Phil goes back-to-back in Scotland
With a nice win for "Lefty" two weeks ago in the Scottish Open, Phil Mickelson stepped up again and won his first ever British Open Championship July 21 in Scotland at the Muirfield Golf course. He had a fantastic final round of 66 to ultimately win by three shots over Henrik Stenson. Stenson was the only other golfer to finish the tournament with an even par score. Everyone else was over for the week. I always like to point this kind of thing out so that all you duffers feel better. The weather was amazingly good for the entire week but made for a wicked challenge with how dry and fast the course played. To illustrate how well Phil played on Sunday in relation to the rest of the field, he beat the average score of the final round that day by seven shots!
Lee Westwood, who had the lead going into the final round by two shots, started to fall apart on the seventh hole and never recovered. Tiger Woods also had a very good chance to win his 15th major, but in the final round he could not putt to save his life and finished that round with a 74! Tiger did finish the tournament tied for sixth place. Tiger is still ahead of Jack Nicholas' major championship pace. His current performances are not all that encouraging by sportswriters' standards, but I still believe he can achieve this record in his career. The pace he had going in his early years is gone, but he is still a great player.
I had planned to write only about golf this week, but I have to bring up baseball and football with the most recent performance-enhancing drug story. I'm tired of the huge double standard there is about steroids in baseball versus football. Ryan Braun of the Milwaukee Brewers has been suspended by baseball for the entire rest of the season for using some sort of steroid that has not been specifically named. And then you have the attitude in the world of football, that using steroids is to be expected and receives just a slap on the wrist. The Denver Broncos' best player on defense, Vaughn Miller, is being suspended for just four games for his "indiscretion." Does anybody else find this unsettling? Why is it a done deal in baseball and just a blip on the radar for football? Something has to be done, and soon, to come up with firm guidelines for all sports on the use of PEDs.
