My Favorite Shots from The Blizzard of 2014

I've been tweeting some blizzard photos over @mlyhlssgolf (featuring such immortal hashtags as #futilitymeetexercise, #moveoverSisyphus, and #blizzardhacks), but that doesn't allow me to arrange related shots.  So here's a little tour of The Constructivist Family's neighborhood from Tuesday to Friday.

Let's start with the view from right near the end of my driveway on Wednesday morning.

Compare it to the view from my neighbor's flat roof looking in the opposite direction from a few houses to the right of mine relative to the previous picture.  This one was taken Friday morning.

Next up are a couple of shots of our front entryway (which fortunately we never use anyway), first from Wednesday morning (in the aftermath of round 1) and next from Thursday night (in the midst of round 2):

The snow and ice formations on our back roof were strange and beautiful.  The first 2 are from Wednesday morning:

This one's from just about 25 hours later:

Let's go back to some street views, these ones featuring my trusty shovel (which for maybe the 2nd time since we moved to Hamburg actually needed an assist from a neighbor's snowblower)!  First from Thursday morning (this one I did by myself); you can see half of the neighbor's house across the street that kicked off this photoessay:

Next is the same time, opposite point-of-view:

Here's a close-up from Friday morning:

I was excited because I had just reached the edge of my driveway.  Yup, I probably spent about 5 hours just shovelling off the road this week.  The plows just couldn't keep the streets their normal width.

So here are my 3 favorite shots of the week.  The first is from about lunchtime on Wednesday, when I had cleared my flat roof off for the 2nd time of the week and all seemed well with the world:

Next up is an action shot from Tuesday (while onechan and imoto were still excited about playing outside!):

I'm nostalgic for how low those mounds at the end of my driveway were back then!  Didn't realize my shovel photobombed that shot until just now, either!

Here's the Full Metal Archivist wishing everyone a good night yesterday evening:

Here's hoping this turns out to be the worst one we have to deal with in our entire time in Hamburg!

[Update (2:58 pm):  Onechan has other ideas.  After the Full Metal Archivist and I cleared enough snow off our garage roof that the girls could climb up onto and slide down it safely, she exclaimed, "This is the best day ever!!  I can't wait for the next huge storm!"  Here are some photos from this morning:

And to top it off:

Yup, hot chocolate and the FMA's own twist on kimchi jigae!]

Come One, Come All: Now Accepting Entries for the 2012 LPGA Prognostication Derby

A growing group of us have been playing a little game over here at Mostly Harmless for each of the last several years, a contest to see who's best at predicting the top 30 golfers on the LPGA at the end of each season, christened by Hound Dog the LPGA Prognostication Derby.  Check out the links in the previous sentence for rules and results from 2008, 2009, and 2010, which Mulligan Stu, Hound Dog, and rjay won, respectively.  I was hoping to have the 2011 results ready to announce today, but what with the start of my spring 2012 semester coming up tomorrow, my hoping against hope that Hound Dog will release his final 2011 LPGA rankings soon, and my kids discovering Power Pack (a comic I collected for about 30 issues in the mid-'80s) this weekend, I'm not going to be ready tonight.

So while you wait (hold that bated breath thing--this may take awhile!), I'm thinking that it's about time I put out a 1st call for entries for 2012.  All you have to do is compile a list of the 30 LPGA members you think have the best chance of garnering Player of the Year honors this season, ranked from most likely at #1 to least likely at #30 (least likely among your very elite group of picks, that is).  Then submit your list by posting it on your own blog, or as a comment to this post, or as a fan post at Hound Dog LPGA, or simply by sending it in an email to me (see my blogger profile for my coordinates).

Good luck to all of last year's and this year's participants!

The Mostly Harmless Tiffany Joh Interview

Tiffany Joh's been on a roll lately, with a silver on the Futures Tour, a top 25 at the Wegmans LPGA Championship, and now a gold in her return to the FT this week. I've already written about Amy Yang, Joh's playing partner at Locust Hill last Sunday, so it's about time I put together my observations of the same 15 holes I followed T-Joh for--along with a transcript of our post-round interview. You know, before the U.S. Women's Open starts?

OK, just as Yang's final round was filled with mightabeens, T-Joh's Sunday was sabotaged by the same club that held back her playing partner: her putter. As you can see from her scorecard, she hit the most fairways and greens in her week that day, but also took by far the most putts (31 as opposed to 26 the previous 3 rounds). Even so, she would have had a solid 72 were it not for the par-5 17th that Yang eagled--and just missed double-eagling. Joh had put her drive in the right fairway bunker, hit her layup a hair too far and ended up in the thick rough 25 yards or so short of the green, and had time to get near it while Yang waited for the green to clear so she could go for it in 2. The upshot was that Joh had a perfect angle on Yang's approach, which looked from our angle (210 yards away and unable to see the front of the green) that it was drifting dangerously right of where she had aimed, but in actuality just carried the front-right trap, took a great kick, hit the stick, and almost ended up in the hole. As Yang and her caddie were walking up the fairway, T-Joh was holding her hands up in the air a few inches apart. Although I could tell that Yang was excited (for her), T-Joh was probably the most excited person of the hundreds who witnessed the shot. And she paid for it when she got around to playing her pitch. She caught it heavy, leaving it in the trap, then caught that shot heavy, leaving it in the rough short of the green, then put her chip 2 feet away and watched helplessly as her very-slightly push-firmed tap-in did a 270 and spun out, leaving her with her 1st over-par hole since the 3rd, a 4-shot-swing-with-Yang double bogey! (T-Joh had battled her way back to tied with Yang through 16, despite not being nearly as precise with her irons or as long off the tee all day....)

Talk about deflating: after missing a number of great birdie chances from the 4th through 14th holes (if I remember correctly, on the 4th, 5th, 8th, 10th, 11th, and 12th), she had finally gotten one to drop on the par-3 15th--a big breaker from the lower tier, 25 feet short of the pin--then made a great par save on the tricky par-4 16th from left trees off the tee and right trees short of the green, thanks to a tough 8-foot downhill slider after a miracle pitch from Deadsville. Even so, she bounced back with a par on the monster 18th and finished the week T25, 4 shots out of the top 10, 3 behind Yang, tied with fellow Futures Tour sensation Pornanong Phatlum, and 2 behind 2010 FT Player of the Year and money-list leader Cindy LaCrosse, who had an even tougher Sunday in the final pairing with Ya Ni Tseng. The gap between the freewheeling, go-for-broke T-Joh I followed on a Sunday last July and the tactical T-Joh I witnessed last Sunday could not have been starker (although her final round in Rochester was more like her moving day in Syracuse). But I have to say that her 74 at Locust Hill was light-years more impressive than her 70 and 72 at Drumlins East.

