YahooSports- Caroline Wozniacki and golf sensation Rory McIlroy were spotted Sunday night sharing a dinner and stealing a kiss in London. The encounter came days after golf’s U.S. Open champion split with his long-time girlfriend.

After winning the Open, McIlroy cited his girlfriend of four years, Holly Sweeney, as one of his influences. He said she knew him better than anyone else and helped keep him grounded. McIlroy had broken up with her before the start of the 2011 season in order to focus on golf but later ”begged” her to get back together. McIlroy released a statement on Monday saying he and Sweeney broke up sometime before this last weekend’s British Open.

Trading up to

Is anyone actually surprised by this move from Rory? It’s common practice that once you make it big in sports you trade in your old broad for someone famous and hotter. The only problem that Rory has run into here is that Wozniacki isn’t that hot. Sure she’s hot for a female athlete, but when you drop your old girl that you just went crawling back to you gotta cash in on an absolute dime. Look at what Darren Clarke did. I know he lost his wife to cancer instead of dropping her, but now he’s engaged to last years miss Northern Ireland and he’s old as shit.

I know this isn’t the last we will be hearing from Rory on this subject. Now that he’s single again don’t be surprised if he’s out partying all night with Anthony Kim and having crazy orgies with Tiger. Why else do you become an athlete if not for the money and the women.

Seriously, this is like 3 out of 4 years he’s made significant headlines at the British Open. Well done with a hole-in-one, Tommy Boy.

Robert Garrigus, who recently finished tied for third at the US Open at Congressional – has said that he would regularly smoke between holes in 2002 when he was playing the Nationwide Tour – and that other players also did the same. He of course goes on to say how now that he has quit he realizes how detrimental it was to his game – but honestly – that is the biggest line of bullshit of all time. Maybe he doesn’t light up J’s and spark the bowl nowadays on-course, but you know that clown is absolutely hurting the bong when he comes in the door. The only redeeming thing about it is that the guy at least came out and said straight up – “yeah I was smoking like 10 or 20 times a day, and yeah I would roast bowls in between holes, and yeah other guys did it too.” It is just a step closer to people giving up the ghost on this “it’s a drug, just like coke or heroin or ectsasy” argument – because frankly, anyone who has ever smoked weed knows it can’t be anything like heroin or ecstasy – simply because people die from those things, after doing them ONCE. All in all, Robert Garrigus, my hat is off to you for being honest – even after the fact and now that you are successfully entrenched in your game. Keep ripping bowlies and striping drivers dead center, kid.

So I was watching Apollo 13 last night on Showtime or Encore or something like that – and of course along with all the actual story of the doomed Moon mission, they also show tons of back story of the families of astronauts Lovell (Hanks), Haise (Paxton), and Swigert (Bacon). The girl playing Tom Hanks oldest daughter – an actress named Mary Kate Schellhardt – literally looks like back in ’95 she was Rory McIlroy before Rory McIlroy was Rory McIlroy – beat that Clownzano I just said it three times rapid fire in a sensical way – and I put it to you to tell me if you think im full of shit.

Mary Kate Schellhardt

Rory McIlroy

So I put it to you to tell me if my call was wrong – nowadays that she is much older than in Apollo 13 she doesn’t look as much like him – but that’s not important.

Shit, Rory McIlroy is young. This was 1999 – not that long ago, right? Couple notes from the video:

-I can listen to the Brit accent all day long.

-You can see Tiger’s global impact on golf even in a year in which he had only one major win to date (Nike polo/bouncing the ball on the club).

-This host had to be arrested for molestation (2:20 mark), unless that’s just the thing to do to 10 year old boys in Europe.

On Rory’s performance last weekend: Impressive-factor not quite the same as Tiger’s in 2000. 12 under when nobody else is within 3 shots of breaking par still is the best performance ever. But the impressive-factor to destroy the field and push the lead after his collapse in this year’s Masters is high for Rory.

