The Open Championship Quiz: Nick Price won the British Open in 1994 and Paul Lawrie in 1999. Name the four Americans who won it between these two. Answer below.
—Mike Trout has a pretty incredible record in All-Star games already. He led off his first ASG with a single, second with a double, third with a triple and fourth with a homer, that being last night against N.L. starter Zack Greinke. Trout was named MVP for a second game in a row as the A.L. defeated the N.L. 6-3.
[Trout is also going to be a top 2 in the league MVP voting at year’s end for a fourth consecutive season.]
Meanwhile, the Dodgers’ Clayton Kershaw took the loss for the N.L., giving up 2 earned runs on 3 hits and a walk in his single inning of work.
But Mets fans got to see Jacob deGrom put on a helluva show, striking out the side in the sixth on 10 pitches, while the home Reds fans at least got to see Aroldis Chapman strike out the side in the ninth. A.L. batters fanned 15 times.
But before the game Pete Rose arrived on the field as part of baseball’s Franchise Four program, joining Reds Hall of Famers Joe Morgan, Johnny Bench and Barry Larkin. Rose received a thunderous ovation in a nice moment. Afterwards Larkin was asked if Rose should be allowed back in the game.
“You saw it, everybody experienced it,” he said. “I don’t know if it would just happen in Cincinnati, (I’m) assuming that the reception would be like that all over baseball. He is the hit king; he is the man. You heard the fans respond. And hopefully, the commissioner or whoever has to make the decision heard it too, because the man is a legend, he should be in the game.”
And then MLB trotted out the four greatest living players: Willie Mays, Sandy Koufax, Hank Aaron and Johnny Bench. Koufax threw out the first pitch, caught by Bench, and wouldn’t you know it was a perfect strike…at age 79. I’m guessing he could still be a situational lefty for most teams, though I imagine he wouldn’t like the travel.
“The All-Star Game is not so much a nine-inning contest to see who gets home-field advantage in the World Series as it is a potpourri of experiences over several days that are so various, racing at you in succession, that you can only judge the gala by one reasonable standard: How often do you, out of nowhere, get a big, silly, childish look on your face? That expression on actual children counts double….
“Tuesday’s game, noted for its youth, will probably be remembered someday for its majesty, too. Someday, no matter how highly we think of them now, we will say the names Mike Trout, Bryce Harper, Paul Goldschmidt, Buster Posey, Andrew McCutchen, Max Scherzer, Chris Sale and Madison Bumgarner with much different and more respectful, or in baseball terms, reverential inflection….
“You want proof? In 1969 [Ed. at RFK Stadium], Steve Carlton got the win and Phil Niekro the save for Manager Red Schoendienst. They joined Mays, Hank Aaron, Ernie Banks, Roberto Clemente, Johnny Bench, Bob Gibson, Juan Marichal, Tom Seaver, Tony Perez and Willie McCovey as the Hall of Famers for one team.
“McCovey hit two homers. One went through the plastic face of the Longines clock in center field, 420 feet from the late. The hole was there for decades.
“Frank Robinson, Reggie Jackson, Rod Carew, Brooks Robinson, Harmon Killebrew and Carl Yastrzemski were the bunch of Cooperstown losers for the A.L. Yes, 19 Hall of Famers on the field together. The ‘others’ from 1969 are still, in many cases, household names – known by just one name: Rose, Boog, Hondo, Davey (Johnson), Blue Moon, Sudden Sam. Denny McLain, the last 30-game winner, pitched an inning….
“Memories are made. And then, over the years, even over a whole life, those memories are remade as the players at center stage achieve their final stature.
“You look back. You say the names: Aaron, Mays, Carlton, Seaver, Clemente, Rose, Banks, Gibson, Marichal, McCovey, Niekro, Bench and a whole bunch more – on just one team – and, like so many of the 43,656 here, you’re glad that you were there.”
—Pete Rose, who accepted a permanent ban for gambling on baseball on Aug. 24, 1989, is supposed to have a hearing with Major League Baseball in August on his plea for reinstatement, but he was allowed to be at the All-Star Game (rightfully so).
Rose said the other day that when he meets with Commissioner Rob Manfred he will apologize, hope and pray.
Rob Manfred, in a Q&A with the Baseball Writers Association of America, said, “I’m not going to speculate about a timetable, because part of it is related to what Mr. Rose and his representatives want to do. In terms of my own thinking, the timing is going to be driven by how quickly we can get the work done that I want to get done before I meet with Mr. Rose.”
