The Arnold Palmer Invitational
Mar. 27th, 2011 05:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
marinessOk, so, my one attempt at playing golf resulted in a score of 88 – for one hole. (I allowed other groups to pass me, one reason my, um, "game" lasted so long.) In my defense, that score only happened because a) the trees kept jumping in front of my ball, deliberately, b) the various clubs weren't actually interested in swinging where I was making them swing and c) some of you may not believe this, but I think the ball (er, balls, eventually) were under a curse because they were not rolling the right way.
To be fair, this may not be entirely the fault of the game of golf, since I am nearly as bad at miniature golf. Actually I find miniature golf goes best when I play it with my eyes shut.
But watching the game on the internet? (Not TV. TV coverage is the very definition of dull.) That I can do. Which is how I ended up at the Arnold Palmer Invitational and learned a few things:
1. If you want to see Harry Potter at Universal's Islands of Adventure, but don't want to pay the insane parking fees for the world's largest parking lot on top of the ticket prices, your best bet is to show up during the Arnold Palmer/Bay Hill event and announce, in cool and collected tones, that you are there for the Bay Hill event. The ticket agent will then smile at you and hand over a complimentary parking pass and – unusually enough for the Universal parking lot – actually send you to the correct parking location (in this case, Spiderman.) You can then join various happy golf spectators as they negotiate the insanity that is that parking lot, going UP the elevators or the (once again not working) escalators and OVER the walkways before quietly vanishing into the happy Harry Potter/Spiderman/Thing One and Thing Two crowds. Your wallets can thank me later.
2. If, however, you are actually heading to the Arnold Palmer Invitational you will first need to negotiate the ticket area which is inconveniently located in the general walkway to Universal Studios (where the walkways for the two garages meet up with the walkway to City Walk). You will then need to go back DOWN to the bus/taxi parking lot.
3. This is about the time when you will realize that Universal Studios is not actually all that close to Bay Hill.
4. Thanks to the miracle of iPhones, however, everyone can watch golf coverage on the not short shuttle ride to Bay Hill. The delight of this will be considerably mitigated by the insistence of the driver on telling Tennessee jokes. And Auburn jokes. And Georgia jokes. And UM jokes. And Florida State jokes. You will feel renewed pride and joy in the University at Binghamton.
5. Your entrance into Bay Hill will be further delayed by the need of Tiger Woods and his entire entourage and a very large group of happy fans to cross a road. (And that was the only time I saw Tiger Woods the entire day – we thought he was going later so otherwise missed him, which given the happy crowds following him was probably just as well).
6. Bay Hill is located in a residential district of lovely homes, with residential streets crossing the golf course here and there. This is lovely for the homeowners, and rather less convenient for people actually trying to get into the tournament, as traffic is constantly stopped by golfers and spectators.
7. Spectators will get considerably more involved in the game than I thought, and by more involved, I mean, participating in conversations like this:
Player currently in the lead: "DID IT FALL INTO THE HAZARD?"
"YES!"
"NO!"
"WHICH SIDE OF THE RED LINE?"
"THE LEFT THE LEFT THE LEFT!"
"THANKS!"
Also players occasionally throw balls at small and cute children or at harmless, unassuming, water hazards and lakes. Also, caddies run around raking up sand. I did NOT KNOW THIS.
8. Great blue herons are, to my surprise, very intense golf fans. They love it.
9. Ducks are, not to my surprise, not very intense golf fans. Anhingas will eat fish.
10. Golf is the sort of game that allows you to learn these sorts of things.
11. Hunter Mahan wears cute sunglasses. You do not actually need to attend a PGA Tour event to know this but I thought it should be mentioned.
12. The very rich often have very bad taste. This will be demonstrated by a house on what I believe was hole 15 which was not merely three times larger than either house beside it, but also, and this cannot be concealed, horrifically balanced and just flat out ugly and too large for its lot.
