Why is baseballs best pitcher also the hardest worker in – 04.05.10 – SI Vault.
I love Roy Halladay. I hope he wins a World Series ring this year.
I have a man crush on Peyton Manning, the QB of the NFL Colts. I saw almost every game he played this year and it was incredible to see the skills with which he quarterbacks a team. He’s in complete command of an offense – games like where he had the ball for only 15 mins (out of 60) and still wins the game are just amazing.
It’s hard to imagine football being played any better than by him right now.
I really would like an NBA team in Vancouver. I prefer watching basketball over hockey.
The first round of the year that I walk always results in incredibly sore feet. Golf shoes aren’t exactly comfortable b/c they’re shaped to provide you athletic support in a way that other runners don’t so it takes a few rounds for my feet to get used to forces that are generated – there’s a lot of torque and pressure applied while the spikes try to keep your feet planted.
In any case, for reasons unknown to me I’m hitting my long approach shots in a way that I’ve never been able to and I’m jumping for joy. That’s been the missing piece of my game over the past couple years and having the option to hit very long shots that are accurate means I can reach my goal of breaking 90 this year.
Hooray!
P.S. Parents, golf is a good sport to teach your kids. It teaches manners, problem solving and good mind management.
It rained heavily for the last 3 holes, it was windy, and it was cold (although I did take my jacket off to go short sleeve). I lost about 10 balls and managed to 4 putt for the first time in 3 years. The greens were in terrible condition and the fairways were muddy. My driver decided that instead of going straight that it preferred to give me a cut fade all day long.
All in all though it was great to get back out on the course for the first time this year.
Proof that I’m both out of shape and that golf works your muscles in a different way than the gym are the muscles that are sore on me 24 hours after hitting my first bucket of balls (60 of them)
- Left deltoid (all)
- Right deltoid (middle)
- Abs
- Whatever muscle is down the sides of your torso
- Left forearm
Even when I am in shape, the first bucket always leaves me stiff for a couple days.
Inspired by the Tiger and Phil show today at Augusta I went out and hit my first bucket of golf balls of the season. Starting my hitting this late in the year is now a rare occurrence but one dictated by lousy Vancouver weather and the necessities of finding a new job. Now that one is resolved and the other is likely pending it’s nice to be be able to swing freely.
And no matter how much the game of golf comes downs to putting (40% of my strokes last season were putts) there’s still little that beats taking out the driver and giving it a mighty wack. While my irons and hybrids were actually hit and miss (1 good was followed by 1 bad), my driver was like Dirty Harry’s revolver (en fuego!).
I stayed loose and didn’t overswing and the result were some big, long drives that looked better than any mid-season form I’ve ever had. It didn’t matter which driver I was hitting or what tee height the ball was set at, the ball was going to be taking a long ride to the middle of the range between the 200-250 markers with better ball flight than I had all of last year (flatter with more carry).
It feels good to be hitting balls again.
So Charles Barkley, the owner of one of the ugliest golf swings in the history of the universe, has a show on the Golf Channel where Hank Haney, Tiger Wood’s coach, is working with him on fixing his horrible mechanics. Barkley gets asked how hard he wants to train and asks what Tiger does at which point Haney explains Tiger’s day as starting at 6am with 90 minutes of lifting and then a non-stop day of hitting till about 5pm.
Barkley agrees to it and ends up hitting around a thousand golf balls in his day. For those who haven’t golfed before, hitting a thousand golf balls is HARD WORK. Even when I’m in shape I wake up stiff the next day after hitting about 80-100 balls. The stresses that a golf swing puts on your body are pretty high.
In any case, I find myself hugely impressed by what the real superstars athletes do to be the best. Tiger practices in the area of 40-60 hours a week and hits thousands of golf balls a week while building a body that would not look out of place on a football field (Have you seen his guns?). Kobe Bryant spent the summer making several hundred thousand shots (not taking – as he says, he doesn’t take shots, he MAKES shots). Michael Schumacher had a ripped 6 pack body and he did his work sitting down in a car – when he got out of a car he had barely worked up a sweat, he was that prepared.
While I can fault the dirtbags on Wall Street for stealing money I can’t fault the top athletes for making big piles of money when they work that hard for it.
I’ve played golf for years but “play” has really been a loose term until about 2 years ago when I finally went from once a year duffer to a regular attempt at playing (4-6 rounds a year). This year I’m likely to get in 10-15 rounds, a number that allows a player to actually work on his game and do well enough to enjoy it.
On Saturday I crawled out of bed at 4:30am to make a 6:18am tee time to play my 8th round of the year and lo and behold I played a round worth feeling good about. I finally broke 100 for the first time ever (70-72 is typically par) and I hit some great shots, shots I’ve never been able to do.
There was the 40 footer out of a tall bunker that landed within 8 feet and had backspin on it, there was the 8 iron to a pin I couldn’t see that landed on the green and finally there was the 60 foot putt on the 18th hole that had to get over two rises and went right to left then back right. It was one of those highlight of the night shots except it was to close a round of 97 rather than to win the tournament – the high fives that went around afterwards was like a tournament closer as well.
All in all, it’s nice to finally play well enough that I can really enjoy a round and not get off my game due to the bad shots (a couple friends don’t play because they don’t play enough to shoot below 115). It gives me incentive to keep playing (and to spend money buying equipment).
Anyone want to play? (I’m always looking for playing partners)
ESPN – Man vs. Bear – Hashmarks By Matt Mosley
I’m betting on the bear if the bear starts at his own goal line and can build up some speed. Too much wingspan and the direction change is too good. No way a kick returner could juke his way past with that kind of wingspan.
Also, it’s no contest if it’s Man vs. Giant Feline.