Now get a hair cut:

Come on now kids, shame on you. I mean it’s not like you’re only making 5-10 bucks, you have coolers and coolers of that illegal citrus fluid. You gotta grease the skids a little bit, fellas. You wanna be an ‘entrepreneur’, just pay up behind closed doors and they’ll look the other way. It’s not they are being taught that there is no American dream, it’s that they are being taught how the American dream works. And I for one applaud the county for coming down on these little shits like a ton of bricks while the old guard just sits back, smiles and brings in enough money to put a kid through GW. Lets pretend this is college football for a minute. The kids are Boise City, and the men running parking lots on their lawns are theeeeeOhio State University. While it looks like the kids are running a pure operation, and are pretty good at it, they are the new kids on the block and financially bring in nothing. The good ole boys though, while worlds apart in sleaziness, smugness and corruption, bring in a ton of cash and don’t want all that ‘new money’ infringing on their turf. So of course it’s the little kids getting smashed, it’s how it works. It’s good for business. Next year kiss some babies, have ‘hundred dollar handshakes’ and it’s all good in the hood, kiddies. Lesson learned, class dismissed.

Newest leader for summer jam of 2011??? I’m not ready to go that far, because vocally they were a little pitchy and I’m not quite sure how the dog pound felt about it. But if these guys don’t appear on Americas Best Dance Crew with Mario Lopez this summer, it’s going to be quite the let down. Bubba Watson rolling with no shoes, overalls, a ridiculous farmers tan and chest hair galore is pretty much how I envision anyone named Bubba to look. Also, anyone else starting to get sick of Dirk Nowitzki yet? Dude, you just won the title, no reason to go all LeBron on us and start rubbing your awesomeness right in our grills. First it was hanging with Weezy drinking 80,000 dollar bottles of champagne in Buddy Holly glasses. Then it was killing it on PTI and now this? I can almost handle the appearance in the video, but Dirk lost me with the fur vest and the snow tiger pants.

That’s right folks. President and brain child behind the Wilgus Invitational (WI) and good friend of TSB, William Adam Wilgus, used a hole-in-one on a par 4 to help secure a spot in the upcoming Oregon Amateur Championship. It was his second hole-in-one in 25 years and hundreds of rounds of golf.

Wilgus was one of 77 playing in the qualifier Wednesday at Stone Creek Golf Club in Oregon City. He began the round confident with a couple solid pars, but then took a double bogey on the next hole due to poor club selection off the tee. No worries though. Wilgu quickly rebounded with a birdie on the following hole. He then settled into the round going par, par, birdie on 5,6,7; before taking a double bogey on #8. He went into 9 thinking that if he could make par at worst, and make the turn at +2 that he would be in decent shape for a difficult back nine.

Still pissed from the double on 8, Adam snatched his driver from caddy, Nelson, and promptly smashed a drive on the 376 yard par 4, split fairway, downhill, dogleg left, with no view of the green. “It felt like a great drive, and looked even better,” said Wilgus. As he approached the green he was confident that he was going to have a decent second shot into the green.

One small problem though, his ball was nowhere to be found. He and a couple rule officials began to sift through the knee high grass along the edge of the fairway. Five minutes later an official told him he had to go back and hit again from the tee. To speed things up, the official gave him a ride back to box while Nelson remained about halfway down the fairway.

Now fuming-obviously, Wilgus hit another drive. “Maybe the best drive I’ve ever hit, easily better than the first ” he said. However, the result wasn’t as expected. Nelson, this time able to see where the ball ended up, told him it took the worst bounce ever and trickled in the range off to the right. A third tee shot was needed. So Wilgus again blasted a drive, number 3. This time the ball traveled through the green and into some rough stuff behind. Remember, this was 376 yards.