So even though T-Joh hasn't been lighting the LPGA on fire in her rookie season and she probably has a better chance to keep her card via the Futures Tour top 5 than the LPGA top 80, given that she didn't qualify for the U.S. Women's Open and is running out of full-field events to play in the rest of the season (she's currently #84 on the LPGA money list and #3 on the FT money list), she has been learning how to bring her Futures Tour game to the big leagues and making good progress in the process. And like Morgan Pressel and Mika Miyazato, she was in a very good mood when I interviewed her after her round Sunday. Here's the transcript, as best as I can reproduce the rhythm of the actual interchange:

THE CONSTRUCTIVIST: Was this your first LPGA major?

TIFFANY JOH: Um, Mostly Harmless Golf, huh? [half-chuckles.] Yeah, um, this is my third major, second as a pro, so...

TC [interrupting]: U.S. Opens?

T-JOH: Yeah, I played at Oakmont last year and I played in the Kraft as an amateur when I was, like, a senior, so....

TC: All right, well, how does this course compare to Oakmont? Let's start with that.

T-JOH: Um...well [weighing her words]...Oakmont's definitely...it was a little bit firmer, it was a little bit more intimidating and daunting. This course, I've heard stories about from last year, and supposedly the rough is not nearly as penalizing as it was last year--and I thought it was kinda penalizing. [laughs] Yeah, I mean, Oakmont was definitely...very--I think I shot, like, 84 one of the days [laughs at herself], and it felt like I shot 75. I was...

TC: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

T-JOH: Um, it was, uh...I can't, you can't really compare two courses--it's like, you can't say which kid you love more, you know? [laughs]

TC [laughs geekily, then stops abruptly]: Well, then, I'm actually going to ask you to make another comparison, then, back to Drumlins...

T-JOH: Um-hmm?

TC: ...East....

T-JOH: Drum-lins East...

TC: Syracuse last year.

T-JOH: Ohhh, yeah.

TC [joking]: It's just like that week: you were chasing Cindy [LaCrosse], you were chasing Cindy today...

T-JOH: [laughs] ...Yeah! Except...

TC: ...Pornanong [Phatlum] was in the mix...

T-JOH: ...you know, except both times it was, like, a futile chase. [laughs]

TC: [laughs]

T-JOH: Really, but--um, no, I love seeing the girls from the Futures Tour out here. It's nice to see some friendly faces...

TC: Um-hmm.

T-JOH: ...especially when you can get so easily intimidated by all the big guns out here.

TC [incredulous]: Really...? You...?

T-JOH: [chuckles modestly]

TC: Really?

T-JOH: Believe me!

TC: Women's Amateur Public Links champion...

T-JOH: [laughs]

TC: ...twice...

T-JOH: Yeah! [laughs]

TC: OK.

T-JOH [drily]: I get intimidated by my shadow sometimes.

TC: [laughs] Did you become a little bit of a spectator on 17 after Amy's shot?

T-JOH: Yeah, I went crazy!

TC: [laughs]

T-JOH: [laughs] Meanwhile, I'm, like, doubling it. [laughs] Sitting there, and I saw her...because I was up on the hill, like, walking to my ball, and I saw it just ram the pin, and then just, like, sit right there--

TC: You saw it all?

T-JOH: Yeah, and I looked back there and I'm trying to tell her that it's, like, this close [holds up her hands a few inches apart]--I'm sure that looked really inappropriate! [laughs]

TC: No, it was hilarious.

T-JOH: [laughs]

TC: Her caddie had to talk her into that shot, by the way--

T-JOH: Yeah?

TC: She was trying to lay up with a 4-iron. And he was like...

T-JOH: Yeah?

TC: ..."Come on, just hit the hybrid, just hit the hybrid!"

T-JOH: Yeah? Well, I mean, good thing she did. I was looking there and I was like [in fangirl voice], "It's this close!!" and she was looking at me like, "What are you doing?" [Ed. note: From my vantage point, it seemed like Yang was thrilled by and curious at the crowd's reaction to her shot. She and her caddie gathered it was close, but since none of us could see the green from where we were, we had no idea just how close it was. So it was both exciting and informative when Joh reacted the way she did. Kind of reminded me of Fuzzy Zoeller waving the white towel--to Greg Norman, wasn't it?--an eon ago....]

TC: [laughs] Was this week like an emotional roller coaster--I mean, like, your save on 16...

T-JOH: Yeah...

TC: ...was amazing, and then you go and do what you did on 17...

T-JOH: Yeah, well...

TC: ...and to recover on 18....

T-JOH: Yeah, well, I mean, I was telling my caddie, my day yesterday was pretty much the same, like...

TC: Really?

T-JOH: Yeah, I had like ten putts through the front nine and was like three-under and then made three bogeys....

TC [commiserating]: Yeah, I saw that...

T-JOH: ...almost consecutively, they were just right there.

TC: [groans]

T-JOH: And after, like, the round yesterday, I was, like, "Man, I feel like Phil Mickelson [laughs] at the Masters."

TC: [laughs]

T-JOH: All over the place. But, honestly, with how, you know, badly I hit the ball at some points this week, I'm really happy with the finish I had.

TC: Yeah.

T-JOH: Plus, I'm going to take a lot of experience out of this, so....

TC: Definitely. You were in the mix!

T-JOH [somewhat wistfully/mostly disbelievingly]: [laughs] Yeah...

TC: For a second! [laughs] For a second!

T-JOH: [laughs]

TC: Yeah, well, what Ya Ni was doing, outdoing Rory....

T-JOH: Yeah, just running laps around the field. [laughs]

TC: I mean, it's crazy. When you see somebody doing that, I mean, I saw Cristie [Kerr] do it last year...

T-JOH: Yeah?

TC: It just seems...like they're on another planet, or something.

T-JOH: Yeah, you just kind of sit there and just...watch, take it in, try to learn a few things. [laughs]

TC: When you started the day, were you thinking of second, or were you just thinking, play your own game, do what you do best....?

T-JOH: Honestly, I was just sittin' there, thinking, "Keep it in play today."

TC: Uh-huh?

T-JOH: "Please keep it in play!" And I did sometimes; sometimes I didn't. [laughs self-deprecatingly]

TC: Well, you had it going in the middle of the round.

T-JOH: Um-hmm.

TC: It felt like you really loosened up and relaxed a little...

T-JOH: Yeah, um-hmm...

TC: ...and you started to stick some shots...

T-JOH: Yeah.

TC: I remember on the Futures Tour Sunday, you were just...going wild aiming at pins--

T-JOH: Yeah-- [laughs]

TC: --from wherever, and I was, like, "Wow, she's playing a very...tactical game today."

T-JOH: It's funny, though, because normally, like, when I don't have a caddie, and I'm just, kinda, either I have a friend on the bag that doesn't know anything about golf or I'm just looping my own bag, I mean, I just have no clue what I'm doing. I just, you know, just hit the ball and go for everything. And when you have a caddie on the bag and he's like [in soothing, calm voice], "OK, you kinda wanna, like, err on the left side here," and you're like [aghast], "What?! [laughs] What?! What are you talking about?!" [laughs]

TC: That's true! Like, I kept asking you the last two years if you'd let me caddie for you, and you were like, "No, no, no..."

