Maggie's Farm

The U.S. Open golf tournament is on this weekend.

Miss Merion is giving the boys a spanking.

At a paltry 6,900 yards, probably the shortest U.S. Open since the last time they played at Merion in 1981, the pundits were all raving about how it wouldn't stand up to the modern beefed-up player and his technological bag of tricks in the form of 12th-generation Big Bertha drivers and multi-faceted computer-generated putters.  They were predicting scores of 8 or 9 under par, easy.

The current tied two leaders after two days of play?

1 under.

There are three playing at even par and the entire rest of the field is in the plus column.

Like I said, a spanking.

Of the four masters, the Open is usually considered the 'nastiest' of the lot.  While the others might rely upon ultra-long holes, ultra-slick greens and ultra-tough pin placements, the Open is usually defined by a zillion sand traps and rough that goes halfway up your calf.

And there's even more to it than that, such as the toughness of the grass.  Merion uses a particularly tough grass around the greens, a lesson Tiger Woods handily learned just yesterday.  The ball was a few feet off the green, embedded in some short, gnarly rough.  He took the proper swack at it and the ball plopped about 10 inches.  He took another swack and it flopped onto the green a few feet and stopped nine feet from the pin.  Welcome to Merion Golf Club, Mr. Woods, still catering to that old, pre-modern tough-love style.

They also don't have pin flags at Merion; they use straw baskets which were originally used to store the players' lunches so they'd stay safely out of reach of deer, caddies, and other course varmints.  What this means is that the players are forced to use such ancient, archaic means of determining wind direction as "blowing tree branches" and "clouds".  This 'getting back to the basics' approach is enough to throw the strongest player off his game.

Broadcast time is noon (ET), NBC.  Original info and slideshow here, updates here.  Live streaming is here, fairly decent full-screen quality.

What's going to add to a spanking good time is that Merion was drenched with rain in the week up through Thursday, so it's actually been playing slow these last two days.  As things dry out, the fairways will become even faster (giving the ball an even greater chance of rolling off into the rough, something that happened over and over again on a couple of particular holes yesterday, even to the greats like Mickelson and Woods) and, of course, the greens will make a big jump on the Stimpmeter.  They were already in the 'scary' category yesterday (it was raining Thursday to the point where they were basically putting around small lakes, so yesterday was the first day in which the course could actually be judged), so today should take a fairly dramatic jump in green speeds.

A bit more below the fold.  Go, Team Merion!

There's something somewhat interesting about the game of golf:

It's not a game.

It's not a sport.

It's not a contest.

It's not a competition.

It's not really much at all.

It's just you, a field, a ball and some clubs, and the only fellow competitor within sight is a man who might have died twenty years before.

It can be made into a sport, of course, but golf, in its essence, involves no one but you and the course designer, perhaps long passed on these many years.

Even when others are on the field, you're not playing against these players.  There's none of the sez you mentality you see in normal sports.  It's just you, the course, and the fewest number of swings you can make to see it through to the end.

Except for the pros, where they really do have the option of cutting the corner by knocking it over the trees on a par-5 dogleg, for everyone else there's really just one shot in the bag, and you really want nothing more than for it to be your best shot — and the score and fellow competitors be damned.

In that moment you step up to the ball, it is nothing but essence.

This clip from The Legend of Bagger Vance demonstrates this fairly well.

You have to look with soft eyes.

Much more below the fold.

A fair while back I did a post on starting a private 'family blog', where only family members (and maybe close friends) can make posts and comment.  It can really bind a family together, especially when they're strung out across the continent.  And WordPress makes it so easy that anyone can make a post with pics and vids of the grandkids playing in the back yard — those little dickens.

Pic: Exhibit A

I've received a handful of complimentary comments and emails since then, but this one kind of stood out.  It's cutely done in something of an over-the-top manner, which I like.  It also reminds me of a friend of mine who claims to have the most dysfunctional family in the country.  Or did until this arrived.

Dude! You done saved my family's ass. There are four clans, located in Washington, Colorado, Kansas and Maine. Involved are seven uncles, eight aunts and seventeen cousins.

In short, cousins Gary and Susan dislike each other, Aunt Meredith dislikes Aunt Jinny, Aunt Jinny dislikes Uncle Bob, Uncle Bob dislikes his brother Charles, Uncle Charles can't stand any of the Kansas gang, and the Kansas gang doesn't particularly like the Washington clan. I should also mention that Aunt Sue and Aunt Margaret are always snipping at each other, Uncle Bob and Aunt Hilda are talking about a divorce, and Uncle Bob and Cousin Dave almost got into a fistfight at the last family reunion over who was in charge of the BBQ.

I would also be remiss if I didn't mention that Cousin Nancy will never, ever, forgive Cousin Jason for accidentally killing her pet bunny rabbit 20 years ago, Cousin Dave will never, ever, forgive Cousin Gary for wrecking his prize motorcycle 11 years ago, and Cousin Ron (me) had decided that I would never, ever, forgive Cousin Becky for voting for Obama -- twice, no less.

That's how things stood eight months ago.

My, how times do change. About 2,000 family blog posts later, with a few exceptions I'm not sure if any of the above is still true. Uncle Bob and Aunt Hilda went ahead with the divorce, which was probably best for everybody, and no clear resolution of the murdered bunny rabbit has been reached, but for the most part the remainder of the grudges and pet peeves have been resolved and we had a family reunion two weeks ago in Steamboat Springs, CO, that was the best one anybody can remember.

In most cases it was just a matter of talking things out, like the piled-up motorcycle. In the blog, Cousin Gary pointed out that he was only 17 when he wrecked it and it was because it had rained earlier and the roads were slippery and he just wasn't used to such conditions. Amazingly, Cousin Dave admitted that as a wise old 19-year-old at the time, he had to shoulder some of the blame for letting a beginner take it out in dangerous conditions, and that basically settled the whole score. The next thing ya know, they're pairing up as a doubles tennis team at the reunion and cleaning everybody's clock with superb game play and excellent teamwork.

Aunt Sue and Aunt Margaret, the two "snippers," formed the social committee for the week-long event and it was when they gave each other a great big warm hug when saying goodbye that I realized I owed you an email saying thanks. I had forwarded the original link to Cousin Becky who set up the site, and according to her everything went "smooth as silk," so thanks also for the great set-up guide. I even partially forgave her for voting for Obama -- twice, no less.

Best regards,
Cousin Ron

And you're mighty welcome, big guy.

And he's right about the value of communication amongst family members.  My middle brother and I went through about a decade of estrangement ages ago, but then we took a canoe out at a family reunion about ten years ago, spent the whole day talking and got it all hashed out.  I thought of that a few weeks ago when we had a great chat on the phone.  There's just something about getting family problems out in the open that's wonderfully cathartic.

My how-to site is here.  If you're going to give it a spin, it's important to do the five steps in order.  The link to the web hosting service I use pops up when you get to that part of the setup routine.  There's a specific page on setting up a family blog and a Quick Reference Guide for the newbies.

When it comes to getting a blog or web site going, nothing beats WordPress, although how much you get out of it depends on how involved with the settings, plugins and widgets you get, hence the value of an in-depth how-to site.  At 50,000 words spread over 81 pages, this monster is probably the biggest how-to WordPress site on the 'Net.  It takes twice as long to get through the setup routine as the next site, but you'll learn four times as much.

Any questions, give a holler in the comments.