This includes reviewing all of the original investigatory material involved with Rose’s case, which Manfred has admitted is overwhelming.
But Rose can kiss off any chance of getting into the Hall of Fame or being reinstated. Former commissioner Fay Vincent (who will hate Rose forever, rightly or wrongly, because he was Bart Giamatti’s great friend), told USA TODAY Sports, “I don’t think there’s a chance in the world. Who wants to buy Pete Rose and own it? It’s too dangerous. You don’t know what he might do.”
I was beginning to mellow a bit on Rose until the latest revelations, ESPN unearthing documents that showed he gambled while he played, as opposed to his previous story that he did it only when he was managing, which it took him decades to admit.
I loved watching Rose play, but I now go back to my original viewpoint since I started this column. Tell him he will be admitted to the Hall, after he dies.
–The Franchise Four program by MLB was a great idea. If nothing else it’s perfect beach chat, accompanied by a cooler full of domestic as you shoot the breeze with your fellow baseball fanatics.
I do have to say I was surprised by the Mets fans’ selection of our Fab Four…David Wright, Mike Piazza, Keith Hernandez and Tom Seaver.
I love Hernandez, just shocked it wasn’t Darryl Strawberry. As for Dwight Gooden, just not enough room. I feel for Darryl because I imagine he really wanted this honor.
–Monday’s revamped home run derby at the ASG actually worked. I thought it was entertaining.
Certainly the Yankees are high up on the list, 48-40, 3 ½ over Tampa Bay.
The Red Sox, 42-47, are beginning to come around, just 6 ½ back, and can’t be discounted.
Kansas City, 52-34, may not be a surprise, but they are certainly proving last year was no fluke, though they’ll miss Alex Gordon these next two months, he being out with a torn groin muscle (ughh).
Minnesota, 49-40, has been a huge surprise.
Detroit, 44-44, negatively so, and with Miguel out for weeks more, their season is over.
In the National League, the Mets, 47-42, two back of Washington, just may hang in there awhile, though their tough stretch continues after the break, with St. Louis and Washington away, then the Dodgers at home.
Pittsburgh, 53-35, and just 2 1/2 back of St. Louis, 56-33, is a surprise only to the extent they started off 18-22. The Bucs have been operating on all cylinders since.
Chicago, 47-40, is a surprise in that we still don’t know just who they are? It’s tough getting your arms around this team. They could go on a big run in the second half, or collapse.
San Diego, 41-49, is an obvious negative surprise. Their fans must be depressed, right, Bobby C.?
—Last season’s .251 batting average in major league baseball was the lowest since 1972. Through the All-Star break, both leagues are hitting the same .253 this season.
St. Andrews
–With his win at the John Deere Classic on Sunday, Jordan Spieth’s odds of winning The Open Championship at St. Andrews this week dropped to 5-1, helped in no small part by the absence of Rory McIlroy due to Rory’s ankle injury.
Dustin Johnson is 12-1 to win his first major championship. Justin Rose is 15-1 and Adam Scott, Henrik Stenson and Louie Oosthuizen are 20-1, according to Westgate LV Superbook.
Oosthuizen won the Claret Jug during the British Open’s most recent visit to St. Andrews in 2010, by seven shots over Lee Westwood.
As for the pairings, remember, fellow Americans, five-hour time difference for us East Coasters, eight for you Pacific time zone types, so Californians can’t party too hard on Saturday night. If you must, stick with premium domestic to avoid a major hangover.
Anyway, for some reason the Royal and Ancient paired Jordan Spieth and Dustin Johnson together again, along with Hideki Matsuyama.
And Tiger is paired again the first two rounds with Oosthuizen, a la Chambers Bay, though Jason Day fills the role of Rickie Fowler.
Phil Mickelson is paired with Matt Kuchar and Henrik Stenson.
Nick Faldo, playing in his last Open Championship, is with Rickie Fowler and Justin Rose.
And 65-year-old Tom Watson will cross the Swilcan Bridge for a last time on Friday (or maybe not…he’s made three of the last four cuts!), paired with Ernie Els and Brandt Snedeker.
“For an exceptional golfer, Jordan Spieth is surprisingly unspectacular. He doesn’t drive the ball especially far. He isn’t uncommonly accurate off the tee. At 21 years old, he won the first two majors of the year with all the panache of a mailman making stops along his route.
