Ellie Day Injured at Cavalier's Game

In case you didn't see the NBA game between the Cleveland Cavaliers (that's LeBron James's team) and the Oklahoma City Thunder, there was an accident on the sidelines inside the final four minutes. LeBron James was going for a loose ball and fell into the crowd. He landed on a couple of women and their chairs collapsed; one of the women was caught under him.



When they showed the replay of the accident, you could see Jason Day sitting next to her. The injured woman was Jason's wife Ellie. The paramedics brought in a stretcher, strapped her in and secured her head, but she was apparently alert and talking. That's a good sign.

The TV people didn't realize who she was until the cameras caught Jason leaving right behind the paramedics and stretcher.

It's not unusual for extra folding chairs to be set up courtside. Those are where the VIPS get to sit. Of course, if you take one of those seats, you are RIGHT THERE as close to the action as you can get. Accidents do happen sometimes, but usually they're relatively harmless affairs -- you know, things like fans getting covered in beer and nachos.

In this case, Ellie and Jason were too close. LeBron is 6'8" and around 260 lbs, and this game was really tight. (The Cavs won, 104-100.) Players are going to go after loose balls when the game is that close... and when they do, they often end up in the bleachers. OFTEN. And a lot of those players are as big as LeBron. I don't care who you are, that's gonna hurt.

And while you don't see it in the video above, LeBron came back after the play and spent some time trying to find out how she was. Players usually do come back and check on their fans after the play is over. (I've seen LeBron do that many times.) But again, this sort of collision happens frequently during games and LeBron didn't know how bad this one was at first.

At the time I'm writing this, I don't have any further reports on her condition beyond her being taken to a local hospital for treatment. I got that from ESPN's Cavs reporter Brian Windhorst (@WindhorstESPN) and from this post at cleveland.com. According to that post, not only are the Days and the Cavs players good friends but Jason had been helping the Cavs with a promotion during a timeout. It also says that LeBron was "noticeably shaken" by what happened to Ellie, which is to be expected.

According to Windhorst, Jason and Ellie have a home in Columbus and regularly attend Cav games. But I'm guessing they may consider sitting a bit farther from the court once Ellie's healthy enough to attend another game.

LATE UPDATE: Scott Van Pelt on ESPN's midnight show said that, although there weren't many details, he could report that Ellie is apparently going to be okay but they were going to keep her at the hospital overnight for observation. Good news! 

MORNING UPDATE: LeBron told reporters that, after Ellie was on the stretcher, she squeezed his hand and told him she was alright. And the word is that she was released this morning and that she is indeed alright.

Since Tour Pros Are Such Big Sports Fans...

I found this Tuesday and just couldn't resist posting it, although *technically* it isn't golf-related. But since we always hear the PGA Tour pros discussing their favorite sports teams (and the ladies do it as well), and since we're right on the verge of March Madness -- which, for those of you who live outside the States, is what we call the NCAA college men's and women's basketball championships -- this seemed just perfect.

I'm a huge Weird Al Yankovic fan, and this is from his latest album Mandatory Fun. Rather than being a parody of a specific song, it's a parody of college fight songs simply called Sports Song. You can find a version of it on YouTube (I can't embed it because embedding has been disabled for this video) but it's better if you go to this link at the Funny or Die website anyway because they have the high-definition version of the song.

And yes, I know that they're marching on a football field but the college bands always play their teams' fight songs at the March Madness events.



As the tagline says, "'Weird Al' Yankovic doesn't need a full marching band behind him to tell you your team sucks. But it definitely doesn't hurt." Enjoy!

A Variety of Newsy Tidbits

Just thought I'd collect a few things I've heard over the past few days and link to some more in-depth info about them (if available). All-in-all, I've got 6 short announcements you may have missed.

