Wednesday

Little to add tonight.

Another brutal day in the market. The auto boys need to survive until at least 1/20/2009 to get $$$'s from Washington. The executives before Congress all cut less-than-sympathetic figures.

I forgot to mention earlier this week the little factoid that the marathon scheduled for Pasadena, California last Sunday had to be canceled for air quality reasons. The fires. What a bummer for the people who had trained for the race. And for the city that was putting on it's first marathon. They're still trying to figure out if they reschedule or take some other action for the benefit of the registered runners. It could be a Cubs-like refrain; "Wait'll next year."

More economic effects on sporting events have been in the news. Cut backs on Buick courtesy cars at PGA events. Testing prohibited in 2009 at all NASCAR tracks with any races in the top three divisions. Three LPGA events eliminated in 2009. Perhaps an emphasis on regional teams in the lower tier bowl games.

Finally, an interesting sidebar on the golf pages. J.P. Hayes, the 2002 winner of the local stop on the PGA tour, the John Deere Classic, was DQ'd from the second round of qualifying for the 2009 schedule when he first took a two shot penalty on himself on the 12th hole for playing a ball of a slightly different profile than the one he had begun his round with. He was still OK to advance even with the penalty, but that night he remembered that he had had a prototype ball in his bag that had not been approved for play by the PGA. He later checked, and confirmed that that was the ball he had played. And he turned himself in, and was DQ'd by operation of the rules.

All of the other sports almost pride themselves in, "getting away with it", bending the rules, not getting caught, taking advantage. Golf, at the highest levels, is, declare your own penalties. Take your medicine. I'm sure that this is the same Honor Code passed around on Wall Street.

Have a great Thursday.

BCOT