This weekend, I saw Orioles 19-year-old prospect Parker Bridwell pitch in Aberdeen on Friday night and going to the U.S. Open on Saturday. I’ll start with the U.S. Open because that’s the event which I have more thoughts on.
The U.S. Open was held at Congressional Country Club in Bethesda, Md. My cousin is a huge golf fan who lives in the Philadelphia area, so naturally, my dad and I went with him to the tournament, which was held about an hour away from where I live. My dad and I are more casual golf fans than my cousin — we like watching the majors, but we aren’t going to tune in for the smaller tournaments. The three of us had attended one other major tournament, in 2005. It was the PGA Championship at Baltusrol Golf Club in Springfield, New Jersey.
That August Saturday in 2005 was the hottest day I’ve ever experienced. The temperature sat around 100 degrees the entire day and topped out at 105 degrees. Looking back, I have no idea how I, or any of those who I went with, handled it as well as we did. I was 14 years old at the time and ridiculous heat probably didn’t bother me as much as it does now. It was so hot that day.
This time around, the temperature sat around a completely tolerable 85-90 degrees all day with a nice breeze. And, with Congressional being a golf course and all, there was plenty of places with shade. The first thing I realized when I walked around the course was that it probably wasn’t a course that was typical of a U.S. Open. The rough didn’t seem too rough and the greens didn’t look terribly imposing. It looked like a place professional golfers could score well on (and they did).
My dad, cousin and I soon found out that the place to be was the 10th tee (as did many other fans). You could get really close to the golfers as they teed off. I saw Phil Mickelson and Rory McIlroy, among others, at the 10th tee. I ended up following around Mickelson around for parts of his front nine because he was the biggest name there and I wanted to see him. I followed McIlroy and Y.E. Yang, along with the group before them (Sergio Garcia and Robert Garrigus), for parts of the back nine.
The weirdest part of following McIlroy was that at the 18th tee, there weren’t many people. There might have been 40 or so people surrounding the 18th tee. A lot of people were waiting for him at the green, while others had already left. So at the 18th tee on Saturday, I was able to easily get close to the dominant leader’s tee shot. I found that somewhat odd.
Anyhow, in the gift shop after the all-day extravaganza (we entered the golf course around 12:30 p.m. and left around 9:30 p.m.), I saw a familiar face and heard a familiar voice. It was Caps play-by-play man Joe Beninati. My dad and I talked to him briefly. He’s a cool dude, and it certainly was not who I was expecting to meet at Congressional.
So, after going to two majors, I’ve come up with three criteria that anyone has to meet in regards to going to a golf tournament:
No. 1: You have to be a pretty big golf fan to enjoy yourself at a tournament. If you’re just a casual fan, you won’t know which players you’re looking at most of the time. No. 2: You need to be in pretty good shape. To thoroughly enjoy yourself throughout the day, you have to walk around the entirety of the course, seeing everything you want to see throughout the day. And golf weather is hot. You really do have to be in good shape. No. 3: Constantly hydrate yourself and eat something while you’re there. If you don’t, you’ll end up having a monster headache like I had when I got back into the car to go home. The dehydration won’t hit you while you’re at the course. It’ll hit you like a ton of bricks later, though.
One other thing before moving onto Bridwell — a narrative has been portrayed by the media that Tiger Woods is fading away and Rory McIlroy is The Next Tiger. I understand why some media and fans would like to move on from Tiger and place the game of golf primarily in the hands of a new generation of golfers. Tiger, pretty clearly, is not a great dude. And this is not just regarding all of the stuff that went down off the course — he comes off as an overly-arrogant guy in his on-course behavior and his snarky comments during interviews. The young golfers, meanwhile, seem like pretty decent human beings.
In short, the prevailing narrative seems to be: Rory, good; Tiger, bad!!!
Nevertheless, Tiger is the single person that re-energized the game of golf about 15 years ago. The media needs to recognize that without Tiger, there might not be a new generation of golfers. There might not be so many great young golfers starting their professional careers around this time. The Next Tiger, in his post-round press conference Sunday, even mentioned how he watched Tiger dominate when he was a youngster. Tiger created the high level of interest in the game of golf once upon a time that helped create this rush of youth in the game of golf and place the game in the good spot that it’s currently in.
While I recognize that part of the reason that Tiger wasn’t mentioned a whole lot at this tournament because he would have been at least 10 back of The New Tiger just like everyone else, there should be recognition that Tiger helped create this new generation of golf. The fact that Tiger Woods is not a good human being doesn’t change that.
I also believe that The New Tiger is the real deal. I think this was the first of many major championships. But the media’s proclamation that he is The New Tiger is kind of ridiculous at this point. He’s won one major. The only similarity between The New Tiger and Tiger is that they each won a major championship at a very young age. That’s it. The comparison is lazy. It’s also completely unfair to The New Tiger.
What can take golf to the next level in terms of interest is a re-focused Tiger taking on The New Tiger and the other young golfers in the third and fourth rounds of major championships in the future. Ratings would go through the roof if Tiger and The New Tiger were going head-to-head in the final round of a major tournament.
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Onto Bridwell. The first thing I noticed about the right-handed throwing Bridwell on Friday night was that he has the prototypical projectable body for a pitcher — Aberdeen has him listed at 6-foot-4 and 190 pounds. Bridwell, the Orioles’ ninth round pick last year and drafted out of high school, could grow into his frame eventually and add some velocity.
Aberdeen was taking on Hudson Valley in the season opener for each squad. Bridwell pitched five innings, giving up no runs on four hits, striking out nine, walking none and hitting one batter. He also committed a balk. Hudson Valley hitters were helplessly waving at some of Bridwell’s off-speed stuff. From my seats along the third base line, it looked like a changeup that hitters were swinging and missing at, but apparently hitters were flailing at both his changeup and slider. Bridwell used his off-speed pitches very effectively, producing a ton of swing and misses on those pitches.
The radar gun at Ripken Stadium is wacky, so I couldn’t catch any accurate radar readings, though Kevin Goldstein of Baseball Prospectus writes that he sits 92-94 mph and touches 96. Bridwell seemed to use his off-speed stuff a lot — and why not, with the way he was dominating hitters with it? — but it’ll be interesting to see if he uses his fastball more later in the season. I have eight more games in my season plan this year, so I hope to see him pitch two or three more times. Quite honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if Bridwell is the top pitching prospect in the organization this side of Dylan Bundy once the season is over.