Monday, June 24, 2019

Three Beautiful Things 06/23/19: Yes! Hannah Green, Reavie Ends Drought, Farewell Albert!

1. Going back to the 1970s, I have enjoyed watching the women's golf tour on television. Once, I seized the opportunity to watch a tournament live when, in July of 1997, I attended all four days of the Women's U.S. Open at the Witch Hollow course of the Pumpkin Ridge Golf Club, the four best sports fan days of my life.

Today, I was eager to watch the final round of the KPMG Women's PGA Championship, not only because it's a major tournament and was being played on the bedeviling Hazeltine National Golf Club near Minneapolis, but because Hannah Green, only in her second year on the LPGA tour, had led this tournament from the get-go, and I wanted to see how she would perform under the unique strain of playing the final round of this tournament from the lead.

Hannah Green played beautifully, especially from the thirteenth to the eighteenth hole. I feared Green was going to collapse when she bogeyed the ninth, eleventh, and twelfth and her lead dropped to a single shot. The defending champion, Sung Hyun Park, was moving up the scoreboard, pressuring Hannah Green. Green converted a delicate chip and a tap-in putt on the 13th and regained her equilibrium. She relieved the pressure on herself a bit with a superb birdie putt down the slope of the 16th, but Sung Hyun Park birdied the 18th, and cut Green's lead, once again, to a single stroke. On the 18th, Hannah Green hit her second shot a bit left and bunkered it. Her lie in the sand looked pretty good, though, and she gathered herself and dropped her sand shot softly on the green and rolled it to inside six feet of the pin.

A five to six foot putt with a major championship on the line is one the most demanding tests in all of sports. Hannah Green dropped the putt and won this championship, a stunning surprise that gave rise to a joyous celebration as a knot of her fellow Australians, including seven-time major champion Karrie Webb, stormed the 18th green, shook up cans of soda pop, popped them open, and drenched Hannah Green.

My sudden burst of joyous laughter as I enjoyed this celebration startled Charly.

2. At the same time that Hannah Green was winning the LPGA Championship, out in Cromwell, CT, Chez Reavie entered the fourth round of the Travelers Championship with an apparently insurmountable six stroke lead. Reavie is thirty-seven years old. His last win on the PGA tour was back in 2008, eleven years ago. Reavie seemed to be building on his impressive showing a week ago at the U. S. Open (he finished tied for third place) and it looked like he just might cake walk his way to a win today.

But, Keegan Bradley tried hard to spoil Reavie's Sunday stroll to victory.

Starting on the 10th hole, Bradley birdied four out of six holes, cutting Reavie's lead to single stroke. Then, on the seventeenth hole, Bradley hit his second shot over the green out of a bunker sand trap and a disaster resulted: Bradley double bogeyed the hole. Reavie calmly sank his birdie putt on the 17th and suddenly his lead swelled to four strokes.

The cake walk was on again.

Both players parred the 18th and Chez Reavie ended an eleven year, 250 tournament drought, and won the tournament. Reavie is reported to be one of the tour's most affable players, a guy who is popular with his fellow golfers. The word from the course was that he and Bradley were having fun as Bradley went on his hot streak, that both players were supporting and encouraging the other, even as they played fiercely to win. I enjoyed seeing both the happiness and relief on Reavie's face in the interview after the tournament and was really happy to see an old school golfer win. Reavie is not a bomber. He drives the ball straight, not very long, but straight, so he plays a lot from the fairway and hits a lot of greens in regulation. I liked seeing Reavie win this tournament playing in a way that I was familiar with back in my younger days of watching golf on television.

3. The St. Louis Cardinals' astonishing rally, scoring four runs in the bottom of the ninth with two outs, fell short and the Angels defeated them tonight 6-4. But this game's outcome was overshadowed by Albert Pujols playing his last game in St. Louis. Pujols played for eleven seasons at St. Louis. Fans loved him. In 2012, he left the Cardinals (and the National League) and joined the L. A. Angels (and the American League).  Thanks to inter-league play, the Angels visited St. Louis this weekend and the every game featured standing ovations for Albert Pujols. It was moving. Not only were fans in the stadium and those of us watching on television moved by these shows of affection, Pujols was, too -- at one point, he had to leave the bench and go into the clubhouse tunnel to weep.

Pujols is thirty-nine years old, nearing retirement, and no one thinks he will ever have a chance to play in St. Louis again. So, tonight's game was St. Louis' farewell to one of their most beloved players of all time.

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