Ta Da!
Wednesday evening. Congrats
to Dustin Johnson and Paulina Gretzky – River Johnson born Monday. Good thing – DJ did not want to miss two
majors this year.
Another very hot, muggy day.
I’m remembering why I don’t live east of the Rockies…weather. I rarely sweat. I usually don’t even glow. Today I was sweating. And we hadn’t even gotten out to our hole out
in BFE – aka 16 green. And we got a ride
2/3 of the way. The only way to get
farther away from the entrance would to have been on 16 tee.
There was a stage 4 weather alert about 3 which evacuated
the course so we walked back to the entrance.
A stage 3 alert means you make everyone leave the grandstand but
marshals stay in place. Doesn’t sound
quite fair to me. Stage 4 everyone is
off the course but volunteers ‘shelter in place.’ What place is that exactly? We walked all the way back and ‘sheltered in
place’ at the volunteer HQ until it started raining with lightning again. We got on the bus and left. We lived to tell the tale so it is all good. But thunder and lightning are scary things on
or near a golf course.
We saw many of the top players today. I was surprised so many were out on the
course. Guess they were bored or they were
really trying to figure out Erin Hills.
Rory and Sergio came by which is interesting because they supposedly are
not the best of buds. There was an
amateur with them whose name I did not get.
This was the highlight day of his golfing career bar none.
I have not seen a minute of the talking heads on the golf
channel or player interviews regarding Erin Hills. What little I have read online they players
are all over the place on the course, the fescue and life in general. I watched a couple of players hit their tee
shots into the fescue (16 is a par 3).
I’m not sure if it was intentional but that is beside the point. Zach Johnson and Jordan Spieth both got their
balls out easily and well from unhappy stances to boot. Of course, they were using wedges that went
10 feet at most. How that will play from
the fairway remains to be seen.
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| Knee high fescue not so thick at 16 |
Jordan showed up all by himself and spent at least 10 minutes
on the green putting and chipping from all directions. Expecting a pin placement in the back of a
long, narrow green sloping back to front he practiced putting from the back
fringe to a pin that would be 15-20 feet away.
He stood with his back to the pin, putted the ball about 12” to his left
so the ball made a 90 degree turn and wandered slowly toward the pin. Imagination and touch.
Question? Where was
Bubba all week? Where was Adam
Scott? Never saw them. Never heard they were around. The one time I saw that Bubba was scheduled
to play he bailed. Guess they and a lot
of others were on a different schedule.
There were no deodorant girls today but one of the amateurs
had a posse with him. Nine of them all
dressed alike in fun shirts and straw hats.
Those guys were having a blast coming up 18 taking pictures and mugging
for one another. Ah youth…
Tomorrow the fun begins in earnest. The smiles and playfulness of the past few
days will be replaced with steely concentration and hope that this will be the
one. Or the one that cements the Hall of
Fame years down the road.
It will also be the first Open since 1994 that neither Tiger
or Phil will compete. Knowing me I will
have something to say about them before the week is up. They both will be sorely missed by many. But, in their places we have an amazing group
of young men that dazzle and surprise us over and over. And what is special about these guys is so many
of them are just nice, happy, polite and easy to root for. They have not created the drama we watched
for so many years in the late 90s through most of the 2000s.
We do not know if Tiger’s tale is complete and we hope
not. Phil will be keep us entertained
for a lot of years to come. But I am
loving these new and semi-new players.
Good luck to each and every one tomorrow.
Night
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| The 9th Green - check out those traps! |
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| Sergio - ok not green all the time :) |
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