Day 4

Good news, weather had cooled down quite a bit and the humidity must have dropped 1000 points on the official "you're going to be miserable" measuring device...also cooling off a little was KJ. A bit of an up and down final day, he managed to avoid 3 putts all week but he had 2 on Sunday and the distance control that was completely dialed in for R3, just wasn't as sharp on Sunday with all of the wind. It seemed that the pile of near misses from the week just caught up with him and he wasn't able to get anything meaningful going in the right direction.

However, T-39 after being 2 outside of the cut line with 9 to play is a positive to take away from the week, but not something that he was completely happy with either.

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Some parting thoughts:

• Although KJ is not "BFF's" with a lot of guys on tour, I heard so many positive comments from players, caddies, scorers etc. about what a great guy KJ is and how they respect the way that he conducts his business and how he treats people
• I met a guy that played in a pro am with KJ and he echoed the sentiment of how much fun it was to play with him and how much KJ did to make the experience memorable
• I think it says a lot that so many of the guys on tour really enjoy being paired with KJ
• Lot of love from the fans too, it's fun to see him go from a "who's that guy" guy to a "hey, there's KJ" guy or even better a "you gotta love KJ" guy
• KJ has always spotted and given his old golf balls to kids standing by and following and on Sunday, a family of four were up on a hill sharing some love just beyond #16 tee and KJ gave a tip of the cap and asked Prodger to toss a couple of balls for the 2 kids

Final WI Ramblings:

• 75% of the patrons were either wearing green and yellow (paeh-ckers, doh-n't-chu-no) or red and white (baeh-gers)
• There isn't an item out there that has not bought licensing rights for the Pah-ckers, you can buy a green and yellow ANYTHING, don't even try and come up with an exception...they make it, I saw it, and I can't believe someone bought it!
• Officially saw mayo abuse first hand, often and of epic proportions...people of WI (or maybe more fairly those at the tournament) took mayo to a level that I didn't know existed in both quantity and in application to..."dude, it's not sunscreen, you don't need it all over your face?"
• Try and use "Sheboygan" in a sentence and not sound like a kook
• Ditto for "Kenosha", "Oconomowac", and "Waukesha"
• State bird...mosquito

KJ's taking this week off, but will be back for the Fed Ex Cup Playoffs next week.

Day .5 and Day 3

Another 4:30 AM wake up (2:30 AM if you're going to still allow me to whine about 2 hour time
difference) KJ's blended goodness (a breakfast worthy of its own blog entry), leave the house by 5:30 to resume round 2 play @ 7 AM. +2 was the believed to be the number last night, but with the rain last night and virtually no wind (save that coming from the swarms of mosquitoes) the pros in our group believed that +1 or maybe E was a real possibility...KJ was @ +3.

KJ comes in with 5 birdies and a bogey, including rolling in a bomb on #8 and capped it off on #9 when after a perfect drive, cut a 7 iron that fell just right of the pin and made the birdie putt to get to -1, 2 clear of the eventual cut.

After a quick lunch and a stretch, we're 2nd off of #10, and grouped with Paul Casey and Brian Davis. KJ is hitting the ball beautifully and distance control of his irons is spot on, every approach is pin high...we just can't buy a putt until #15, the brutal par 4 when he stuffs his 2nd shot to 2' or so and rolls it in for birdie and follows up that effort with one more on the par 5 - 16th...3 great shots and a one putt. Finally, victory on #18, above is a picture of the fairway and a visual of why you don't want to/can't go left. KJ split the fairway but missed clearing the bunker with 3 iron by about a 12"...the ball ends up jumping back and resting into the deep bunker short instead of releasing to the back pin (and probably in)...4 the hard way, blast to about 10' and rolled in the putt for P-A-R!

Made another long one on #1 for birdie, but then got stuck on the par train after throwing darts at pins. An aggressive line (Prodge called it, "1/2 of Wisconsin off") on #8 tee left his drive short of the fairway on the right, 5 shots later and he made double bogey 6. Once again he played better than his score would indicate, didn't drive it as well on his 3rd nine of the day, but he did great to grind out a good score early to make the cut and put himself in position for a respectable finish tomorrow.

Back on track for a Sunday finish, everyone is off of #1 tee in pairs, KJ tees off @ 10:26 AM and is paired with Charl Schwartzel.

