In life, the most precious quantity we possess is not a specific item. It’s time – to get our work done, eat, sleep, do the chores and, when all the responsible stuff is over, kick back and enjoy a little entertainment.
That, of course, includes your favorite TV show. It can be substantive or frivolous, but the common experience is the same – you schedule around it and make sure that, no matter what, you’re in your favorite chair whenever a new episode is shown.
So it was for me with “The Office” (and still is from time to time)...
Again in this summer where we've roasted plenty, the thermometer is pushing 90 - which is a far cry from the last two times the PGA Tour showed up in Central New York for the Turning Stone Resort Championship.
You remember them, don't you? No, likely you avoided being out there for those delightful opening rounds when it was about 50 degrees colder than right now, and that was before the wind and precipitation kicked in - rain, maybe some sleet, maybe even snow.
No one really would have blamed the Tour for taking its big show and never, ever coming back to Verona and Atunyote Golf Club...
So it's a bit different for the Turning Stone Resort Championship, 2010 edition, as opposed to 2009 or 2008. Try 50 degrees different.
Long gone is the Arctic chill that drove players crazy and drove many spectators away. Instead, it's heat (already 80-plus in the morning), humidity (so it feels like 90) and need for lots of H2O if you want to walk anywhere, golfer or spectator.
Amid this, 42 foursomes are winding their way through the Buffalo Bills Pro-Am, and it's a chance to check out Atunyote Golf Club and see how it will play different in the summer than in the winter...er, fall.
First, the drives will go further. Much further. And they won't be improving their lies once they reach those wide and generous fairways...
Mid-day at Atunyote and it's even toastier than before. Fitting that Jim Kelly, featured attraction at the Buffalo Bills Pro-Am with Steve Tasker and Jim Boeheim, was wearing a shirt bearing a logo of his alma mater, the Miami Hurricanes. Feels like a September Saturday at the old Orange Bowl, the U running out of the tunnel through the smoke.
Some other names are in this pro-am - Ruben Brown and Scott Norwood, Bill Fitzpatrick, a Baldwin brother, and Gerry McNamara, too, without half of Scranton showing up to support him.
But the pro-am might already be over, as far as the winning is concerned. Charley Hoffman, paired in a best-ball format with Bob Roberts, Myles McHale Jr. and Chris Papayanakos, shot a 54. That's 16 birdies and an eagle, thank you...
At least for the moment, they are playing golf at Atunyote Golf Club in Verona, the Turning Stone Resort Championship underway.
Yet it's difficult to ignore the radar that shows rain and possible storms bearing down from Syracuse. That might delay things for a bit if it turns electric - but it should clear out all the humidity.
A very early thing to watch - David Duval. He's birdied two of his first three holes.
Once, Duval was the world's top-ranked player. But after winning the 2001 Open Championship, he, and his game, completely disappeared, a downfall well-chronicled and well-lamented.
In recent years, there have been glimpses of Duval making it all the way back, most notably the brave push he made at the 2009 U.S...
A couple of things happened in the few minutes after my first post from the Turning Stone Resort Championship.
First, David Duval, who had I had gushed about, promptly took a double bogey at 13. So much for being two under par, as Rory Sabbatini birdied his first three holes to gain the early lead.
But at 8:37 a.m....the horn.
Weather delay, but not because there was lightning in the area. No, the concern was that it was going to rain....hard. And that it did, not even 10 minutes after the players were taken off the course.
Now we'll see how long it lasts. Not everyone in the morning wave got to start, and that included 15-year-old Gavin Hall...
It took nearly three hours for the rain to clear out and for the grounds crew to clean up before the Turning Stone Resort Championship's opening round could resume.
Birdies flew, as expected, on the softened greens, even as the wind picked up. Gavin Hall could only wish to join that party.
Hall's 15-year-old nerves didn't show up on his first tee shot, around 11:40 a.m., straight down the middle. But the second shot was another matter - over the green, in thick rough. It took two chips to get down, and two putts to finish it off. Double bogey.
From there, it could only get better on the front nine, though it took some real effort. Hall had to scramble for pars on 2, 4, 6 and 8, with a birdie on the par-5 4th to offer some solace...
Rain is (hopefully) long gone from Atunyote Golf Club. The sun is out, the wind has picked up (from the west, making the 9th and 18th holes downwind), and the Turning Stone Resort Championship is assuming its first form.
Rory Sabbatini, with a handful of PGA Tour wins, might be as good a golfer as there is in the field. Merely contending is not enough for the talkative, fast-playing Rory - he wants wins.