First of all, during the final round of the Lorena Ochoa Invitational, GC's Tom Abbott did confirm that Suzann Pettersen is now working with Butch Harmon. I noted that she had left longtime teacher David Leadbetter a few weeks back and wondered if Suzann was working with Butch last week, but now we know for sure. Given the dramatic change Rickie Fowler has seen in just one year, this change could have a major effect on next year's LPGA results.

Tim Rosaforte mentioned several bits on Monday's Morning Drive. One note is that Tiger is working on his swing by himself for now -- although he's been bouncing ideas off Notah Begay III, which has been common knowledge for weeks -- but also that Tiger has apparently been trimming down as well. Some will suspect it's a result of all the criticism he's received for getting "too big" while others speculate that it may be a result of the swing he's building.

If Rosaforte is correct, I suspect it's the latter; when LeBron James left the Miami Heat to return to the Cleveland Cavaliers, he also trimmed down because he expected to play a different position with the Cavs. Rosaforte theorized that Tiger might be going back to the way he swung when he first came on Tour. Should be interesting when he shows up at his own event in early December!

Also mentioned is that Dustin Johnson expects to return to the Tour for the Farmers Insurance Open in February, assuming his fiance delivers their new baby in time. You can read a more detailed piece about DJ in this golfdigest.com blog post; while Rosaforte says this date also coincides with the rumored 6-month suspension, it appears DJ has made some serious life changes in the meantime. If so, the leave was worth it.

Lost in all the excitement last week was the news that Augusta National has added a third female member -- this time, it's IBM CEO Virginia (Ginni) Rometty.

Another bit of buzz concerns the tweet Greg Norman sent Ian Poulter after he missed that putt to tie Brooks Koepka in Turkey. ("Mate noticed something in your putting when I watched you yesterday. Easy fix.") You can check out the entire conversation on this thread at Ian's Twitter account. And yes, Ian says he wants the help.

This last one is also from Rosaforte, about Phil Mickelson's off-season training routine. Apparently Phil has lost 10 pounds and added 6mph to his swing, with plans to lose 20 pounds and add 10mph once he's done. If Phil and Tiger can both get in shape to compete with Rory next year... WOW!

I think that covers the most important bits I've heard... and now you've heard them too.

Thoughts About the Silver Decision

When something happens in one sport -- especially when that something involves a social issue -- it eventually has an effect on other sports. Golf isn't immune, so Tuesday's NBA drama caught my attention.



For those of you who didn't hear, Donald Sterling, the owner of the Los Angeles Clippers (a basketball team, for those of you unfamiliar with the NBA, and Sterling is pictured on the right in the above photo) has been in the center of a scandal because of some racist remarks he made last week. Sterling has, shall we say, a "poor record" where race relations are concerned... but this time the remarks were taped and made national news. To say that this has caused some outrage is an understatement -- you can read this SI article for more details -- but let's just say that this issue struck a deep nerve in this country and was on the verge of erupting into something really ugly among the NBA teams.

The man who had to deal with this is NBA Commissioner Adam Silver (on the left in the photo), who has been in office less than three months since the retirement of legendary commissioner David Stern. This novice found himself in the midst of a problem that would have given Stern and his 30 years of experience pause. Something had to be done and there was a lot of speculation about what the new guy would do. Most of the speculation I heard before his press conference Tuesday was that he would give Sterling an indefinite suspension. You see, the Commish works for the owners and it's not good to alienate your bosses.

But Silver did something that no one dared believe he would have the guts to do. He claimed every bit of power that the NBA bylaws gave him and proceeded to ban Sterling FOR LIFE, not only from the Clippers but from taking any part in the NBA. He gave him a $2.5 million fine, the largest he was authorized to give. And he announced that he was calling on the other owners to force Sterling to sell the team to someone else... and that he would do everything in his power to make sure it happened quickly. And perhaps most surprisingly, when asked how much trouble he would have getting the 75% support of the owners that he needed, he simply said he believed he already had it.

Now there are those who say this should have been done long ago, given Sterling's record. They're probably right. But this was Adam Silver's first chance to do something about it, and I think the real magnitude of what he did may have been overlooked.

