I’ve been so busy at work that I’m beginning to love weekends like I love air.
This statement is not hyperbole.
I’ve taken on a new role at HP called, “AQM Portfolio Manager, HP SaaS”. Look at all of those important sounding acronyms in the title. Surely, I must be doing something extremely vital to the success of HP. This new position has me so busy, I feel like I’m working at time-lapse photography speed for sixty hours a week, and my to-do list still doesn’t diminish. My life for the past five months is a blur of cost-price establishing, solution architecting, pre-sales calling, service defining, strategic reviewing, market analyzing, center enabling and new-service onboarding.
So when I decided to fly out the McAllen, Texas to caddy for Rebecka in a Futures Tour tournament, I was really looking forward to this moonlighting gig. I figured, caddying for a professional golfer is at the opposite end of the vocation spectrum from commercial software, and that’s exactly what my psyche needed – a good dose of looping in the fresh air of southern Texas.
I was so excited to be on a golf excursion, which would land me in the Lone Star State. Of all the States, I feel Texas carries the richest golf history. Ben Hogan, Byron Nelson and Lee Trevino all honed their incredible games in the winds of the heart of Texas. The next generation of great Texas golfers included Ben Crenshaw, Tom Kite and even modern day players such as Justin Leonard and Chad Campbell. Of course, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention Roy ‘Tin Cup’ McAvoy, who may be a fictitious golfer played by Kevin Costner, yet still is one of my favorite Texas golfers. (Shameless plug: If you haven’t seen the movie ‘Tin Cup’ please do yourself a favor and check it out.)
So I took a Friday off and jumped on a flight to McAllen by way of Denver and Houston. The three-flight trip whooped my keaster like Tiger Woods whoops his Nike One Platinum Prototype. By the time I landed in McAllen, I had a DEFCON-1 migraine that had me feeling like I drank an entire bottle of tequila minus the pre-hangover gorgeous Latina feeding you Jell-O-shots while vigorously shaking your head and simultaneously blowing a referee’s whistle in your ear. (Shameless plug: If you haven’t vacationed in Cabo San Lucas, do yourself a favor and check it out.)
Luckily, Rebecka was staying with Rosie and Thomas Yanez, who are family friends of ours who also happen to be two of the most hospitable and caring people you could ever be lucky enough to meet. Rebecka picked me up at the airport and drove me to, what we refer to as, “Rosie and Thomas’ Bed and Breakfast”, because you literally feel like you’re on vacation when you stay there. Not only do they have a beautiful home, but the service is fantastic! Rosie made me breakfast tacos every morning and also washed Rebecka’s clothes for her too. They also let us borrow a car for the week. Rosie and Thomas, if you’re reading this, thanks again for your support and hospitality.
After sleeping for about ten hours, I woke feeling much better. I typically recover from my migraines after having a good night’s sleep. So, after filling up on some of Rosie’s breakfast tacos, I was ready and excited to begin my caddying adventure.
On to the actual caddying…
There’s an old saying that to be a great caddy, you need to follow the three “ups”. They are as follows: show up, keep up and shut up. Pretty self-explanatory, don’t you think? That’s what I thought too. Of course this was before I’d looped for Rebecka in a professional event. Allow me to provide to you the true definitions:
1. Show up, verb (shoh uhp) – to arrive on time at the golf course knowing you’ll be there for no less than six hours; all while fighting every irresistible urge to pick up a golf club and hit a ball (see also ‘going to an all-you-can-eat buffet while completely starving and having your jaw wired shut’)
2. Keep up, verb (keep uhp) – to hand over clubs to the golfer, clean the club faces and grooves, fix divots, rake bunkers, clean golf balls, hand over the putter, tend the flag stick, provide water and energy bars; all while ensuring that you stay stride for stride with the golfer so as not to disrupt the golfer’s rhythm (see also ‘how to be a super hero without the cool mutated genetic code that enables super speed and/or the ability to teleport’)
3. Shut up, verb (shuht uhp) – to be able to read the golfer’s mind during the round so that you will instinctively know the exact words to say and when to say them, or to withhold verbal communication especially after the golfer tries to hit a 180-yard hybrid hook around a tree from the rough off a downhill, sidehill lie over water to an elevated green (see also ‘avoiding being the victim of a hate crime’)
How do I know these definitions you ask?
On my first day of caddying, we showed up to the golf course about an hour before the tee time. Rebecka’s pre-round routine takes one hour, so this was perfect timing for her. We get out of the car and began preparation for the day’s work ahead, which consists of packing the following items into the golf bag: sunscreen, food and drinks, wind jacket, wind pants, umbrella, golf balls and 15-pound dumbbells.
Now I didn’t actually see Rebecka pack the 15-pound dumbbells, but I know they had to be in there because the only other way I can justify how 14 golf clubs can feel like a body bag stuffed with a carcass, is that Texas must have an intensified gravitational pull due to its size. Of course, that’s completely silly and ridiculous, so it must have been dumbbells.
I heaved the golf bag onto my back and we immediately walked to the putting green where Rebecka practiced rolling in putts with only her right hand holding the putter. This exercise provides the feeling of releasing the putter head, which is vital if the ball is to roll true. She also practiced putting from various lengths from the hole to get a feel for the speed of the greens.
While Rebecka was putting, I went to the volunteer’s tent to pick up my caddy bib, which is like a poncho with pockets in the front and the golfer’s name on the back. If being a man standing off to the side of a putting green while many of the world’s best women golfers are practicing doesn’t make you feel like a caddy, then this bib certainly will. I felt like Steve Williams (Tiger Woods’ caddy) the moment I put the bib on. I might as well have been wearing white coveralls and walking the hallowed grounds of August National with the name, ‘Woods’ on my back. Of course there is still a big difference between the Masters and the Jalapeño Futures Tour Golf Classic, yet at the time, they might as well have been one in the same.
After Rebecka putted, she went to the driving range to hit full shots. At this point I have to say how excellent the facilities are at these Futures Tour events. The flags of all of the participant’s home countries surround the practice putting green and the banners of the main sponsors (many of which are Fortune 100 companies) run parallel to the driving range. The balls are even real Callaways! Not just a bunch of rag-tag stripped range meatballs.
Rebecka started by hitting some wedge shots directly at yardage markers. It was a bit windy, so she also practiced knock-down shots, which are shots that a golfer hits to keep the ball low and out of the wind. As she finished with each club, she’d handed them to me so that I could clean the grooves. I must say Rebecka’s ball striking was impressive and it was clear she was ready to go.
We walked up to the first tee and checked in with the official starter. This is where I, as the caddy, started loading up on water so that we could both maintain proper hydration levels in the Texas heat. The front pockets of the caddy-bib were perfect for hauling water. I felt like part kangaroo and part camel.
I don’t intend to go into every detail of the round that day. However, I will comment on a few highlights. Rebecka piped her first tee shot straight down the middle of the fairway. I mention the first shot because for amateurs, it’s usually the hardest and most nerve-wracking shot to hit. But the pros just hammer it down the fairway – ho hum. And off we went.
I must also admit that I wasn’t fulfilling all the duties of a professional caddy. Rebecka does her own yardages. This is usually the caddy’s job. Rebecka picked up the pin-placement sheet on the first tee, which is a piece of paper that details where the holes are placed on all 18 greens. The pin-placement sheet enables the golfer to calculate exact yardages on their approach shots to the green. Mathematics is involved. I minored in mathematics in college, and I’ve never seen the discreet combinatory differential equations needed to calculate the yardages for each hole location. Needless to say, Rebecka and I mutually agreed that she would have to do that part of the job. (Side note: Rebecka can calculate all 18 yardages in less than 30 seconds).
In some ways, caddying is more difficult than playing. I really had to detach my emotional state from her golf game. If she hit a great shot, I would calmly say, “Nice shot, Rebecka.” However, the voice in my head was screaming, “THAT’S RIGHT! WHO’S YOUR MOMMY?!” as the ball flew in the air to its intended target.
I also discovered that as a caddy, I need to focus on many things between shots, such as placing the bag in the proper spot, handing Rebecka the putter when she needs it, placing the flagstick on the proper place on the green, and even making sure that we have enough water. As a golfer, you’re actually supposed to focus only when you’re hitting a shot and rest your mind in between shots. So I ask you, in a five hour round, how much of it is spent hitting a shot and how much of it is spent in between shots?
Supporting a golfer during a round is also a challenging endeavor. You really need to be part psychologist. Case in point, Rebecka had an approach shot to the green. Now, for the previous few holes, I’d been tardy in handing Rebecka her putter after her approach shot. So I figured while she was in the midst of hitting her approach shot, I’d already have the putter out to hand to her. So here’s how the conversation went after she hit her shot:
Neil: Here’s your putter.
Rebecka: Thanks. (Uncomfortable silence as we walk towards the green) I noticed you had the putter out even before I hit my shot.
Neil: Yes. I figured it would save time.
Rebecka: I don’t want the pressure of seeing the putter out before I’ve hit the green with my shot.
Neil: You're right. I won’t do that again.
And I really did understand her thought process. It's obvious and I should have known better.
As a pseudo-psychologist, the caddy really can't ask the golfer, "So how did shanking your pitching wedge into that tumbleweed make you feel?" I found that it's best to stay quiet and try to transmit positive vibes towards the golfer on a continual basis and especially after less-than-stellar shots.
Here's another interesting thing with Rebecka's putter. I also had this overwhelming urge to constantly hand Rebecka the headcover to her putter instead of the actual putter. I can’t count how many times I handed her the headcover and kept the putter in my other hand. Thankfully, she was always easy-going about it by accepting the headcover and saying, “Thanks.”