And a seven-under-par 65 has Sabbatini out in front,and it might have been a lot better. He made three straight birdies before the rain delay, two more to turn in 31, then added birdies on both front-nine par-3s while hitting all 18 greens in regulation...
No one in the afternoon portion of Friday's second round of the Turning Stone Resort Championship was able to catch Alex Cejka's 10-under-par total, and only one came close.
That would be Rory Sabbatini, he of the Thursday 65 that featured 18 greens in regulation and a feeling on his part that he left more than a few shots behind. When Friday was done, he felt the same - sort of.
Obviously, the high winds increased the difficulty quotient, and Rory threatened to go the other way when he bogeyed the par-5 5th, the easiest hole on the course...
Everyone breathe for a few minutes....36 holes are done at the PGA Tour's Turning Stone Resort Championship, with all the early stories neatly wrapped up.
Gavin Hall did all of Pittsford proud on this day. Maybe all those tournaments he played in recent weeks and all the pressure of a pro event (not to mention Thursday's wait for the rain to stop) contributed to that 78.
Whatever the case, Hall would have been excused if, on this wind-swept Friday, he followed up with another rough round, then chalked it up to good experience and, with a smile, got ready for the U.S. Amateur.
Ah, the joys of technology and connections. It took way too long for everything to get straightened out so that we could resume our narrative from the Turning Stone Resort Championship, but it's fixed...for now.
To say that the conditions on Friday morning are a bit different from Thursday morning would be a slight understatement. Instead of steamy heat, it's cool comfort, with one important accompaniment - the wind.
Sustained, it's going 15 miles per hour, with gusts to 25. As a whole, it should make the course play one to two shots harder for the field. To expect anyone to approach the 65s that Rory Sabbatini and Omar Uresti posted on Thursday would be a stretch.
All that howling wind affecting the second round of the Turning Stone Resort Championship might have, with a single gust, affected the eventual course of events.
Alex Cejka played a superb back nine of 32 in the gusts, including a birdie on the nasty 17th, to post a 68 and seize the lead at 10 under par. And he's still on top right now.
Chris Tidland, for a brief moment, passed Cejka and took the lead when he matched Alex by making three straight birdies on 10, 11 and 12, with a 45-footer on the 11th in the middle.
But in the worst of the winds, Tidland gave back shots with bogeys on 13 and 15 before parring in for a 69, nine under par, one shot back...
Deep into the third round at Saturday's Turning Stone Resort Championship, two things were quite possible.
First, Chris Couch would hold the lead, his 63 holding up against all the late finishers as Rory Sabbatini tumbled backwards with three bogeys in his last five holes and others, like Billy Mayfair (12 under) and Robert Garrigus (11 under), could not add to their total.
Chris Tidland also went up and down - birdies at 14 and 18, yes, but a bogey on 15 and a ghastly double at 17, so he's also 11 under.
Enter Alex Cejka - or really, re-enter Alex Cejka...
No real question about what to do here as the third round of the Turning Stone Resort Championship gets underway.
With gorgeous sunshine, and none of the fierce winds that made the second round so tricky, there's only one directive - aim at pins and make birdies. Lots of them.
Since everyone in the field is within eight strokes of leader Alex Cejka as play begins, any low round in, say, the mid-60s will provide a chance to move up the board, though it's fairly certain that the top players will pile up birdies, too.
And Brendon De Jonge has started the onslaught. Starting at three under par, he has reeled off five birdies in his first eight holes to move to eight under par, just two back, with half a round to go...
Just as we were saying that conditions at the Turning Stone Resort Championship were prime for really, really low numbers, Charles Warren and Scott McCarron provided the examples.
Warren, with a blazing finish, equaled Peter Lonard's year-old course record of 63, nine under par, and for the moment has the lead at 11 under.
Going out in the fifth pairing of the morning, Warren had a solid front-nine 33, a score others (like Brendon De Jonge) topped, but the real fun began at the tough par-3 11th, where Warren landed a birdie...
All the leaders managed to do in the first nine holes at the Turning Stone Resort Championship was make it more bunched up.
Alex Cejka, the 36-hole pace-setter but one behind Charles Warren when he started, promptly bogeyed the 2nd hole, only to get birdies on 4 and 5 and turned in 11 under. But he had been passed by on several fronts.
Right in front of him was Rory Sabbatini, who zoomed to the lead with birdies on three of the first five holes, then three-putted on 7 before nearly holing his wedge for an eagle on the par-5 8th to get right back to 12 under par.
