- Nothing in a sport best described as witchcraft on grass
is more chaotic, random and unpredictable than a match play event. Instead of
golfers attempting to post the best score against a field of competitors, the
focus shifts to winning more holes over the course of a round than a single
opponent and advancing through a bracket similar to tournaments in any other
sport. The format commonly results in the best players being bounced before
reaching the finals and last weekend’s WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship
in Arizona was no different. The Nos. 1 and 2 players in the world were bounced
in the first round, leaving the PGA Tour and event organizers without their
dream scenario pitting Rory McIlroy against Tiger Woods. Not only did the event
have to slog onward with an unappealing (in terms of television ratings)
matchup of Matt Kuchar and Hunter Mahan in the final, but Woods and McIlroy
also had to improvise and find a way to make up for the rounds they were
missing by not being in the tournament longer than one day. The two of them got
together and decided to stage their own match play event - at the Medalist Golf
Club, Woods' home course in Hobe Sound, Fla. "We thought we would play our
own match play final, except it was over 36 [holes],'' McIlroy said. "It was good. It was the first time I've
actually been up at the Medalist. It's nice. We teed off at about 8 a.m. and I
was home by 1:30 p.m. We played quick. [Woods] putts with the pin in. It was
speed golf. It was good. It was really enjoyable.'' The round was over so soon
that McIlroy made it back to his Jupiter, Fla. home before the Match
Play final began. He was mum on the details of his matchup with Woods, saying
only that there were two matches, with
Woods prevailing over the first 18 holes and McIlroy taking the second. Both
will tee it up this week at the Honda Classic, where McIlroy prevailed by 2
strokes a year ago over Woods, who shot a final-round 62. That started a run
that concluded with McIlroy claiming his second major title: the PGA Championship.
Whether the friendly competition does either player any good remains to be
seen, be quality competition is rarely bad for an athlete…….
- Science has done done it again, y’all. Confirming the
blatantly obvious and undisputed facts of the world around us is a scientific
specialty and a new study on drinking in Britain has absolutely crushed it in
that regard. A team of scientists led by researcher Sadie Boniface has unearthed the shocking
news that Britons are underestimating their alcohol consumption by around 40
percent, a figure the team arrived at by examining the significant difference between
the booze people own up to drinking and the amount of alcohol sold nationwide.
Such a discrepancy is anything but surprising because the next time a drunk
person or simply a big fan of the drinky-drinky accurately estimates or admits
to the amount of alcohol they consume will be the first time. Anyone who has
ever been pulled over by a police officer for impaired driving has insisted
they only had “one or two drinks.” However, the width of the gap is interesting
in this case and highlights the unusual trend of doctors often mentally
doubling the alcohol intake reported to them by their patients. This study is
the first in the United Kingdom to attempt to put actual numbers to the lies
drunks like to tell and by Boniface’s estimates, d the underreported alcohol
equates to nearly one bottle of wine per British adult per week. All of this
matters because Britain has struggled to contain a changing drinking culture
that has seen an increasing number of alcohol-related deaths in recent years,
including a doubling of the number of fatalities between 1992 and 2008. To be
sure, it is heavy and jarring news, perhaps enough to drive a person to
drink………
- Another beauty pageant contestant embroiled in a scandal?
