I remember writing a similar blog entry last summer about reasons Michelle Wie shouldn’t play in men’s events and feeling somewhat like a chauvinist in the process. Now I have no reservations about making the same case.
Let’s be clear: there’s no question Wie is a tremendous talent, nor is there a question that women deserve at least the chance to try to play against men if the situation is right. As I’ve said before, watching Annika Sorenstam’s historic two rounds in the 2003 Colonial was probably the coolest thing I’ve ever covered. But whereas Sorenstam earned a shot at crossing over based on her remarkable play over a number of years on the women’s tour, Wie has yet to establish herself as anything more than a carnival attraction in these events.
This is a bad idea. No, let me rephrase that: this is a ridiculously bad idea.
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Speaking of Wie, I had no problem with her attempting to qualify for the men’s U.S. Open last year since she had to go through the same steps as everyone else. Her 36-hole qualifier at Canoe Brook made for compelling theater, and after 18 holes, it looked as if she was actually on her way to Winged Foot.
This year, though, Wie didn’t enter, meaning the sectional qualifying will be a much quieter affair. The sectional in these parts is June 4 at Old Oaks Country Club and Century Country Club in Purchase. Since there is no tour event in town, officials are expecting a modest field of roughly 58 golfers. No word yet on how many spots will be available in the Open, but I’ll be sure to pass that along when I have it.
The common practice in the years that Tiger Woods doesn’t win the Masters is to put to rest talk of a Grand Slam for at least another 12 months. The thinking, of course, is that no other player on earth is capable of such a run, although Phil Mickelson at least flirted with as much before his 72nd hole brain cramp at Winged Foot.
But now there’s Zach Johnson, who won for the second time in the state of Georgia in a little more than a month, and is apparently playing as well as anyone heading into the U.S. Open.
OK, let’s get this out of the way right now: Zach Johnson will not win the Grand Slam. He may not even contend at Oakmont since rumor is Oakmont is going to be so difficult that everyone is going to shoot 83-83 and simultaneously miss the cut (there’s a first for everything!).
But what his most recent win does show is that Johnson has already graduated from flukey winner of a goofy Masters to an upper echelon player. That at least will make him a more compelling figure at the Open—even if he does end up missing the cut along with everyone else.
It was yet another disappointing day for Meaghan Francella today, a final round 78 that left her in a tie for 59th place.
It’s funny, in all the years I’ve been covering golf I don’t think I’ve ever followed so closely a player on Sunday who had absolutely no chance to win the tournament. These are always the players who straggle off the course right about the time the leaders are teeing off, and the temptation is always to think they’ve all had fairly stress-free mornings.
Compared to being in contention, maybe that’s true. But what I also learned watching Francella today is that in many ways it’s more difficult. You have one foot out the door. Given your position, you’re probably not playing well. And yet each shot is still worth thousands of dollars, so you’d be an absolute fool to not to be grinding just as hard.
Francella did her share of grinding today, right up the final birdie putt on 18 (she missed). But you could also tell she wanted to throw her bag of clubs right into the lake.
It’s a long season, and for her, probably a long career. I’m sure she’d love to think this week will be the only one like it. I’m pretty sure she knows better.
Anyway, here’s Meaghan reflecting on the week that was:
I rarely make guarantees, but this one you can count on:
Should Sarah Lee hold on to her two shot lead heading into the final round of the Sybase Classic, there will be at least a dozen headlines of the “Nobody does it like” variety. It’s just too easy.
Meanwhile, Meaghan Francella begins her final round momentarily. The week isn’t ending the way she had hoped it would, with a spot in one of the final pairings. But the Port Chester native still has a chance to work her way through the back door into a respectable finish. And for someone desperately looking to qualify for the U.S. Solheim Cup team, that’s not an insignificant goal.
I’ll take it as a compliment that Meaghan Francella nearly bit my head off when I approached her for some questions after her 76 today. Both her father, Joe, and her swing coach Tom Patri in recent days have described to me moments when they were on the receiving end of the golfer’s frustrations. As far as I know, she’s still talking to both of them.
The reality is that for all of the encouraging steps you get to chronicle in a golfer’s career, there will invariably be plenty of moments when they stumble. And very often those are the most telling moments of all.
And so after 30 seconds of gathering herself in the wake of a round in which she may have cost herself a chance to win the Sybase Classic, the 25-year-old Francella stood and graciously answered every one of my questions. And by gracious, I’m not saying it was all in the King’s English, because it certainly wasn’t. But it was honest, and as a reporter, that’s all you can ask for.
In fact, it’s day like today that remind me why the Port Chester native is such a healthy departure from what you sometimes get in the guarded golf world. She’s authentic. She plays with emotion. Sometimes that’s a fist pump after a birdie. Sometimes it’s a few choice words after a round when too little goes right.
As long as it’s real, I’ll take that over pleasantries any day.
Make no mistake, I have asked more than my share of stupid questions over the years. But fortunately I was NOT the person who asked the following of Angela Park yesterday at the Sybase Classic.
Q. Were you born in Brazil?
ANGELA PARK: Yes.
Q. Can you explain how that happened?
Out of kindness, I will not divulge the name of the otherwise insightful reporter, who actually was wondering how a player of Korean descent was raised in South America. But just to be sure, I plan on spending part of today explaining to him the birds and the bees.
For the record, Meaghan Francella did not appreciate my headline (Don’t Quit Your Day Job) for the post a couple of entries down.