T-JOH: [laughs]

TC: "...it's ok, it's ok." But do you like--

T-JOH: I mean, I see green grass and a hole!-- [laughs]

TC: --do you like carrying your own bag better? Would you do it? [laughs]

T-JOH: I think, if they let us, I might. At the same time, I think I'd shoot, like, 900...

TC: [laughs]

T-JOH: [laughs]...carrying my own bag. But, I mean, Wayne, my caddie, has been great on the bag, he's been kinda--especially this course, where you have to stay below a lot of the pins, and he's all, like--there's been a couple of times where he's made me, like, lay way back, and I just glare at him...

TC: [laughs]

T-JOH: ...and then I get up there and make an easy par and so I'm, like [grudgingly], "OK, bye. You were right."

TC: Were you hitting a lot of 3-woods on the front? Or were you hitting driver consistently?

T-JOH: Um, I--any chance that I got, I was hitting 3-wood. Because my driver is--

TC: Oh, I was like, "Why is Amy always outdriving her?"

T-JOH: Yeah, my driver is a little scary right now, so... [laughs] ...so there were a lot of holes--

TC: 10--10 was not scary. 10 was nice!

T-JOH: [laughs]

TC [not letting it go]: That was sweet!

T-JOH: But, I mean, like, this course, it's just, you know, you play safe, um, safe golf, and then, you just try to give yourself as many opportunities as you can for birdie, so...um, it worked well for 17 of the holes! [chuckles]

TC: So you were in the hunt at a Futures Tour major last week...

T-JOH: Yeah!

TC: ...and now you come here--what's next for you?

T-JOH: Um, Futures Tour tournament in Indiana. Actually, I'm actually hopping in a car with a friend and we're gonna drive to Akron, Ohio, and play in a pro-am, and then...

TC [admiringly]: Crazy!

T-JOH: ...I'm gonna catch a ride--hitchhike my way to Indiana for the Futures Tour event [laughs], so....

TC [internal censor malfunctioning]: Holy shit.

T-JOH: It'll be fun, though! [laughs]

TC: Wow. And, then, are you going to come to Syracuse again, or...?

T-JOH: Yeah, I'll be there.

TC: Excellent!

T-JOH: Actually, that lady [who had been talking with her before our interview began] was my housing for Syracuse.

TC: Whoa, seriously? She came out all this way? [Ed. note: It's not much more than an hour, if that. What was I thinking?]

T-JOH: Yeah, apparently she came out and watched. Apparently she comes out every year to this tournament.

TC: That's awesome!

T-JOH: Yeah, she followed me all day and she was like, "I'll see you in a month!" And I was like, "Yeah, I'll see ya!" [laughs]

TC: That's great. Well, I'll see you in a month, as well.

T-JOH: All right, you'll be out there?

TC: Absolutely.

T-JOH: Cool! Thanks a lot!

Yup, I still have a lot of work to do on my interviewing technique! By the way, in T-Joh's defense against any who might object to her repetition of those interjections that I tried to transcribe faithfully above, it's clear when you listen to the audio that she was often using them to keep the conversational ball in her court, so to speak. Got to remember to stop stepping all over my interviewees' answers to my questions!

Seriously, I really appreciated how open and relaxed T-Joh was during the interview, which took more than 5 and a half minutes. As you can see, she's a really fun interviewee and her personality really comes through clearly. Here's hoping she brings a big winning streak to Syracuse at the end of the month!

[Update 1 (7/15/11, 8:09 am): Check out this recent LPGA Futures Tour interview with Joh, complete with a few of her music videos!]

The Clock Is Ticking: Get Your 2011 LPGA Prognostication Derby Entries in by 6 PM Eastern Today!

Here are a few more entries to the 2011 LPGA Prognostication Derby that have been floating around in comments or in my various email accounts. Remember, the Honda LPGA Thailand event kicks off this evening on the other side of the world from me, so get your entries in by around 6 pm Eastern time today!

Tony Jesselli (tonyj5)

1- Na Yeon Choi
2- Ji Yai Shin
3- Suzanne Petterson
4- Paula Creamer
5- Yani Tseng
6- Cristie Kerr
7- Song Hee Kim
8- Ai Miazato
9- In Kyung Kim
10-Michelle Wie
11-Mika Miyazato
12-Morgan Pressel
13-Hee Young Seo
14-Brittany Lincicome
15-Amy Yang
16-Angela Stanford
17-Anna Nordqvist
18-Stacy Lewis
19-Brittany Lang
20-Inbee Park
21-Karrie Webb
22-Amanda Blumenherst
23-Vicky Hurst
24-Karine Icher
25-Azahara Munoz
26-Beatriz Recari
27-Natalie Gulbis
28-Christina Kim
29-Hee Young Park
30-Belen Mozo

diane

1 Yani Tseng
2 Na Yeon Choi
3 Cristie Kerr
4 JiYai Shin
5 Paula Creamer
6 Suzann Pettersen
7 Ai Miyazato
8 In-Kyung Kim
9 Michelle Wie
10 Mika Miyazato
11 Song-Hee Kim
12 Brittany Lincicome
13 Amy Yang
14 Morgan Pressel
15 Anna Nordqvist
16 Amanda Blumenherst
17 Inbee Park
18 Karine Icher
19 Jee Young Lee
20 Angela Stanford
21 Katherine Hull
22 Christina Kim
23 Seon Hwa Lee
24 Stacy Lewis
25 Vicky Hurst
26 Hee Kyung Seo
27 Karrie Webb
28 Azahara Munoz
29 Hee Young Park
30 Brittany Lang

WoolsMe

1 Yani Tseng
2 Jiyai Shin
3 Ai Miyazato
4 Na Yeon Choi
5 Paula Creamer
6 Cristie Kerr
7 In-Kyung Kim
8 Suzanne Pettersen
9 Song-Hee Kim
10 Stacy Lewis
11 Katherine Hull
12 Michelle Wie
13 Mika Miyazato
14 Inbee Park
15 Brittany Lincicome
16 Azahara Munoz
17 Sun Young Yoo
18 Jee Young Lee
19 Beatriz Recari
20 Vicky Hurst
21 Karrie Webb
22 Morgan Pressel
23 M.J. Hur
24 Amy Yang
25 Angela Stanford
26 Jimin Kang
27 Christina Kim
28 Amanda Blumenherst
29 Mariajo Uribe
30 Mina Harigae

The good news is that we already have a record-setting number of participants for this year's Derby. It would be even better news if we had even more!