You see, the players in any sport rarely trust the Commissioner because he is employed by the owners to oversee the owners' interests. You can see this in the NFL, where the players' union and the commissioner have a somewhat antagonistic relationship. Silver had been in constant touch with the NBA players' union over the last few days and, when his news conference was finished, the players' reps announced in no uncertain terms how pleased they were. They said (and these are almost the exact words) that Silver wasn't the NBA's commissioner, he was the players' commissioner.

There's a lot of talk about "bonding" within groups. In an elite group like NBA team owners -- the Clippers are estimated to be worth around $600 million, so there aren't many folks in that group! -- that bonding tends to join them pretty strongly. But Silver had been talking to owners as well, and by the end of his news conference some of the owners were already tweeting their support for what Silver had done.

Think about that, folks. A brand new commissioner successfully getting the players and the owners -- two groups who are usually at opposite ends of any issue -- to agree and pull together. That is an astounding accomplishment! And bear in mind that Silver is trained as a lawyer, so he is well aware of the potential problems of the course of action he has chosen.

But perhaps most surprising was how the fans reacted to all this. It seemed to resonate with everybody, not just the folks who are the typical targets. As Charles Barkley said, almost everybody has been the victim of some sort of prejudice, no matter what color they are. Sex, age, social status... you can discriminate in a lot of ways. And fans all over the country rallied around the players -- not just the Clippers, but all the NBA players.

Nobody likes to be left out.

Golf hasn't had anything resembling a scandal like this. However, the fact remains that if golf really wants to "grow the game," it faces some perception problems that will eventually have to be dealt with. The changes at the grassroots level haven't reached the powers-that-be at the top, the "players" who control the public face of the game. Up where the power is, it's still very much a rich white male's game. While the Masters Committee, the USGA, the R&A, and the PGA are trying to deal with some of these, a lot of the money players seem to have other ideas.

When Mike Whan called out Golf Digest for putting Holly Sonders and Paulina Gretzky on the cover while consistently ignoring players like Inbee Park and Lydia Ko who are making history, did anybody really understand what he was saying? There's still a belief that women's golf isn't "real" golf and that their real value in the golf community is as eye candy to sell magazines.

My skin crawls every time I hear golf described as "our product." I have no doubt that other sports have financial advisors who think in those terms, but I can't remember ever hearing baseball or tennis referred to as "product" during a broadcast.

And don't get me started about the expensive teaching aids sold to teach players (for example) how to "hold their wrist cock during the downswing" when all players really need to learn is how to keep their trailing elbows bent until their hands are down around waist level. (Wow. That's really hard. Probably takes all of 60 seconds to teach that.)

If I want to learn to play basketball, I can get a ball for $15 and a hoop for $20. I can bolt the hoop on a cheap scrap of plywood, mount it on the garage, and we're ready to go. I can get a good football for less than $20; all we need is a yard or vacant lot. How many players learned to play baseball with a ball and a stick in a city cul-de-sac? But I need several hundred dollars' worth of equipment plus greens fees to play golf, not to mention that I have to meet a dress code before they'll even let me on the course. Yeah, that's gonna encourage more people to play.

Tell me, what's wrong with this picture?

The more blatant prejudices may be fading somewhat -- or perhaps my patronage of public courses keeps me from seeing them as much -- but the image of golf as a sport for the rich and male is still far too prevalent. And we don't have a commissioner who can simply deal with the problems for us. They aren't going away on their own. It's up to us.

The big question is... how are we going to deal with them? Or will we ignore them until it's too late?

Alright, I Slacked Off

I spent the night watching the NBA Playoffs, so I didn't write a post for today. Everybody deserves a day off once in a while!

In case you didn't see it, the Miami Heat won. LeBron James finally got that monkey off his back and a championship ring on his finger. Whether you like LeBron or not -- he tends to be a polarizing figure, in case you don't keep up with pro basketball -- I think anybody can understand the joy and relief of finally achieving a difficult goal. Congrats, LeBron!