“But there is one small element of his game that is unsurpassed in professional golf. And it might be the biggest reason to believe he can win this week’s British Open, a feat that would put him one major away from becoming the first golfer in modern history to complete a Grand Slam.
“Nobody misses putts better than he does.
“This is more of a compliment than it sounds. On average this year, when Spieth misses his first putt, the ball comes to rest just 23 inches from the hole. That is tied for the best mark on the PGA Tour.
“From any distance on the green, Spieth can miss with a degree of precision that gives him the best odds of two-putting the hole.”
Spieth has three-putted only 1.82% of holes played this year, “easily the best mark among top-10 players.”
–At his pre-tournament press conference on Tuesday, Tiger Woods said, “I know some of you guys thinks I’m buried and done, but I’m still right here in front of you.”
Asked if he was ready to hang it up, Woods responded, “Retirement? I don’t have an AARP card yet. I’m a ways from that.”
Tiger insisted he is all healed up from his back surgery, but conceded it took longer than he imagined.
–A funny thing happened the other day at St. Andrews. Tiger hooked up with Jason Dufner for a practice round.
Yes, Tiger and Jason. You know those rumors I was very careful to talk about the other day, the rumors that had Tiger having an affair with Jason’s ex, Amanda? The affair that broke up Tiger’s deal with Lindsey Vonn?
As Golfweek reported after, “Whatever they talked about, who knows? But we can report that players have been joking about the rumors for weeks and few, if any, have believed them.
“ ‘I guess this proves there was nothing to them,’ said one player before he headed to the practice range.”
–I failed to note last time that Rickie Fowler won the Scottish Open and a few have used this as a springboard to the Open Championship. It was Fowler’s first European Tour title and he becomes the fourth American to win it, after Phil Mickelson, Tom Lehman and Michael Allen.
Rickie won The Players Championship back in May, of course, but only four players have gone on to win a major in the same year – Jack Nicklaus (1978), Hal Sutton (1983), Tiger Woods (2001) and Martin Kaymer (2014).
–Attendance at last week’s Scottish Open was down over 2,000 from the previous two years, part of a continuing trend. According to a KPMG report, membership of Scottish golf clubs is down 4.8 percent year on year… that’s a huge drop. In a 10-year period from 2003 to 2013, Scottish golf club memberships dropped by 17.5 percent.
—This is what I wrote in December 2004 from Q-School out in California, the year I walked all six rounds with Bill Haas.
“But then you have those who are not only struggling to get on the tour but, worst case, ensure they at least gain an exemption onto the Nationwide, the AAA of golf [Ed. now Web.com tour.] About 50 gained their Nationwide tour privileges out of the 169 this week. One regular on the minor circuits is Jerry Smith, 40, who played with Bill Haas in the 5th round. Jerry’s lovely wife Jennifer followed him around and she was a joy to talk to. The Smiths long ago chose the vagabond lifestyle of the professional golfer who is just a notch below the top level, and after watching these guys for six rounds you can appreciate the difference between a PGA Tour golfer and a Nationwide one is small. Everyone can bang their drives 280+ and hit solid wedge shots. The difference isn’t just in the putting but between the ears. Two strokes here, two strokes there and you miss a cut and go home hungry.
“Jerry was a classic example of the other side. He had it to 7-under in the 5th round on Sunday but bogeyed two holes coming in to finish at -5 heading into Monday’s finale. I sought out Jennifer before Jerry teed off today and she was shaking like a leaf. Sadly, he went 3-over on his round and failed to get his PGA card. But I’ll be following him as closely as possible on the Nationwide this coming year. This is one class act.”
Well, last week Jerry Smith, now 51, won the Champions Tour event at North Shore C.C., outside Chicago. It was his first win of any kind in 27 years! He played senior events in Europe last year and then made it through Champions Tour Q School.
Smith said after his triumph, “You don’t really think about winning and so forth – at least a guy like myself, who’s been a so-called journeyman player all these years. It’s surreal.” [Golf World]
—Jason Pierre-Paul was released from a Miami hospital after a 10-day stay. The full extent of the injuries to his right hand are still not known though aside from losing his index finger, it’s thought he broke his thumb and had pins inserted, while he needed skin grafts to repair severe burns.
JPP has yet to sign his franchise tag tender, worth $14.8 million, and thus far has refused to meet with Giants’ staff. The team could rescind the tag, but that doesn’t seem likely.