I tried to tell the Port Chester native this was more a reflection of just how good she IS at her day job (and not how much work she needs throwing strikes) but I’m not sure she completely bought it.
Either way, Francella continues to look at home in her current gig on the LPGA Tour after an impressive first round at the Sybase Classic, when she stood alone in the lead at one point at 5-under par before finishing with a 3-under 69.
I spent the round walking with her father and assorted relatives and family friends, almost all of whom turned their hats around like elementary schoolers whenever Francella faced a birdie putt. Six birdies later, they were apparently onto something.
Anyway, here’s a little bit of Meaghan talking about the day in her press conference, starting with my question about what it was like to play so well in front of so many supporters.
Not included was my favorite response, however, when a reporter asked her about what it would take to chase down all the “big name players” on the leaderboard.
Francella turned to me and asked, “I thought I was a big name?”
The golf world moves at an unpredictable pace. There are sometimes months between significant stories, and then two can pile up on top of one another on the same day.
That was today, when I planned to spend a leisurely morning shadowing Meaghan Francella in her Pro-Am round at the Sybase Classic, only to spend most of it with a phone glued to my ear in the press tent working on something else. Feel free to shed a tear on my behalf.
Anyway, the story of the day was the news that The Barclays will move from Westchester Country Club in 2009 to the new Liberty National Golf Club in Jersey City.
I should pause here and give credit to my good friend and occasional nemesis Damon Hack of the New York Times, who broke the news of the site’s selection. In fairness to myself—well actually, just to make myself feel better—I should also point out that as early as last year I had reported that The Barclays would be played at an alternate venue at least two out of the next six years, and that the new high-end Liberty National was the front-runner to take on the event. But Damon had it directly from Commissioner Tim Finchem that the deal was official, so I still had to chase his tail lights today.
Anyway, what this all means is that the Barclays will be at Westchester this August and next August before shifting to the new links-style course for at least one year in 2009. The contract finalized last year says the new FedEx Cup playoff event will have to be back at Westchester at least one more time before 2012, and that either way, Westchester will get a handsome paycheck on an annual basis.
I’ve been following the tour’s tenuous relationship with Westchester pretty much since I started writing about golf in the late 90s, and the same fundamentals still apply. The two parties love to squalk about each other—Westchester members lamenting the inconvenience of the event, the tour lamenting Westchester’s high-maintenance membership—and yet they can’t seem to live without each other.
In some ways, this deal is a match made in heaven. Westchester still has the prestige of hosting a PGA Tour event (a FedEx Cup playoff event no less!), but doesn’t have to do it on an annual basis. Meanwhile the tour can try to capitalize on other pockets of the New York market—I haven’t been to Liberty National but I’ve only heard good things—but can also consistently return to a traditional venue that many of its players still revere.
That doesn’t mean that there won’t be more complications down the road. There always are. Hopefully next time I’ll have a little more advance notice.
Apparently Meaghan Francella is over the crushing disappointment of not throwing a strike last night with her ceremonial first pitch at the Mets game. The good news is the ball reached the glove of Paul Lo Duca. The bad news is it got there by way of the dirt directly in front of the Mets catcher.
As Brian Heyman reported in his story today, the ultra-competitive Port Chester native was originally disgusted with herself for bouncing the pitch. But today she was able to laugh it off, and even was enjoying some extra mileage out of the experience.
There was a lengthy interview with MSG Network, followed by another one with ESPN. When that one was over, Francella asked one of the camera crew, “Can I be on SportsCenter?”
It might take another win this week here at the Sybase Classic, where I caught up with Francella on the practice green a few minutes ago, and where she’s likely to be followed by scores of supporters when she tees off on Thursday.
It might not be the 50,000-plus she was in front of at Shea. But at least here the occasional bump-and-run isn’t a bad thing.
I had breakfast this morning with Meaghan Francella, the LPGA Tour rookie who of course has her own blog on this site as well.
It’s funny, the last time I saw Meaghan face-to-face was before Christmas, when her friends and family from Port Chester threw her a benefit dinner at T and J’s to help her get started on tour. Since then, she beat Annika Sorenstam in a playoff for her first career win, then flirted with winning again a couple of weeks later in her first major championship.
I, on the other hand, didn’t have anything nearly as exciting to report. Oh, except we had our gutters cleaned last month. That was big.
Anyway, you’ll be hearing a lot about Meaghan in the next couple of days since she’s in town for the Sybase Classic. Tonight she’s throwing out the first pitch at the Mets game at Shea, and then I’ll be following her at Sybase, which has relocated to Upper Montclair Country Club in Clifton, New Jersey.
The Francella story is still unbelievable to me. I’ve followed her since she was in high school—I remember her days as a scrappy point guard at Holy Child—and I always figured she could be successful on tour. But I figured “success” at this point would be making cuts and earning money, not upsetting the best player in the world.
Sam Weinman The lead golf writer for The Journal News and LoHud.com, Weinman, 31, has placed among the top three in the Golf Writers Association of America writing contest in three consecutive years, including a first-place finish in 2004. READ MORE
Alex Myers A sports reporter at The Journal News for nearly three years, Alex Myers has covered a bit of everything, but a lot of golf, ranging from the high school level to last year's U.S. Open at Winged Foot. His golf writing goes back to his college days when he attended Wake Forest University. Myers is also an avid player who is constantly trying to improve on his current handicap of 8. Perhaps his biggest thrill came earlier this summer when he conquered the famed 17th hole at the TPC at Sawgrass by hitting a 9-iron onto the island green and walking away with a 2-putt par.