And for you OKC Thunder fans, I wouldn't worry about the loss. Those kids are still awfully young... and way too talented not to get another chance at the finals. (LOTS of chances, no doubt.)

Maybe Age Really Is Just a Number

Lately I've been considering the saying "the golf ball doesn't know how old you are."

Although it gets batted about by the media quite often, I'm convinced that few of them really believe it. If they did, would they be so shocked when Tom Watson competes at an Open Championship? Would they gaze in amazement when Fred Couples shows up on a Masters leaderboard... or on any PGA Tour leaderboard, for that matter? Would they be so surprised at the number of wins Vijay Singh has amassed since the age of 40?

No, clearly the media still doesn't believe their own words. It doesn't matter what they say, their attitudes are proof that they truly believe golf balls know your age... and have a vendetta against seniors.

Older players who have become commentators -- as well as commentators who never played -- just can't believe it when an Ernie Els or a Steve Stricker pokes his nose into the Top 10 of a tournament. They keep speculating on just how long Phil can "hold it together" and "be competitive." I'm beginning to believe that most of them are now convinced that the game has passed them by and therefore it's only fair if it passes by the rest of us as well.

I've got news for you, folks. All that talk about how your putting leaves you when you get older because you lose your nerve or get too much "scar tissue" from missed putts is just so much sour grapes. Don't listen to those who lament how young players play with such confidence and how "those days are gone for us older folks."

Do you want to know why older players struggle with their games while younger players don't? It's because the older players have learned so much that they believe they can control every aspect of their games. They believe that if putts don't go in, it's because they didn't take something into account. They believe that if they don't take all those things into account, they are bad golfers and even worse people. So they "focus" themselves into a nervous mindset that won't settle for less than perfection. And this attempt to over-control their games eventually destroys their ability to play well.

But those are lies, folks -- pure boldfaced lies. You never control it all. You never did, and you never will.

Ernie Els and Steve Stricker aren't unusual in their passion to keep playing. They're just unusual in that they haven't given in to the lies that most golfers believe. They know the game hasn't passed them by. As long as you're reasonably healthy and willing to play the game with the same patience you need to live your life, the game will never leave you.

Even players in other sports are beginning to realize this. Payton Manning expects to make some waves with the Denver Broncos this year, and other "old" players are proving that they can still play football with the young kids.

I've been watching the NBA Playoffs as I write this. The Dallas Mavericks were supposed to be too old to win last year and after they did, the oddsmakers didn't even give them a fighting chance to defend. Well, here they are in the playoffs again and giving the much younger Oklahoma City Thunder a run for their money in the first game. Too old indeed.

Several of the young players on various teams are out of the playoffs due to injuries sustained during this shortened season. The Boston Celtics were written off early in the season because they were too old, and people laughed at the San Antonio Spurs when Tim Duncan sat out a game earlier this year and the listed reason was simply "old." But not only did both teams make the playoffs in relative good health, but the Spurs finished with the best record in the West and analysts are saying that nobody wants to face the Celtics right now.

Maybe age is just a number after all... and not just in golf. If I were you, I would ignore the people who tell you otherwise.

And if you suspect your golf ball really does know your age, just lose it. Ignorant balls are available by the dozen.

Tiger Going Forward

Tiger and Phil are topics debated without perspective since Sunday. In an effort to restore a little balance, I'll look at Tiger today and Phil tomorrow. Hopefully you'll also learn some things from each post that can help your own game.

You'd think Tiger had never lost a golf tournament. I've heard Tiger declared a has-been, compared to Heat player LeBron James (able to play for three quarters, freeze up in the fourth), called a choker, and even his fashion sense Sunday was criticized. (And no, sad to say, that's not a joke.) Everyone was so convinced that this was the week Tiger "reasserted himself" and walked off into the California sunset, his AT&T trophy glinting triumphantly in the fading daylight, that his loss seems to have destroyed their belief in the natural order of the universe.