–Tom Perrotta / Wall Street Journal…on Novak Djokovic:
“Roger Federer is the most accomplished men’s tennis player ever. Rafael Nadal is better than anyone has ever been on clay, and as impressive overall as any player other than Federer.
“So what do we make of a guy who has been better than both of them in recent years?
“Novak Djokovic occupies a confounding place in tennis history. He doesn’t have the hardware of his two chief rivals, and he may never. And yet, when they meet on the court, it is clear he has surpassed them. His latest accomplishment: a victory over Federer in Sunday’s Wimbledon final.
“Djokovic now has nine major titles and a 48-3 record this year (he is 18-2 against top-10 players). He is 20-20 against Federer in his career, including wins in the last two Wimbledon finals, and 21-23 against Nadal – who once led the series 14-4. Last month, Djokovic dealt Nadal only his second loss ever at the French Open. Djokovic won this year’s Australian Open and lost the French Open final to Stan Wawrinka, which means that if not for one defeat, Djokovic would be contending for a single-season Grand Slam….
“(It’s fair to conclude) that Djokovic will never match Federer’s record of 17 major titles. If he had completed the Grand Slam this year, Djokovic would have done something that his two chief rivals likely will never do. He might have one or two more chances, tops, to do it, but it won’t get any easier.
“And what if Djokovic doesn’t? What if he ends his career with 11 or 12 major titles and none at the French Open? History will remember him as the guy who couldn’t quite catch up to Federer and Nadal. But it might also remember him as the guy who got the better of two legends. In this special tennis era, that’s worth a lot.”
—Jayson Tatum, rated the No. 2 overall high school hoops prospect, announced he is going to play his college ball at Duke.
–Yikes, did you see Jimmy Fallon’s ring finger and his story on how he almost left the finger behind, literally?
“So basically what happened is, I tripped and fell in my kitchen on a braided rug that my wife loves and I can’t wait to burn it to the ground,” he told viewers on his return the other night. “I tripped and fell and caught my fall… I’m getting up and my finger is sideways.”
It gets worse. Bottom line, he is lucky doctors at Bellevue Hospital were able to save the finger.
“A tiger released into the wild in Russia’s Far East by President Vladimir Putin has killed and eaten a bear, the Interfax news agency reported Tuesday.
“Boris the tiger’s culinary triumph was discovered by staff at the national park in the Amur region where the tiger resides….
“ ‘There wasn’t much left of Boris’ feast by the time we got to his hunting ground, so it’s hard to say whether it was a brown bear or an Asian black bear,’ said the deputy director of science.”
Understand that Boris killed a bear last year as well.
—‘Man’ falls to No. 329 on the ASL as Brookfield Zoo (Chicago area) staff let the oxygen levels in a popular stingray exhibit drop too low, killing all 54 rays in a shallow pool that allows visitors to touch and feed them.
—Scott Jurek, 41, of Colorado overcame an injury, difficult terrain and sleep deprivation on the final stretch of the Appalachian Trail to complete the 2,189-mile run from Georgia to Maine in a record time of 46 days 8 hours. That beat the record, held by Jennifer Pharr Davis, by three hours, as reported by the Associated Press.
Top 3 songs for the week of 7/11/64: “I Get Around” (The Beach Boys) #2 “Memphis” (Johnny Rivers…one of his best…) #3 “Rag Doll” (The 4 Seasons…their body of work looks better and better with each passing year …)…and…#4 “Don’t Let The Sun Catch You Crying” (Gerry and the Pacemakers…super tune…ageless…) #5 “Can’t You See That She’s Mine” (The Dave Clark Five….yeah, baby!…) #6 “My Boy Lollipop” (Millie Small….have to be careful…favorite of LT…) #7 “People” (Barbra Streisand… no snark…simply a beautiful song …) #8 “A World Without Love” (Peter and Gordon…another great one…written by Paul McCartney… was #1 two weeks earlier…I mean was this a great week or what?!…) #9 “The Girl From Ipanema” (Getz/Gilberto… and this was a terrific tune….even if a standard for every high school stage band…) #10 “No Particular Place To Go” (Chuck Berry)
The Open Championship Quiz Answer: Four Americans to win between 1994 and 1999…1995: John Daly. 1996: Tom Lehman. 1997: Justin Leonard. 1998: Mark O’Meara.