No way. Girls who have had their butts kissed most of their lives because they
are attractive, who are often under the guidance of overbearing stage parents
and who exist in a hyper-competitive world wherein they must be willing to do
anything to succeed NEVER wind up in trouble. That’s what makes the story of
now-former Miss
Delaware Teen USA Melissa King so shocking. King, young enough to compete for
the title of Miss Delaware Teen USA but old enough to legally have sex, decided
to do the latter for money and amazingly, it has come back to haunt her. When
King was crowned as the prettiest teen in her small state, many in her hometown
of Bethany Beach applauded her accomplishment. Those people probably aren't applauding
now that a sex tape, showing a woman who looks and sounds an awful lot like
King starting out clothed, on a bed, answering questions from a cameraman about her
involvement in pageants before engaging in various sex acts with a man whose
face isn't shown. It’s not the sort of image a pageant queen or those running a
beauty pageant like to project, which might explain why King is denying she is
the woman in the video while also resigning her title in a latter to the
pageant. “I would like to confirm that the Miss Delaware Teen USA pageant has
received a resignation letter from Miss King’s attorney,” said pageant
spokeswoman Dara Busch. So on the one hand, King says she’s not the one
performing graphic sexual acts on someone who was apparently paying her to do
so, but on the other hand, she’s quitting as Miss Delaware Teen USA. In the
video, King (or her doppelganger) is asked why she decided to do a sex tape and
explains that “thought it would be
fun,” and that she “needed the money.” And just like that, the legendary,
three-month reign of Melissa King is over and she can continue her career in
her newly chosen profession of porn. Congratulations on that………
- One very heroic Scot is living a much quieter and more
anonymous existence than he or she should and it’s time to change that. This
all-star committed an act so heroic and so noteworthy that wherever he or she
may be, the world should stop and applaud. The anonymous do-gooder fell on a
grenade for humanity and attended a concert by British man-banders One
Direction in Glasgow on Tuesday night. In and of itself, such an act takes
tremendous courage, but the story doesn’t end there. As former Taylor Swift
man-candy Harry Styles and his mates were lip-syncing along to the crappy pop
songs someone else wrote for them and making hordes of teenage girls shriek, our
hero made his or her way to a spot near the front of the stage and waited for
the perfect moment. The moment finally presented itself when Styles and his bandmates took a break during
their show to chat with fans. That’s when this bold soul struck, removing a
shoe and hurling it at the state in Styles’ direction. The shoe connected with
Styles’ groin, sending the shaggy-haired pop hack doubling over in pain and
falling onto the concert stage. His fellow man-banders and the crowd burst out
in laughter, but applause and cheering would have been a better reaction.
Whoever the show thrower is, he or she succeeded where the angry dissident who
tossed a shoe at then-President W. during a visit to Iraq in 2008 and not only
that, the culprit tried to pelt Styles with a shoe twice. Showing true
commitment, this person hurled their second shoe when the first one missed and
Styles bent over to pick it up. Maybe the first shoe was a decoy to properly
position Styles for the money shot, in which case the plan was ever better.
Styles wasn’t injured, humorously did lunges before continuing on with the show
and emerged unscathed…….
- One nation loves beer and bratwurst, the other enjoys fine
win and pasta, but both are locked in a compelling battle as two high-ranking
politicians duel in an absurd war of words. Fighting out of one corner is Italian
President Giorgio Napolitano, who canceled a dinner with the German
opposition's chancellor candidate on Wednesday after he described Italian
former premier Silvio Berlusconi and comic-turned-politician Beppe Grillo as
"clowns." Fighting out of the opposing corner is Peer Steinbrueck, a
Social Democrat who will take on Chancellor Angela Merkel in Germany's next
national election in September. Steinbrueck has a reputation for speaking first
and thinking later, but those comments land much heavier when one is running
for their country’s highest political office. Steinbrueck said on Tuesday he
was "appalled that two clowns have won" Italy's Feb. 24-25 election,
referring to a vote that was actually inconclusive with no party gaining a
majority. Grillo's protest party gained ground, but no clear majority was
achieved. Steinbrueck’s words didn’t resonate well with Napolitano, an
87-year-old former communist who may have strained relationships with Berlusconi
and Grillo, but clearly isn't going to put up with some foreigner mock his
government. In addition to scrapping diplomatically with Steinbrueck,
Napolitano must also tackle the difficult task of trying to appoint a coalition
government. He was to have dinner with Steinbrueck during a trip to Germany,
but the German candidate's spokesman said Napolitano canceled "because of
Steinbrueck's remarks on Tuesday" and conceded that the Social Democrat
politician "understood Napolitano's domestic political reasons for
canceling." A dinner between these two at a Berlin hotel after the remarks
may have been even more compelling, but Napolitano elected to continue on with
his agenda, including a meeting with Merkel in the German capital on Thursday.
German leaders typically don’t meddle in the affairs of other European nations
(insert Hitler joke here), so Steinbrueck calling Berlusconi "clearly a clown
with a testosterone boost” hasn’t played well back home either. The fact that
the former Italian prime minister has been in the middle of sex party and
financial scandals makes him an easy target, but Steinbrueck may not have been
the may to throw a verbal grenade his way. Still, his remarks about his Italian
rivals may be his strongest since 2009, when he referred to the Swiss as
Indians running scared from the cavalry during a crackdown he led on tax havens………
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