Some people flip to the back of a book to see how it ends. For others, the first thing they do when they open the paper is read the obits. Me, I like to check out the leaderboard by seeing who's currently on top, and then scrolling down to see who's dead last in the field. Given the state of my golf game it makes sense. Nothing like seeing a guy who hits golf balls for a living shooting on his worst day what I might shoot on my best. Anyway, this was the ritual last night, as I perused the Travelers Championship leaderboard.
Kenny Perry fired a 61 (although he could have broken 60 in his sleep if not for Bacon jinxing him), and there, at the bottom of the page, sat Paul Azinger, crafty 2008 Ryder Cup captain, golf analyst, and former major champion.
Good news: Azinger's game didn't suddenly fall off the face of the Earth. Bad news: He was disqualified for using a Callaway ball that wasn't on the List of Conforming Golf Balls.
It's much more mundane than it sounds. Via Golf Digest's Local Knowledge blog.
Not that there was anything actually wrong with the ball itself. Rather, on May 21, Callaway Golf sent out a communiqu?? [sic] stating it was asking the USGA to take it's [sic] Tour i ball that had a sidestamp with a single dot to each side of the words "Tour i" ... off the List of Conforming Golf Balls because a small number of them had be found to exceed the USGA's weight limit. At the time, Callaway said it was introducing a new ball with a pair of dots to the side of the words "Tour i" to take its place.So, to recap: Azinger used a Callaway ball that probably didn't exceed the USGA-mandated weight limit, but it happened to have a bad stamp. Sounds about right.
On the upside, Azinger, who has played in just four events this year (and made just one cut), fired a 68. So at least his game is in order. Silver linings, people.