If there was one time I wish I tackled Rebecka before she hit a shot, it would have been on the 7th hole. Rebecka had hit her tee shot into the left rough. She had a 180-yard approach shot to the green. What made the shot challenging is that there was a tree in front of her and the ball was in a fat lie in the rough. Also, it was sitting on a sidehill-downhill lie with water on the right to an elevated green. Instead of choosing to punch it out and try to make par from the fairway, Rebecka selected her hybrid to hit a miraculous draw out of the rough, around the tree, over the water and on to the green.
Annika Sorenstam, the greatest woman golfer ever, has a rule of thumb, which states that if you can’t execute the shot at least 3 out of 5 times, then don’t attempt it.
Now, I don’t want to relive the shot because golfers are supposed to immediately forget about bad shots. So, let me sum up the result by saying that I now have definitive proof that the floating ability of a Titleist Pro-V ball is exactly the same for pros as it is for amateurs – and as a nice representative of the amateur collective, I can categorically state that I’ve never had a ball float for me.
Rebecka and I discussed that shot after the round and we both agreed that we should have played it much safer.
Rebecka ended up making the cut and learning a lot about herself and her game. I have to say without agenda, that I was extremely impressed with Rebecka’s game. She has really improved over the last few years and she’s ready to compete with the best players on the Futures Tour.
I was proud of the way Rebecka always kept her head up while walking all 18 holes. This was one of her goals at the beginning of the tournament and she did a really great job striving to achieve this goal. Believe me, keeping your head up throughout an entire round of golf isn’t the easiest thing to do.
And the thing I was most proud of was the way Rebecka remained herself throughout the entire tournament. Now I could go on and describe what I mean by that, but I really want to leave it alone. If you’re a golfer, chances are you know what I mean. If you’re not a golfer, perhaps you may find it interesting to come up with your own explanation.
As for me, I learned that I certainly have much to improve on as a caddy. Perhaps it’s not the most natural job for me. I always say, “You can stick a cat in the oven but that don’t make it a biscuit.”
But I also found that I really enjoyed my time with Rebecka, and I would love to do it again. It was a great escape from my regular job. I’ve been back to work now for two weeks, and I’m relieved to be back in the commercial software world where the job is much easier, less stressful and less demanding!
Thursday, May 15, 2008
Friday, March 7, 2008
Top Five Favorite Friday
Topic: Top Five Favorite Sports Moments
It’s been said that sporting events are the ultimate in reality TV. It’s so true. I’ve often thought that some sports moments are so special and so dramatic, that if they were a movie, you’d scoff at the implausibility of it all and dismiss it as over-dramatic and over-indulgent dreck.
Incredible moments in sports, when compared to scripted movies, have an inverse relationship with its viewers. The more you have to suspend disbelief, the better the moment becomes.
Picking my top five favorite sporting moments was actually extremely easy for me. There have been exactly five moments that had my emotions running so high, they feel as though they’ve become a part of me at a molecular level. I can instantly remember how I felt as they unfolded. If you were to chart my feeling of complete and unadulterated euphoria on a line graph starting from the moment I was born until present time, there would be 5 distinct spikes that would tower above the rest.
Now I’m certainly not saying that these moments induced more joy than say, having a child – which I’ve yet to do. However, just going by the joy I hear in the voices of my coworkers when they talk about their children, there’s no doubt that having children brings about a certain kind of joy that I’m not nearly qualified to understand, let alone articulate.
But I believe I have a legitimate point when I say that an unexpected, breathtaking moment in sports induces a higher spike on the joy meter than having a baby. The spike is higher, yet certainly not sustained over the course of your child’s lifetime. I'm probably way off even comparing the two kinds of joy, with one being so much more important than the other. However, I hope you get what I’m saying, and to a certain degree makes sense to you.
So, with that said, I give you my top five favorite moments in sports.
5. Brandi Chastain Rips Off Her Jersey
It’s been said that sporting events are the ultimate in reality TV. It’s so true. I’ve often thought that some sports moments are so special and so dramatic, that if they were a movie, you’d scoff at the implausibility of it all and dismiss it as over-dramatic and over-indulgent dreck.
Incredible moments in sports, when compared to scripted movies, have an inverse relationship with its viewers. The more you have to suspend disbelief, the better the moment becomes.
Picking my top five favorite sporting moments was actually extremely easy for me. There have been exactly five moments that had my emotions running so high, they feel as though they’ve become a part of me at a molecular level. I can instantly remember how I felt as they unfolded. If you were to chart my feeling of complete and unadulterated euphoria on a line graph starting from the moment I was born until present time, there would be 5 distinct spikes that would tower above the rest.
Now I’m certainly not saying that these moments induced more joy than say, having a child – which I’ve yet to do. However, just going by the joy I hear in the voices of my coworkers when they talk about their children, there’s no doubt that having children brings about a certain kind of joy that I’m not nearly qualified to understand, let alone articulate.
But I believe I have a legitimate point when I say that an unexpected, breathtaking moment in sports induces a higher spike on the joy meter than having a baby. The spike is higher, yet certainly not sustained over the course of your child’s lifetime. I'm probably way off even comparing the two kinds of joy, with one being so much more important than the other. However, I hope you get what I’m saying, and to a certain degree makes sense to you.
So, with that said, I give you my top five favorite moments in sports.
5. Brandi Chastain Rips Off Her Jersey
I can’t think of a larger pressure situation in sports than to be the 5th penalty kicker on a national soccer team that’s playing in the championship game in the World Cup with a “gotta-have-it” penalty shot with their entire world watching. This is the situation Brandi Chastain found herself in during the 1999 World Cup.
As if that weren’t dramatic enough, Brandi had actually missed a penalty kick earlier in the season during a critical match which resulted in a loss by the U.S. Women’s Soccer team. After the game ended, a dejected, yet lion-hearted Chastain told her coach, “If we’re ever in that situation again, I want another chance.”
Fortunately her chance would arrive, and this time, it was for all the marbles.
When her laser-like penalty kick slammed against the back netting of the goal, she figuratively ripped the demons from her head and literally ripped the jersey from her back as her teammates rushed her from the mid-field line. The U.S. Woman’s soccer team had won the World Cup.
However, winning the World Cup was not the most important result of that shot.
Brandi's World Cup winning penalty shot and subsequent ripping off her jersey exposing her incredibly athletic physique empowered a nation of young women to shoot for their dreams. And it signaled to the world that the U.S. had finally conquered a sport that was really never the U.S.’s to conquer.
4. 35-Point Bus Ride
It was 1988. I was on a high-school class ski trip with a bunch of my fellow classmates. Our last day of skiing was on Superbowl Sunday. My favorite football team, the Washington Redskins, was playing the Denver Broncos for the championship. Back in those days, I lived and died with the Redskins. Their games meant entirely way too much to me. I admit now, my perspective was totally out of whack. But back then, my very emotional well-being rested on the win-loss record of the Redskins.
So, I had purposely cut my day of skiing short to watch the game in the ski lodge while my friends continued skiing on the slopes outside.
On the first play of the game, Bronco’s quarterback John Elway hit a bomb to his wide receiver who took it all the way to the end zone for a touchdown. It was a scant ten seconds into the game and my Redskins were already down by seven points.
On the Redskin’s first series, the starting quarterback, Doug Williams, injured his leg as he was being sacked by the ferocious Denver defensive line. As he was going down, he fumbled the ball and the Broncos recovered it deep in Washington territory. Williams’ injury was severe enough that he was pulled from the game and replaced by the back up quarterback. At that moment, our bus was leaving and heading back to San Jose. Taking one last look at the TV before boarding the bus, I saw that Denver had kicked a field goal and they were now ahead by ten points.
I was furious. Basically, the game was over. I sat in the back of the bus and I didn’t talk to anyone. My friends knew not to speak with me. I was silently pouting for two hours in the bus as we pulled into a restaurant called Sam’s Town to eat dinner before completing the trip home. I dejectedly walked out of the bus and into the restaurant where a TV was displaying the game.
That’s when the shock it me. I couldn’t believe what I saw. The score was Redskins 35, Denver 10. Apparently Doug Williams came back in the second quarter and the Redskins scored 35 unanswered points, the most points scored in one quarter of football. It was the most magical quarter of football that anyone had ever seen. The Redskins would go on to blow out the Broncos and win their second championship in the decade.
The point outburst was not the only historical aspect of the game. Doug Williams is African-American.
He was the first African-American quarterback to win the Superbowl. Up to that point, there existed a stereotype that African-American quarterbacks weren’t smart enough to win the Superbowl. That perception changed in January of 1988, and from that moment on, some of the NFL’s most prolific quarterbacks have been African-American.
3. Gentleman’s Game?
The 1999 Ryder Cup is appropriately titled, “The Battle At Brookline”. And boy, was it a battle. The bad blood that had been building between the top European golfers and the top American golfers during the previous Ryder Cups finally boiled over at Brookline Country Club in 1999.
In the 1999 Ryder Cup, you basically could take all of the Bobby-Jones-Gentlemanly-Game-Remove-Your-Cap-Shake-Hands-With-Your-Opponent crap and just throw it all out of the window. This was war, and if you didn’t have the stomach for it, then slam your trunk and high-tail it back to Pebble Beach to have a nice enjoyable round with your buddies. Because this particular Ryder Cup was the golf equivalent of the Ultimate Fighting Championship where you either knocked your opponent out, or forced him to submit.
It started off with some rather ungentlemanly comments by Scottish golfer Colin Montgomery which ticked off a few of the American golfers. He basically started giving his opinion as to why some of the American golfers wouldn’t be playing well – even before the matches even started!
The bad blood continued to progress as the first and second day’s Four-ball and Foursomes matches went the Euros way. The Euros, in the most ungentlemanly fashion, were raucously celebrating each putt they holed and each match they won. By Saturday evening, they had built up a 10 to 6 point lead on the Americans with only Sunday singles remaining.
