Author Archives: C. Baker

Golf pundits all a “Twitter” about Jason Gore

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Golf is often given the bad rap of being a traditional “old boys” sport so I am not surprised by that the fact the big story today is that Jason Gore was given a sponsors exemption because of Twitter — Golf fans are not so old school after all. No surprise to a fan like me!

If you don’t know the score…back on January 6, Jason Gore sent out a tweet that he was signing up for the Northern Trust Open (Feb 14 to 19) qualifying event and tweeted he’d be “stoked” to get a sponsor’s invitation.  His fans delivered with a twitter campaign that filled the Northern Trust Twitter page with support for Gore.  Just 6 days later, Northern Trust sent out a tweet that Jason Gore is awarded an exemption.

Why I am writing about it? Because my profession is online marketing and it was fun to see how all this played out.  By the way, it didn’t hurt to have media outlets like the Golf Channel commentators talking about the twitter campaign on TV over the last few days (before Northern Golf make a decision) and giving it even more exposure.  Northern Trust got it right — They listened to the golf fans and gave them what they wanted — an exemption for Gore.  Now, Northern Trust also got what every company loves — lots of free press! And, it’s good press.

But the most important outcome is that a guy who is ranked 643 in the world and did not qualify for the PGA Tour this year got his wish thanks to his fans and twitter.

Phil Mickelson: My Favorite PGA Player

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You know you are a big fan when you can remember where you were when a player had something big happen in their career and I can remember being at my mother’s home watching The Masters in 2004 and hoping Phil Mickelson might finally win.

Watching it was nerve-racking and I actually felt on-edge because “Lefty” (that’s his nickname) had come so close to winning a major so many times and had not won a major since his career began in 1992.   So in 2004, at that point in his career, he was known as the best player to have never won a major. When he won, I remember feeling actual joy — cheering & clapping & yelling “finally” out loud.  He went on to win two more green jackets (2006  and 2010) and I hope he wins another before his career ends.

By the way, it is not easy to win multiple jackets — Arnold Palmer and Tiger Woods have four and the legendary Jack Nicklaus has six green jackets. Not many people think anyone will break Jack’s record; especially given the number of young players challenging seasoned pros that have been playing poorly.

So why am I a “Lefty” Fan?  Originally he caught my eye because he was so creative and daring in his sort game (I love to watch him hit a flop shot) and he can be very inconsistent with wild shots of the tee (so that adds drama to his game).  He was the one player during the height of Tiger’s era that really was a “rival” of Tiger’s and that made the game exciting.  Over the years he has not only been entertaining on course but in watching him “off course” (with fans and the press) he just seemed like one of the “good guys.”

In recent years, he has had adversity in his personal life — both his wife and mother were diagnosed with breast cancer (something that hits home for me because my mother had breast cancer) and in 2010 he announced he has psoriatic arthritis.  Sounds awful but he says it is “treatable” and is now a spokesperson on TV and has lent his name to a website, On Course With Phil.

By the way, Callaway Golf sponsors Phil and I guess I am a marketer’s dream because I am a Callaway consumer (so much so that my friends gave me a new Callaway golf bag as a gift). I even have GalCallaway as my user name for Fantasy Golf and Twitter.

So needless to say, I am a huge fan and will be cheering for “Lefty” in 2012.

Fantasy Golf – Sony Picks

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My rank on the Golf Channel fantasy golf leader board is miserable against the full field of participants.  Ok, full disclosure, my rank is 5550 (yes, I have a long way to go).  However, comparing myself to the “Expert Leader board” for the Golf Channel (GC) Experts, I’m tied with Annika Sorenstam ranked at 14. Annika may not like her rank against her peers but I’ll take it as a positive sign that I am in the mix and not lower than any of the GC Experts.

Now for my Sony picks:

(1) Web Simpson — He is one of my favorite younger players and he tied for third last week at the Hyundai. I think he will win this year and I’m hoping for an early start with picking him for Sony.

(2) Rory Sabbatini — My gut is that he is going to be really motivated after what happened to him at the Hyundai.  What happened?  He was 20 seconds (yes, seconds) late for his tee time and he was hit with a two-stroke penalty.  This is a significant penalty if you think about the fact that Steve Stricker won by one stroke over Martin Laird.  The fact that Rory recovered (by that I mean got his composure back to shoot a 73 even par round that day) and that he finished with a 68,68 on the final two days makes me think he is capable of winning this week.  Motivation and capability makes me pick him from group two.