[Update 1 (3:44 pm): Here's 1 more, from my former college golf teammate and buddy Jim Agger:

1. Michelle Wie
2. Ai Miyazato
3. Cristie Kerr
4. Paula Creamer
5. Na Yeon Choi
6. Yani Tseng
7. Inbee Park
8. Katherine Hull
9. Jiyai Shin
10. Suzann Petersen
11. In-Kyung Kim
12. Song-Hee Kim
13. Sun Young Yoo
14. Brittany Lincicome
15. Morgan Pressel
16. Angela Stanford
17. Mika Miyazato
18. Karrie Webb
19. Jee Young Lee
20. Maria Hjorth
21. M.J. Hur
22. Beatriz Recari
23. Hee-Won Han
24. Stacy Lewis
25. Karen Icher
26. Vicky Hurst
27. Jimin Kang
28. Juli Inkster
29. Kristy McPherson
30. Gwladys Nocera

I'm really curious to see if Recari and Kang can sustain their strong finishes in 2010 over the entire 2011 season! Can't wait for things to get rolling.]

[Update 2 (3:45 pm): Bill Jempty's put his picks up at Outside the Beltway Sports. Good luck, Bill!]

[Update 3 (2/17/11, 3:21 am): Here's Ruthless Mike's entry.]

[Update 4 (2/19/11, 6:49 am): Here's one I missed from Tim Maitland:

1. Yani Tseng
2. Jiyai Shin
3. In-Kyung Kim
4. Na-Yeon Choi
5. Paula Creamer
6. Cristie Kerr
7. Song-Hee Kim
8. Suzann Pettersen
9. Ai Miyazato
10. Michelle Wie
11. Morgan Pressel
12. Amy Yang
13. Angela Stanford
14. Sun Young Yoo
15. Anna Nordqvist
16. Se Ri Pak
17. Shiho Oyama
18. Momoko Ueda
19. Stacy Lewis
20. Catriona Matthew
21. Maria Hjorth
22. Mika Miyazato
23. Kristy McPherson
24. Katherine Hull
25. Azahara Munoz
26. Karrie Webb
27. Brittany Lincicome
28. Jee Young Lee
29. Jessica Korda
30. Juli Inkster

OK, now to produce an average pre-season ranking!]

The Mostly Harmless Top 30 in 2011: My LPGA Prognostication Derby Entry

OK, here are my picks for the 2011 LPGA Prognostication Derby. I'll accept new entries up until 6 pm Eastern time on Wednesday, February 16!

1. Ai Miyazato
2. Ji-Yai Shin
3. Ya Ni Tseng
4. In-Kyung Kim
5. Na Yeon Choi
6. Paula Creamer
7. Cristie Kerr
8. Suzann Pettersen
9. Song-Hee Kim
10. Morgan Pressel
11. Stacy Lewis
12. Inbee Park
13. Katherine Hull
14. Michelle Wie
15. Amy Yang
16. Mika Miyazato
17. Jee Young Lee
18. Eun-Hee Ji
19. Angela Stanford
20. Brittany Lincicome
21. Jennifer Song
22. Karrie Webb
23. Hee Kyung Seo
24. Kristy McPherson
25. Vicky Hurst
26. Anna Nordqvist
27. Hee Young Park
28. Seon Hwa Lee
29. Brittany Lang
30. Sun Young Yoo

2 More Entries Come in for the 2011 LPGA Prognostication Derby; Where's Yours?

Here are 2 more from Seoul Sisters.com, both from Canadians:

canadianglen
1. Yani Tseng
2. Na Yeon Choi
3. Suzann Pettersen
4. Jiyai Shin
5. Cristie Kerr
6. Ai Miyazato
7. Paula Creamer
8. In-Kyung Kim
9. Song-Hee Kim
10. Anna Nordqvist
11. Michelle Wie
12. Seon Hwa Lee
13. Katherine Hull
14. Stacy Lewis
15. Inbee Park
16. Morgan Pressel
17. Karrie Webb
18. Amy Yang
19. Se Ri Pak
20. Kristy McPherson
21. Brittany Lincicome
22. Amanda Blumenherst
23. Vicky Hurst
24. Brittany Lang
25. Hee Kyung Seo
26. Beatriz Recari
27. Angela Stanford
28. Sun Young Yoo
29. Mika Miyazato
30. Jennifer Song

cannuck
Na Yeon Choi 1
Jiyai Shin 2
Yani Tseng 3
Ai Miyazato 4
Cristie Kerr 5
Paula Creamer 6
Amy Yang 7
Michelle Wie 8
Suzann Pettersen 9
In-Kyung Kim 10
Song-Hee Kim 11
Jee Young Lee 12
Inbee Park 13
Brittany Lincicome 14
Morgan Pressel 15
Mika Miyazato 16
Stacy Lewis 17
Vicky Hurst 18
Anna Nordqvist 19
Christina Kim 20
Lexi Thompson 21
Katherine Hull 22
Karrie Webb 23
Azahara Munoz 24
Hee Kyung Seo 25
Hee Young Park 26
Brittany Lang 27
Meena Lee 28
Eun Hee Ji 29
Gwladys Nocera 30

If either wins, I pledge to link to South Park's "Blame Canada" in their honor!

Can You Beat Hound Dog in the 2011 LPGA Prognostication Derby?

I'm still tinkering with my picks for the 2011 LPGA Prognostication Derby--I plan to get them out right before the LPGA season starts--but Hound Dog has sprung into action with his projected top 30! His boldest move? I can't tell whether it's picking Amy Yang to finish ahead of Michelle Wie and Suzann Pettersen at the bottom of the top 10, Shanshan Feng to squeak into the top 20, or Lexi Thompson and Hee Kyung Seo to make the top 25. Or, on the flip side, picking Pettersen, Song-Hee Kim, and Katherine Hull to finish so relatively low....

We've Got Our 1st 2 LPGA Prognostication Derby Entries of 2011!

Thanks to Golf Girl for helping to promote the 2011 LPGA Prognostication Derby. I've moved the results from the past 3 years to the right sidebar near the bottom of the Hitchhiker's Guides section for your reference, plus I'll remind everyone of my 1st cheat sheet (more coming soon!). But really what I want to do in this post is congratulate the 1st 2 entrants in this year's competition, defending champion (and highest-ever points getter) rjay and fellow Seoul Sisters.com and PakPicker regular shungkim.