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I thought I saw sunburned people on Thursday...amateurs! The pros were out today and with 27 holes worth of sunshine, the pigment challenged people attending the championship have taken, "I don't need sunscreen" to a whole new level

We discovered a soft serve machine in the corner of the player's dining room and this lactose intolerant individual took his intolerance to the limit!

The shoe shiners in the player's locker room make very good money in tips

Wearing golf spikes to a golf tournament may not be the best look...but crawling up a 10' mound on your hands and knees after falling down said mound because you literally cannot stand up without sliding further (while wearing a screaming red Badgers shirt) is arguably a worse look

Interesting stat that came up at dinner tonight, KJ is one of 19 active golfers on the PGA Tour with 7 or more Tournament victories...a pretty exclusive club

A parting stat...100% humidity with high temp sucks

Caddies Caddie wears a bib

Yes, I did get to jump in and relieve Prodge of his caddie duties at the 92nd PGA Championship @ Whistling Straits...no, it was not during tournament play. After play was suspended last night, I was given the task of taking the bag (and bib) to the car from the #1 tee and thereby earning the moniker of Caddies Caddie for another year. Thanks to Yimmer for snapping the photo!

Day 1.5

With an unfinished round to complete from yesterday and more fog this morning, our 12:25 PM tee time was pushed back and KJ finally got off of #10 @ 4:45 PM. The problem was that the blimp was nowhere to be found because there was a storm moving quickly out of the west just to our north and it began to rain just prior to our tee time. The rain didn't really materialize, KJ and Prodge never even pulled an umbrella, however, the storm did bring 20-30 MPH winds and the best example of its affect, was on #11, KJ hit 7 iron 210 yards!

We again had inches worth of putts on the first 4 holes (all for pars), #10 and #11 were into and both came up less than 3" short, #12 was breaking and just stopped right before the cup and #13 just slid past low. Then we made the turn back into the teeth of the back 9, on the par 4 15th which was playing about 490 dead into a mach 6 wind, he hit driver (left rough)-4 iron, which was really a layup, still had 120 yards and hit beautiful gap wedge to get up and down for a par. On 16, he hit a perfect driver and 3 wood to 60ish yards, but then over estimated the breeze and flew the green with a wedge on his third (which was too bad, because the ball was drawing right over the flag), but he made another great up and down from the back rough. 17, is a 223 yard par 3, the lake is running up the entire left side and the pin was back left (did I mention it was a bit breezy), KJ drew a 3 iron to the center of the green and then hit a wonderful lag of a very long putt to make a ho hum 3. Then there was 18...made double there about 28 hours ago because he missed the fairway left off the tee...you cannot miss left, it's just brutal left, whatever you do, don't go left, there's lots of room right, just don't go left...he missed left into the bunker, blasted an 80 yard layup about 45 yards to the lip of another of the 8000 bunkers in some very hairy grass, from there, he layed up to just short of "Barranca Grande", but then hit a fantastic chip over the pin that spun to within about 8' and made that putt for bogey 5...it was a very nice 5 (if there is such a thing in Major Championship golf)!

Last shot of the day was a perfect drive down #1 before they sounded the horns. So the experts in this house believe that we are 1 off at +3 as they anticipate the cut to be +2 and KJ is in the middle of the fairway to make that happen once play resumes tomorrow morning @ 7 AM...but of course they are expecting another 2" of rain tonight and tomorrow morning!!! Also, 7 AM is golfer speak for, "let's get up at 4:30 AM"...me no likey!

KJ's close, just need to get one of those putts to fall and get on a little roll, hopefully the wind will have died down in the morning, on #4 we heard that Appleby hit driver-3 wood into that par 4 and was still a Starbucks away from the pin just off the green.

Once the cut is established, they will re-group and go off of split tees for round 3 in threesomes to try and get back on track.

Basement Basketball

Being from southern CA, one of the things I love about travelling east are the basements in the homes...basements with ping pong tables and "All Star Basketball" games are even better!

