Alexander Bjork hit a tee shot Friday on the 15th hole at TPC Summerlin.
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Professionals, programmed for the one-shot-at-a-time mantra, are suddenly completely forward-looking day.
Golf.com? This was over weather.com.
Said Ryan Moore: “I mean, amazing weather this morning with what's coming this afternoon and tomorrow.”
Taylor Pendrith said: “The conditions are going to be tough, I think, for the next day and a half. I have to do that.”
Said JT Poston: “Tomorrow we'll just try to process it and try to send whatever we can.”
The thoughts came Thursday, after a first-round match at the Shriners Children's Open in Las Vegas, where conditions were calm, but the forecast wasn't good. The winds of the desert were approaching, but knowing it was one was one thing. Life was another.
The fallout, respectively, includes:
– PGA Tour announcement, around 5:30 am local time, that match will be delayed for two hours.
– The second announcement, around 7 am, which added another two hours to the delay. Play was now scheduled to begin at 10:55 a.m. as officials waited out the 50 mph wind to focus on something playable.
“We didn't feel, given the 50-mile-per-hour wind, it was safe for those people to be working at those early hours,” tour chief umpire Stephen Cox said later in the day on the Golf Channel. “We needed more time to assess the damage, and we needed more time to look at security to protect what was there.
“And at that time the forecast was going to go down in terms of intensity that was pretty consistent, and we felt that at 10:55, that four hours, it allowed us to do what we needed to do and have those winds go down.”
– A third announcement, around 11 a.m., said fans would not be allowed to enter TPC Summerlin. Read the statement: “Second round play at the Shriners Children's Open began at 10:55 am PT following a four-hour delay due to high winds. Out of an abundance of caution for spectator safety, the gates of the Shriners Children's Open are closed to all spectators on Friday, October 18 until further notice. General admission and guest tickets for Friday will be honored on Saturday at TPC Summerlin.”
— War.
Play has begun, but with winds still hovering around 25 mph, the score is rising. In the first round, the 18-hole stroke average was 68.779; in the second round, it was 71.630. For those who completed their second round on Friday (play was eventually suspended due to darkness), Doug Ghim shot a seven-under 64 on his first 18 holes, and a 70 on the second 18. Jacob Bridgeman went 65-70. Kevin Streelman went 67-76. There were exceptions, the most notable of which was Pierceson Coody, who opened with a 72, then managed a 65 and rounded out the leaderboard.
Then there's Joseph Bramlett. On Thursday, he shot a 64, and on Friday, he was 11 worse – with five strokes coming after he hit his second shot to 10 feet on the par-4 1st. You missed the birdie putt. And a par putt. And a bogey putt. And a double-bogey putt, before making a 2-foot triple. A five-putt. Notably, the pros are called enough from tee to green to guide the ball in the most difficult conditions – but the wind can cause serious damage near the putt. When Bramlett laid down, his pants were flapping.
“Your mind wanders a lot,” commentator Smylie Kaufman said on the radio.
Significantly, a different gain of the waves was made. Remember those thoughts at the beginning of this article? They went from players who played on Thursday morning, to Friday, when the conditions improved – and Thursday afternoon's wave was mixed with very bad winds on Friday afternoon.
So what did you do? those what do the players think?
Many, understandably, were relieved.
Greyson Sigg, who was part of the first team out on Friday, said: “I'm happy to be in the clubhouse right now. Some guys were giving me grief walking on the putting green. 'Why don't you play this morning?' I said, 'You guys are going to have a great afternoon over there. You will enjoy. I am very happy to go home and rest.”
Ghim said: “Yes, maybe it was a test of patience.” Usually when there is such a wind. I think the hardest part is trying to figure out when we're going to play. I think I was in the fitness trailer at 5 this morning. You can't really be caught off guard and expect to be late and unprepared.
“So to wake up this morning and get a two-hour delay, then another two-hour delay, and it looks like another two-hour delay, and all of a sudden they're like, we're going out to play, which was probably the hardest part of the day. But I'm happy to be in. I feel like I played Very good golf. I hope the wind continues to blow.”
At the weekend?
Our friends at weather.com are forecasting winds of 14 mph on Saturday, and 5 mph on Sunday.
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