken for a bit. We spent nearly all day in the pool with a couple nephews. Any time it got just a little toasty, a slight breeze would kick in to refresh you. In fact, I\u2019m sitting out on the porch putting this together around 8:00 Sunday evening and it\u2019s damn-near perfect: 81 and breezy with low humidity. You can actually sit outside without sweating into your chair. We don\u2019t even have the ceiling fan on. Oh, and the normal, annual cicadas have been emerging over the past week so we have a nice soundtrack to this lovely evening. I watched quite a bit of The Open Championship Thursday through Sunday. Pool time kept me away from the tail end of the final round, although I did have NBC on our outdoor TV. Unfortunately it doesn\u2019t face the pool so I couldn\u2019t sit in the pool AND watch golf. Travesty. We should tear our porch down and start over to fix this error. Anyway, another disappointing Sunday for Louis Oosthuizen. I wanted him to win just because of all the other close calls, but he looked shook pretty much all through his Sunday round. I think even laid-back Louis is going to rue his missed opportunities in the summer of 2021 when he looks back on them. Jordan Spieth also kicked his chances away with some uneven play early Sunday and some terrible play at the end of his round Saturday. But he still made a little run and if a couple more putts had found the hole Sunday he could have been right there. He didn\u2019t win a major this year, but it was great to have him back contending again. Winner Collin Morikawa cemented his place as an absolute ace and perhaps the best player of both the under 25 and under 30 crowds. Which is saying something because both of those groups are filled with remarkably talented players. On the weeks he putts well – as he did this week and a year ago when he won the PGA – he\u2019s damn tough to beat. That\u2019s the biggest flaw in his game, as his putting can be very erratic. Tighten that up and get it more consistent to go along with a fine long game and probably the best iron play in the game, and we just might have the generational star we\u2019ve been looking for since Tiger fell apart. Although as talented as the sub\u201330 group of golfers is, I have a hard time seeing Morikawa or anyone else running away and winning five, six, seven majors over the next decade. There are just too many insanely talented young guys in the game right now for one guy to dominate. Plus, \u201cold\u2019 guys like Brooks Koepka, Dustin Johnson, Rory McIlroy, etc aren\u2019t just going to let these young guys win everything. Well, Rory might\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[42,15],"class_list":["post-10584","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-golf","tag-weather"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10584","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10584"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10584\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10586,"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10584\/revisions\/10586"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10584"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10584"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10584"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}