Prior to my arrival the record was 74, set by my good friend Mike, but after the round yesterday, I found my groove and shattered the record with a 76 and then followed it up with a 94 and was congratulated with a hug by KJ for my stellar performance...and since activities (even non golf related) are measured by a handicap, I am officially a scratch "All Star Basketball" thrower; not even PGA pro KJ or Simon could touch the number I posted and I think Mike is down there right now working on his game.

Officially, far nicer to wait out the delay at home on the sofa than hanging out a the course.

In the bag this week:

• Driver: Ping Rapture V2 10.5 degrees with Adila RIP x-Stiff shaft


• 3 Wood: Taylor Made Burner Superfast 15 degrees with Graphite Design Tour AD shaft


• Rescue: Taylor Made Rescue 19 degrees


• Irons: 3-P Ping G-15


• Wedges: 50, 54, 60 Ping Tour SW


• Putter: Ping Scottsdale Tomcat model


• Ball: Pro-V1x

I've heard debate on which club is not going to make it into the bad today, maybe gap wedge maybe 4 iron

More Fog

Day 2 is more of Day 1, more fog, more waiting and our Round 2 tee time which was pushed originally because R1 was incomplete and now another 2 hours and 40 minutes leaves us wondering what we're going to do all day...unfortunately, Sheboygan isn't exactly a raging metropolis and leaves us few options...I'm pulling for a quick 18 before we head over to the golf course, I mean c'mon guys, I'm sitting between a pro and a swing instructor and across from a caddie-LET'S GO!

*Mike just got the text from PGA, second round tee times are set for 4 hours and 10 minutes past the original posted times, we go off @ 4:45 PM...provided that the thunder storms remain at bay.

Unrelated ramblings:

• I'm not sure if it's a local law or sheer coincidence, but there are a lot of Kohler plumbing fixtures in Kohler, WI
• There are a lot of white people, check that, pink (read sunburned) people in the midwest this week
• I've been given a shoe bag at a golf tournament before, but all the players this week have been given a custom pair of Allen Edmonds brown suede shoes (sorry Elvis) with a custom brand on the sole commemorating the championship...I've got to try and get myself invited to one of these tournaments
• 23" of rain in July has left standing water or what mosquitoes call Master Planned Communities, there are swarms that have carried small children away and I can testify that one can get a little light headed from the loss of blood when one of these monsters grab a hold of you

92nd PGA Championship: Round 1

4:45 AM wake up call for a 7:20 AM tee time only to wait for 3 hours and 10 minutes for the fog to lift (so including the 2 hour time change, that's a 2:45 AM wake up for a 10:30 tee time), unfortunately with the lifting of the fog came the heat...oh, so that's what 90 degrees with 100% humidity and 100% sunshine feels like.

KJ had a great round going today, he was burning edges with the flat stick and had about 5 putts that totaled 14", but then he hit into one of the 1200 bunkers when he missed the 18th fairway with his tee shot left, leaving him 200 to the green; trying to hit a 5 iron right of the green he caught it thin and ended up running into the hazard, took a drop, hit his 4th to about 1000' away long and left, but lagged it to less than a foot and salvaged double. So @ +2, he isn't anywhere near where his play would indicate, but not in bad shape either...the course was playing very tough and there were some very difficult pin positions, perhaps in anticipation of soft greens from all the rain yesterday.

Some observations from day one:

• Whistling Straits, although amazing, is better suited to be walked by billy goats and other split hoofed animals (although human dominoes triggered by a fallen spectator...somewhat entertaining)
• The nice breeze coming off of Lake Michigan does very little to negate the stickiness of the oppressive humidity
• I bought a bratwurst with sauerkraut this afternoon and have now spent more on food then I did all week at Augusta
• Being paired with Steve Marino and Rob Labritz drew less of a gallery than those with Tiger @ Augusta
• Funny quote: "...he couldn't break an egg." - Caddie on the practice green this morning about a fellow golfer
• Funny quote 2: "now that's just a waste of every one's time" KJ's swing coach on making Stricker putt anything longer than 3' while watching the remainder of R1 on TV
• The aforementioned "nice breeze" completely disappears when jumping into the port-o-let...so add the bouquet of smoldering "blue water" to the winning formula of 90 degrees and 100% humidity

KJ did the honors of manning the BBQ this evening for some great Korean food, so along with the food and wonderful company we capped off the evening taking in the bonus coverage and a little Golf Channel.

Good Night