Sunday singles is the final day of the Ryder Cup. On Sunday, each member of the 12-man team plays another member of the other team in head-to-head match, each match being worth one point. No team had ever overcome a 4-point deficit on Sunday singles. To do so meant that the Americans would have to win 8 ½ of the possible 12 points on the final day to win the Ryder Cup. There was basically little hope of winning.
But during the press conference that Saturday night, the captain of the American Team, Ben Crenshaw, said only one prophetic sound bite, “I want to leave you with this… I’m a big believer in fate… and I have a good feeling about this.”
The next day, the American team came out and made good on Crenshaw’s prediction as they steamrolled the Europeans. Tom Lehman and Hal Sutton led off the first two matches and won their respective two points rather easily. Tiger Woods crushed his opponent and ignited the New England crowd with his typical fist pumps.
My favorite celebration that day was from the usually stoic David Duval. On the final putt of his match, he stroked the ball towards the hole. As the ball reached the three-quarter mark of its trek to the hole, Duval dropped his putter to the ground and started an early celebration. He knew the putt was good and that he’d won his match even before the ball found darkness. Then, in an extremely unusual display of emotion, he walked around the green fist pumping to the crowd as the roared with approval.
The best part was the way the American team won the final point to complete their comeback. American Justin Leonard had been down in his match to Spain’s Jose Maria Olazabal by four holes. But he started to chip away at the deficit. On the 17th hole of their match, Leonard sank a 60-foot putt. This instigated a celebration by the American team as they ran across the green to hug Leonard and congratulate him on his incredible comeback.
There was a problem though. Olazabal still had his putt to halve the hole and continue with the match. The U.S. team still hadn’t won a thing. It was an extremely unsportsmanlike display by the Americans.
Needless to say, a rather perturbed Olazabal missed his putt, thus ending the incredible comeback and ending the 1999 Ryder Cup. The U.S. had won.
Since 1999, both the Americans and the Europeans have made huge efforts to regain the sportsmanship that once governed these friendly matches. I admit that it’s a good thing that they are focusing on this. However, I also have to admit that the heated emotions of the 1999 Ryder Cup made for awesome and dramatic viewing and I somewhat miss the bad blood that made these matches so riveting.
2. Jordan Rules because of the Jordan Rules
You’d be pretty hard pressed to find a bigger Michael Jordan fan than me. I watched basically every important shot he ever made during his unbelievable career. I also endured an emotional and painful three-years as his Chicago Bulls were bounced from the playoffs by the ‘Bad Boy’ Detroit Pistons for three straight seasons.
Detroit had actually created a tactical way to play Michael Jordan, which they called, “The Jordan Rules”. By executing this list of rules, they felt the Jordan and the Bulls simply could not beat them. One of the rules was to foul Jordan extremely hard if he drove to the basket. They felt that they could break him down psychologically if they broke him down physically.
For three straight seasons I had to witness Jordan get beat up by the Bad Boys as they went on to eliminate the Bulls from the playoffs. And, for three straight seasons, I had to listen to the idiotic sports writers say that Jordan doesn’t make his teammates better (don’t get me started on that – it could be a blog entry unto itself).
In 1991, Jordan and the Bulls finally beat the Pistons in the playoffs by sweeping them in four straight games. On the final game of the series, the beaten Pistsons walked off the floor before the game had officially ended thus showing the type of sportsmen they truly were.
As if that weren’t satisfying enough, the Bulls went to the NBA Finals against Magic Johnson and his Los Angeles Lakers. They went on to beat Magic and the Lakers in 5 games and Jordan finally shut up his critics and won the first of his six championships.
The thing I’ll never forget is what transpired in the Bulls locker room immediately after the game. Jordan sat on a bench hugging the championship trophy as he and cried uncontrollably. His arms were so tightly wrapped around the trophy; you wouldn’t have been able to pry it loose with the Jaws of Life. Then his Dad walked up to him and put his arm around his shoulders.
It was an incredible moment for the most incredible team athlete to ever walk the Earth.
1. “In A Year That’s Been So Improbable; The Impossible Has Happened!”
I learned to say “Dodgers” before I learned to say “Dad”.
My Dad wouldn’t have had it any other way. He was a long time Brooklyn Dodgers fan who continued to root for them when they moved to Los Angeles.
During the 70’s and 80’s, I had a “Romeo and Juliette” relationship with the Dodgers, which means that I would have drunk poison if it meant that they would win the World Series.
So, it is with great pleasure that I write about the 1988 World Series. That year, the Dodgers were the ultimate underdogs against the mighty Oakland A’s. The 1988 Dodgers are the only team to have won the World Series without a Hall of Fame player.
That year, the Oakland A’s had won well over 100 games and were led by their MVP and completely ‘roided-up Jose Canseco, who had just become the only player to hit 40 home runs and steal 40 bases in one season. They also had the equally ‘roided-up Mark McGuire, who with Canseco, made the devastating Bash Brothers.
The A’s also had 20-game winner, Dave Stewart as well as the Cy Young award winning ace-closer, Dennis Eckersley. They also had their third consecutive rookie-of-the-year playing shortstop, Walt Weiss. The bottom line is: This team was stacked.
So given the disparity in talent between the two teams, it was no surprise that nobody gave the Dodgers a chance to beat the A’s in the World Series.
The Dodgers best player and emotional leader that year was a player by the name of Kirk Gibson. He was their right fielder who they had acquired from the Detroit Tigers that year. Unfortunately, Gibson had injured both his legs (one torn hamstring and one knee) that he could no longer run and therefore could no longer play.
So not only were the underdog Dodgers facing the juggernaut A’s, they were also without their best player. So there wasn’t really any reason why they should even play the World Series, right? There was no way the A’s were going to lose.
But as Chris Berman always says, “This is why they play the game.”
During Game 1, the Dodgers found themselves losing to the A’s four runs to three, due to a Grand Slam by Jose Canseco. With two outs in the ninth inning and down by one run, the Dodgers were all but dead. Especially when you consider that Dennis Eckersley, the A’s closer, was on the mound and on the verge of closing the game out.
But inexplicably, Eckersley walked Mike Davis to put the tying run on base. The Dodgers, desperate for something good to happen, sent out their injured leader, Kirk Gibson to pinch hit. Gibson limps out on two bad legs in an attempt do whatever he can to extend the game and give the Dodgers a glimmer of hope to somehow find a way to win.
So here we were 2 outs in the ninth inning. There is a man on base and the Dodgers were down by one run. Gibson has a full count, which means basically the next pitch is either going to win the game for the A’s, or extend the game for the Dodgers.
What happened next is the most unbelievable sports moment I’ve ever witnessed.
Enjoy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2RiCYYlkE4
As the ball sailed over the fence, my Dad and I jumped up and down screaming and high-fiving! We woke up the house. I distinctly remember my Mom walking out into the TV room from the bedroom wondering what the heck was going on.
I’d never been more elated than that instant the Dodgers won the game and Gibson limped around the bases.
The 1988 Dodgers went on to win the World Series by crushing the A’s in 5 games. The A’s never recovered from that dramatic, game-ending homerun. Ironically, Gibson never played another game that series, but he’d basically carried the team and the entire city of Los Angeles to the world championship that year.
As I reflect back on that evening, I honestly believe that there will never be another sports moment like that for me. I was a teenager who had just graduated from high-school. I was extremely excitable and, as mentioned before, acting under a skewed perspective on what sports meant in the grand scheme of things. Sports back then wasn’t about the almighty dollar. Back then, the most common performance enhancing drug was caffeine. Baseball was my religion. It was once a national obsession that was passed down from father to son. I’m not sure if it’s that way anymore.
To have watched it with my Dad and shared that moment… seriously, does it get any better than that?
As if that weren’t dramatic enough, Brandi had actually missed a penalty kick earlier in the season during a critical match which resulted in a loss by the U.S. Women’s Soccer team. After the game ended, a dejected, yet lion-hearted Chastain told her coach, “If we’re ever in that situation again, I want another chance.”
Fortunately her chance would arrive, and this time, it was for all the marbles.
When her laser-like penalty kick slammed against the back netting of the goal, she figuratively ripped the demons from her head and literally ripped the jersey from her back as her teammates rushed her from the mid-field line. The U.S. Woman’s soccer team had won the World Cup.
However, winning the World Cup was not the most important result of that shot.
Brandi's World Cup winning penalty shot and subsequent ripping off her jersey exposing her incredibly athletic physique empowered a nation of young women to shoot for their dreams. And it signaled to the world that the U.S. had finally conquered a sport that was really never the U.S.’s to conquer.
4. 35-Point Bus Ride
It was 1988. I was on a high-school class ski trip with a bunch of my fellow classmates. Our last day of skiing was on Superbowl Sunday. My favorite football team, the Washington Redskins, was playing the Denver Broncos for the championship. Back in those days, I lived and died with the Redskins. Their games meant entirely way too much to me. I admit now, my perspective was totally out of whack. But back then, my very emotional well-being rested on the win-loss record of the Redskins.
So, I had purposely cut my day of skiing short to watch the game in the ski lodge while my friends continued skiing on the slopes outside.
On the first play of the game, Bronco’s quarterback John Elway hit a bomb to his wide receiver who took it all the way to the end zone for a touchdown. It was a scant ten seconds into the game and my Redskins were already down by seven points.
On the Redskin’s first series, the starting quarterback, Doug Williams, injured his leg as he was being sacked by the ferocious Denver defensive line. As he was going down, he fumbled the ball and the Broncos recovered it deep in Washington territory. Williams’ injury was severe enough that he was pulled from the game and replaced by the back up quarterback. At that moment, our bus was leaving and heading back to San Jose. Taking one last look at the TV before boarding the bus, I saw that Denver had kicked a field goal and they were now ahead by ten points.
