Odds on this happening again?
The draw has been made for the 93rd USPGA Championship. Yes, that is the one happening next week at Atlanta Athletic Club. There are apparently 14 PGA champions and 30 major champions in this year’s field– thank you, press release– making this year’s one of the strongest USPGA fields in recent memory.
I haven’t had time to spend a great deal of time with the list yet, but these are the pairings that immediately grabbed my attention:
Eerily calm: Yang won't be panicking over the weekend
Most summaries of the US Open’s opening 36 holes have mentioned the play of Y.E. Yang in passing, as a pedestrian counter-point to the heroics of Rory McIlroy. The former PGA champion, we’re told, would be leading this tournament on any other week, under any other circumstances, were it not for the apparently superhuman efforts of Northern Ireland’s star in waiting.
At five-under-par for the tournament, however, having successfully paired his opening 68 with a two-under 69 on Friday afternoon, Yang isn’t ruling anything out. After all, he managed to take another of the game’s young stars apart over the final two rounds of last year’s Korean Open.
Similar to last week’s Honda Classic at PGA National, most of the players and some of the media stay on site at Doral for the WGC-Cadillac Championship. My commute is a little rougher this week, though — instead of just walking through the hotel lobby and bar, I actually have to walk outside to get to work (see above picture). So tough, I know! Well, apparently it’s allergy season in South Florida already because my allergies, along with Bubba Watson’s, are in full bloom.
I walked a hole and a half with Tiger, Vijay and Yang and then I ran back to the media center to write about my ingenious observations.
Here’s an excerpt from the post that’s over at the WSJ:
Tiger and Vijay shared a few laughs as they stood waiting. Yang was late and it didn’t look like he said anything to either player as he hurried to get everything in order. Singh and Yang both hit good drives down the left side of the fairway. Now for Tiger.
“Here he goes. Take cover!” a fan quipped behind me.
Another said, “I’ll take one for the team, he can hit me. I’ll jump in front.”
Read the full story here. Drop your thoughts below. I start live-blogging for the WSJ around the time Tiger makes the turn. I’ll post the link when I have it. Please send your comments/questions then, too. Thanks, love ya, mean it, bye!
I caught up with defending champion Y.E. Yang yesterday. He was great, but I think some of his answers got lost in translation. So did his subtle but great sense of humor. There were some funny moments, but they were the you-had-to-be-there ones. Like when he was asking me (through his translator) if I knew the Chinese game “Go.” I didn’t, but noted, “Uh, I should know since I’m Chinese.” We started cracking up. You had to be there, but I guess we had an Asian moment.
I present to you Y.E. Yang’s scorecard. No, that’s not a mistake, nor is it Photoshopped. Yang was only four shots off the lead at one-over when he made the turn. And then something happened. A weekend duffer exchanged games with the reigning ’09 PGA Champion.
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