13. Even though the course is covered with various large airconditioned tents, various large TV screens explaining where everybody is at any given time, electronic golf swing analysis, materials scientists, computers immediately calculating speeds and locations, huge TV cameras, the main leaderboard/scorecards ARE STILL CHANGED BY HAND. And by hand, I mean, six people on each board are climbing up and down latters moving names and numbers around and rechecking what people on the ground are saying all while trying to be absolutely quiet.
14. Speaking of quiet, this is a remarkably quiet sport, with everyone going, hush, hush, even when, as was happening more often towards the end of the afternoon, everyone was increasingly drunk.
15. An astonishing number of wealthy homeowners will decide to augment their income by selling cheap drinks and candy on the side of the course. These sales will be further augmented by what I am certain is a merely coincidental decision on the part of some of the women to sell these drinks and candy in bikini tops and short shorts.
16. SPF 30 sunscreen is not quite as reliable as its label claims. I'm just saying, if in a rather painful fashion.
17. Everyone, including you, will wander round and round and round, which will a) force everyone to buy more drinks from the wealthy homeowners and b) cause various crowds following the big ones to shift here and there, allowing you to easily pinpoint when the major players are approaching a hole.
18. You will never be able to figure out why anyone would decide to wear a black cocktail dress, emeralds, and six inch heels on a golf course, but you will be able to figure out pretty quickly why she looks utterly miserable.
To be fair, this may not be entirely the fault of the game of golf, since I am nearly as bad at miniature golf. Actually I find miniature golf goes best when I play it with my eyes shut.
But watching the game on the internet? (Not TV. TV coverage is the very definition of dull.) That I can do. Which is how I ended up at the Arnold Palmer Invitational and learned a few things:
1. If you want to see Harry Potter at Universal's Islands of Adventure, but don't want to pay the insane parking fees for the world's largest parking lot on top of the ticket prices, your best bet is to show up during the Arnold Palmer/Bay Hill event and announce, in cool and collected tones, that you are there for the Bay Hill event. The ticket agent will then smile at you and hand over a complimentary parking pass and – unusually enough for the Universal parking lot – actually send you to the correct parking location (in this case, Spiderman.) You can then join various happy golf spectators as they negotiate the insanity that is that parking lot, going UP the elevators or the (once again not working) escalators and OVER the walkways before quietly vanishing into the happy Harry Potter/Spiderman/Thing One and Thing Two crowds. Your wallets can thank me later.
2. If, however, you are actually heading to the Arnold Palmer Invitational you will first need to negotiate the ticket area which is inconveniently located in the general walkway to Universal Studios (where the walkways for the two garages meet up with the walkway to City Walk). You will then need to go back DOWN to the bus/taxi parking lot.
3. This is about the time when you will realize that Universal Studios is not actually all that close to Bay Hill.
4. Thanks to the miracle of iPhones, however, everyone can watch golf coverage on the not short shuttle ride to Bay Hill. The delight of this will be considerably mitigated by the insistence of the driver on telling Tennessee jokes. And Auburn jokes. And Georgia jokes. And UM jokes. And Florida State jokes. You will feel renewed pride and joy in the University at Binghamton.
5. Your entrance into Bay Hill will be further delayed by the need of Tiger Woods and his entire entourage and a very large group of happy fans to cross a road. (And that was the only time I saw Tiger Woods the entire day – we thought he was going later so otherwise missed him, which given the happy crowds following him was probably just as well).
6. Bay Hill is located in a residential district of lovely homes, with residential streets crossing the golf course here and there. This is lovely for the homeowners, and rather less convenient for people actually trying to get into the tournament, as traffic is constantly stopped by golfers and spectators.
7. Spectators will get considerably more involved in the game than I thought, and by more involved, I mean, participating in conversations like this:
Player currently in the lead: "DID IT FALL INTO THE HAZARD?"
"YES!"
"NO!"
"WHICH SIDE OF THE RED LINE?"
"THE LEFT THE LEFT THE LEFT!"
"THANKS!"
Also players occasionally throw balls at small and cute children or at harmless, unassuming, water hazards and lakes. Also, caddies run around raking up sand. I did NOT KNOW THIS.