I was furious. Basically, the game was over. I sat in the back of the bus and I didn’t talk to anyone. My friends knew not to speak with me. I was silently pouting for two hours in the bus as we pulled into a restaurant called Sam’s Town to eat dinner before completing the trip home. I dejectedly walked out of the bus and into the restaurant where a TV was displaying the game.
That’s when the shock it me. I couldn’t believe what I saw. The score was Redskins 35, Denver 10. Apparently Doug Williams came back in the second quarter and the Redskins scored 35 unanswered points, the most points scored in one quarter of football. It was the most magical quarter of football that anyone had ever seen. The Redskins would go on to blow out the Broncos and win their second championship in the decade.
The point outburst was not the only historical aspect of the game. Doug Williams is African-American.
He was the first African-American quarterback to win the Superbowl. Up to that point, there existed a stereotype that African-American quarterbacks weren’t smart enough to win the Superbowl. That perception changed in January of 1988, and from that moment on, some of the NFL’s most prolific quarterbacks have been African-American.
3. Gentleman’s Game?
The 1999 Ryder Cup is appropriately titled, “The Battle At Brookline”. And boy, was it a battle. The bad blood that had been building between the top European golfers and the top American golfers during the previous Ryder Cups finally boiled over at Brookline Country Club in 1999.
In the 1999 Ryder Cup, you basically could take all of the Bobby-Jones-Gentlemanly-Game-Remove-Your-Cap-Shake-Hands-With-Your-Opponent crap and just throw it all out of the window. This was war, and if you didn’t have the stomach for it, then slam your trunk and high-tail it back to Pebble Beach to have a nice enjoyable round with your buddies. Because this particular Ryder Cup was the golf equivalent of the Ultimate Fighting Championship where you either knocked your opponent out, or forced him to submit.
It started off with some rather ungentlemanly comments by Scottish golfer Colin Montgomery which ticked off a few of the American golfers. He basically started giving his opinion as to why some of the American golfers wouldn’t be playing well – even before the matches even started!
The bad blood continued to progress as the first and second day’s Four-ball and Foursomes matches went the Euros way. The Euros, in the most ungentlemanly fashion, were raucously celebrating each putt they holed and each match they won. By Saturday evening, they had built up a 10 to 6 point lead on the Americans with only Sunday singles remaining.
Sunday singles is the final day of the Ryder Cup. On Sunday, each member of the 12-man team plays another member of the other team in head-to-head match, each match being worth one point. No team had ever overcome a 4-point deficit on Sunday singles. To do so meant that the Americans would have to win 8 ½ of the possible 12 points on the final day to win the Ryder Cup. There was basically little hope of winning.
But during the press conference that Saturday night, the captain of the American Team, Ben Crenshaw, said only one prophetic sound bite, “I want to leave you with this… I’m a big believer in fate… and I have a good feeling about this.”
The next day, the American team came out and made good on Crenshaw’s prediction as they steamrolled the Europeans. Tom Lehman and Hal Sutton led off the first two matches and won their respective two points rather easily. Tiger Woods crushed his opponent and ignited the New England crowd with his typical fist pumps.
My favorite celebration that day was from the usually stoic David Duval. On the final putt of his match, he stroked the ball towards the hole. As the ball reached the three-quarter mark of its trek to the hole, Duval dropped his putter to the ground and started an early celebration. He knew the putt was good and that he’d won his match even before the ball found darkness. Then, in an extremely unusual display of emotion, he walked around the green fist pumping to the crowd as the roared with approval.
The best part was the way the American team won the final point to complete their comeback. American Justin Leonard had been down in his match to Spain’s Jose Maria Olazabal by four holes. But he started to chip away at the deficit. On the 17th hole of their match, Leonard sank a 60-foot putt. This instigated a celebration by the American team as they ran across the green to hug Leonard and congratulate him on his incredible comeback.
There was a problem though. Olazabal still had his putt to halve the hole and continue with the match. The U.S. team still hadn’t won a thing. It was an extremely unsportsmanlike display by the Americans.
Needless to say, a rather perturbed Olazabal missed his putt, thus ending the incredible comeback and ending the 1999 Ryder Cup. The U.S. had won.
Since 1999, both the Americans and the Europeans have made huge efforts to regain the sportsmanship that once governed these friendly matches. I admit that it’s a good thing that they are focusing on this. However, I also have to admit that the heated emotions of the 1999 Ryder Cup made for awesome and dramatic viewing and I somewhat miss the bad blood that made these matches so riveting.
2. Jordan Rules because of the Jordan Rules
You’d be pretty hard pressed to find a bigger Michael Jordan fan than me. I watched basically every important shot he ever made during his unbelievable career. I also endured an emotional and painful three-years as his Chicago Bulls were bounced from the playoffs by the ‘Bad Boy’ Detroit Pistons for three straight seasons.
Detroit had actually created a tactical way to play Michael Jordan, which they called, “The Jordan Rules”. By executing this list of rules, they felt the Jordan and the Bulls simply could not beat them. One of the rules was to foul Jordan extremely hard if he drove to the basket. They felt that they could break him down psychologically if they broke him down physically.
For three straight seasons I had to witness Jordan get beat up by the Bad Boys as they went on to eliminate the Bulls from the playoffs. And, for three straight seasons, I had to listen to the idiotic sports writers say that Jordan doesn’t make his teammates better (don’t get me started on that – it could be a blog entry unto itself).
In 1991, Jordan and the Bulls finally beat the Pistons in the playoffs by sweeping them in four straight games. On the final game of the series, the beaten Pistsons walked off the floor before the game had officially ended thus showing the type of sportsmen they truly were.
As if that weren’t satisfying enough, the Bulls went to the NBA Finals against Magic Johnson and his Los Angeles Lakers. They went on to beat Magic and the Lakers in 5 games and Jordan finally shut up his critics and won the first of his six championships.
The thing I’ll never forget is what transpired in the Bulls locker room immediately after the game. Jordan sat on a bench hugging the championship trophy as he and cried uncontrollably. His arms were so tightly wrapped around the trophy; you wouldn’t have been able to pry it loose with the Jaws of Life. Then his Dad walked up to him and put his arm around his shoulders.
It was an incredible moment for the most incredible team athlete to ever walk the Earth.
1. “In A Year That’s Been So Improbable; The Impossible Has Happened!”
I learned to say “Dodgers” before I learned to say “Dad”.
My Dad wouldn’t have had it any other way. He was a long time Brooklyn Dodgers fan who continued to root for them when they moved to Los Angeles.
During the 70’s and 80’s, I had a “Romeo and Juliette” relationship with the Dodgers, which means that I would have drunk poison if it meant that they would win the World Series.
So, it is with great pleasure that I write about the 1988 World Series. That year, the Dodgers were the ultimate underdogs against the mighty Oakland A’s. The 1988 Dodgers are the only team to have won the World Series without a Hall of Fame player.
That year, the Oakland A’s had won well over 100 games and were led by their MVP and completely ‘roided-up Jose Canseco, who had just become the only player to hit 40 home runs and steal 40 bases in one season. They also had the equally ‘roided-up Mark McGuire, who with Canseco, made the devastating Bash Brothers.
The A’s also had 20-game winner, Dave Stewart as well as the Cy Young award winning ace-closer, Dennis Eckersley. They also had their third consecutive rookie-of-the-year playing shortstop, Walt Weiss. The bottom line is: This team was stacked.
So given the disparity in talent between the two teams, it was no surprise that nobody gave the Dodgers a chance to beat the A’s in the World Series.
The Dodgers best player and emotional leader that year was a player by the name of Kirk Gibson. He was their right fielder who they had acquired from the Detroit Tigers that year. Unfortunately, Gibson had injured both his legs (one torn hamstring and one knee) that he could no longer run and therefore could no longer play.
So not only were the underdog Dodgers facing the juggernaut A’s, they were also without their best player. So there wasn’t really any reason why they should even play the World Series, right? There was no way the A’s were going to lose.
But as Chris Berman always says, “This is why they play the game.”
During Game 1, the Dodgers found themselves losing to the A’s four runs to three, due to a Grand Slam by Jose Canseco. With two outs in the ninth inning and down by one run, the Dodgers were all but dead. Especially when you consider that Dennis Eckersley, the A’s closer, was on the mound and on the verge of closing the game out.
But inexplicably, Eckersley walked Mike Davis to put the tying run on base. The Dodgers, desperate for something good to happen, sent out their injured leader, Kirk Gibson to pinch hit. Gibson limps out on two bad legs in an attempt do whatever he can to extend the game and give the Dodgers a glimmer of hope to somehow find a way to win.
So here we were 2 outs in the ninth inning. There is a man on base and the Dodgers were down by one run. Gibson has a full count, which means basically the next pitch is either going to win the game for the A’s, or extend the game for the Dodgers.
What happened next is the most unbelievable sports moment I’ve ever witnessed.
Enjoy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2RiCYYlkE4
As the ball sailed over the fence, my Dad and I jumped up and down screaming and high-fiving! We woke up the house. I distinctly remember my Mom walking out into the TV room from the bedroom wondering what the heck was going on.
I’d never been more elated than that instant the Dodgers won the game and Gibson limped around the bases.
The 1988 Dodgers went on to win the World Series by crushing the A’s in 5 games. The A’s never recovered from that dramatic, game-ending homerun. Ironically, Gibson never played another game that series, but he’d basically carried the team and the entire city of Los Angeles to the world championship that year.
