The first major golf tournament of the year was completed over the last weekend, and was quite the scoring weekend down in Augusta, Georgia.  The Masters is one of the most revered golf courses in the world, and only the best play there once a year for the elusive green jacket.  This year had all kinds of hype built up as the world’s #1, Tiger Woods, was returning to competitive golf after his 144 day hiatus for personal reasons.

The first round was exciting to say the least. Old timers performed like they were young again, and some surprises were up near the top.  Tom Watson was lights out going 5-under with 5 birdies in his first round.  He’s not unfamiliar with playing beyond his age as he took a close 2nd at the British Open last year by bogeying the 72nd hole.  Fred Couples had the lead after Day 1 with a 6-under, 66.  Tiger Woods was also back to his regular self after a long break, shooting a 5-under in his best Masters round ever.

Phil Mickelson and Tiger Woods were the main stories of the week, with the British fans cheering for Lee Westwood to fend them both off for the weekend.  Tiger had a slow day on Saturday and somewhat fell out of contention early Sunday when he gathered a few bogies to his name.  Phil Mickelson never ceased to amaze.  Saturday was a jolt to his game when he was the first player to have back to back eagles at Augusta.  He proceeded to almost eagle the next hole rolling it to a few inches to pick up 5 strokes in three holes.  Sunday, the magic didn’t leave.  Phil stuck an iron to 8 feet on 13 from the trees to get a birdie and almost clinch the green jacket.

Walking up the 18th fairway, Phil had already landed his ball a few feet from the pin and knew that the green jacket would be his again since his last win there in 2006.  His wife, Amy, who is battling breast cancer, was in the crowd to hug him after the round had ended and “Lefty” tacked on another major title to his name.  This brings his total to 4, which few golfers have ever attained.

My favorite sport is back in the swing of things! It was a pretty crazy day for the young and old players.

The stars shined as reigning NL MVP Albert Pujols went yard twice against the Reds. (Roxi, I’ll admit he’s a good player…) Mark Buehrle then pitched seven innings in a rout of the Cleveland Indians 6-0. During that game, Buehrle also probably had the play of the year as a line drive went off of his leg, he chased it down and flicked it with his glove, not looking, through his legs, right into the hand of Paul Konerko to get the out at first. It was one of the best plays I’ve ever seen in my life. Roy Halladay got the Opening Day start in the new hometown of Philadelphia and rolled over the Washington Nationals. (who sadly, don’t look much better than last year) The Arizona Diamondbacks’ Stephen Drew had an inside the park homerun at San Diego and Colby Rasmus snagged a ball from over the fence against the Reds.

The Rookies also came to impress with the weight of the world on Jason Heyward’s first AB of his major league career.  What did he do? Only a 3-Run Homerun that would put the Braves ahead 6-3.  He became one of only 4 rookies since the 1980′s to hit a homerun on his first at bat.  Needless to say, the Braves are happy he’s just what they expected. Heyward went on to drive in one more run and was 2/5 in the game.

Leave it to the crafty veterans to produce for their teams as well.  Placido Polanco hit a grand slam against Washington to pound the Nationals 11-1.  Hideki Matsui went yard in his first game as an Angel since his trade from the New York Yankees.  Garrett Jones hit two homeruns in his first two at bats. It was truly a magical Opening Day 2010.

To cap it all off, the day wouldn’t be complete without a little excitement as Jarrod Saltalamacchia stepped to the plate in the bottom of the 9th with the bases loaded. He drove the ball into the right field gap and won in dramatic walk off fashion.

I’ll try my best to keep you posted with the happenings in the MLB throughout this strenuous 162-game season and Go Brewers!!

Hey everyone! Christmas is finally wrapping up and I must say, it was really a great time. I’m going to try and get to most of the big four sports that happened in 2009 as a sort of “”Year in Review”  Well, here it goes!

Football-
–Early in 2009, Tim Tebow and the Florida Gators beat out the Oklahoma Sooners 24-14 to win the BCS National Championship
–The Pittsburgh Steelers won with a toe tapping fingertip catch by Santonio Holmes in the endzone late in the 4th quarter to beat the Arizona Cardinals and win the 43rd Super Bowl in Tampa.
–Two teams take an undefeated season through 13 games, the Colts and the Saints. Sadly, both of the teams end up losing in the last 3 weeks of the season.

Baseball-
–Japan emerges victorious in the 2009 World Baseball Classic over South Korea by winning 5-3 in 10 innings.
–The New York Yankees long hard battle back to the top of the baseball world was capped off by a win in the World Series upon the bat of Alex Rodriguez.
–The unthinkable happened when Mark Buehrle threw a perfect game against the Tampa Bay Rays. He almost lost it, but Jermaine Dye robbed a home run late in the game to preserve this historic feat. It has only been done 18 times in major league history.