At this point Wilgus was coming to the realization that his chances of qualifying were done. Understanble, as a difficult up and down would have given him an 8 on the hole. So he chips out of the rough and blows it 25 feet by pin, with now a 9 seeming more likely. However, as he’s walking to his ball, his playing partner goes to pull the pin. “There’s a ball in the cup,” he says. “Titleist 1 with 3 green dots.”

“Holy shit, that’s my ball!!!” exclaimed Wilgus.

Unbelievable.

But whats the official ruling? Knowing Wilgus, it would only seem logical and not surprising that he would somehow get screwed. Luckily though, the officials ruled that once the ball went in the hole the score is considered carded, giving Wilgus an ACE on #9.

He had gone from knowing his tournament was over with still 9 holes left, to finding that he has made the shot of his life and is right back in the thick of the qualifying. He still could have failed to qualify, but gone home feeling like a million bucks with an ace on a par 4; qualifying though was still the main goal. It was up to his caddy to keep him focused after the emotional roller coaster.

So like any great caddy does, Nelson went in to the clubhouse and picked up a sixer for the back nine. It was clear sailing from then on out. On a difficult back 9, Wilgus had 5 pars and 4 bogies, and finished the round tied for 18th at +3.

His Scorecard

Wilgus will join 107 others on June 20-25 at Waverly CC in Portland for a shot at the Oregon Amateur Championship. We all at TSB congratulate him on one of the greatest shots in golf, and wish him the best of luck at the Championship.

Well done, Gus.

Register Guard

 
Wilgus on the glory days-

So the 2011 NBA Draft is even worse than the 2010?  My love for NCAA Hoops has waned this past season because of the lack of star players and monster squads.  Is a wave of mediocrity about to crash on the NBA in 3-5 years when the drafted ballers of June and last June are merely “nice” players?  The rumblings of 7 straight Heat rings may come to fruition.  Fuck me.  Please Mavs, delay the Miami dynasty for at least one spring.

Sheesh … gone are the days of PGs that roll into the Association with solid decision making.  Am I saying the sky is falling?  Watching Westbrook and Rose shoot their teams in the foot numerous times in the conference finals was brutal to take in.  Maybe Kyrie Irving and John Wall will learn from the playoffs (from their couches) and work on cutting back on the turnovers a wee bit.

I tip my cap to LeBron.  Prince James stepped his game up these playoffs and is lookin like the great player the prophecies have said all along.  But I must say, it is nice that he can kick back a couple quarters while D-Wade can make teams look foolish the way he does.  If Dirk steals the ring from Miami, it will be legendary.

Shifting gears.

I laugh at the premature Buster Posey rule chatter.  Anytime a rising star gets hurt there’s gotta be a mob-of-bleeding-hearts or story-seeking-media-types that begin pounding the table for protecting players.  Flag football, tee-ball, bumper-bowling, skee-ball, Wii Sports … these are all for those table-pounders … now go eat some ice cream and take your Pomeranian for a walk.  Buster Posey may have assisted in ousting my squad (the fightins) out of the 2010 NLCS, but I got nothing but respect for the kid and certainly don’t wanna see him go down.  I’m sure he’d stand up and say it’s all part of the game.  On an obnoxious funny note … Buster still has more range than Derek Jeter … heyo!!!

It’s almost June and the Cleveland Indians are still the best team in the AL.  WTF!?!?  Did anyone see this coming?  I’m not hatin … I’m lovin this.  Also lovin the O’s are at .500 in the AL East.  My guess is the Yanks and O’s will be swapping spots in the standings this time in 2012 (the prophecies see the Yanks falling after this summer, don’t hate me, hate the Mayans).

Another gear shift.

