What a tourney. Tom Lehman was so solid throughout the four rounds shooting 69,69, 68, 68–good for -14– to capture his second Regions Tradition title in a row, the second major on the Champions Tour. What an event Shoal Creek put on. That was a lot of hard work and terrific effort by head pro Eric Williamson and his staff. They deserve a lot of credit for their diligent and successful efforts. Didn’t see any announced attendance figures, but Gene Hallman, who headed up the promotion of the event, said the crowds were even better than last year. Sunday looked well attended despite the rain. There are a lot of big time golf fans in the area, and the event couldn’t have been held at a finer golf club. Shoal Creek reminds me a lot of Augusta: it’s beautiful, the greens are large, it’s penalizing if you’re not accurate, and there is plenty of sand. Lehman played some beautiful golf, and while Bernhard Langer (66 on Sunday, finished at -12, two shots back of Lehman) and Chen Soon Lu (66 on Sunday, -12 for tourney) put a little heat on Lehman on Sunday, he never wavered. He’s the best ball striker on the tour, so when he’s putting well he is difficult to beat. Shoal has the tournament next year and the Champions Tour is in negotiations with Shoal right now for the rights to host the tournament beyond 2013. Shoal Creek deserves it. They do a phenomenal job with this event and it’s a golfers’ mecca. Hope Shoal can secure the tournament for three more years and beyond. Those Champions Tour players can also flat out play. They’re not hitting it 300+ like a lot of the younger PGA guys are, but they’re getting it out there 275 to 290, and they are very accurate. With guys like Lehman, Langer, Jay Haas, John Cook and Kenny Perry (who’s the longest hitter on the tour at 296), the tour has really improved in the past five years. It’s going to get even better when guys like David Toms, Vijzy Singh and Davis Love come out in the next couple of years. The future is very bright for the Champions Tour and Shoal Creek deserves to be a part of it. One of these days, Shoal Creek may land a regular tour event, but until that time this is a pretty good option. It’s only going to get better. Proud of Shoal Creek and the patrons of the tournament for supporting it so well. It was a first-class event and the players loved it. A lot of them say it’s their favorite stop on the tour. Lehman is now second on the Charles Schwab Cup rankings to Langer. The winner of the Schwab Cup gets a $1 million dollar payment. Pretty nice. Lehman said at the end of the tournament, as he was heading out for his 25th wedding anniversary, “See you in Cabo.” Must be nice. Pro golfers work pretty hard, but they’re about the only professional athletes who can go to Cabo San Lucas during their season. It’s a grind, but a pretty nice way to make a living.
NBA finals start tonight in Oklahoma City at 9 ET/8 CT on ABC. Should be a tremendous series. Kevin Durant (averaging 27.8 ppg, 7.9 rbg and 4.2 assists in 15 playoff games) and LeBron James (30.8, 9.6 rbg, 5 assists in 18 games) are both on a mission. Durant wants to prove he’s ready to be a champion at the age of 23. LeBron wants to get it done at age 27 after so many years of near misses and frustration. They’re both elite and good enough to be champions. OKC has some very fine complimentary players in Russell Westbrook (21.7 ppg, 5.1 rbg and 5.6 apg in playoffs), James Harden (17.6 ppg, 5.2 rbg) and Serge Ibaka (10.7 ppg, 5.9 rbg), all of whom are championship caliber players. Harden is the best sixth man in the game and just keeps hitting clutch shot after clutch shot. But ‘Bron has a nice supporting cast too in Dwayne Wade (22.9, 5 rbg and 4.1 apg), Chris Bosh (13.7 6.9 rbg), Mario Chalmers (11.6 ppg) and Shane Battier, a lockdown defender and clutch three-point shooter. Ibaka’s stellar. He was 12-for-12 in game five of the conference finals against San Antonio. Nice rebounder, too. There is some real talent on OKC. But with Bosh now healthy for the Heat and playing some excellent basketball–he was outstanding in the Heat’s game seven victory over the Celtics–the Heat are just too veteran-laden and talented for a very fine, but very young OKC team. Durant, Westbrook, Harden and Ibaka are all under 24-years old, and while experience can be overrated at times, experience with equal or even better talent can get you over the top of a talented younger opponent. OKC has been in a lot of wars, these guys do have playoff experience, but they don’t have finals experience. While they’re good enough to make this series very interesting, just like LeBron Raymone James to capture what has been an elusive Larry O’Brien Trophy, with assistance from DWade, Bosh, Chalmers and Battier. LeBron just looks unstoppable right now. You can’t stop him when he’s got a head full of steam going to the basket. Nobody can in basketball. And he’s shooting the ball well from the outside, which in the past had been his Achilles Heel. But not in these playoffs. Last year he was dominant in the playoffs up until the finals, but was schooled by a veteran Dallas team led by Dirk Nowitski and Jason Kidd. But this year, the Heat is not lackadaisical. They’re focused, driven and on a mission. And they’ve got that finals’ experience from last year. That will help a lot. Heat gets it done in six. Should be fun.
