2014 GIFs of the Year: The Shanks
Posted on December 17, 2014 8 Comments
At least GMac can laugh about it.
Over the next two weeks, I’ll be posting my 2014 Golf GIF Roundups, broken down into several ‘Best Of’ categories. Today, we look back at some of the worst shots and putts from 2014.
Golf is assuredly a mystifying game. It would seem that if a person has hit a golf ball correctly a thousand times, he should be able to duplicate the performance at will. But such is certainly not the case.
– Bobby Jones
Golf is hard.
Whether someone has played the game once or they play it once a day, they have definitely done something on the course that frustrates them and seemingly, makes no sense. In my own personal experience with sports, there’s no wider variance of emotion from the great feeling of striping one down the middle of the fairway to the embarrassment of seeing a cubic yard of Toronto go flying further than my Titleist. The fortunate thing for me and everyone else who attempts to play this sport is that the players that we watch on TV run into the same problems, and on some level, it makes me feel slightly better about my own problems on the course when I see the best players in the world having the same problems.
These GIFs aren’t being posted to poke fun at the players. In fact, I think most people could take a cue from Graeme McDowell up top and just laugh the whole thing off when it happens. These GIFs are simply a reminder that no one has truly figured this game out, and never will.
2015 Preview: Keegan Bradley
Posted on December 17, 2014 Leave a Comment
The Keegan Bradley stare.
Welcome to the 2015 Golf Preview, where I’ll take a look at selected golfers and examine what to expect over the next twelve months. Today, we look at Keegan Bradley.
The History
Unlike good friend Jason Dufner, Keegan Bradley exploded onto the scene in his rookie year back in 2011 with a pair of early top-10’s and grabbed his first PGA Tour win in a playoff against Ryan Palmer at the Byron Nelson, which qualified him for his first WGC event at Firestone. He had a good showing there and went on to his first major, the 2011 PGA Championship at Atlanta Athletic Club. Dufner collapsed down the stretch, blowing a five shot lead with four holes to play, and allowing Bradley to force a playoff with two birdies in his final three holes. Bradley went on to win the three hole playoff, becoming only the third player in golf history to win a major in his first attempt.
2015 Preview: Jason Dufner
Posted on December 16, 2014 1 Comment
Jason Dufner with a tip of the hat.
Welcome to the 2015 Golf Preview, where I’ll take a look at selected golfers and examine what to expect over the next twelve months. Today, we look at Jason Dufner.
The History
Sports is filled with “late bloomers”, players who for whatever reason just can’t seem to put it all together but then figure it out at what seems to be an arbitrary time. In golf, no player personifies that better than Jason Dufner.
2015 Preview: Lee Westwood
Posted on December 16, 2014 Leave a Comment
Lee Westwood, everyone.
Welcome to the 2015 Golf Preview, where I’ll take a look at selected golfers and examine what to expect over the next twelve months. Today, we look at Lee Westwood.
The History
To say Lee Westwood has had an interesting career would be a massive understatement. He’s been to the very top of the Official World Golf Rankings, sitting in the number one spot for 22 weeks in 2010 and 2011, and he’s also had terrible runs of form where he contemplated giving the game up entirely. He picked up his 41st win as a professional last week in Thailand, giving him his second win in Asia in 2014, but you’d be hard pressed to find anyone who would suggest that he had a quality season. He needed to rely on Paul McGinley to give him a captain’s pick at the Ryder Cup, and that win in Thailand gave him just his fifth top-10 finish in 26 starts worldwide in 2014, which really isn’t the kind of quality play that we’ve come to expect from a player with eight top-3 finishes in majors since 2008.
2015 Preview: Luke Donald
Posted on December 14, 2014 2 Comments
Luke “Money” Donald”.
Welcome to the 2015 Golf Preview, where I’ll take a look at selected golfers and examine what to expect over the next twelve months. Today, we look at Luke Donald.
The History
It’s hard to believe that 2015 will be the fourteenth year that Luke Donald has been a professional. Donald moved from England as a teenager to attend Northwestern University in Chicago, where he quickly became a player destined for life on the PGA Tour. He won the NCAA D1 men’s title in 1999, breaking the scoring record held by Tiger Woods and grabbed the Haskins Award that year as well, given out annually to the most outstanding collegiate golfer in the country. It was at Northwestern where he joined up with coach Pat Goss, who Donald stayed with after leaving Northwestern to turn pro in 2001.
2015 Preview: Miguel Angel Jimenez
Posted on December 12, 2014 Leave a Comment
Wink, smile and aviator glasses: pure Jimenez.
Welcome to the 2015 Golf Preview, where I’ll take a look at selected golfers and examine what to expect over the next twelve months. Today, we look at Miguel Angel Jimenez.
The History
Miguel Angel Jimenez turned pro when he was 18 years old, which really isn’t anything significant on it’s own. Most players, especially the really good ones, turn pro around the age of 18, but Jimenez of course turned 18 in January of 1982. Jimenez has had a tremendous amount of success playing mostly in Europe over his career, but there’s an argument to be made that 32 years after becoming a professional, he is actually better than ever.
Golf GIFs of the Week: December 8th
Posted on December 8, 2014 Leave a Comment
Marcel Siem is really excited to lead off the GIFs of the Week.
I guess there really is no offseason anymore in golf, is there? Two star studded fields teed it up this week in limited entry events, as Tiger Woods hosted the Hero World Challenge and the European Tour went to Gary Player CC in South Africa for the Nedbank Golf Challenge. The best photos, GIFs and videos are below.
Jordan Spieth dominates Hero World Challenge
Posted on December 7, 2014 3 Comments
For the second consecutive week, Jordan Spieth has come away victorious in a most impressive fashion. Last week, Spieth used a final round 63, a full four shots better than anyone else in the field, to claim his second professional win at the Australian Open. This week, he flat out dominated an elite 18-man field at Isleworth to win the Hero World Challenge by ten shots.
Tiger shows promise at Isleworth
Posted on December 7, 2014 1 Comment
He hit the first ball out of bounds on Thursday. It was so far off line that it found the backyard of an expensive Isleworth home. He chunked nine chips in four rounds en route to finishing tied at the very bottom of the leaderboard, a full 26 shots behind the winning score posted by Jordan Spieth. That’s a lot of negativity for any player, much less the former world number one who used to make the game look far easier than it really is.
You know what else Tiger Woods did though? Over the last four days, he showed that he was far from done.
GIFs: Tiger’s 77 at Isleworth
Posted on December 4, 2014 1 Comment
Well, it wasn’t the way that Tiger Woods wanted to make his return to golf. Tiger shot a 77 at Isleworth on Thursday, including four ugly chunked wedges, but even though he wasn’t great, there were some positive looking swings as well.
In case you missed any of the action, or just want to re-live the highlights, see the GIFs below.
AdamSarson.com 