Basketball-
–North Carolina trounces Michigan State in the NCAA Tournament Championship by a score of 89-72 behind the gritty and determined play of Tyler Hansborough.
–The Los Angeles Lakers are led by Kobe Bryant to take the 2009 NBA Finals 4-1 over the Orlando Magic. “Superman” Dwight Howard had a hard time containing Pao Gasol as the series was never really in doubt.

Hockey-
–Pittsburgh Penguins’ Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin lead their team back to the finals against the same team they faced last year in the Detroit Red Wings.  In one of the most exciting series’ ever, the Penguins clinch the Stanley Cup with an impressive Game 7 victory. Malkin was awarded the Conn Smythe Trophy for best player in the playoffs.

Tennis-
–Roger Federer loses 2 of 4 Major Championships to Rafael Nadal and Juan Martin del Potro.  The Wimbledon Final against Andy Roddick will go down in history as one of the greatest matches ever played when Federer finally broke Roddick to win in the 5th set 16-14.
–Serena Williams wins the Australian Open and Wimbledon. Svetlana Kuznetsova won the French open, while Kim Clijsters won the US Open.

Golf-
–The Masters was won by Angel Cabrera in a sudden death playoff over Kenny Perry and Chad Campbell.
–Lucas Glover won the US Open over three other American players in a rainy 4 day tournament.
–A magical performance by 59-year-old Tom Watson led him to a four hole playoff against Stewart Cink.  The experienced Watson couldn’t keep it together, but left a tournament to remember for the ages.
–Tiger Woods couldn’t come back from the final round deficit in the PGA Championship where Y.E. Yang was the first Asian-born player to win a major men’s championship.
(Needless to say, Tiger ran into a few more problems later in the year…)

Hopefully if you slept for 365 days in 2009, this one article can get you back up to speed on the sports you care about.
-FalconKP

The historic and prestigious coaching position at the Universtiy of Notre Dame was announced this morning in a press conference in South Bend, Indiana.  The Fighting Irish picked from the top of the coaching staffs and recruited Brian Kelly, who just led the Cincinatti Bearcats to a 12-0 season and a BCS Bowl Bid against the University of Florida in the Sugar Bowl. The Bearcats will have to play that game without Kelly who has already accepted the position at Notre Dame and had only high praises for the Bearcat team he had just coached.

Brian Kelly has quite the impressive resume and has been a head coach for 19 years. His first 13 years he was head coach at Grand Valley State University where he led the GVSU Lakers to two Division II National Championships (2002 and 2003).  His overall record there was an astonishing 118-35-2 and set the Div. II all time scoring record putting up an impressive 58.4 points per game.  In 2004, Kelly moved on to bigger things at Central Michigan University.  There wasn’t as much star power at CMU, but in three short seasons there he managed to lead Central Michigan to a 2006 MAC Conference Championship and a bid in the Motor City Bowl.  Just after the Motor City Bowl was announced, Brian Kelly had accepted a job position at the University of Cincinatti.

Brian Kelly then started to make a name for himself.  The year 2007 marked his first full season at Cincinatti and instantly led them to the school’s 2nd 10-win season in history and was awarded the Big East Coach of the Year.  In the following year, Kelly led the Bearcats to the Orange Bowl against Virginia Tech and was the first coach in Cincinatti history to win all three traveling trophies. [the Victory Bell (Miami, OH), the Keg of Nails (Louisville), and the River City Rivalry Trophy (Pitt)]  This year, which turned out to be his final year at Cincinatti, the team rose to become the #3 ranked team in the country with dominating performances throughout the whole season.

In Brian Kelly’s press conference held this afternoon, he said he has plans in place for his coaching positions and a passion to bring Notre Dame back to the football program that people are scared to play.  He had met with the players earlier this morning and said he saw a bunch of faces that “wanted to win”.  You’d better believe they want to win.  Their last 5 seasons have been getting worse and worse under the old coach Charlie Weis going 1-2 in the last 5 years of postseason football.  They’ve lost to Navy after holding a 43 game win-streak against them and posted a 3-9 record in 2007.

Things needed to change at Notre Dame and I’m glad to see that the University noticed it and brought in a coach who I think will have the world’s weight on his shoulders to perform well.  To wrap it up I will quote Brian Kelly at the press conference, “I can guarantee we’ll win the Spring Game and start 1-0″.  Coach Kelly, you’d better hope you can’t lose playing against yourselves. Good luck.

-FalconKP