Here are their top 30 predictions:

rjay
1 Jiyai Shin
2 Yani Tseng
3 Ai Miyazato
4 Na Yeon Choi
5 Song-Hee Kim
6 Cristie Kerr
7 Suzann Pettersen
8 Michelle Wie
9 In-Kyung Kim
10 Mika Miyazato
11 Amy Yang
12 Inbee Park
13 Paula Creamer
14 Brittany Lincicome
15 Katherine Hull
16 Angela Stanford
17 Sun Young Yoo
18 Jee Young Lee
19 Stacy Lewis
20 Maria Hjorth
21 Brittany Lang
22 Morgan Pressel
23 Karrie Webb
24 Anna Nordqvist
25 Vicky Hurst
26 Hee Young Park
27 Seon Hwa Lee
28 Beatriz Recari
29 Kristy McPherson
30 Shanshan Feng

shungkim
1 Ji Yai Shin
2 Yani Tseng
3 Na Yeon Choi
4 Cristie Kerr
5 Ai Miyazato
6 Michelle Wie
7 Song Hee Kim
8 Paula Creamer
9 In Kyung Kim
10 Suzann Pettersen
11 Katherine Hull
12 Anna Nordqvist
13 Morgan Pressel
14 Amy Yang
15 Brittany Lincicome
16 In Bee Park
17 Mika Miyazato
18 Vicky Hurst
19 MJ Hur
20 Amanda Blumenherst
21 Hee Young Park
22 Christina Kim
23 Hee Young Seo
24 Jennifer Song
25 Natalie Gulbis
26 Stacy Lewis
27 Brittany Lang
28 Beatriz Recari
29 Sun Young Yoo
30 Azahara Munoz

Remember, the point is to rank your top 30 based on your sense of who's most likely (next most likely, next next most likely, and so on) to win Player of the Year on the LPGA. The simple way to score it would be to see who ended up in the top 30 in POY points in 2011, but we eschew the simple (and sensible) here at Mostly Harmless. Instead, I average results from the top 5 ranking systems in women's golf--Hound Dog's, Rolex's, Golfweek's, the money list's, and, of course, my own--and produce a consensus top 30. Then I score each person's predictions using a modified version of the PakPicker scoring system, which gives points both for correctly picking top 30 players and for accurately predicting how high (or low) in the top 30 they end up. Now, I'm open to including other ranking systems (I'm looking at you, Ruthless Mike, but you'd have to do a season-ending ranking that included 40-70 players in it to be eligible, and at you, Thomas Atkins, but you'd have to limit yourself to a 2-year-or-under window for your number-crunching!), but I'd also want to keep my scoring system consistent to allow for comparisons of competitors' results across years (so no pressure, guys!).

Think you can beat them? Give me your ranked top 30 on your own blog, in a comment here, in the Seoul Sisters.com thread I started, over email (see my profile for coordinates), or via a fanpost or comment over at Hound Dog LPGA.

[Update 1 (2/5/11, 5:14 am): Make that 3!

Verdant Garden
1. Shin, Jiyai
2. Kerr, Cristie
3. Tseng, Yani
4. Miyazato, Ai
5. Choi, Na Yeon
6. Pettersen, Suzann
7. Kim, In-Kyung
8. Creamer, Paula
9. Kim, Song-Hee
10. Yang, Amy
11. Park, Inbee
12. Pressel, Morgan
13. Miyazato, Mika
14. Wie, Michelle
15. Lee, Jee Young
16. Stanford, Angela
17. Song, Jennifer
18. Pak, Se Ri
19. Kim, Christina
20. Lewis, Stacy
21. Ji, Eun-Hee
22. Munoz, Azahara
23. Nordqvist, Anna
24. Seo, Hee Kyung
25. Yoo, Sun Young
26. Hull, Katherine
27. Lincicome, Brittany
28. Park, Hee Young
29. Hjorth, Maria
30. Lee, Seon Hwa

VG even uses the Pakpicker format!]

[Update 2 (5:24 am): Make that 4--see Tony's list in comments! He makes it 3 of the 1st 4 to have picked Recari as a top 30 player in 2011. I just don't see it, but of course anything's possible!]

2011 LPGA Prognostication Derby Cheat Sheets

I'm hoping the 4th time is the charm for me in the LPGA Prognostication Derby this year, but because I love good competition I'm going to offer some links and stats in this post to help out any newcomers.

If you're looking which rookies to put in your top 30, go no further than Hound Dog's post sizing up the Class of 2011 in light of how almost 10 years of rookies have done on the LPGA. Thomas Atkins crunches numbers for a much longer time period and notes key patterns. But what about the patterns in my consensus rankings over the last 3 seasons, on which scoring in the Derby is based? Let's see who's done how well recently, starting with those who have snagged at least 1 top 40 and getting more exclusive as we go on:

[Key: *=has no 2011 LPGA status]

Top 40s
Pettersen, Kerr, Tseng, Creamer, Choi, Stanford, SH Kim, Webb, IK Kim, Pressel, Hull, Hjorth, Yoo, JY Lee, Ueda, SH Lee, Lang, Matthew, Gustafson, Kung (2008, 2009, 2010)
Shin, A Miyazato, Nordqvist, Lincicome, McPherson, HY Park, Pak, A Yang, C Kim (2009, 2010)
IB Park, Inkster, M Lee (2008, 2010)
Ji, Alfredsson, Oh, Wright (2008, 2009)
M Miyazato, Lewis, Kang, Munoz, Icher, Pak, Hur, Feng (2010)
Gulbis, V Hurst, Ward (2009)
Diaz, A Park*, MH Kim, J Park, Prammanasudh, Castrale, Lu (2008)

Top 30s
Pettersen, Kerr, Tseng, Creamer, Choi, Stanford, SH Kim, Webb, IK Kim, Pressel, Hull, Hjorth, JY Lee (2008, 2009, 2010)
Shin, A Miyazato, Nordqvist, Yoo, Lincicome, McPherson, HY Park, Pak, A Yang, C Kim (2009, 2010)
IB Park, Inkster (2008, 2010)
Ji, SH Lee, Ueda, Alfredsson, Oh, Han, Kung (2008, 2009)
M Miyazato, Lewis, Kang, Munoz, Icher (2010)
Lang, Matthew, Gustafson, Wright, Gulbis, V Hurst, Ward (2009)
Jang, Stupples, Diaz, A Park*, MH Kim (2008)

Top 25s
Pettersen, Kerr, Tseng, Creamer, Choi, Stanford, SH Kim, Webb, IK Kim (2008, 2009, 2010)
Shin, A Miyazato, Pressel, Nordqvist, Yoo (2009, 2010)
IB Park, JY Lee, Hull (2008, 2010)
Ji, Hjorth, SH Lee (2008, 2009)
A Yang, Lincicome, M Miyazato, Lewis, Kang, Munoz, Icher (2010)
McPherson, Lang, Matthew, Gustafson, Wright, Ueda (2009)
Jang, Han, Stupples, Alfredsson, Kung, Diaz, Inkster, A Park* (2008)

Top 20s
Pettersen, Kerr, Tseng, Creamer, Choi, SH Kim, Stanford, Webb (2008, 2009, 2010)
Shin, A Miyazato, IK Kim, Wie, Pressel, Nordqvist (2009, 2010)
IB Park, JY Lee (2008, 2010)
Ji (2008, 2009)
A Yang, Hull, Lincicome, M Miyazato (2010)
McPherson, Lang, Matthew, Gustafson (2009)
SH Lee, Jang, Ji, Han, Stupples, Alfredsson, Kung, Diaz (2008)

Top 15s
Pettersen, Kerr, Tseng, Creamer, Choi (2008, 2009, 2010)
Shin, A Miyazato, IK Kim, SH Kim, Wie (2009, 2010)
IB Park (2008, 2010)
Stanford, Webb (2008, 2009)
Pressel, A Yang, Hull, Lincicome (2010)
Nordqvist, McPherson (2009)
SH Lee, Jang, Ji, Han, Stupples (2008)

Top 10s
Pettersen, Kerr, Tseng, Creamer (2008, 2009, 2010)
Shin, A Miyazato, Choi (2009, 2010)
Stanford (2008, 2009)
IK Kim, SH Kim, Wie (2010)
Nordqvist (2009)
SH Lee, Jang, Webb (2008)

Top 5s
Pettersen (2008, 2009, 2010)
Shin, Kerr (2009, 2010)
Tseng (2008, 2010)
Choi (2010)
A Miyazato (2009)
Creamer (2008)

As you can see, 13 players have appeared in the top 30 all 3 seasons we've been running the Derby, 9 in the top 25, 8 in the top 20, 5 in the top 15, 4 in the top 10, and only 1 in the top 5. Meanwhile, 4 players have more than 1 top 5, 8 have more than 1 top 10, 13 have more than 1 top 15, 17 have more than 1 top 20, 20 have more than 1 top 25, and 32 have more than 1 top 30.

