New Thing #239--Read All About It

St. Louis is a great sports town. We have professional baseball (Cardinals), professional football (Rams), professional hockey (Blues), as well as a good handful of minor professional sports and college teams. This week we also have professional golf; the BMW Championship, a stop on the PGA tour, is being played at a local country club (Bellerive). Although I usually barely look at the sports section of the newspaper, in honor of the local connection today I read about a sport I have no knowledge of.

I come by my lack of knowledge honestly. I have never played a game of golf--miniature golf is as close as I've come. The rules, scoring, and handicapping of the game are a complete mystery to me, as are the vast majority of the competitors.

There have been a few newspaper articles leading up to this weekend's tournament, and a pull-out section of the paper a week or so ago that I ignored. The only thing I knew was that Tiger Woods wasn't going to be playing.

The tournament was supposed to start on Thursday, but it was rained out. Yesterday's play, which was reflected in today's paper, had one player in first place at 5 under par and a five-way tie for second place. There was going to be two rounds (36 holes) today to make up for Thursday's cancellation.

Other than the summary of play story, there were several other articles about the tournament:

• one about how the rain has affected parking--it's at an off-site facility about 15 minutes away (with shuttle service to the course)
  
  
• one about a local golfer (Jay Williamson) who is playing in the tournament
  
  
• a page of statistics, tee times for today, and scores