As I reflect back on that evening, I honestly believe that there will never be another sports moment like that for me. I was a teenager who had just graduated from high-school. I was extremely excitable and, as mentioned before, acting under a skewed perspective on what sports meant in the grand scheme of things. Sports back then wasn’t about the almighty dollar. Back then, the most common performance enhancing drug was caffeine. Baseball was my religion. It was once a national obsession that was passed down from father to son. I’m not sure if it’s that way anymore.
To have watched it with my Dad and shared that moment… seriously, does it get any better than that?
Saturday, February 16, 2008
Time
I just received an email from a high school classmate that I haven’t seen in *gasp* 20 years. How do I know this? This email was to notify me that my 20-year high school reunion is scheduled for this year.
Side note: You can’t use this fact as a way to assess my current age because I started high school at a much younger age than what’s normal. This was a result of being a gifted child. And when I say gifted, I mean that I can always tell when a cab driver isn’t in the mood for chit-chat; even at a young age.
Okay, please put your hands over your ears while I get something off my chest.
TENTY YEARS !!!!????
Phew, thanks for letting me do that.
Holy-moly, where’d the time go? Isn’t it strange how the older you get, the faster time seems to fly by? One theory, I’ve heard, which explains this phenomenon is that the older you get the smaller the percentage one year is of your entire life. When you’re one year old, one year is 100% of your life. When you’re two years old, one year is 50% of your life. When you’re five years old, 1 year is 20% of your life. And so on.
This explains why years seem to fly by faster as you get older. This may also explain why I feel as though I’m paying my property tax bill every month instead of every year. It also makes me wonder what it will feel like when I’m sixty…
“Harumph! Didn’t I just get my prostrate checked yesterday?!”
I actually have another theory. I believe the perceived length of a year is directly proportional to the amount of new stuff you learn over the course of that year. For instance, when you’re a year old, you’re basically learning everything for the first time. Every time you open your eyes, your brain is getting what amounts to be sensory overload.
Scientists say that you learn more in the first year in your life than the total amount you learn after you’ve turned 16 years old.
If you’re skeptical, imagine trying to gain a PhD in quantum physics in one year – starting January 1st. I think heading into spring, you’ll feel as though you’ve aged five years. By autumn you’ll need permanent oxygen tubes entrenched up your nostrils just to watch TV in the middle of a room while eating the four food groups. Once December rolls around, you’ll feel like that Sloth guy in the movie Se7en. Shining a flashlight into your eyes would basically put you into immediate shock.
Okay, I may be slightly exaggerating to prove my point. But if your college experience was anything like mine, you felt it took forever to get your degree.
And on that point, I’ve recently been somewhat nostalgic when reminiscing about my college years. I do have some regret that I didn’t have more fun. I signed up for an extremely difficult major for me. Let me just say that I took to Computer Science the way a snail takes to salt. At the time I’d shown no historical evidence that I could perform mathematics with any reasonable aptitude or shown any proof that I possessed the analytic nature to write code.
So I had to study and work very hard while my other college friends had more fun.
However, my college life wasn’t without some moments of fun. During college I worked as a sushi chef at a pretty happenin’ Japanese restaurant. Every Friday evening was a party as my regulars bought me beer after beer. Aside from a brew master, I believe a sushi chef is the only other job where you’re urged by management to drink beer (with the customers of course).
Ah, yes – drinking beers. There’s nothing better than completely buzzing on a few beers and leaning over to your buddy and whispering into his ear as if you’re letting him in on a soul-bearing age-old family secret, “Dude, I’m so drunk right now.”
Well, the only thing that beats that is when the dude-bonding moment is consummated by the reciprocal whisper back, “Yah dude, me too.” At that point, you knew the night was on.
Ever notice that when you did this whisper back and forth, you always had to use your hand as a mini megaphone to channel the whisper into your buddy’s ear canal? Doesn’t that small physical act make the secret that much more intimate?
Hearing those four words back from your buddy became the tipping point (figuratively and many times literally) of the evening where the end result was to be a bad hangover the next morning. There was really no way back from that point on.
You’d think that you’d be able to cross the tipping point of the evening and leverage some basic common sense to stop drinking and find your way back. Especially given the amount of pain and anguish that hangovers wrought upon the silly fools who lacked the proper fear and respect of the diamond-splinter headaches caused by excess drinking.
I remember I always rationalized it by thinking, “I’ll let ‘morning Neil’ handle the hangover,” as if he were a completely different person that was going to deal with the repercussions of the previous evening’s fun.
Of course, there were those rare times where the tipping point was never achieved. There is no bigger downer that induced instant sobriety faster than if you told your buddy that you were drunk, and your buddy replied with, “Really? Because I’m not feeling it at all.”
One of my favorite stories is when a bunch of my friends and I were waiting outside of PF Chang’s for a table. The table was under my name so the hostess gave me a plastic buzzing device, which when buzzed, indicated that our table was ready.
We had gone to the bar and bought some cocktails to make our wait more bearable. So we were hanging outside to wait as we started our normal socializing. After about fifteen minutes, the buzzer starts to buzz in my back pocket. So I tell everyone, “Hey everyone, I’m getting buzzed.”
So one my dearest friends in the world, Krista, shouts out to the group with her drink in hand, “You are? So am I!”
I was really confused because I thought we were all sitting at the same table. So I take out the buzzer and show it to her. And that’s when it hit me. I couldn’t stop laughing, and neither could she.
I actually must thank Krista for the gift that she gave me that day. I’ve told that story in many a social setting and it arms me with awesome ice-breaking material. This is the type of story that must have happened in real life, because to have made that up would be to have tapped into some creative netherworld, yet to be visited.
Moving on, have you ever been really drunk and wanted to wind down the night by kicking back and watching a movie? I’ve found that the perceived length of the movie is inversely proportional to the amount of alcohol in your blood at that time. The more drunk you are, the shorter the movie seems, right?
Hmmm, maybe I’m on to something here. Perhaps had I drank more during college and watched more movies, it would have flown by faster.
Let me finish this entry by confessing that though the 20-year reunion has made me the nostalgic fool that I am, I do not go out and get drunk just to relive some of my college years. But it is fun to reminisce over the fun drunk stories that have taken place.
And while I’m confessing, I’d also like to say that the ‘starting high school early’ thing may not be true – *wink wink*.
Side note: You can’t use this fact as a way to assess my current age because I started high school at a much younger age than what’s normal. This was a result of being a gifted child. And when I say gifted, I mean that I can always tell when a cab driver isn’t in the mood for chit-chat; even at a young age.
Okay, please put your hands over your ears while I get something off my chest.
TENTY YEARS !!!!????
Phew, thanks for letting me do that.
Holy-moly, where’d the time go? Isn’t it strange how the older you get, the faster time seems to fly by? One theory, I’ve heard, which explains this phenomenon is that the older you get the smaller the percentage one year is of your entire life. When you’re one year old, one year is 100% of your life. When you’re two years old, one year is 50% of your life. When you’re five years old, 1 year is 20% of your life. And so on.
This explains why years seem to fly by faster as you get older. This may also explain why I feel as though I’m paying my property tax bill every month instead of every year. It also makes me wonder what it will feel like when I’m sixty…
“Harumph! Didn’t I just get my prostrate checked yesterday?!”
I actually have another theory. I believe the perceived length of a year is directly proportional to the amount of new stuff you learn over the course of that year. For instance, when you’re a year old, you’re basically learning everything for the first time. Every time you open your eyes, your brain is getting what amounts to be sensory overload.
Scientists say that you learn more in the first year in your life than the total amount you learn after you’ve turned 16 years old.
If you’re skeptical, imagine trying to gain a PhD in quantum physics in one year – starting January 1st. I think heading into spring, you’ll feel as though you’ve aged five years. By autumn you’ll need permanent oxygen tubes entrenched up your nostrils just to watch TV in the middle of a room while eating the four food groups. Once December rolls around, you’ll feel like that Sloth guy in the movie Se7en. Shining a flashlight into your eyes would basically put you into immediate shock.
Okay, I may be slightly exaggerating to prove my point. But if your college experience was anything like mine, you felt it took forever to get your degree.
And on that point, I’ve recently been somewhat nostalgic when reminiscing about my college years. I do have some regret that I didn’t have more fun. I signed up for an extremely difficult major for me. Let me just say that I took to Computer Science the way a snail takes to salt. At the time I’d shown no historical evidence that I could perform mathematics with any reasonable aptitude or shown any proof that I possessed the analytic nature to write code.
So I had to study and work very hard while my other college friends had more fun.
However, my college life wasn’t without some moments of fun. During college I worked as a sushi chef at a pretty happenin’ Japanese restaurant. Every Friday evening was a party as my regulars bought me beer after beer. Aside from a brew master, I believe a sushi chef is the only other job where you’re urged by management to drink beer (with the customers of course).
Ah, yes – drinking beers. There’s nothing better than completely buzzing on a few beers and leaning over to your buddy and whispering into his ear as if you’re letting him in on a soul-bearing age-old family secret, “Dude, I’m so drunk right now.”
Well, the only thing that beats that is when the dude-bonding moment is consummated by the reciprocal whisper back, “Yah dude, me too.” At that point, you knew the night was on.
Ever notice that when you did this whisper back and forth, you always had to use your hand as a mini megaphone to channel the whisper into your buddy’s ear canal? Doesn’t that small physical act make the secret that much more intimate?
Hearing those four words back from your buddy became the tipping point (figuratively and many times literally) of the evening where the end result was to be a bad hangover the next morning. There was really no way back from that point on.
You’d think that you’d be able to cross the tipping point of the evening and leverage some basic common sense to stop drinking and find your way back. Especially given the amount of pain and anguish that hangovers wrought upon the silly fools who lacked the proper fear and respect of the diamond-splinter headaches caused by excess drinking.