I maintain that intimidation tells you nothing about the so-called intimidator, although it tells you loads about the intimidated. Still, I'll play along. Answer me one question -- when did Tiger cease to be "intimidating"? Would you agree that it was sometime after June 2008 when he beat Rocco at the U.S. Open? All we could talk about then was how Tiger on a broken leg could still beat healthy players. He intimidated his opponents into submission, right? That's what we said.

Yet Phil's "domination" of Tiger -- the five final rounds that he has played with and beat Tiger heads-up, during which time he has won three of those tournaments and Tiger has won none -- began at the 2007 Deutsche Bank, nearly a full year before that Open and two full years before Y.E. Yang won the 2009 PGA -- which was, in turn, shortly before talk began about Tiger "losing his aura."

Yesterday I wrote:

"I know everybody talks about him having worked with Sean Foley since late 2010. But since he wasn't healthy enough to do any continuous work until after the PGA Championship last year, I don't see this as more than maybe 8 or 9 months of useful work. Tim Rosaforte noted that Tiger had similar problems when he was making his first swing change with Butch..."

Those problems I referred to were problems related to controlling his distances -- which, btw, are a function of trajectory problems. Tiger may trust his swing shape, but it's going to take him some time to control his trajectory because he's changed the way he's always done it. That change is how he hopes to eliminate those wild hooks of his.

(You may recall some time back that I said you'd get more good from learning trajectory control than shaping shots. As long as you have a shot you can predict, regardless of whether it's a draw or a fade, trajectory control is the best use of your practice time. And, if I might make another point, he's now learning it the way I've suggested you learn to play -- with a slight forward shaft lean. That lean is how Tiger has improved his fairway accuracy, and why his miss is now a fairly consistent shot to the right. That's also how Hogan played it.)

The putting problems aren't nerves. I also wrote a couple of weeks ago that I believe Tiger is developing a new strategy for winning. I called it his new poker face. You might say Tiger wrote the book on power golf, and now everybody's copying it. (Not as well, but they're trying. They've missed some key components.) But his body is changing, so his game has to change... and so does his mental approach. I think he's trying more to let the game come to him rather than trying to grab control. This was the less aggressive but very effective approach Jack Nicklaus used. Give Tiger credit for recognizing the need to change -- while everybody else copies, innovate! -- but it's hard to change when you're used to making things happen. Tiger wants a win but it's not coming quick enough, so when he gets a decent chance at birdie he tries to force it.

When you try to force putts into the hole, you generally grip too tight and interrupt the flow that allows line and distance to come easily. And in a word, when you grip too tight you tend to yip. Phil did the same thing for the last two years and finally realized that Bobby Jones was right:

There are, of course, good putters among the so-called average putters who by patience, study, and practice have developed putting methods they follow as they would a ritual; on the other hand, these instances are rare.

Anyone who hopes to reduce putting -- or any other department of the game of golf for that matter -- to an exact science, is in for a serious disappointment, and will only suffer from the attempt. (Bobby Jones on Golf, page 88)

Jones said more, but this is sufficient to make the point. Phil finally figured it out, and Tiger will too. They didn't become the greatest players of recent years by being stupid.

I know everyone is bummed out because Tiger lost Sunday. (Well, Phil isn't... but that's another story.) Don't despair, Tiger fans. He's a long way from finished, and he's got plenty of time to beat Jack's record. As for his swing, Tiger has always said it takes 15 months or so for him to "own" a new one. He may win before then, but we should withhold any judgments about his future until we see what he's like in June or July. I suspect things will look quite different by then. Even Phil said as much in his after-tournament press conference.

After all, it's a rare gambler who wins betting against Tiger... and even then he doesn't win very often.

The photo came from this page at Golf Girl's Diary.

Linsanity and Golf

In case you haven't heard of Linsanity, let me give you a quick lesson.

