Micah Woods Official Site

October Golf Report

This was a month of high drama. I've condensed it into two videos, part 1 above, and part 2 below. Note that it is difficult to condense nine birdie dances, so if these videos have a saltatory aspect, well, you have been warned.

July Miscellany

Tasting notes for Buckfast Tonic Wine: a treacly tipple. Rarely have I opened a bottle of wine with so much anticipation, for the reputation of this wine certainly precedes it. It is fine, taken in small doses, although when in the South of England in the summer I still prefer a . . .

 . . . Pimm's. Your Party Needs You, as they say. 

My favorite golf magazine is Golf Course Seminar, published by the Golf Digest Japan Co. You will have seen and perhaps read, or tried to read, as have I, the various articles I have written for that publication over the past few years. Their publication in Japanese makes it quite difficult to understand the rather technical content.

So it was a pleasant surprise to discover a magazine that I can decipher, at least from what I saw of the August issue. This is Golf Today. And their insightful analysis of the skirt length of lady golfers was one of the most interesting pieces I've read all year. Although I would complain that their representation of the measurements and ratios in pie charts (not shown) was less than ideal. 

I'm not a big fan of pie charts, but I've been doing a lot of work with scatter plots, bubble charts, motion charts, etc. since my sabbatical in Phuket two months ago. Now I'm having a bit of a sabbatical at Japan, and I'm doing some work with heatmaps. I think I'll be able to make completely incomprehensible heatmaps, but I haven't succeeded yet. Stay tuned for those. Oh, and not to foreshadow another undefeated month, but stay tuned for the July golf report as well.

April Golf Report

When you think of golf in April, the Masters Tournament surely comes to mind. And if you follow the Masters Tournament, then the 12^th hole at Bangkok's new Dream Arena course will look familiar to you. In fact, the entire back 9 of Dream Arena would seem familiar to you. I'm quite familiar with the back 9 at Augusta National Golf Club, and therefore I played this replica 9 with a lot of confidence.

And that is how I came to be walking up the 18^th hole with a one-up lead that I would retain to bring my record in this, another undefeated month, to two victories, no losses, and two draws. I am quite proud of the two draws. In each of those matches I was one-down standing on the 18^th tee and in each match I played the 18^th with aplomb to even the match.

I have to give some credit for my astonishing record to Srixon and the Z-STAR. I have been playing various Srixon balls over the past few years but since I started using the Z-STAR for every match last fall, I have run off a streak of 9 wins, no losses, and 3 draws, each of the draws coming with a win on the final hole. I've made an eagle and two birdies in a four hole stretch to pull away for a tournament victory at Boracay, been compared to Manny Pacquiao, and am undefeated now for more than five months. 

Last night I went to celebrate another undefeated month with friends at Bangkok. Bangkok, you ask, or was it Tokyo? Bangkok is quite a multicultural city and I found myself at this izakaya in the center of town for a quadracious evening. I don't know how long I can sustain this undefeated streak. A number of friends are looking forward to our upcoming matches. Stay tuned for the May golf report coming up a month from now in which you will find out how I have fared and how my superb Srixon Z-STAR balls performed.

New Year's in April

Most years I miss the Songkran celebrations because of work at The Masters or other projects that take me outside the Kingdom. This year I was at Thailand for Songkran and participated with relish.

Songkran comes at the hottest time of the year, before the onset of pluvious weather, and there is a lot of water throwing as part of the celebrations. I walked down the street to get my dinner and ended up soaking wet in the washroom cleaning chalk paste from my face. That's Songkran, apparently.

I quite enjoyed the dinner and this restaurant's take on miang kham with tofu and the substitution of cooked shrimp for the usual dried shrimp. I set a new record with four large pieces of spicy red pepper in one bite. 

  And that wasn't the only record I set during this memorable Songkran. This morning I ran a quadracious half-marathon at Kanchanaburi and won another medal. This race is notable for my running it without training, and for its nearly interminable distance; there was some error, I'm sure, in the measurement of the route, for the announced 21 km were run well before the finish line was in sight.