I remember I always rationalized it by thinking, “I’ll let ‘morning Neil’ handle the hangover,” as if he were a completely different person that was going to deal with the repercussions of the previous evening’s fun.
Of course, there were those rare times where the tipping point was never achieved. There is no bigger downer that induced instant sobriety faster than if you told your buddy that you were drunk, and your buddy replied with, “Really? Because I’m not feeling it at all.”
One of my favorite stories is when a bunch of my friends and I were waiting outside of PF Chang’s for a table. The table was under my name so the hostess gave me a plastic buzzing device, which when buzzed, indicated that our table was ready.
We had gone to the bar and bought some cocktails to make our wait more bearable. So we were hanging outside to wait as we started our normal socializing. After about fifteen minutes, the buzzer starts to buzz in my back pocket. So I tell everyone, “Hey everyone, I’m getting buzzed.”
So one my dearest friends in the world, Krista, shouts out to the group with her drink in hand, “You are? So am I!”
I was really confused because I thought we were all sitting at the same table. So I take out the buzzer and show it to her. And that’s when it hit me. I couldn’t stop laughing, and neither could she.
I actually must thank Krista for the gift that she gave me that day. I’ve told that story in many a social setting and it arms me with awesome ice-breaking material. This is the type of story that must have happened in real life, because to have made that up would be to have tapped into some creative netherworld, yet to be visited.
Moving on, have you ever been really drunk and wanted to wind down the night by kicking back and watching a movie? I’ve found that the perceived length of the movie is inversely proportional to the amount of alcohol in your blood at that time. The more drunk you are, the shorter the movie seems, right?
Hmmm, maybe I’m on to something here. Perhaps had I drank more during college and watched more movies, it would have flown by faster.
Let me finish this entry by confessing that though the 20-year reunion has made me the nostalgic fool that I am, I do not go out and get drunk just to relive some of my college years. But it is fun to reminisce over the fun drunk stories that have taken place.
And while I’m confessing, I’d also like to say that the ‘starting high school early’ thing may not be true – *wink wink*.
Friday, January 25, 2008
Lunch Club
At work I’m part of a regular lunch group that typically eats together at least 90% of the time. We take our lunches extremely seriously and therefore eat at restaurants with excellent food and service. We take our time, enjoy each other’s company and generally recharge our batteries for the second half of the work day.
Unfortunately, we’ve lost one of our key members. Robyn has moved to another company and is currently taking on a new and exciting position. On behalf of the lunch club, we wish her well.
We now have open head-count for our lunch club. The requisition for this open position doesn’t come around very often, and we are extremely selective of who we hire. You’d have an easier time becoming a member at Augusta National than joining our lunch club. Filling Robyn’s shoes will be extremely difficult and challenging.
I’m asking if you know of anybody with the proper qualifications and experience level who may be available for our lunch club, please send me their resume. There is a $10,000 finder’s fee if we take on this new lunch member as a full-time exempt lunch buddy. There will be a 90-day or 20-lunch probation period; which ever comes first. The lunch club will form a sub-committee to evaluate the candidate to make the decision to bring them on full time; or not at all.
Please read the following job description:
Lunch Buddy – Cupertino CA
Unfortunately, we’ve lost one of our key members. Robyn has moved to another company and is currently taking on a new and exciting position. On behalf of the lunch club, we wish her well.
We now have open head-count for our lunch club. The requisition for this open position doesn’t come around very often, and we are extremely selective of who we hire. You’d have an easier time becoming a member at Augusta National than joining our lunch club. Filling Robyn’s shoes will be extremely difficult and challenging.
I’m asking if you know of anybody with the proper qualifications and experience level who may be available for our lunch club, please send me their resume. There is a $10,000 finder’s fee if we take on this new lunch member as a full-time exempt lunch buddy. There will be a 90-day or 20-lunch probation period; which ever comes first. The lunch club will form a sub-committee to evaluate the candidate to make the decision to bring them on full time; or not at all.
Please read the following job description:
Lunch Buddy – Cupertino CA
Tracking Code
17649-870
Job Location
This position is based in Cupertino, California.
Position Type
Full Time
Job Description
We are looking for a talented and interesting go-getter with exquisite culinary skills and the ability to talk about extremely diverse subject matter (typically The Tour De France, Raising Children, Tiger Woods and Movies / TV / Books). The ideal candidate will possess the ability to eat various types of food and push back on work endeavors to allow for more eating time. This position requires a utility player with strong sense of humor as well as a strong ability to handle off-color and often times downright offensive humor. The candidate should be able to dish out as well as take the cross-table jabs that typically are directed at other members of the lunch club.
- Leave for lunch much earlier than most employees
- Get back to work much later than most employees
- Lie to non-members of the lunch club so that the lunch club may leave for lunch on time (early)
- Talk about interesting things your kid(s) did the night before
- If you don’t have kids yet, you talk about your fictitious kid at home
- Order Hunan Chili Sauce and Sprouts with Garlic for entire lunch club when appropriate
- Abide by rule number one of the lunch club: You don’t talk about lunch club
- Abide by rule number two of lunch club: You DO NOT talk about lunch club
- Participate in Tour De France discussions
- If you don’t care about the Tour De France, you must feign interest
- Provide levity and humor to discussions
- Order Dim Sum for the entire lunch club if positioned in the seat next to the steam cart
- Join other members of lunch club for a mid-afternoon coffee break at Starbucks
Experience and Required Skills:
- Solid background and knowledge of Asian food (Dim Sum and Sushi required)
- A BS/BA in Quick Wit
- Strong ability to cope with behavior that may border on sexual harassment
- Ability to eat collaboratively
- Ability to not be grossed out by the appetites of other members of lunch club
- Excellent communication skills
- Excellent attention to detail
- Understanding of all ingredients in a great sashimi salad
- Strong knowledge of the Simpsons is a plus
- Experience in Protune Delivery Service is a major plus (likely automatic grandfathering)
Thank you for your interest.
Friday, January 18, 2008
Top Five Favorite Friday
Top Five Favorite Movies of 2007
Now, if you read the title of this entry closely, you’ll see that this is *not* the Top Five Movies of 2007. This is my top five *favorite* movies of 2007. Admittedly, this list is not about to compete with ‘Citizen Kane’, ‘The Godfather’, ‘Casablanca’, ‘Lawrence of Arabia’ and ‘Breaking Two: Electric Boogaloo’.
Nothing on my list will go down in the annals of history like those five classics. But for some lame reason or another, the following five movies struck a chord within, and navigated their way up the list to make my top five favorite movies of 2007.
*Spoiler Alert* -- There are some spoilers in the following blog entry. Please continue reading at your own risk.
5. No Country For Old Men
This movie is on the list for one reason and one reason only. Last year, no movie haunted me or kept me thinking long after the movie was over -- more than No Country.
Much of this may be attributed to the main antagonist, Anton Chigurh. I have never watched a character more devoid of emotion, and yet possessed a hypnotic ability to bring out the emotions of the audience. This facinating dichotomy pulls you into the movie without you knowing it.
The signature scene in this movie is the scene in the room between Chigurh and Carla Jean Moss. Earlier in the movie, another important character alludes to the fact that Chigurh may be evil, but he has his principles from which he never deviates. Carla Jean Moss, as we find, is a woman of incredibly strong principles as well. So strong in fact, that hers triumph over Chigurh’s in their lone conversation, and it is the first time that we actually see Chigurh in the inferior position between himself and his prey.
I won’t tell you how the scene ends, but what I will say is that the ending only works to heighten our feelings of Carla and what she stands for.
I don’t think it’s a coincidence that soon after this scene, we finally see Chigurh take a blow in the most random fashion – a random act in which he had absolutely no control. And thanks to Carla, we finally see Chigurh stripped of his mystique, walking away towards absolutely nothing.
4. Juno
Juno ranked first on Roger Ebert’s top ten movies of 2007. Rog is the only movie critic whose opinion I value. In this instance however, I don’t necessarily agree with him. I don’t believe Ellen Page pulled off the most impressive performance of 2007; and I especially don’t think she embodied the Juno character to the point where her snappy, over-the-top dialogue disappeared into anything close to reality.
But I admit there are some extremely funny and creative lines. Case in point:
While Juno is shaking the positive home pregnancy test like she’s cooling down a thermometer hoping to somehow change its status, the store clerk quips, “That ain’t no etcha-sketch… this is one doodle that can’t be un-did, home skillet.”
As opposed to most people who love Juno for its dialogue, I actually gravitated to the two characters who were most real to me; Paulie Bleeker (performed by Michael Cera) and Vanessa Loring (performed by Jennifer Garner). They are the emotional centers of this movie, and are therefore really the two most important characters for the movie’s overall likeability.
Jennifer Garner’s Vanessa Loring is Juno’s baby’s adoptive mother to be. She has a magical scene with Juno after she unexpectedly runs into her in a mall. You’ll know the scene I’m talking about.
Michael Cera’s Paulie Bleeker is Juno’s pseudo-boyfriend and father of the child. He has many oustanding scenes. However, allow me to call out one scene in particular. It's the scene at the end when Bleeker and Juno, guitars-a-strumming, sing the duet, “Anyone Else But You.” It’s one of those wonderful scenes where you feel the writer thought of that beautiful scene and then wondered, “What a great scene for a movie! Now, how do I get my two characters to that scene?”
3. Alien vs. Predator: Requiem
I loved this movie!
Perhaps you didn’t read that correctly, so let me reiterate: I LOVED THIS MOVIE!
Here’s the thing. It’s really impossible to make a great AVP movie. You’re combining two extremely popular and successful franchises and trying to merge their worlds while staying within the confines and rules that the original movies created.
If you stay within the confines, you fail because you haven’t made anything new. If you go outside the confines, then you lose the magic and ties to the originals. It’s the ultimate cinematic catch-22.