Hope this helps! Please be sure to get your top 30s in by, shall we say, Valentine's Day?

And the Winner of the 2010 LPGA Prognostication Derby Is....

OK, so I shamed myself into spending a late night doing some elementary-school-level number-crunching and I'm ready to announce the winner of the 2010 LPGA Prognostication Derby. Who will follow former Waggle Room scribe Mulligan Stu in 2008 and Derby founder and namer Hound Dog in 2009 as the Mostly Harmless Best LPGA Predictor in 2010?

Hold your horses, there, buckaroo. Let's review how the title is determined. First, to identify the LPGA's top 30 in 2010, I averaged the results of the 5 major ranking systems: mine, Hound Dog's, the official money list, and the Rolex Rankings and the Golfweek/Sagarin Performance Index as of the week I did my Best of the LPGA ranking. I'll show my work so you can see who the consensus top 40 were on the LPGA in 2010:

RANK. NAME MH, $, HD, RR, GSPI = AVG

1. Kerr 3, 3, 2, 2, 1 = 2.2
2. Shin 5, 2, 4, 1, 3 = 3
3. Tseng 1, 4, 1, 5, 7 = 3.6
4. Choi 4, 1, 5, 4, 5 = 3.8
5. Pettersen 6, 5, 6, 3, 2 = 4.4
6. A Miyazato 2, 6, 3, 6, 8 = 5
7. IK Kim 7, 7, 7, 7, 6 = 6.8
8. SH Kim 8, 8, 8, 9, 4 = 7.4
9. Creamer 9, 10, 9, 11, 16 = 11
9. Wie 10, 9, 11, 10, 15 = 11
11. IB Park 11, 11, 10, 12, 13 = 11.4
12. Pressel 12, 13, 12, 17, 10 = 12.8
13. A Yang 13, 14, 13, 25, 11 = 15.2
14. Hull 14, 12, 14, 19, 23 = 16.4
15. Lincicome 15, 15, 15, 21, 18 = 16.8
16. Webb 17, 23, 17, 16, 14 = 17.4
17. Stanford 18, 18, 18, 20, 20 = 18.8
18. JY Lee 16, 19, 16, 38, 17 = 21.2
19. M Miyazato 19, 17, 20, 22, 29 = 21.4
20. Nordqvist 21, 24, 24, 14, 28 = 22.2
21. Yoo 20, 16, 21, 28, 48 = 26.6
22. Lewis 22, 21, 27, 37, 27 = 26.8
23. Kang 23, 22, 19, 46, 40 = 30
24. Munoz 26, 30, 28, 41, 39 = 32.8
25. Icher 25, 25, 25, 59, 32 = 33.2
26. Inkster 30, 29, 32, 50, 26 = 33.4
27. Hjorth 24, 20, 33, 23, 70 = 34
28. McPherson 28, 27, 34, 34, 49 = 34.4
29. HY Park 35, 34, 31, 43, 43 = 37.2
30. Pak 29, 32, 36, 31, 63 = 38.2

31. C Kim 27, 26, 35, 51, 54 = 38.6
32. M Lee 32, 33, 29, 74, 33 = 40.2
33. Hur 39, 31, 41, 44, 47 = 40.4
34. Matthew 37, 40, 42, 32, 59 = 42
35. Feng 31, 38, 26, 79, 37 = 42.2
36. Ueda 38, 44, 37, 45, 51 = 43
37. Lang 36, 35, 44, 48, 64 = 45.4
38. SH Lee 40, 42, 38, 72, 41 = 46.6
39. Gustafson 43, 45, 52, 33, 61 = 46.8
40. Kung 41, 36, 47, 71, 46 = 48.2

Next step is to apply the modified PakPicker formula I used the previous 2 years to Hound Dog's, rjay's, Verdant Garden's, Bill Jempty's, and my picks:

First, we get points for each of our picks who finished in the top 30 (including ties), on the following scale: 30 for 1st, 29 for 2nd, 28 for 3rd, and so on, down to 1 for 30th. Next, we get bonus points for the accuracy of our picks: 20 points for nailing a pick and a point off for every spot we're off (up to 19, to avoid turning the bonus into a penalty). The maximum number of points you can get for a single player, then, is 50 (picking as our top player the actual #1).

OK, then, so here are the results:

1. rjay 703
2. The Constructivist 694
3. Hound Dog 657
4. Verdant Garden 655
5. Bill Jempty 609

Congrats to rjay! He had the most correct top 30 picks (21 to 20 for Hound Dog, Verdant Garden, and me), but what separated him and me from the pack this year was our relative accuracy, while what separated him from me was that he got more points out of the players I didn't pick (Stacy Lewis, Mika Miyazato, and Brittany Lincicome) than I got out of the players he didn't pick (Katherine Hull and Jee Young Lee), plus he undervalued Kerr and Pettersen less than I did. If I had substituted just about any of the 5 players in my next 10 for the right players in my top 30, I would have added a MH award to my season-long PakPicker win in 2010. By the way, the scoring was very high for everyone. Bill, who finished in the cellar this time around, would have been in the top 3 with that score in the previous 2 competitions, and everyone else scored well enough to win either of them. Nice pickin', y'all!

All right, then, I'm so due for 2011! Watch out for me!

Let's Get the 2011 LPGA Prognostication Derby Started!

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I still haven't found the time to score rjay's, Hound Dog's, Verdant Garden's, Bill Jempty's and my predictions from last year's LPGA Prognostication Derby, much less do the kind of elementary-school-level number-crunching on the rookie classes of 2006 through 2011 that helps me prepare my top 30 picks for this year's competition, so I'm breaking a Mostly Harmless tradition and not putting them out there today. But I can invite everyone who reads this to put together their LPGA top 30 predictions for 2011 and post them either in a comment to this post, on the thread I started at Seoul Sisters.com, as a fanshot or fanpost at Hound Dog LPGA, or on your own website or blog (just drop me a line at the email address in my profile to let me know you've done so). Thanks, everyone, and good luck!