 So I ended up running along the roads on a hot summer day in Thailand for a bit longer than I had expected. The race began at 05:45, just as the sun was rising over the sugar cane fields and small dairies in this part of Thailand. I was joined in the race by many members of my running club who had also made the trip from Bangkok.

Advice on Running

That I would collect a medal in this morning's 10.5 kilometer race was never in doubt. I completed the course at the Rab 11 Army Base in less than 55 minutes, collected my medal, and then demonstrated something that bears careful attention. If you can't make a "sweat angel" on dry asphalt after you have completed a race, you aren't running fast enough.

Or you are running somewhere much cooler than the streets of Bangkok. 

The Manny Pacquiao of Golf: Part 2

After finishing my training at Baguio and the practice round at Boracay, I took a break from golf and went searching for balut on the beaches and backroads of the island. Like Manny Pacquiao, I am a big fan of balut. Is this the performance enhancing drug that Mayweather accuses Pacquiao of ingesting? Let me just say that the balut certainly helped my performance and I am glad it is legal in the Philippines.

So that brings us to the day of the main event, the 11^th Chairman's Cup. Even with the benefit of my Baguio training (like Pacquiao), and the lingering effects of the balut (so very like Pacquiao), and the reassurance of having Nicer Landas in my corner, I remained a bit nervous. And that showed on the first few holes, as I managed a par at the 1^st but added double bogeys on the 2^nd and 6^th. Then, just like Pacquiao, my skill and training paid off as I ran through a spectacular stretch of pars and birdies (and even added an eagle!) on the most challenging section of the course.

By the time I reached the 16^th tee, it was all about enjoying the view and savoring the few remaining shots on my way back to the clubhouse. Much like Pacquiao did in the Margarito fight, I eased off at the end, as the match was clearly over. I didn't add a birdie after the 13^th; there was no need for me to punish the course any more.

Like Pacquiao I celebrated the victory with a party that evening, and like Pacquiao, when I returned to Manila there was another round of celebrations. Some people have asked me what comes next after this, what match can I take on now that will really challenge me? I'm going to leave that up to my managers. But I will say that I may not play another match until 2011. Pacquiao returns to politics after his fights, and I return to science.

I look forward to a November weekend in Boracay next year when I will defend my championship. I'll be training hard over the next year and expect to be in fine form again by the time of the Chairman's Cup. And if you want to beat me, you may need balut, a Baguio training program, and that je ne sais quoi that only rarely shows itself in my opponents but is so much a part of my game.

I would go on to celebrate with an icon of Philippine culture, but that is another story, for another time.

The Manny Pacquiao of Golf: Part 1

You have seen me with the Ryder Cup in Spain (at right). And you have seen me with the US Open trophy at Pebble Beach (below). So you know that I am quite familiar with the laurels of the game. And you also know that Manny Pacquiao is an extraordinarily successful boxer who wins championships every time he steps into the ring.

But you may not quite have a grasp on the uncanny similarity between my golf and Pacquiao's boxing. Please let me explain. We can use my recent (and widely lauded) appearance in the Chairman's Cup tournament at Boracay, held at the same time as Pacquiao's recent (and widely lauded) appearance against the woefully overmatched Antonio Margarito, as a prime example of this uncanny similarity.

Pacquiao has a history of holding the championships in his sport; I have a history of holding the championship trophies in my sport. Pacquiao trained for his most recent fight at the northern Philippine city of Baguio; I trained for my most recent tournament at the northern Philippine city of Baguio.

Baguio is noted for its high elevation, its pine trees, and its salubrious climate. Pacquiao trains here, albeit with many distractions, and so do I, also with many distractions. I find the low oxygen levels at this high altitude help with my aerobic conditioning. I also enjoy playing golf at Camp John Hay with its speedy creeping bentgrass greens. You see me here with my sparring partners during a hard-fought match at Camp John Hay.

Before his fights, Pacquiao moves his training camp nearer to sea level and the actual location of the fight itself. So do I.

