Y.E.-AH BOY!!!

ESPN took my idea. Yeah, I said it: the subsidiary of Disney STOLE MY HEADLINE!!!
Well, not really. My gears were turning the moment Y.E. Yang won the PGA Championship. I had planned on using Yang’s name in a clever play on words. I guess I was not the only one with that idea. Darn you ESPN, you and your team of ingenious sports writers.
I, along with most golf followers, pretty much counted everyone else out. The numbers – as complied by ESPN – are never wrong:
5 – the number of PGA Championship wins Tiger will have after Sunday (tying him with Jack Nicklaus and Walter Hagan).
15 – the number of career majors Tiger will have collected after Sunday (will be three behind Nicklaus) & the number of wins Tiger will have when he is leading after the first three rounds.
48 – the number of win Tiger will have (out of 51 tries) when he is at least tied for the lead after 54 holes.
1 – the number of losses Tiger will maintain when leading by two strokes or more in any tournament (36-1 record).
While people like Gene Wojciechowski asked if Tiger could Choke given all these stats, Tim Dahlberg suggested that these numbers could lead to a Choking Tiger and a Hidden Comeback.
Hindsight is 20-20. Had the bogey that kept Padraig Harrington out of the final pairing with Tiger not been, Harrington’s struggle on another 8th hole could have given Tiger a win.
I take nothing away from Yang and I will not call what happened to Tiger “Tiger beating himself.” Tiger’s Signature Victory Red Sunday that intimidates almost every other golfer on tour had no effect on Yang. Tiger must have been intimidated that Yang was not intimidation by the Tiger Prowl Intimidation. Maybe it was Yang’s – with his win against Tiger at the 2006 Shanghai HSBC Championship securely in his back pocket – first ever pairing with Tiger which allowed him to matched Tiger shot for shot until the eagle chip on the 14th.
I wanted a Tiger victory. I had been preparing for victory. On Saturday, I confused my girlfriend as I watched the third round on TNT while, on split screen, I played Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10 on the Wii. My preparing for a Tiger win continued on Sunday when I readied for his 2:45pm ET tee-off at 5:45am CT. Since getting my Nike SQ SUMO clubs, matching Nike SQ bag and Nike Heritage golf shoes, I have been there on the course with Tiger every Sunday he has played. I even have a signature color I wear on Sundays. I call it Ninja Black because of my tendency to sneak up on the green unsuspectingly with my long iron play.
Today was my second straight weekend at the Jackson Park Golf Course on 67th and South Shore Drive. Being one of the first people to tee-off as the sun rose and illuminated the fairway of the 1st hole and watching the mist ascend from the rough and greens was amazing. A beautiful Sunday morning.
I recorded my second birdie ever – my first was on November 17, 2007 with an 8-iron, on the 144-yard, par 3, 9th of the Awase Meadows Golf Course on Camp Butler in Okinawa, Japan – on the 464-yard, par 5, 5th. I teed off with a 4-iron blast down the middle of the fairway. I followed it with a sweet 7-iron shot that I thought flew over green, but as I got closer I noticed I knocked it stiff. My Slazenger 1 left a ball sized divot 30 feet from the hole. If I were as good as Tiger, I would have sunk that 30-foot eagle putt. Instead, a two putt for birdie was a good consolation.
I finished the round with a 109. A very solid day hitting my irons. The only criticism I have about Yang’s game is that his second shot from the fairway that set up the winning birdie on the 18th was not with an iron, it was with a hybrid 3-iron. I strongly dislike hybrids and consider them golf clubs with training wheels. From what I read in my research before buying my set of SUMOs (here and here and finally here), all the experts say that hybrids are designed for golfers who cannot hit traditional irons. Of all the technological innovation in golf, they wasted it on a hybrid club. I guess I am just trying to cope with Tiger’s loss by blaming Yang’s beautiful approach on his choice of ridiculous clubs.
Yang could have the same argument about my choice of clubs. My Luck 13 driver - with Nike SUMO technology (SUper MOment of Inertia) - is for beginner golfers who have a difficult time hitting a driver squarely. The “13” means it is designed with the weight toward the back of the extended head providing balance on my swing and giving me higher loft.
I am sure Yang cares as much about critics of his clubs as I do. They get the job done. I will not be waiting for another Tiger tournament to practice getting my score sub-100.