Meanwhile, Billy Mayfair, who started at six under, made five straight birdies from the 5th through 9th holes and turned in 30, the best front nine of the week...
Bill Lunde played his college golf at Nevada-Las Vegas, hard by America's gambling mecca. Yet he didn't need much luck to snag his first PGA Tour victory at the Turning Stone Resort Championship.
The 34-year-old Lunde prevailed with early aggression and smart play down the stretch, and his total of 17-under-par 271 was enough to edge J.J. Henry by one shot.
When last we left you, Henry was sitting pretty in the clubhouse, his 63 having produced a 16-under-par total of 272. The thought was that, with all the birdies flying out there, someone - or many someones - would soon pass him.
Briefly, Lunde did so with his birdies on the 8th and 9th holes. But on the shortened par-3 11th, he pulled his tee shot into a sand trap and could not get up and down...
Except for full-blown sunshine, conditions for the final round of the PGA Tour's Turning Stone Resort Championship closely resemble the calm situation that all the players exploited on Saturday.
And with little wind out there, it figures that low, low rounds can happen. The questions are - how low can they go? And how far back must you be to have a chance?
As it starts, Alex Cejka leads by two shots over Chris Couch at 15 under par...
All right, we're close to the time for Alex Cejka to head out in the final round of the Turning Stone Resort Championship. But just like the third round, he might not have the lead upon departure.
Jerry Kelly, from Wisconsin, tore up the front nine with a 31, then didn't stop there, making birdies on 10 and 11 to make it 14 under par, one behind Cejka...until he hit his tee shot on 12 out of bounds and made a costly bogey.
D.J. Trahan and J.J. Henry both have recorded eagles in their rounds, moving to 13 under in the process. And Bob Estes polished off a 64 in one of the early groups.
Alex Cejka again struggled early in his final round of the Turning Stone Resort Championship. Five pars, then a bogey on 6, and he is now losing ground.
J.J. Henry is your leader in the clubhouse. Late birdies on 15 and 16 gave the Connecticut pro a chance at the course record, but he could only par the last two holes.
Still, it was a glorious 63, pushing him to 16-under-par 272, a prime target for all the chasers, including Jerry Kelly, whose 64 left him one shot short at 273.
Understand that all I am about to say might prove irrelevant in a day’s time - or a week, or a couple of weeks, or even a month until the season opener.
That’s the problem with Brett Favre. Past history tells us that, whatever he says now, it might not ring true, for he’s had this tendency to change his mind, over and over again.
Yet he said a week ago that, should his ankle not heal, that he’s done with football, that there won’t be a 20th season, won’t be any additions to the absurd streak of starting 306 straight games under center, counting regular season and playoffs...
On the Wisconsin side of Lake Michigan at the stunning Whistling Straits, they'll play the PGA Championship for the 92nd time, starting tomorrow morning. Really.
Yeah, there's a golf tournament going on here, one featuring most of the world's top 100 players - though you'd be hard-pressed to realize that there's a full field of golfers ready to play an actual major, given the way it's been covered.
Maybe it was good that the majors' recent heartbreak kid, Lee Westwood, bowed out with a calf injury...
Right up until the last pairing and the 72nd hole, this final round of the PGA Championship at Whistling Straits in Wisconsin was as exciting a major Sunday as there's been in quite some time - and all this without a Tiger or Phil involved.
Nick Watney's early freefall threw it wide open - and it stayed that way all afternoon. Jim Furyk, Camillo Villegas and Jason Day threatened early, then fell back. Jason Dufner and Zach Johnson hung around, never quite climbing to the top, but not vanishing, either.
Come the last hour, five players still had a real chance, something you almost never see. Steve Elkington, thought to be done for at 47, had an eagle putt to take the lead at 16...but it lipped out, and he bogeyed the last two holes...
Once all the rain and electricity scooted out Monday morning, a ritual played itself out in 84 different venues across Central New York.
Young men, donning helmets, T-shirts, shorts and cleats, took to the field. Coaches started on the numbing drills that will occupy most of the next three weeks. A break for water, then repeat, all until the day's work is done.
Yes, high school football has commenced again. In a couple of days the shoulder pads will get put on. By week's end, full-contract drills will be in place. Then scrimmages on Aug...
Perhaps more than any sport, golf puts deep value into tradition and past glory. At the slightest mention, devotees will wax about hickory shafts, gutta-percha balls, persimmon drivers and other artifacts, not to mention the men and women who ruled in those long-ago times.