(3) Heath Slocum — no one inspired me in group three.  So this is my “what the heck” pick this week. He is a middle of the pack player but at least he has played before (versus trying to pick one of the 25 or so rookies playing their first time on tour.)  But I do have my eye on two rookies to pick later in the season.  I’ll blog about them later.

(4) Jeff Maggert — So I am going “old school” on this one and it is a risk but to be honest I picked him because he has been on tour since 1986 and has won in the past. However, 2011 was not a stellar year so I’m hoping he has a decent start to 2012. But, it is a risk because he could also miss the cut.

Being new to this fantasy golf game, I think I will learn something new each week.  Lesson from week one — the group format is tough. I thought I’d be able to pick any 4 players each week which would be easy to pick my favorites.  But now it is clear that the groups are based on performance (with top performers in group one and moving down the ranks to fill-in the other groups) and picking in Group 3 and 4 when you are “deep in the field” with average or low ranking players is a big challenge for me.  I might have to start actually looking at statistics like driving accuracy, GIR (greens in regulation), and putting averages. But that seems like too much work so let’s not go there yet.

Fantasy Golf Results – Hyundai Tournament

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My first week of fantasy golf and I did not fair well.  My picks finished miserably out of a field of 28 they placed: 12th (Kevin Na 12 under par), 16th (Keegan Bradley with 11 under par, 18th (Bubba Watson at 8 under par) and 25th (Brendan Steele over par by three strokes).

The winner was Steve Stricker with a score of 23 under par — he had a great tournament. I like Stricker very much but he had been dealing with a neck issue at the end of 2011 and so I did not think he would be healthy for the Hyundai.  Turns out he had a cortisone shot during the holidays and he feels great.  Would I have picked him to win knowing he had the shot? Who knows but I do know all the press on his bad neck made me ignore him as a pick. Can you really recover that quickly?  Maybe but some of the golf chatter online is wondering how bad he was hurt.  All I know is that when I had a cortisone shot in my elbow it was amazing how much better it felt weeks later.  Give him the benefit of the doubt that he was really hurt and all the therapy and cortisone did the trick.

As for my performance, not to worry I have many more weeks to improve my results.

Fantasy Golf 2012 Starts Today

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This year, for the first time, I have entered a Fantasy Golf League online.  It seems appropriate that this be my first post.  Why?  Well, because it is winter in New England and so I don’t have any “on course” antics to share.  So, I am going to share my golf expectations for how well I will do in the Fantasy Golf League.

My expectation is optimistic – if you are a numbers person, a 7 out of 10 that I will do reasonably well (or will be in the top 10 in the leader board and will win one week sometime this season). Now, I have never participated in a fantasy league. I’m sure those that I am competing against for the weekly, sectional,and year-end grand prize have all kinds of statistics and knowledge they use to pick their predictions; but I will start with just my gut (basically players I know and like to watch or maybe throw in a golfer just because I feel like it)

The first tournament is the Hyundai Tournament of Champions and my guys are:

(1)  Bubba Watson – because he is a lefty, and Phil is not playing. Plus he just had a round of 58 on his home course so I take that as a good sign that he will play well this week.

(2)  Keegan Bradley – because he is from New England and his aunt is Pat Bradley, one of the LPGA’s finest (in her day, won 31 tournaments and is in the Golf Hall of Fame).

(3)  Kevin Na – because he won Justin Timberlake’s tournament last year and I actually like the fact that Justin supports golf as a sport.  Timberlake is the owner of  Mirimichi, an eco-friendly golf course and Callaway Golf just named Timberlake as creative director (and I’m a Callaway fan.) I guess Callaway is hoping he will “bring sexy back” to golf and young fans to Callaway.

(4)  Brendan Steele — to be honest I don’t really know anything about Brendan but I had to pick someone from the list in “group 4” and I recall seeing him play. This is my “what the heck” pick.

Now, you may look at my picks and think to yourself that my optimism is crazy but this is only the first tournament and the field is only 28 players (so many of my favorite players are not in the running because this tournament is for golfers that won a tournament in 2011.)

I have many, many tournaments to improve my predictions.  Check out the next post to find out the results.