Yani Tseng's Latest Win & An Angry Bird That Yearns to Fly

Yani Tseng's Angry Bird & trophy via Beth Ann Baldry

The symbolism is pretty clear; a small red bird, round and wingless, sits atop a loving cup. Glaring angrily.

The Red Bird is one of the famous Angry Birds and belongs to Yani Tseng, as does the cup, which happens to be the coveted Dinah Shore trophy. The top ranked LPGA star won that elegant piece of hardware at the Kraft Nabisco Championship in 2010... and the scowling bird is perched upon it because last year, in 2011, Tseng narrowly missed winning.  

According to Golf Week's Beth Ann Baldry, who tweeted this with the photo at left back in November, "Yani put an angry bird inside her Kraft replica trophy because she didn't win in 2011".

With a victory today at the Kia Classic... her third win of the still very young 2012 LPGA season... the Taiwanese champion seems to be on track to become a multiple winner of the 2012 Kraft Nabisco next week and jump into Poppie's Pond for a second time. If she does,  I'm guessing she'll take the ill tempered avian with her.

German Golf, Ryder Cup 2018 & Sandra Gal's Win

I had to smile when I heard about Sandra Gal's win at the Kia Classic yesterday.

The first thing I thought of were the headlines it would produce. Any time a golfer has a last name that's also a word, things can get ...well... weird. Who'll ever forget the Jim Nantz reciting Bette Midler in honor of Justin Rose debacle, right? Needless to say, I was expecting the worst. -->



However,  thus far I've seen nothing more egregious than an inoffensive "Thatta Gal", so perhaps headline writers have finally learned to resist the facile play-on-words.

When Gal defeated five time winner... and third round leader.. Jiyai Shin for her first LPGA win yesterday, it was the only the second time a German national had ever won on the LPGA Tour.

The statuesque brunette was born in Dusseldorf and played collegiate golf at the University of Florida. She qualified for the LPGA Tour in 2008 and finished her degree... with honors.. while playing full time on the tour.

Certainly Sandra's win comes a good time for RC Deutschland GmbH, the bid company for the 2018 Ryder Cup in Germany.  Germany is one of the five nations bidding for the 2018 Cup, and their bid is backed two-time Masters Champion, hall-of-fame golfer, Bernhard Langer enjoying a stellar career on the Champions Tour and Martin Kaymer currently the No. 1 male golfer in the world. Both men are featured prominently on the German Bid website.  Now... somewhat unexpectedly... German golf also has a Gal!  (I apologize - I couldn't resist) I'm sure Sandra will be lending her support to the bid as well with the decision date fast approaching. 

In addition to her remarkable game,  Sandra Gal has a sleek style sense which was on display yesterday with the black leggings she wore under a red two-piece (Nike?) outfit.  And speaking of Sandra's sense of style, it was almost a year ago that the long-limbed golfer had a minor run-in with a dress code dictator at a Palm Springs Club where she was practicing.  Sandra was told she'd need to change because her shorts were too short!  The good-natured golfer took it all in stride and later tweeted about the encounter with humor.  I'm sure there are lots of golf fans looking forward to seeing Sandra Gal on the leaderboard throughout the season.