8. Great blue herons are, to my surprise, very intense golf fans. They love it.
9. Ducks are, not to my surprise, not very intense golf fans. Anhingas will eat fish.
10. Golf is the sort of game that allows you to learn these sorts of things.
11. Hunter Mahan wears cute sunglasses. You do not actually need to attend a PGA Tour event to know this but I thought it should be mentioned.
12. The very rich often have very bad taste. This will be demonstrated by a house on what I believe was hole 15 which was not merely three times larger than either house beside it, but also, and this cannot be concealed, horrifically balanced and just flat out ugly and too large for its lot.
13. Even though the course is covered with various large airconditioned tents, various large TV screens explaining where everybody is at any given time, electronic golf swing analysis, materials scientists, computers immediately calculating speeds and locations, huge TV cameras, the main leaderboard/scorecards ARE STILL CHANGED BY HAND. And by hand, I mean, six people on each board are climbing up and down latters moving names and numbers around and rechecking what people on the ground are saying all while trying to be absolutely quiet.
14. Speaking of quiet, this is a remarkably quiet sport, with everyone going, hush, hush, even when, as was happening more often towards the end of the afternoon, everyone was increasingly drunk.
15. An astonishing number of wealthy homeowners will decide to augment their income by selling cheap drinks and candy on the side of the course. These sales will be further augmented by what I am certain is a merely coincidental decision on the part of some of the women to sell these drinks and candy in bikini tops and short shorts.
16. SPF 30 sunscreen is not quite as reliable as its label claims. I'm just saying, if in a rather painful fashion.
17. Everyone, including you, will wander round and round and round, which will a) force everyone to buy more drinks from the wealthy homeowners and b) cause various crowds following the big ones to shift here and there, allowing you to easily pinpoint when the major players are approaching a hole.
18. You will never be able to figure out why anyone would decide to wear a black cocktail dress, emeralds, and six inch heels on a golf course, but you will be able to figure out pretty quickly why she looks utterly miserable.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-03-28 01:45 am (UTC)Not only did this bring my many laughs, you have done a great service in the cause of cross-cultural amity. Golf mystifies me. MyGuy is so enthusiastic he actually watches on TV, as well as playing every weekend when possible (course will be opening in the next three weeks).
(no subject)
Date: 2011-03-28 02:09 pm (UTC)Television golf coverage is terrible. It's not just that it's boring; it's that you get no sense of the game and no sense of the players whatsoever.
The internet coverage of major events generally gives you viewing options and lets you click around the golf course and gets commentators who either currently play golf professionally or used to or are the PhDs who design the clubs and golf balls. You usually get a choice: you can either follow one specific group around the entire course, which is great because you get to see how the game really works, what with stopping and waiting for other players and yelling at ducks and chatting with caddies and so on, and you get to see all of the holes played out, or you can watch just two holes and get to see all of the players and see all of the plays on those holes which is cool - they usually pick a nice hard hole that everyone misses or sends balls flying into ducks.
Television coverage only shows you one or two strokes per hole, never mentions ducks, and keeps skipping and hopping around, so, no, you won't get a sense of the game and it will mystify you. And, more importantly, the television commentators suck. Most of them don't play golf professionally and just say various inane things.
The internet coverage usually gets one of the LPGA players to comment on the men's games (although not for the upcoming Masters) and vice versa; this is really good because they all play the same courses, so the LPGA player can explain the specific difficulty with the green and how she would and did approach it -- depending upon the course this can differ between men and women and they will go into that as well. Plus they get various materials scientists to explain the balls and various people who design golf courses to explain where you put trees and the various grass considerations and how to deal with ducks. And sometimes they get a governor or senator or basketball player in to make some additional comments.
Watching the game live was pretty thrilling, actually, mostly because we were lucky enough to see K.J. Choi make a REALLY GOOD putt and then he did a whole fist pump thing as everyone cheered him and then he found a cute little kid and threw her the winning ball. And we got to see some other cool moments.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-03-28 03:03 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-03-28 07:32 pm (UTC)