Yet like those other sports, golf has to sustain itself through the replenishing of the star pool. One triumvirate (Vardon, Braid, Taylor) led to another (Hogan, Nelson, Snead), then led to a Big Three (Nicklaus, Palmer, Player) and so forth until Tiger Woods’ recent envelopment of the entire landscape.
Perhaps we are in the midst of one of those seismic transitions, and it’s interesting to see the reaction to it in some circles...
A drive flies way right. An iron nicks the sandy ground once, then a second time. A swing is made. A ball sails out of the immense gathering on top of that hill, then flies over the creek and over the green into more tall grass. A few minutes later, that same ball is chipped six feet past the pin. The ensuing putt, to win, is pulled left. Then a tap-in for a bogey and a tie.
That was the narrative on the 72nd hole at Whistling Straits for Dustin Johnson at the PGA Championship – dramatic and exciting, to be sure, but not too far from the normal realm of behavior. At least until the rules official showed up.
Turns out that Dustin was in a bunker. He grounded the club...
As of today, all of the Section III high school fall sports teams are on the practice field.. or running through the trails...or working on serves and spikes in the gymnasium...or on the tennis courts...or on the 1st tee.
In other words, soccer, cross country, field hockey, tennis, volleyball (in some spots) and golf (in some spots) have joined the football teams, who began full-contract drills on Saturday.
So naturally it felt like autumn, with the clouds and the rain and the temperatures never reaching 70...
College football fans, do yourself a giant favor – at some point during this 2010 season, take a mental snapshot of the nice, orderly, geographically sensible structure, then keep it for posterity, because it’s about to all come unglued.
Blame the Big Ten – or more specifically, the Big Ten Network. When that generated mountains of cash for Jim Delaney and his pals, they talked of expansion, went after Notre Dame. And everybody freaked out.
What has been a sheer delight, throughout August, has been watching the progress of North Syracuse Babe Ruth Baseball's 13-15 All-Stars in its quest for glory.
First came the state tournament. Then came the Mid-Atlantic Regionals in New Jersey. And finally the Babe Ruth World Series in the Arkansas town named for Thomas Jefferson's Monticello.
Tonight, it led to ultimate glory. Three outs from a painful, close defeat in an exciting championship game against a strong squad from Saginaw Valley in Michigan, North Syracuse staged a rally three years in the making to win, 7-4, and snag the championship.
So I managed to get quite an education Thursday night, learning more in a couple of hours than any person ever could listening to hours of pap from any talk-show demagogue.
That education came in the form of a 1957 movie appearing on Turner Classic Movies, "A Face In the Crowd", directed by Elia Kazan, written by the great Budd Schulberg, and eerily prescient as to the political "discourse" we're having now.
In that film, the producer of a radio program in rural Arkansas, played by the late, great Patricia Neal, discovers a singing, guitar-playing jailbird named Larry Rhodes and puts him on the air...
Continuing our tour of Section III football and looking ahead to the 2010 season, we know turn our eye to Class C, which contains the largest cast of characters and, by far, the toughest path to the post-season.
Just as the seven-game regular-season format was restored, the class inflated to 23 entries due to reconfiguration of state enrollment standards and one team merger. Barely one in three teams will make the playoffs - no back doors here.
Only Cooperstown, a semifinalist one season ago, and Mohawk moved down - but a lot more moved up or, in the case of Syracuse's Institute of Technology Central, moved in...
Ah, the thermometer is pushing 90, the sun bakes, and everyone is trying to bask in whatever remnants of summer remain to be grabbed.
Must be football time!
In the coming days, we'll offer up a synopsis of the Section III high school season ahead following an off-season that saw as much roster turnover, coaching turnover and school shifts as we've ever experienced.
We start in Class D, which has taken the most hits. A season ago, you had 21 teams in four divisions, and a playoff field deep enough that Westmoreland and Dolgeville squared off in the quarterfinals - with the Bulldogs prevailing 25-6 on its way to the title.
In the third of our Section III football previews, we look at Class B, which might be as much fun, and provides as many stories, as any of the five classes in Central New York.
Why so? Several reasons. Part of it is that the state enrollment changes turned a 10-team party where just about everyone got a playoff ticket into a 13-team battle where things are a bit tougher.
Another part is the teams that moved in. Cazenovia, after two years spent in Class C (where it didn't win a sectional title), returns to the place where it won championships in 2006 and '07. They return in B East, as does Holland Patent, who has a strong returning cast.
Over in B West, Hannibal is new, and that's a tale unto itself...