The New York Knicks (basketball team, for those of you who don't follow the NBA) have been struggling. Their two main players, Carmelo Anthony and Amare Stoudemire, are out with injuries... and to be honest, the team wasn't playing too well before they went out. But a week ago an undrafted point guard named Jeremy Lin was picked up to try and help them through this rough period.

Lin initially got some attention simply because he doesn't fit the normal NBA mold. He's the first Asian-American player in the NBA (his parents are from Taiwan, just like Yani Tseng) and he graduated in 2010 from Harvard -- hardly a powerhouse of basketball. He's basically been bouncing around the league because nobody wanted him. The Knicks didn't really expect much from him when they put him on the court last Saturday, but they were playing so bad they needed to do something.

The result is a phenomenon called Linsanity. The NBA is playing a condensed schedule this year and since Lin started last week the Knicks have played 4 games. First they beat the New Jersey Nets, then the Utah Jazz, and then the Washington Wizards. He scored more than 20 points per game, even setting some records for undrafted players. Many analysts have been critical of all this excitement, though. The Nets, Jazz, and Wizards aren't very good teams, they said, and it proved nothing. He hadn't taken any shots more than 5 feet from the basket, so he clearly couldn't shoot. Just wait till he played the Los Angeles Lakers Friday night; he wouldn't look so hot then.

So all he did was lead the Knicks to a 92-85 win over the Lakers and personally outscore Kobe Bryant, 38 to 34. And we discovered that he hadn't taken any shots over 5 feet from the basket because he hadn't needed to. In fact, he hit a 3-pointer to start the game and then hit shots from all over the place. And when ESPN's analysts questioned at halftime whether Lin could keep this up -- wouldn't the other players just "figure him out" -- Magic Johnson simply smiled and said, "He'll be fine. He uses his head. This kid's the real deal."

The Knicks are playing better than they have for a long time, and their coach simply says the team loves to play with Lin. They know he'll get the ball to them so they can shoot, and he gets everybody involved. The Knicks have even begun to play some defense -- a term previously unheard around this team!

Linsanity will probably be all over the news by the time you read this post. So why am I telling you about it?

Because Jeremy Lin said something at halftime that can improve your golf.

I'm sure you know that Tiger Woods is playing with Dallas Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo at the AT&T Pro-Am this week. You probably also know that Romo is an extremely good player but hasn't been able to qualify for the US Open. It's because he makes mental mistakes. GC talked about Romo hitting a long club into a narrow opening on one of the par-5s and, while he pulled it off, he still needed a third shot to reach the green.

In other words, Romo took a risk that could have hurt his score without giving him an advantage when he was successful. He still hasn't learned some of the basic strategy he needs in order to make the best use of his skill.

Compare this to Lin. I actually heard this exchange on TV, but I'll just quote this USA Today post about Lin's play:

At halftime, the Knicks led 49-41, with Lin scoring 18 points on 7-of-12 shooting, five assists and one steal.

Yet interviewed at the half, Lin was upset that he wasn't taking enough of an advantage of the Lakers' "big men sagging off me" to get his own big man, Tyson Chandler, the ball. And so, he told ESPN's Lisa Salters, he was going to take a look at the film at halftime.

Salters was about to ask another question — but stopped, eyes raised, and asked, "You're going to look at tape right now."

And, indeed, after halftime, Salters reported that Chandler said they DID look at the film.

Most players study game films the next day, not during the game! But Jeremy Lin got himself an unexpected break with the Knicks -- indeed, he's been sleeping on his brother's couch this week because he didn't know if he'd get to stay on the team -- and he's making the most of it.

If you want to get better at golf, you probably want to spend all your time hitting golf balls. But do you know how to use the skills you already have? If not, learning more skills probably isn't the most productive way to spend your time. I'm not saying you should become obsessed with the game, spending every spare moment thinking about it. But, like Jeremy Lin, you've got to learn to use your head to think your way around the course.

If you do, maybe you start your own brand of Linsanity among your playing partners.

The photo came from this SC Herald post.