The rumblings are beginning.  NFL fans are not happy with the possibility of a delayed season.  See, with June comes the early drippings of hardcore fantasy football nerds salivating over NFL preview magazines.  Then July is here and the moderate NFL fan begins drooling over training camp and the Mort & Adam bus tour.  August means any dude with an interest in violence, sports, cheerleaders, beer, tailgating, MNF, wings, skipping church … will be scouring the internet and boob tube for serious gridiron action/anything.  And  I love Drew Brees calling out the owners for possibly striking the iron while it’s hot (when former union leader gene Upshaw passed away) and trying to do a large money grab.  If one week is missed, especially when week 1 has Giants vs Redskins & Cowboys vs Jets on 9/11 … the owners are gonna look like the front row fans of a Gallagher show … instead of fruit and vegetables it’s gonna be a shit show.  Don’t F with NFL fans of the Northeast.

While on the rumblings roll … I’m hearing more and more that the BCS may break away and create it’s own elite division.  Yeah, this makes perfect sense.  Seriously, it does.  The BCS presidents do not wanna give up their precious bowl system so creating a division of super conferences to avoid the Boise State monkey wrench is the inevitable.  All those mid-major conferences will go into limbo and may get combined with the upper echelon of FCS conferences, creating the largest division of NCAA football … and likely the best playoff system.  Money talks and bowl games have the biggest mouths.

Gear shift, buckle up fucko!

I’m sorry to say this, but … FUCK GOLF.  Tiger is done.  After over a decade of watching Tiger beat bitches up, I can’t draw myself to sit in front of the TV for several hours over a couple days to watch a few Euros and random Americans battle over a major.  Nope.  Not doin no more.  Out.  Of course, if Eldrick is in the final Sunday pairing at the US Open with Phil … I’m front and center like a schoolboy with a crush on his teacher.  #hypocrite-i-am

Yeah, another gear shift, go F urself …

Being a Phillies fan, I have begun an assault on Phillies blogs to let the Fightins nation know we still need a righty-bat with solid OBP skills.  Philly has a team that can run the regular season schedule and strangle the NL East flag.  But good lefty-pitching in the playoffs will handcuff the Phillies lineup.  I don’t wanna go thru another 2010 postseason.  Phillies own the Reds, but SF is trouble and I’m sure we’ll have to go thru them again, even if Posey is not around.  So sometime in July, maybe even early August, GM Amaro better grab some baller-righty-dude to ensure I get plenty of sleep in September.

Okay Reali … what are my fucking fuckups?

Enter Fictional Tony Reali (actually me, just being imaginative, cuz .. I’m like that when I pound a couple handful of IPAs … and no i don’t got big hands, but i used to wait tables back in the day … so i got skillz)

Reali: Doesn’t Rajon Rondo count as a solid young PG?

Me: Of course he does fuckstick, I was thinkin more of the younger slashers that just entered the league and that are more scorers than PGs.

Reali: Why do you keep referring to prophecies when you’re an agnostic?

Me: Maybe I’m more antagonistic than agnostic … bring something strong or go back to your corner and eat cannolis Reali … and tuck ur shirt in you Crisco-finger-dippin-guido!

Reali: Relax.  And explain why you said “Fightins nation”.

Me: [shaking head] I might as well eat a pint of stale chow-dah and call myself a sawx fan … I will now gouge my eyes with the broken pint glass I just smashed against the fuckin wall.

dismissed

Radar Online – Tiger Woods’ stunning new girlfriend Alyse Lahti Johnston’s wealthy step-father has admitted that his daughter was friendly with Elin Nordegren BEFORE she started dating the golfing superstar.

Scottish exile Alastair Johnston is a boss at Tiger’s sports agency IMG and actually lives next door to the cheating golf legend in Windermere, Florida, where Elin and her husband had their famous Thanksgiving  meltdown before his numerous infidelities became public.

Sweet!

Actually I really don’t care unless this has a positive impact on his golf game.  As long as Elin didn’t pull a Lorena Bobbit (gulp), Tiger has had to be banging young blondes since the divorce split inception of their relationship.

Whatever.  It’s out in the public, Tiger isn’t trying to cover up/hide things/tell everyone to shove off, so let’s get back to making golf actually fun to watch!