April 5, 2007

HOUSTON, TX — Jason Watson and Greg Long were exposed to the public last weekend in Texas. The 108-hole marathon validated nothing, but did expose questions into both 9.4 handicaps prior to the weekend.

Watson was defensive from the start of the press conference. "I played terrible, but quickly came on the defense," said Watson. "Slick was in my hear constantly and pulled me down with his terrible short game."

After a major rain delay on Saturday, Randy Watson "crapped the bed" during his opening round of validation shooting 27-over par 99. "He saved his ass all over the place," said Greg Long after the round. "It was worse than the scorecard shows. He struggled quite a bit, but was stellar on the greens." The round was terrible and worth just 40 points.

The disappointing weekend continued for Jason on Sunday when he dropped just 10 strokes at The Highlands at Wildcat Golf Club. He scored 56 points during his second round with 22 bonus points for the golf course difficulty.

Slick opened just as poor on Saturday shooting a 19-over 91. "I gave away 10 shots from the fairway aprons today," said Long after his round. "Chunked 9 shots and bladed 1 across the green."

Long dropped 4 shots off Saturday's debacle on Sunday with 10 more crappy shots from the apron. The course length and 10 total pars saved a major debacle as he scored 64 points.

The boys played another 72 holes on Monday and Tuesday with tougher conditions.

Watson shot a 12-over 84 and a 22-over 94 during his Monday rounds. Long shot a 21-over 93 and a 14-over 86 during his Monday rounds at The Links at Westfork. "It was more of the same," said Long. "Chunking balls all day from inside 50 yards. These were the round killers that had wedges circling overhead like a Houston traffic helicopter."

Watson finally stopped making every putt inside 30 feet while his long game turned around. He begun to hit many fairways in regulation.

The last day of validation was even more of the same at Tour 18. Watson ballooned backwards carding a 16-over par 88 and a 23-over 95. Long opened the first 3 holes with a disasterous 7-over par. Long did manage to pull things together to finish just 16-over par and 62 points. The final round for Long surprised everyone. He shot just 1-over par on the front nine. His final 12-over par 84 included a quintuple bogey and triple bogey on the back nine.

"These guys are cheating or cannot count their strokes," said Jason Ridgeway. "One or the other. Neither of them showed signs of a 9.4 handicap. Someone needs to file a grievence on the behalf of the Virtual Tournament and the millions of fans that expect scorecard integrity."

Greg Long opened the 2007 Virtual Tournament Leaderboard in second position while Watson fell into last position with just 51.7 points per round. Jason Ridgeway holds first position with 70.0 points per round.