Archive for PGA Golf
While she has proven to be nowhere near as elusive as the mysterious Sasquatch, any sighting of Lindsey Vonn tracking Tiger Woods at a golf tournament is greeted with a similar — if not warranted — fanfare.
And now we have it: The first confirmed sighting of Lindsey Vonn at the U.S. Open. Roger Patterson and Robert Gimlin would be most impressed. Vonn, wearing a Red Bull cap and hiking boots to deal with the muddy conditions at Merion Golf Club, declined an interview with a New York Daily News reporter Christian Red.
Even worse, she wouldn’t even shake hands with the guy. How rude!
The U.S. Open got off to a stormy start on Thursday at Merion Golf Club. Hijinks from a couple of bored players ensued during a couple of weather delays and now the field is attempting to play catch-up on Friday and get the tournament back on schedule.
But that doesn’t mean the oddities will cease. Case in point: As he lined up for his second shot into the green on the par-4 5th hole and just as he begins taking his club back, Swedish golfer Carl Pettersson’s ball was knocked out of place courtesy of an errant tee shot from the 2nd hole tee box off the club of Brandon Crick.
With severe weather already delaying play at the U.S. Open on Thursday at the Merion Golf Club, I guess we have to improvise in order to get our golf fix in any way possible.
So how about a delightful piece of photographic whimsy showing Tiger Woods gearing up to flick friendly rival Rory McIlroy in the ear during the Champions Dinner on Monday.
(Photo credit: Andrew Redington, via SB Nation)
The horn sounded a little more than two hours into the first round of the U.S. Open at Merion Golf Club on Thursday, indicating that the bad run of weather that has afflicted the buildup to and preparation for the tournament will continue during competition. A spectacular lightning crash (GIF below) provides an awe-inspiring indication just how severe the incoming onslaught of bad weather could be.
A severe line of storms are on a crash course with the uh, course, so it remains to be seen just how long golfers will be sidelined. But hopefully it is soon because the golfers, at least Bubba Watson and Rickie Fowler, are starting to get bored. And when those two get bored, they get goofy.
Earlier this week, as he prepared for the U.S. Open at Merion Golf Club during which he hopes to get his floundering golf game back on track, Rory McIlroy intimated that he was considering heading into Philadelphia, just a short jaunt from Ardmore, to climb the famed steps Rocky Balboa first ran up before raising his arms in triumph in the original installment of the “Rocky” movie franchise.
The steps, located outside the Philadelphia Museum of Art, now features a bronze sculpture of the rags-to-riches movie character, located at the bottom of the steps, not up on top where it was placed in “Rocky III.”
Anyhoo, during his media session on Tuesday, when asked if he had any plans to do something relaxing or fun off the course to take his mind off the pressure of a major championship, Rory hinted to the assembled reporters he might climb those famous steps.
Saying that he’s “nervous” about how he will be treated by the galleries during the U.S. Open this week at Merion Golf Club, Sergio Garcia informed the media during his Tuesday press conference that he left Tiger Woods a handwritten note of apology in his locker regarding his bigoted “fried chicken” comments about his rival during a European Tour function last month.
During his press conference on Tuesday, Tiger mentioned that Sergio had not issued an apology in person, even though Garcia had the opportunity when the two exchanged a handshake during a practice round on Monday.
During his appearance in front of the assembled media for his Tuesday press conference at Merion Golf Club in advance of the U.S. Open, Tiger Woods claimed that Sergio Garcia has never apologized to him personally over the insensitive and perceptively bigoted remarks the Spanish golfer made following a feud that developed between the two in the wake of a incident when the two played together during a round at the BMW Championship a few weeks ago.
Sergio accused Tiger of provoking the crowd into making noise during a one of his swings, and things escalated from there. During a European Tour’s gala awards dinner in England, Garcia was asked if he intended to make peace with Woods at the U.S. Open, to which Garcia replied he would and that he would serve Tiger fried chicken at a dinner.
Woods subsequently slammed Garcia’s comments on Twitter and Garcia quickly made his heartfelt apologies in a hastily scheduled press conference, during which he claimed he intended to apologize to Tiger personally, saying he intended to do so “face to face.”
But, according to Tiger, Sergio has not extended that personal apology, despite the fact that the two shook hands before a practice round on Monday (below).
UPDATE: Video from Tiger’s presser follows.
Merion Golf Club has been under the deluge of torrential rains this week as the Pennsylvania course prepares to host the U.S. Open this week.
And with players showing up for practice rounds and the tournament set to kick-off on Thursday, it’s been a all-hands-on-deck approach as the grounds crew desperately attempts to get the course into acceptable playing shape.
Take for instance the nearly absurd amount of manpower that was dedicated to frantically trying to return a bunker on the 11th hole to tip-top shape on Monday.
I count at least twenty people either in or surrounding the bunker, most of them armed with a shovel or performing some semblance of work on the presumably washed-out sand trap.
Let’s put it this way: More people were involved and and more time was spent on that one measly bunker than likely will be dedicated to the maintenance of every single bunker on every municipal course we hacks will play over the course of the entire summer. Then again, it is the U.S. Open. I can only imagine how much rougher the already-brutal rough is at Merion after all this rain.
[H/T The700Level]
Earlier, we made note of the ridiculously treacherous rough that lines the fairways — or more accurately, the first cut that lines the fairways — at Merion Golf Club, the site of the 2013 U.S. Open beginning next week.
The700Level has posted some flyover video of Merion’s East Course, where some of the world’s best players will take on one of the most formidable challenges in all of golf: A course set up for the U.S. Open.
So, enjoy the view from up above. It’s probably a much prettier sight than being at ground level and buried down in the meddlesome morass that is this hot mess of a challenging golf course.
(click to enlarge)
Yamma hamma. So that’s why Tiger Woods was wearing cargo shorts during a recent practice round at Merion Golf Club — he didn’t want to walk out of the rough without any pants on. Because as you can see above, the rough at Merion, the site of the 2013 U.S. Open, is about as gnarly and snarly as a it can get.
Setups at U.S. Open courses are notoriously treacherous: Ghastly and deep rough. Greens that are even slicker and more slippery than the putting surfaces at Augusta National, greens Gary McCord once claimed– in a comment that got him banned from the course — that “they don’t cut the greens…they use bikini wax.”
Justin Rose’s caddie, Mark Fulcher, tweeted out the above image of the rough that is sure to give nightmares to golfers set to compete at Merion when the U.S. Open when the major begins on June 13 … even those with the steeliest of nerves.
My advice to all competitors is to pull the driver out of the bag — because no golfer wants an errant tee shot ending up in that hot mess — and ask tournament officials if the big stick can be exchanged for a machete. Because they’re going to need it.
[H/T Business Insider]