So the only way you can make a successful AVP movie is to do your best to pay homage to the original movies for 120 minutes – and that, my dear readers, is exactly what they did.
Aliens, is James Cameron’s true masterpiece. You can take his Terminator, Terminator 2 and Titanic – I’ll keep Aliens. Aliens is perfection to me and is by far his best movie.
I’m also one of the biggest original Predator fans too. Predator was directed by John McTiernan, who actually made the greatest action movie of all time: the original Die Hard. Predator was an excellent follow-up to Die Hard. So good in fact that I saw Predator four times in the theater when it was first released.
AVP:R was replete with many subtle payments of pure homage to the original Predator and original Aliens that at times during the viewing, I was actually transported back being fifteen years old watching those movies for the first time. Now, I could go on and on about the many payments of homage, but you’d have to be an Aliens and Predator geek like me to appreciate them.
However, if you are, you should do yourself a favor and check this movie out.
2. Zodiac
I have a strange fascination with serial killers. I think it all started back in 1995, when I saw Jonathan Douglas on a TV talk show. Douglas is the FBI agent that founded the behavioral science unit in Quantico Virginia (FBI headquarters). He was the original creator of serial killer profiling, which is the science of investigating a murder scene and creating a profile of the potential killer based on evidence.
Douglas interviewed hundreds of killers in prison and began to create profiles of killers based on a wide range of factors and circumstances. For instance, this was taken from one of several books that I read which Douglas co-wrote based on his experiences tracking serial killers:
A serial killer was terrorizing woman joggers in a heavily wooded area. He would come up from behind and attack his victims. Douglas profiled the killer they were looking for and told the police force that, based on the evidence, you should be looking for a white male, thirty years in age, who drives a VW bug, lives with his mother and will most likely have a speech impediment.
Once the police caught the killer, they found that Douglas had profiled him perfectly.
Now, let’s talk about Zodiac. The story of the Zodiac killer almost seems so outrageous and over-the-top, that you’d swear it was made up from the imagination of an overzealous script writer. But the fascinating story is entirely true. The Zodiac killer terrorized the San Francisco area in the 60’s and 70’s, and was never caught. I won’t get into the fascinating details of the Zodiac Killer, lest you want to check it out yourself.
But I do want to talk about David Fincher. Fincher, the director of Zodiac, has held a special place in my heart ever since he made the incredible movie, ‘Seven’. This was a fictional serial killer movie starring Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman, and it’s the best of its kind. It makes ‘The Silence of the Lambs’ seem like a cartoon.
However, Zodiac is Fincher’s most accomplished and mature movie to date. I sum it up like this: Zodiac is to Seven what Schindler’s List was to ET. It’s a movie that is the culmination of an extremely talented director finally perfecting his craft through years of successes, albeit lesser successes in comparison.
Zodiac is an incredible movie.
1. Hairspray
I really feel I need to explain myself on this one. The seeds of love that I have for this movie were planted years ago when, as an eight year old, I saw a movie called, ‘Grease’. In case you’ve lived in a cave all of your life, I’ll inform you that Grease starred John Travolta and Olivia Newton John. After watching Grease for the first time, all I can say is I was Danny Zuko for the next few months – I had the double-record soundtrack to boot!
Combine that with the annual ritual of watching ‘The Sound of Music’ every Christmas season, and what you get is me, in my full-musical-nerd glory!
I love musicals.
Hairspray pays homage to its Grease ancestor in many ways. If you’re a Grease fan, you’ll see them from the very first minute of the movie.
Plus how can you top John Travolta in drag, dancing and singing with Christopher Walken? It doesn’t get much better than that.
The last fifteen minutes of Hairspray is so fun and feel-good, I really can’t do it justice with written words. If you check it out, I challenge you not to let the infectious song, ‘You Can’t Stop the Beat’, infiltrate the most obscure recesses of your mind until you absolutely need to download it and listen to it over and over again.
I also admire that Hairspray aims high in its ambition. It has strong messages surrounding civil rights and desegregation in the 1960's.
Oh, and one more thing. In the final scene, when John Travolta is right about to take the stage and begin singing and dancing, check out the expression he gets on his face. It’s a distinct Greased-Lightening-Tony-Manero-I’m-About-To-Blow-This-Disco-Mutha-Out look that only John Travolta can create.
I own the special edition DVD. I’m not too proud to admit that. If you ever want to check out Hairspray, come over to my place and I’ll be more than happy to watch it again… and again… and again.
Now, if you read the title of this entry closely, you’ll see that this is *not* the Top Five Movies of 2007. This is my top five *favorite* movies of 2007. Admittedly, this list is not about to compete with ‘Citizen Kane’, ‘The Godfather’, ‘Casablanca’, ‘Lawrence of Arabia’ and ‘Breaking Two: Electric Boogaloo’.
Nothing on my list will go down in the annals of history like those five classics. But for some lame reason or another, the following five movies struck a chord within, and navigated their way up the list to make my top five favorite movies of 2007.
*Spoiler Alert* -- There are some spoilers in the following blog entry. Please continue reading at your own risk.
5. No Country For Old Men
This movie is on the list for one reason and one reason only. Last year, no movie haunted me or kept me thinking long after the movie was over -- more than No Country.
Much of this may be attributed to the main antagonist, Anton Chigurh. I have never watched a character more devoid of emotion, and yet possessed a hypnotic ability to bring out the emotions of the audience. This facinating dichotomy pulls you into the movie without you knowing it.
The signature scene in this movie is the scene in the room between Chigurh and Carla Jean Moss. Earlier in the movie, another important character alludes to the fact that Chigurh may be evil, but he has his principles from which he never deviates. Carla Jean Moss, as we find, is a woman of incredibly strong principles as well. So strong in fact, that hers triumph over Chigurh’s in their lone conversation, and it is the first time that we actually see Chigurh in the inferior position between himself and his prey.
I won’t tell you how the scene ends, but what I will say is that the ending only works to heighten our feelings of Carla and what she stands for.
I don’t think it’s a coincidence that soon after this scene, we finally see Chigurh take a blow in the most random fashion – a random act in which he had absolutely no control. And thanks to Carla, we finally see Chigurh stripped of his mystique, walking away towards absolutely nothing.
4. Juno
Juno ranked first on Roger Ebert’s top ten movies of 2007. Rog is the only movie critic whose opinion I value. In this instance however, I don’t necessarily agree with him. I don’t believe Ellen Page pulled off the most impressive performance of 2007; and I especially don’t think she embodied the Juno character to the point where her snappy, over-the-top dialogue disappeared into anything close to reality.
But I admit there are some extremely funny and creative lines. Case in point:
While Juno is shaking the positive home pregnancy test like she’s cooling down a thermometer hoping to somehow change its status, the store clerk quips, “That ain’t no etcha-sketch… this is one doodle that can’t be un-did, home skillet.”
As opposed to most people who love Juno for its dialogue, I actually gravitated to the two characters who were most real to me; Paulie Bleeker (performed by Michael Cera) and Vanessa Loring (performed by Jennifer Garner). They are the emotional centers of this movie, and are therefore really the two most important characters for the movie’s overall likeability.
Jennifer Garner’s Vanessa Loring is Juno’s baby’s adoptive mother to be. She has a magical scene with Juno after she unexpectedly runs into her in a mall. You’ll know the scene I’m talking about.
Michael Cera’s Paulie Bleeker is Juno’s pseudo-boyfriend and father of the child. He has many oustanding scenes. However, allow me to call out one scene in particular. It's the scene at the end when Bleeker and Juno, guitars-a-strumming, sing the duet, “Anyone Else But You.” It’s one of those wonderful scenes where you feel the writer thought of that beautiful scene and then wondered, “What a great scene for a movie! Now, how do I get my two characters to that scene?”
3. Alien vs. Predator: Requiem
I loved this movie!
Perhaps you didn’t read that correctly, so let me reiterate: I LOVED THIS MOVIE!
Here’s the thing. It’s really impossible to make a great AVP movie. You’re combining two extremely popular and successful franchises and trying to merge their worlds while staying within the confines and rules that the original movies created.
If you stay within the confines, you fail because you haven’t made anything new. If you go outside the confines, then you lose the magic and ties to the originals. It’s the ultimate cinematic catch-22.
So the only way you can make a successful AVP movie is to do your best to pay homage to the original movies for 120 minutes – and that, my dear readers, is exactly what they did.
Aliens, is James Cameron’s true masterpiece. You can take his Terminator, Terminator 2 and Titanic – I’ll keep Aliens. Aliens is perfection to me and is by far his best movie.
I’m also one of the biggest original Predator fans too. Predator was directed by John McTiernan, who actually made the greatest action movie of all time: the original Die Hard. Predator was an excellent follow-up to Die Hard. So good in fact that I saw Predator four times in the theater when it was first released.
AVP:R was replete with many subtle payments of pure homage to the original Predator and original Aliens that at times during the viewing, I was actually transported back being fifteen years old watching those movies for the first time. Now, I could go on and on about the many payments of homage, but you’d have to be an Aliens and Predator geek like me to appreciate them.
However, if you are, you should do yourself a favor and check this movie out.
2. Zodiac
I have a strange fascination with serial killers. I think it all started back in 1995, when I saw Jonathan Douglas on a TV talk show. Douglas is the FBI agent that founded the behavioral science unit in Quantico Virginia (FBI headquarters). He was the original creator of serial killer profiling, which is the science of investigating a murder scene and creating a profile of the potential killer based on evidence.
