Ranking the Commanding Officers

An interesting topic came up amongst 2 engineers today...who were the best Star Trek Captains?  Well, I've changed the title to Commanding Officers because I'm not sure Benjamin Sisko was actually a Captain in the early seasons of "Deep Space Nine".  We really have 6 commanding officers to choose from...Captain Kirk (William Shatner), Captain Picard (Patrick Stewart), Cmdr/Capt. Sisko (Avery Brooks), Captain Janeway (Kate Mulgrew), Captain Archer (Scott Bakula) and New Captain Kirk (Chris Pine).  I'm excluding Captain Spok because he never really commanded the Enterprise.  I'm also excluding Mr. Sulu, who was Captain of Excelsior in "Star Trek 6".  Finally, I'm excluding the bearded one, Cmdr. Riker, who was Captain of the Enterprise while Picard was a Borg.

Without further adieu, here's my list:

1 - Cmdr/Capt. Sisko (Avery Brooks) - Sisko was the Commanding Officer of "Deep Space Nine" and is my favorite of the group.  He just had presence, and you really believed he could kick anybody's butt if he needed to.  The show was not my favorite of the group, but I really liked Sisko.  He provided a reason to watch a subpar show.

2 - New Captain Kirk (Chris Pine) - I loved the J.J. Abrams reboot of "Star Trek" and I love Chris Pine as Captain Kirk.  Pine was perfect for the role and easily stepped out of Shatner's shadow.  He could eventually be #1 on this list, but he has to show a little more first.

3 - Captain Archer (Scott Bakula) - "Enterprise" was my favorite of the TV shows, and Capt. Archer was a big reason why, but not the only reason.  That was a really great cast, and I think Archer's coolness suffers because of it.

4 - Captain Picard (Patrick Stewart) - I just couldn't put a French guy with a British accent higher on this list.  Yes, he is a fine actor, but he was often overshadowed by Data's brilliance/quirkiness and Riker's beard.

5 - Original Captian Kirk (William Shatner) - To some, this will be blasphemy, but when compared to the younger, and better Chris Pine, Shatner seems old, slow and frankly, his overacting seems campy.  I do love him in the Priceline.com commercials though.

6 - Captain Janeway - She really struggled with a subpar show..."Voyager" was terrible.

Match Play, Round 2

This will be the final update from my club match play tournament, because I lost my 2nd round match.  We played last Thursday.  I was carrying a 5 handicap and my opponent was a 6.  I'm actually a 6 now...had I waited one day we would have been playing straight up.  Yeah, I'm not proud of that 6 handicap...I'm just not making enough putts to shoot low scores.  But...I digress.  Playing straight up wouldn't have mattered much anyway, because I played terrible and my opponent played ok...ok beats terrible every time.

Last Thursday was the first of the super hot days here in eastern Iowa.  The heat index was well over 100 degrees when we tee'd off at 4:15 pm.  I quickly yanked my opening tee shot behind a tree and proceeded to make bogey, going 1 down.  I made a lot of bogeys on the front nine, shooting 7 over par and falling 4 down.  On the 2nd nine, I made a little charge, making birdie at 10 and parring the difficult 11th to get back to 2 down.  But, on the next 2 holes, I lipped out putts that would have closed the match to 1 down, instead, I was 3 down with 5 to play.  We halved 14 and 15, so I was dormie, meaning I was 3 down with 3 to play.  I won 16, but then we pushed at 17, so I lost 2 and 1. 

The gentlemen I lost to was a great guy, and I'm now rooting for him to win the whole thing.  If I had to lose, I'm glad it was to him...I just wish I would have played better.  It was my worst round of the year.  But, I guess that's why I don't play golf for a living.