2010 LPGA Prognostication Derby: Verdant Garden's In--Are You?

Here's Seoul Sisters.com regular Verdant Garden's projected top 30 on the LPGA for this season. Think you can do better in the 2010 LPGA Prognostication Derby? Join in via comments or our Seoul Sisters.com thread.

1. Shin, Jiyai
2. Ochoa, Lorena
3. Pettersen, Suzann
4. Creamer, Paula
5. Choi, Na Yeon
6. Kim, Song Hee
7. Kerr, Cristie
8. Wie, Michelle
9. Miyazato, Ai
10. Nordqvist, Anna
11. Stanford, Angela
12. Tseng, Yani
13. Kim, In-Kyung
14. Lang, Brittany
15. Hull, Katherine
16. Oh, Ji Young
17. Hurst, Vicky
18. Pressel, Morgan
19. Park, Hee Young
20. McPherson, Kristy
21. Mackenzie, Paige
22. Ji, Eun-Hee
23. Lee, Seon Hwa
24. Matthew, Catriona
25. Lee, Jee Young
26. Kim, Christina
27. Blumenherst, Amanda
28. Yoo, Sun Young
29. Yang, Amy
30. Pak, Se Ri

Come One, Come All: 2010 LPGA Prognostication Derby

In 1 week, for the 3rd year in a row, I'll predict the top 30 players on the LPGA in the coming season, ranked by their probability of winning Player of the Year, in a tradition not-quite-unlike any other that was started and named by Hound Dog, and won by him in 2009 after he finished 2nd in 2008. Want to join in? It's easy!

You can you can post it on your own blog and send me the link over email(my coordinates are in my profile), you can email your top 30 to me and I'll post it for you here at Mostly Harmless, you can make like rjay and do a fanpost over at Hound Dog LPGA, or you can post your top 30 at the Seoul Sisters.com thread I've started. Don't be shy--give it a try! Just be sure to get your predictions in before the 1st event of the LPGA's season begins in Thailand!

It Must Run in the Family

Let's see, I can't seem to stop writing about golf, my brother works in the golf industry, my mom is comfortable chatting with professional golfers, and my dad now has an essay out in Christian Science Monitor on the ethics of golf. (It came out online yesterday but first appeared in the print version on my birthday, fittingly enough!)

Maybe someday I can even get him to do a guest spot here at Mostly Harmless. Here's an idea: I'll make sure he reads the comments on this post and see if he wants to respond to the commenters....

A Hitchhiker's Guide to Mostly Harmless's Golf Writing

Bill Jempty, Ryan Ballengee, and Patricia Hannigan have started a conversation on Sal Johnson's take on the future of golf and the media that's worth contributing to. But how? I have nothing to say about the value of blogging or the tensions between journalists and bloggers that Michael Berube hasn't said better--and much funnier. So what to do? I'll focus here for a start on how I approach golf blogging. In a later post, I'll discuss what I value from the best golf bloggers I've come across.

My training as a scholar and teacher shapes my approach to golf blogging. My aim is to produce quality research, use it to educate a few people, and have a little fun in the process. Which is to say, (1) I don't aspire to become a golf journalist, much less somehow undermine or supplant golf journalism, (2) I follow established academic ethical codes (support claims with evidence, cite sources, and so on) and emergent bloggy ones (link link link!), (3) I pursue what I'm curious, excited, and enjoy writing about in the world of women's golf (with a few visits to other worlds sprinkled in here and there), (4) I try to develop a particular niche and a distinctive voice for my Mostly Harmless golf writing, (5) I am more interested in gaining the respect of the golf writers, bloggers, and commenters that I respect and admire than in making any money off my golf writing, and (6) I won't do anything to draw in a bigger audience to my golf writing that would sacrifice these goals and principles.

On the research side, one thing I enjoy doing is dusting off some ancient and atrophied math skills (back in the day I was a double major in English and math) by developing my Best of the LPGA, Best of the Young Guns, and Best Off the LPGA ranking systems. Although I've made other forays into the wide wide world of golf stats, Hound Dog's the leader of the pack in this neighborhood. So even though I'm sometimes in his league when it comes to predictions and competitions, the math stuff is mostly a fun side gig for me.

Where I actually can make the best contribution, I believe, is by drawing on my own areas of expertise in cultural, ethnic, and postcolonial studies to examine attitudes toward the sport and undercurrents in golf media and fan discourse, not to mention issues of language and culture, race and gender, and globalization and nationalism in golf. What draws me to the LPGA in particular is how global the women's game has become and the range of ways that players, tours, fans, sponsors, and the media have been responding to--and contributing to the (re)construction of--cultural, ethnic, and linguistic differences. With Seoul Sisters.com ably covering the KLPGA and the accomplishments of the LPGA's Korean contingent (along with the top Korean players and golfers of Korean descent on other tours), I've been free to branch out to consider the future of international team golf competitions, the prospects of women's professional golf in China, and the LPGA's new event in Brazil. But my particular research focus has gravitated toward the place of Japan in the world of women's golf and on golf's global youth movement.

I've focused on Japanese golfers on the LPGA and the JLPGA for a variety of reasons, not least among them that I started LPGA blogging while living in Fukuoka and teaching American literature and culture on a Fulbright. My wife is Japanese and my two daughters (onechan, 5, and imoto, 2) have dual Japanese and American citizenship, so it's probably no surprise that Ai Miyazato and Momoko Ueda are among my favorite players (while onechan favors Natalie Gulbis, Paula Creamer, and Karrie Webb), but it took me until last March to work on my rudimentary reading skills in Japanese and dive into the JLPGA web site. In addition to trying last season to produce better round-by-round overviews of JLPGA events than Kyodo News or Golfweek (which was far far easier than it oughtta be), I became interested in who were the JLPGA's finest golfers, why there has been a Se Ri Pak effect but no Ayako Okamoto effect on the LPGA, who from the JLPGA would be most likely to succeed on the LPGA, what American players and the LPGA could learn from Patti Rizzo, and what kind of schedules those with dual JLPGA/LPGA membership might put together in 2009. I still have a ways to go before I'm ready to focus on a book project that's come out of this research, but at least I have the idea and can continue to make progress on it here.