Douglas interviewed hundreds of killers in prison and began to create profiles of killers based on a wide range of factors and circumstances. For instance, this was taken from one of several books that I read which Douglas co-wrote based on his experiences tracking serial killers:
A serial killer was terrorizing woman joggers in a heavily wooded area. He would come up from behind and attack his victims. Douglas profiled the killer they were looking for and told the police force that, based on the evidence, you should be looking for a white male, thirty years in age, who drives a VW bug, lives with his mother and will most likely have a speech impediment.
Once the police caught the killer, they found that Douglas had profiled him perfectly.
Now, let’s talk about Zodiac. The story of the Zodiac killer almost seems so outrageous and over-the-top, that you’d swear it was made up from the imagination of an overzealous script writer. But the fascinating story is entirely true. The Zodiac killer terrorized the San Francisco area in the 60’s and 70’s, and was never caught. I won’t get into the fascinating details of the Zodiac Killer, lest you want to check it out yourself.
But I do want to talk about David Fincher. Fincher, the director of Zodiac, has held a special place in my heart ever since he made the incredible movie, ‘Seven’. This was a fictional serial killer movie starring Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman, and it’s the best of its kind. It makes ‘The Silence of the Lambs’ seem like a cartoon.
However, Zodiac is Fincher’s most accomplished and mature movie to date. I sum it up like this: Zodiac is to Seven what Schindler’s List was to ET. It’s a movie that is the culmination of an extremely talented director finally perfecting his craft through years of successes, albeit lesser successes in comparison.
Zodiac is an incredible movie.
1. Hairspray
I really feel I need to explain myself on this one. The seeds of love that I have for this movie were planted years ago when, as an eight year old, I saw a movie called, ‘Grease’. In case you’ve lived in a cave all of your life, I’ll inform you that Grease starred John Travolta and Olivia Newton John. After watching Grease for the first time, all I can say is I was Danny Zuko for the next few months – I had the double-record soundtrack to boot!
Combine that with the annual ritual of watching ‘The Sound of Music’ every Christmas season, and what you get is me, in my full-musical-nerd glory!
I love musicals.
Hairspray pays homage to its Grease ancestor in many ways. If you’re a Grease fan, you’ll see them from the very first minute of the movie.
Plus how can you top John Travolta in drag, dancing and singing with Christopher Walken? It doesn’t get much better than that.
The last fifteen minutes of Hairspray is so fun and feel-good, I really can’t do it justice with written words. If you check it out, I challenge you not to let the infectious song, ‘You Can’t Stop the Beat’, infiltrate the most obscure recesses of your mind until you absolutely need to download it and listen to it over and over again.
I also admire that Hairspray aims high in its ambition. It has strong messages surrounding civil rights and desegregation in the 1960's.
Oh, and one more thing. In the final scene, when John Travolta is right about to take the stage and begin singing and dancing, check out the expression he gets on his face. It’s a distinct Greased-Lightening-Tony-Manero-I’m-About-To-Blow-This-Disco-Mutha-Out look that only John Travolta can create.
I own the special edition DVD. I’m not too proud to admit that. If you ever want to check out Hairspray, come over to my place and I’ll be more than happy to watch it again… and again… and again.
Monday, January 14, 2008
Epilogue: Top Five Favorite Shopping Moments
Sometimes, I have to strain really hard to come up with material for my blog entries.
However, in very rare instances, life provides me with material so obvious and rich with content, that the only thing missing is the accompanying soundtrack music to 2001: A Space Odyssey.
In order to get the full effect of this entry, you need to read my Top Five Favorite Moments While Christmas Shopping.
http://myglobpage.blogspot.com/2008/01/top-five-favorite-friday.html
Okay, now that you’re all caught up, check this out…
A few days ago, my Mom calls me on my cell phone and tells me that she just finished reading my Top Five Favorite Moments While Christmas Shopping. She then asks me, “Did the kiosk where you purchased the beauty kit reside on the lower level of the mall near Men’s Macy’s?”
“Yes,” I answer. “It’s actually very near Nordstrom’s.”
“Did the sales girl have long dark hair?” she continued.
“Yes she did,” I replied.
“Well,” my Mom continued. “Your father bought four beauty kits from her.”
I kid you not, dear reader. My Dad bought FOUR! I’m hoping that Rebecka will now cut me a bit more slack given that I’ve been genetically programmed to buy beauty kits from attractive sales girls. I absolutely had no choice in the matter.
I knew it wasn’t my fault.
However, in very rare instances, life provides me with material so obvious and rich with content, that the only thing missing is the accompanying soundtrack music to 2001: A Space Odyssey.
In order to get the full effect of this entry, you need to read my Top Five Favorite Moments While Christmas Shopping.
http://myglobpage.blogspot.com/2008/01/top-five-favorite-friday.html
Okay, now that you’re all caught up, check this out…
A few days ago, my Mom calls me on my cell phone and tells me that she just finished reading my Top Five Favorite Moments While Christmas Shopping. She then asks me, “Did the kiosk where you purchased the beauty kit reside on the lower level of the mall near Men’s Macy’s?”
“Yes,” I answer. “It’s actually very near Nordstrom’s.”
“Did the sales girl have long dark hair?” she continued.
“Yes she did,” I replied.
“Well,” my Mom continued. “Your father bought four beauty kits from her.”
I kid you not, dear reader. My Dad bought FOUR! I’m hoping that Rebecka will now cut me a bit more slack given that I’ve been genetically programmed to buy beauty kits from attractive sales girls. I absolutely had no choice in the matter.
I knew it wasn’t my fault.
Saturday, January 5, 2008
Swing Thoughts
You’ve heard athletes say it before.
“The game seemed to slow down.”
“I knew what the defense was going to do before they did it.”
“I let the game come to me.”
“I was in the zone.”
Sports psychologists have determined “the zone” to be a state an athlete may attain in which all conscious thought ceases to hinder performance. There is a feeling of freedom as they perform their sport at the highest level. Interestingly enough, we all visit the zone many times during the day.
For instance, when you tie your shoes, you’re usually in the zone. We don’t have to utilize much conscious thought to tie our shoes. In contrast, a toddler who is learning to tie their shoes is not in the zone.
When we are using a spoon to eat of bowl of soup, we are in the zone. We are also in the zone when we are walking to get a cup of coffee. Oh, and when we drink that coffee? – the zone. I think you get the picture.
So it goes without saying that playing golf with a free mind which is uncluttered of conscious thought, provides the optimal opportunity to play your best golf. In my sixteen years that I’ve played golf I don’t think I’ve ever visited the zone. I've never even sniffed the zone. I really can’t explain why.
Let’s see, when I setup over the ball to begin my swing, my only swing thought is to rotate my upper body in a circular motion without swaying my hips to the right. That’s all I really think about.
Oh, I also make sure my shoulders, forearms, hips, knees and feet are aligned parallel left to my target. Now I’m ready to hit the ball. Oh, wait – I also make sure the club is in the fingers of my right hand and I can see two knuckles on my left hand. Also, the “Vs” that are formed by both my thumbs and forefingers of both hands need to point to my right ear.
My arms have to hang down naturally as my spine and the club shaft create a 90 degree angle with each other. My weight needs to be evenly distributed while I’m balanced on the balls of my feet. There also needs to be a slight flex in my knees.
When I begin to start my backswing, I need to make sure the club shaft starts backwards on the same plane angle that it had at address. It also needs to remain outside my hands to ensure I don’t lay it off at the top.
I slowly need to start shifting my weight onto my right foot and without shifting beyond. My left shoulder starts to rotate under my chin as my wrists slowly start to hinge to ensure that when the club is first parallel to the ground; it’s also aligned perfectly parallel left of my intended target line. The club face also needs to be perfectly perpendicular to the ground. All of this ensures that I’m swinging on the appropriate plane angle with a square face so I won't have to reroute the club on the way down.
At this point, my shoulders should have turned roughly 90 degrees as my hips have turned only 20 degrees thus creating the necessary torque within my body to create the necessary club speed to hit the shot properly.
Once the club reaches the three quarter mark of the backswing, it must be on the same plane angle that it had at address as I finally start to complete my shoulder turn. My left shoulder will be completely under my chin at this point. My back faces my intended target.
The club shaft should be parallel left of my target line at the top of my backswing and my left wrist should be flat, which means it’s not bowed or cupped. Should the shaft not reach parallel to the ground, that's completely fine as long as it's the same degrees left of the parallel target line as it is from being completely parallel.
The face of the club should be parallel with my left forearm to ensure that it’s square. If it's open, I may slice the shot. If it's closed, I may hook it. My left arm should be as straight as possible as the large muscle that runs along the left side of my back feels the stored up torque that’s been created by the differential between my shoulders and hips.
My hips start to initiate the down swing as they begin to uncoil to the left. This will start to shift my weight which has been loaded on my right side to my left foot. My hips lead my shoulders, which lead my arms which lead my hands which lead the club shaft which leads the club head. This results in a whipping motion to create as much club head speed as possible. My left arm remains straight as my wrists maintain their cocked position as my hips are now clearing to the left.
A quarter of the way down, the club shaft should be on the same plane angle that it had at address. My wrists should still remain cocked to ensure that I won't cast the club at the ball resulting in a fat shot.
At the moment of impact, the club shaft returns to its original plane with my hands ahead of the club head. Also, my head must reside behind the ball. Once the ball leaves the club face, both my arms will extend straight out a few feet past contact, which is the only time during the swing that both arms attain full extension. 90% of my weight is now on my left foot. The heel of my right foot begins to rise off the ground leaving me to balance the rest of my weight on the toe of my right foot.
As the swing is finished, my belt buckle should now be facing my target as my body should be stacked straight over my left leg. At its final resting spot, the shaft should have the same plane angle that it had at address.
That’s it. The swing is done. Now I’m off to do it all over again.
I still don’t know why I’ve never been in the zone when I play golf.
Have any advice?
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