It’s hard to put into words how incredibly shocking that news was from Auburn. Just a tremendous tragedy as Ladarious Phillips, Ed Christian, both former Auburn players who were still at the University though Phillips was transferring to Jax State, and Demario Pitts were killed in a shooting early Sunday morning. From what I’ve read, the kids didn’t do anything wrong. The two former players were trying to break up a fight between the shooter, Desmonte Leonard, another guy with him, and a couple of other guys, including Pitts, over a girl. Just tragic. Feel for the boys’ families. Hopefully the law enforcement officers in Montgomery can apprehend Leonard and bring him to justice. They’re having some trouble finding him at this point, but are working around the clock and they believe he’s in Montgomery. Christian, an offensive lineman, had to leave the team due to a debilitating back injury. He was known as a kind, gentle guy, whose dad was a cop. It appears he was just trying to make peace in the altercation. Phillips wanted more playing time than Gene Chizik was going to give him, so he was supposed to be up in Jacksonville working out with the team. Jax State Coach Jack Crowe wasn’t sure how much Phillips wanted to play football because he wasn’t up in Jacksonville this summer yet, though his coach in high school, Mike Battles at Handley, said he had NFL talent. The other kid, Pitts, was involved in the original altercation. I’ve heard that most of the Auburn team was at the party. Luckily for them, they left earlier. Just an excruciating tragedy for the players’ families and the Auburn family. Tough to see three young men with their lives and potential ahead of them lose their lives at such a young age. Time will heal ultimately for some– not the boys’ families– but it will take some time to get over this shocking event.
Will have a U.S. Open preview and picks tomorrow. Golfers play at Olympic Club in San Francisco for the year’s second major, the 112th playing of the United States Open. Olympic not that long for U.S. Open venues at 6,822, but a very difficult, challenging course that requires extremely accurate ball striking. It’s a very tight course where there is little margin for error. It may not be as long as venues like Pinehurst No.2 or Shinnecock Hills, but it’s just as difficult due to the narrow fairways and difficult though outstanding greens. The weather can be a factor, too, with a lot of wind coming off the coast. Lee Janzen won the last Open played there in 1998 shooting only even par for the tournament. Should be a real test of mettle for these young guns. Tiger Woods looks like he can win it right now, but there is a lot of depth. To me, he’s one of the three elite guys in the field along with Phil Mickelson and Bubba Watson. Bubba hasn’t played much since his Masters win, so he might be rusty. Tiger was phenomenal in the Memorial two weeks ago showing that magic from the glory years in which he won 14 Majors. But that was his fifth time to win at the Memorial and his other win, at the Arnold Palmer Invitational, was his seventh there, so there’s no guarantee he’ll win this tournament. A lot of talented players. Will have more tomorrow.
Tom Lehman captures his second Tradition title while LeBron James targets his first NBA title.