An outgrowth of my attention to Ai Miyazato's and Momoko Ueda's fellow LPGA rookies and to the up-and-coming players on the JLPGA (and, to a lesser extent, the KLPGA) has been my focus on the teens and 20somethings in the world of women's golf who are changing the face of the LPGA. Women's golf's global youth movement picked up a lot of steam in 2008, as Seon Hwa Lee became the 1st among the LPGA rookie classes of 2006, 2007, and 2008 to post multiple wins in a season and Morgan Pressel became the 1st to join her in emerging from the fast-growing pack of 1-time winners in their generation. With Ya Ni Tseng and Louise Friberg from this past year's rookies joining Super Sophs Inbee Park, Eun-Hee Ji, In-Kyung Kim, and Ji Young Oh and Junior Mints Julieta Granada and Meaghan Francella, that's 14 wins and counting from the Young Guns. Who will be next? Na Yeon Choi? Angela Park? Amy Yang? Ai Miyazato? Brittany Lang? Song-Hee Kim? Jane Park? Hee Young Park? Shanshan Feng? Or will Jee Young Lee or Momoko Ueda follow up on their non-member wins (in Korea and Japan, respectively) before them? Or perhaps someone from the much-heralded Class of 2009 will live up to her hype and steal the Young Guns' thunder? When you look at the list of young winners on the KLPGA and JLPGA in recent years not named Ji-Yai Shin--Hee Kyung Seo, Ha Neul Kim, Sun Ju Ahn, He Yong Choi, So Yeon Ryu, Sakura Yokomine, Miho Koga, Mi-Jeong Jeon, Yuko Mitsuka, Hyun-Ju Shin, Bo-Bae Song, Eun-A Lim, Erina Hara, Ayako Uehara, Akane Iijima, Mayu Hattori, Miki Saiki, Yukari Baba, Chie Arimura, Maiko Wakabayashi, and Na Zhang--you have to wonder who else will be coming over to the LPGA soon from Asia and making a big impact on the New Blood generation. (That's to say nothing of the NCAA and Futures Tour, which I plan to pay more attention to in 2009).

One area that I didn't expect to get so interested in researching, despite the fact that it connected closely to my interest in globalization and transnationalism, was the infrastructure (both organizational and financial) of women's professional golf--from how tour schedules get put together to how they connect with TV deals, from the new rules for membership and priority status on the LPGA to a controversy (like over tying membership to language ability--and backtracking [with good reason]) or two. As a result, I'm actually more optimistic than most everyone I've been reading on the LPGA's prospects for a new TV contract for 2010-2015. (But more on that later.)

On the teaching side, my major aims are to help LPGA fans (whether casual or devoted) dig deeper and perhaps even educate the golf media in the process. With no regular AP writer covering the LPGA last season and with many good local golf writers getting the ax in '08, there was a serious lack of context and perspective, not to mention detail, in the game stories that get the widest audience on sports pages and news aggregators. Outside of Annika Sorenstam, Lorena Ochoa, Paula Creamer, and Michelle Wie, the casual sports fan might have heard of only a handful of other LPGA players, mostly American (and blonde), and the AP was doing little (if anything) to change that. Even the magazine writers paid to cover the LPGA left me looking for more on LPGA.com and GolfObserver.com. So I worked out a more systematic approach to previewing and commenting on LPGA events this season than last, trying to uncover the rounds and the players that even the best LPGA bloggers weren't attending to all that closely. (I tried to do the same, on a smaller scale, for the JLPGA in 2008.)

In addition, by raising questions, identifying turning points, noting trends, marking milestones, offering criticisms of bad reporting, analysis, and opinion writing in the golf media (by Steve Elling [twice], Ron Sirak [twice], Jason Sobel [twice], Doug Ferguson, and Sal Johnson [twice]), and looking for future LPGA stars (like Mika Miyazato, Hannah Yun, Cheyenne Woods, Kyung Kim, and others), I built in 2008 on my attempts the previous year to call attention to the quality of competition on the LPGA by organizing LPGA-centric blog carnivals, identifying LPGA generations, and introducing well-known, better-known, and lesser-known LPGA players. I see last week's 6-part series as the culmination of these efforts to highlight the very best players on tour.

But just as important to me has been my attempt to convey the struggles of those trying to make it as professional golfers by following the ups and downs of the budding careers of everyone in the Young Gun generation, not just the heads of the class. In my 1st junior golf tournament, I was paired with Moira Dunn, who would go on to join the LPGA in 1994. I've followed her career ever since and even though she's had a handful of good seasons and has 1 career win, she's been struggling to hold onto her card the last several seasons. While I've been attuned for a long time to following her competition in the middle and lower reaches of the LPGA, I've enjoyed tracking more closely over the past 3 seasons how the newbies have been doing relative to her. I hope my readers gain perspective on career arcs and come to appreciate how good the best of the newbies have to be to outdo tough competitors like Moira.

When I consider my research and teaching efforts as a whole, I'm hoping that those bloggers and journalists who reach a wider audience than me might consider what they can learn from what I've done here and how to incorporate some of it into their own golf writing. In a broader sense, the golf writing I do here at Mostly Harmless is an experiment in how much and what kind of an influence I can have on its various constituencies and institutions, from fans, players, and tournament organizers to writers, sponsors, and tour officials.

So, yes, this blog is for fun--which means I can experiment with more free-form autobiographical pieces and on-course reports (3 of my favorite posts evah), focus on a cute moment between Tiger and Sam Alexis Woods, make poetry out of a Momoko Ueda fingernail injury, explain why the LPGA is more interesting than the PGA, and root on my favorite golfers (Ai-chan, Moira Dunn, Seon Hwa Lee, Ya Ni Tseng, Momo-chan, In-Kyung Kim, Mi Hyun Kim, Jeong Jang, Eun-Hee Ji, Na Yeon Choi, and Jane Park)--but that doesn't mean I take my golf blogging any less seriously.

Simply put, my ultimate aim is to become one of the preeminent American experts on the LPGA and JLPGA on the web. And maybe someday, off it, too. Mostly Harmless is my means to these ends.

Time for the Terrible Twos

It's Mostly Harmless's second birthday today. On to the terrible twos! Let's give imoto a run for her money. No, wait, better to pass along some tantrum antidotes:







Yup, we're all about the public service here.

Happy Birthday, Onechan!

It's great to be 5!



Here are some happy birthday wishes from your favorite characters.

Onpu:



Doremi:



Plus a little Yes! Ojamajo Doremi 5:

Brother, Can You Spare 15 Minutes?

To help out some NYU researchers by filling out their survey? And post the link (with comments closed) on your blog? Please don't do anything to bias the survey results...thanks!

Happy Blogiversary to Hound Dog...Now an LPGA Podcaster

Who says you can't teach an old dog new tricks? Hound Dog's got a new gig, co-hosting an LPGA podcast with Karen Palacios-Jansen at Prime Sports Network. Don't worry, LPGA fans, he's not giving up his now-2-year-old blog (although he is cutting back on his highlights). He's just expanding the Hound Dog New Media Empire. Ryan Ballengee, who does an LPGA podcast of his own, just welcomed the new kid to internet radio. Hope you'll do the same!

BTW, Mostly Harmless co-author Sloucho, who's been too busy building up his own little video gaming empire to post here lately, co-hosted a weekly fantasy football internet radio show for a few years. Here's hoping he has time to share a few insights from the world of big-time pretend sports!

Mostly Harmless Milestones

Amazing how time flies when you're having fun! Yesterday's post was our 700th and late that evening we got our 25,000th visit to the site. This is also our first month we broke 2500 visits and 4500 page views. I guess it helps having 2 LPGA majors in a month, eh?