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Padraig Harrington
Last Tuesday on the eve of the British Open Championship three time Open Champion Nick Faldo said that no European golfer had won a major championship since Paul Lawrie won the 1999 British Open at Carnoustie because the European players are too friendly. Irish golfer Padraig Harrington said “We all have different ways of going about things. I don’t believe that just because they are nice guys, they can’t win a major. Surely that couldn’t be it. There’s this image of the European Ryder Cup team being the best of buddies but I think that’s a false image. We are for the week of the Ryder Cup but we’re competitors the rest of the time. It isn’t as intense as the rivalry between Faldo and Seve but that’s two guys right at the top. At the moment maybe the Europeans haven’t got up to the level of winning majors. We have an awful lot of talented young players. They will win majors, there’s no question about it. It could happen this week. It’s just a question of that little breakthrough. If I don’t win this week I’ll certainly be rooting for a player I’m familiar with so that next time it will be easier because he did it.”
Albert Einstein invented the theory of relativity. Whether or not a person is a hero or a genocidal maniac depends upon which team he is on. Is he on your team or the opposition team? In 1939 to 50 million German people Adolf Hitler was a great champion. He may not have won the Open Championship but he came one bad decision, attacking Russia, from conquering the world for Germany. Kevin Costner proved in “Tin Cup” by repeatedly trying to cross the pond on the 72nd hole and failing until he got it right, throwing away the tournament in the process that often infamous losers like Jean Van de Velde are remembered longer and ingrained in our collective consciousness longer than winners. At the recent Open Championship at Carnoustie, Scotland, which was won yesterday by too friendly Padraig Harrington, ABC, TNT and ESPN focused mainly on the infamous collapse eight years ago on the 72nd hole by Jean Van de Velde.
The networks had Jack Nicklaus sitting in an arm chair ripping Jean Van de Velde limb from limb for throwing away a three shot lead on the 72nd hole. What seemed to irk the analysts the most was Jean Van de Velde’s insistence that he wasn’t that concerned because golf if just a game. Analyst Paul Azinger said that “everyone from here to kingdom come knows that after his drive onto the island right of the Bury Burn Creek Jean Van de Velde should have wedged safely back into the 18th fairway.” In fact Jean Van de Velde had to protect against the out of bounds inches left of the eighteenth green and so he did what so many others did. Jean towered a two iron out to the right. 99.99% of the time that shot flys into the grandstand, Van de Velde gets a free drop, wedges on from the free drop circle and makes par or bogey for victory. He had a three shot lead. The announcers had been singing his praises all day long. Even if the ball hadn’t missed going into the grandstand by three quarters of an inch, 99.9% of the time the ball hits the grandstand and comes to rest beside the grandstand for an easy wedge and victory.
What happened was that the ball hit a 1” part of the grandstand railing and then caromed back, hit a rock, and then caromed back into the rough at Carnoustie which Jean had taken out of play with his two iron which was the height of a cornfield, and led to the winning score being 6 over par and the R&A completely eradicating the rough this year so that the winning score was 7 under. Padraig Harrington came to the 72nd hole yesterday and drove the ball into the Bury Burn Creek on the right. He then took a penalty and dropped his ball. Then he cold chunked his next shot into the Bury Burn Creek short of the eighteenth green. Leading the Open Championship Padraig Harrington has now hit into the creek twice on the par 4 finishing hole and is lying 4 with a wedge to the green. He was out van de velding Jean Van de Velde. Had he not gotten up and down, had Sergio Garcia not bogeyed 18, and had Padraig Harrington not won the playoff over Sergio Garcia then today and for all time Padraig Harrington would have gone down in infamy like Tony Blair in the Muslim World.
Tony Blair recently resigned as Prime Minister of Britain to become the Middle East Peace Envoy of the quartet, the United Nations, the United States, the European Union and Russia. Tony Blair is the co Crusader of George Bush. Naming Tony Blair as the quartet’s ambassador to the Middle East is like naming Adolf Hitler as the German Ambassador to Israel. On the face of it anyone can see that this can never lead to peace and that the U.S. and England have absolutely no intention of making peace with the Muslim world.
James Wolfensohn is Tony Blair’s predecessor as Quartet envoy. He said, “The U.S. dominates the quartet. There was never a desire on the part of the U.S. (George Bush and Dick Cheney) to give up control of the peace negotiations.” George Bush, who launched and publicly anounced his Crusade to the world in 2003 has now appointed his co Crusader Tony Blair as Middle East Peace Ambassador. George Bush and Tony Blair have built 10 permanent bases in Iraq and no leading Republican or Democratic contender has any intention of ever leaving Iraq, or making peace until they have incinerated every single Muslim man, woman and child with weapons of mass destruction and stolen their oil. In the first crusade a thousand years ago the Pope marched his Christian Army across Europe slaughtering every Jew in his way until the Christian soldiers reclaimed the Holy Land and stood knee deep in Muslim blood in Jerusalem. Go tell 1 million dead Iraqi men, women and children that no British golfer has won a major championship in eight years because British people are too friendly.
