With wrong card, she made right choice
When she called home late Sunday after a successful day on the golf course, Tara Joy-Connelly knew her husband, J.P., would have followed her progress via the Internet, so she wasn't going to surprise him with her score.
Instead, he surprised her, praising her for the round of 73.
Tara Joy-Connelly winced. "I shot 74," she said, and when her husband, the head professional at Cohasset Golf Club, reiterated that the US Golf Association website had her down for a 73, Joy-Connelly knew there was only one thing to do.
She called attention to her mistake.
"I called my caddie and double-checked with him," she said. "He confirmed what I knew, that I had made a stupid mistake."
Playing in the second round of the US Women's Mid-Amateur Championship at Desert Forest Golf Club in Carefree, Ariz., the Marshfield native had made a bogey 4 at her eighth hole, the 17th. Her playing competitor, however, had put down a 3. When the round was done and the players went through the scores, Joy-Connelly failed to catch the mistake. She signed for a 73 -148 when, in fact, she had shot 74 -149.
"It was totally avoidable, totally careless," said Joy-Connelly, who rushed to find a USGA official after speaking with her husband. The only thing is, she had played in the second-to-last group and officials by that time were hard to find. It had been a rare occurrence for them, for after two rounds of stroke play, the field had been trimmed to 64; no playoff would be needed to nail down the final spots.
The mistake wouldn't have made a difference in Joy-Connelly's standing. The medalist had shot 144, then came a 146. Instead of being solo third at 148, she would have been solo third at 149, because fourth place was 150. But she knew the rule - she had signed for a lower score than she had shot, which meant disqualification. What she hoped her mad dash to the USGA office would do was allow for the field to be reconfigured so others could move up in the standings. Alas, that did not happen.
"They said the pairings had already been done and it was too late to change them," said Joy-Connelly, who thus went into the record books as having "defaulted" in her first-round match with Heidi Stark of Lincoln, Neb. "The only thing they said to me was, they were so impressed with me calling a penalty on myself."
In days since, Joy-Connelly has heard similar praise about her integrity, and while she takes pride in that, it was a painful way to put it to the test.
"You can make a lot of mistakes on the golf course and recover," she said.
"But you can't make a mistake on your scorecard."
The old soft shoe
When Phil Mickelson drew Vijay Singh in a Presidents Cup singles match, reporters salivated. Remembering very well the confrontation the players had at the 2005 Masters when Singh accused Mickelson of leaving big spike marks in the green, they prepared story lines overnight, but they quickly fizzled out when the lefthander showed up in soft spikes. It was suggested that Mickelson was trying to avoid a confrontation, but he said it was as simple as this: He prefers soft spikes these days, because they accommodate some new footwork he uses since he came under the tutelage of Butch Harmon. "What I found was, it felt better on my back," said Mickelson, who connected the dots and understood why reporters were asking about the spikes issue. Then, showing he indeed has a good sense of humor, Mickelson said, "I thought about [metal spikes] just for today. I thought that would be funny. But I couldn't find any."Cup overflow
Some other Presidents Cup leftovers:After watching Scott Verplank go 4-0 and anchor two crisp efforts in foursomes, could Tom Lehman remind us once again why he benched the fairways-and-greens specialist three times at the Ryder Cup last year, twice in foursomes?
There were a number of curious decisions made with pairings on the International side, most notably that Adam Scott and Retief Goosen were sent out just once together after having gone 3-0-1 in the 2005 competition.
Scott never got a rhythm going, though playing with four partners (he lost with Geoff Ogilvy, K.J. Choi, and Ernie Els, and halved with Goosen) didn't help matters. In fact, in team competition, Scott had a lead for just three of his 66 holes.
Mickelson is 5-1-4 in his last two Presidents Cups, 1-7-1 in his last two Ryder Cups.
Don't ask Charles Howell what he thought of the 18th hole at Royal Montreal. He was the only competitor who didn't have a match go that far.
Pointed injustice
One could argue that Mike Weir had the best week of anyone on the PGA Tour landscape last weekend, thanks to his dramatic singles victory over Tiger Woods in the Presidents Cup. So, what did he get for it? How about a demotion in the world order? That's right, the lefthander fell one spot and is now 47th in the world rankings. Obviously, the explanation is clear: World ranking points weren't available. Still, it hits at the subjective nature of any points system, and no one knows that better than Woods. In a made-for-TV match with David Duval in August 1999, Woods won, 2 and 1, yet it didn't carry any weight with the world rankings computer. The next week, Woods was dropped to No. 2 in the world, behind Duval . . . While Joy-Connelly left the US Women's Mid-Amateur in heartbreaking fashion, two other locals stuck around a few more days. Tracy Welch of Winchester Country Club finished tied for 44th in qualifying, but came alive in match play, scoring two convincing wins (4 and 3; 6 and 4) before losing, 5 and 4, to former champion Virginia Derby Grimes. Dana Harrity of North Hampton, N.H., meanwhile, shot 76-82 to qualify 20th, then won her first-round match (3 and 1) before getting ousted, 2 and 1 . . . In men's Mid-Amateur play at Bandon, Ore., Austin Eaton III of North Sutton, N.H., shot 69-75 to share medalist honors, while Doug Clapp of Walpole made the cut with trips of 77-73. Each player, however, was defeated in the first round, 3 and 2.Well qualified
Jim Renner of Plainville shot 71-68-69-69 -277 in McKinney, Texas, and finished second in a prequalifier for the PGA Tour Qualifying Tournament. He will advance to the first stage, along with Kevin Silva of New Bedford, who finished joint 17th with a 289 total. Justin Goodhue of Glastonbury, Conn., shot 291, tied for 22d, and also made it through . . .Campus news
With team members sharing medalist honors (Lindsay Hong, 74-78) and third place (Natasha Spackey, 76-77), the Yale women won their fall invitational by eight shots over Harvard. Sarah Harvey (77-76) was Harvard's top scorer, tied for third, while Claire Sheldon of Milton, a Harvard freshman, shot 159 to get into a share of 14th. Finishing fifth was Georgetown sophomore Chelsea Curtis of Mashpee (77-77), while Meredith Kotowski of Marion, a sophomore at Penn, shot 157 to finish tied for ninth . . . At the Margaret Branch NCAA Preview in Albuquerque, Alison Walshe of Westford - a senior at Arizona - shot 70-69-70 -209 to finish third . . . Boston University women won the Mount Holyoke Invitational at The Orchards GC in South Hadley. Taking individual honors was Hayley Milbourn of Amherst (76-79 -155) . . . Boston College finished ninth at the Nittany Lions Women's Invitational, with senior Katie Napleton the Eagles' top scorer (241, tied for 25th). Katherine Murphy, a sophomore from Portsmouth, R.I., shot 232 and finished tied for 10th to help Penn State finish third . . . The University of Rhode Island finished third in its annual Adams Cup at Newport National GC, eight shots behind Wichita State. Mark Stevens of Concord, N.H., shot 223 to finish joint seventh and lead URI . . . Jon Curran of Hopkinton (79-73-70 -222), a sophomore at Vanderbilt, tied for 18th in the Shoal Creek Invitational in Birmingham, Ala.Jim McCabe can be reached at jmccabe@globe.com.