After the grueling camp at Baguio, I spent less than a day at Manila before moving my training camp to Boracay. Many doubted the wisdom of this decision (but when you read part 2 of this quadracious story I'm sure you will have no more doubt). There was particular concern about the weather at Boracay, which turned out to be incredibly sunny, although many critics were expecting rain. The greens here, as you can see, were impeccable, and my game came into fine form. If I did have a trainer, I'm sure he would have predicted a victory (this is a a subtle foreshadowing of an amazing victory!), but for those who do not know the full story, you must unfortunately wait for part 2.

What is Quadracious?

I gave seminars at Okinawa and Malaysia this month, and in the associated travel and meetings came across a few interesting places. There are many restaraunts along kokusai dori in Naha with Okinawan music and regional food specialties. I felt compelled to dance along with the Okinawan rhythms and it was all going well, I thought, until the guy from the adjacent table decided to join me in my rendition of this traditional Japanese dance.

After the seminar at Okinawa I spent some time at Kamikochi in the Northern Japan Alps and climbed Yakedake, which translates roughly as "burning peak". Someone once asked me what quadracious means. Climbing an erupting volcano is quadracious.

After the Yakedake climb I went to a trade show at Osaka. While we are on the topic of what is quadracious and what is not, eating raw chicken is quadracious. I had that and other fine foods at Osaka.

Then I flew to a few places and had a few meetings, and came to Malaysia, where I spoke at another seminar.

In Malaysia, sharks and aquariums are quadracious, particularly if one finds them in the gents. You see below a discreet photo, from the South Sea Seafood Restaurant, of the men's toilet at said restaurant. Sharks in the gents are quadracious. Full stop.

A Week of Quadracious Training

I write this from Lamberton Place, St. Andrews, Fife, Scotland. When I went running here I passed sheep grazing on green grass in the cool, long days of a Scottish July. This has been a particularly quadracious week of training. It started at Hainan Island, China's Hawaii, it is called, where I spoke at a turfgrass conference and went running out of my hotel to the beach and turned left for Sanya. Running along the beach, every 500 meters or so I passed another young lady in a wedding dress pseudo-playing a piano as soft waves from the South China Sea lapped at her ankles. Her betrothed knelt at her side while a photographer with a large Canon snapped photos for their wedding album. See here the view from my hotel at Hainan.

From Hainan I went to Bangkok, where I ran twice, which is rather amazing considering the tropical rains that fell while I was there. I went out for an errand, encountered a thunderstorm, and then saw this street scene as I waited to get a taxi.

You can imagine that my usual running park is much less crowded at this time of year.

So after braving the wedding photographers and (apparently) waterproof pianos at Hainan, and the rains and floods at Bangkok, what better place to run than Dubai? I went for a late afternoon run along Jumeirah Beach. I saw two camels on the beach, but not many people. Perhaps they were deterred by the searing temperatures.

So in a week I had a chance to run at China, Thailand, United Arab Emirates, and the United Kingdom. That's what I call quadracious. 

On Farmer's Markets, Free Samples, and Almonds

I woke up this morning and ran from Palm Desert to Indian Wells. After that invigorating run through the desert, I drove west, reaching the sea at Carpinteria. Part of my quadracious training program involves vigorous exercise. Another component of the quadracious program is a healthy diet. And that is how I came to be holding organic leeks and carrots beside the sea this afternoon.

The farmer's market at Carpinteria is unique in its proximity to the Pacific Ocean. The market is typical of others in this part of California in that the wares are, to some extent, irresistible. You may have guessed that I refer to the almonds of Fat Uncle Farms, and you are correct. Whether it is the blistered almonds with sea salt and rosemary, or the roasted almonds with honey, coconut, cane syrup, and sea salt, the pleasure I experienced when eating these almonds was ineffable.

Another delight of farmer's markets (and of the New Chitose International Airport) is free samples of the wares. Today I had goat's milk feta, nectarines, and a guava, gratis.