Monster Mash

Every golfer wants a challenge, but he doesn't want to be out there fighting the Korean War. 

 JOE LEE

Shackelford rotates a topical golf quote daily at his website, but in honor of the carnage at Doral has left this quote up for two days running. Though the play seems more reminiscent of World War I trench warfare or perhaps of Picket's Charge-level bloodshed. Doug Ferguson's AP game story summarizes the indignities visited upon the white-pants brigade:

— Only three players broke par — Jamie Donaldson of Wales led the way with a 70, followed by Graeme McDowell and Chris Kirk, who each had a 71. 

— The average score was 76. 

— There were 113 balls that found the water on Friday, which was just 19 fewer than the entire tournament a year ago at Doral. 

— Five players failed to break 80, a group that included two players who were No. 1 in the world — Luke Donald (82) and Martin Kaymer (80). 

— Jonas Blixt had the only bogey-free round. He made 18 pars.

McDowell and Donaldson, by virtue of their accents, would be on the short list of players expected to be able to deal with a wee wind.  More from Ferguson:

It explains why Tiger Woods could follow his highest score ever at Doral by hitting three balls in the water, and still be only six shots out of the lead. It explains how Phil Mickelson could make three straight double bogeys and, like Woods, still be in the mix. 

Brandt Snedeker was in the middle of the seventh fairway and chose to lay up short of the green. Bubba Watson laid up on a par 3.

Phil's reaction to three consecutive dounle bogeys.  I'm certain that the disciplinary staff at Ponte Vedra will be dfiscussing with him the need to control his anger.

I only saw about 90 minutes of yesterday's Golf Channel coverage, and it was clearly a fasten-your-seatbelt kind of day.  But good fun to watch  the best players in the world fighting to, as Tiger would say, control their traj.

Dave Shedloski's post at Local Knowledge also has some great details, such as this:

Zach Johnson hit a 5-wood 190 yards and hit the same club 295 yards on the very next hole.

Most of the players understood and were reasonably philosophical about the conditions:

While a few players thought the setup was too penal for a golf course that Donald Trump purposely wanted made more difficult, the gusting winds were the real issue. 

"Hey, look, with no wind any golf course and any setup are fine," Webb Simpson said. "When you have conditions like this, there's so much luck that comes into play." 

"It stinks that the first year they're getting extreme conditions," Bill Haas added. "A new course, it's playing as firm as it can be. And with this wind, it just exposes every little area and every bad swing."

But Jim Furyk gets the first Unplayable Lies Award for perspective related to first-world problems for this:

Jim Furyk, who stood 11 over par after two rounds, summed up his predicament best. "As bad as I'm playing, the good news is they'll let me keep playing this weekend, and then they'll pay me."

As for the Striped One, he did keep himself marginally in it, though still 21 bodies ahead of him.  In case you missed it, this snake on No. 4 was better than most:

In other Doral Hijinks, shy Ian Poulter ignited a Twitter brush fire by calling playing partner Hideki Matsuyama an idiot for the following:

Poulter tweeted that Matsuyama, the 22-year-old from Japan, took a gouge out of the green with his putter and that it required an official to come repair it.

To my knowledge, no response from Matsuyama.  But the Gods have looked out for us, as the 11:15 pairing has Poulter playing with, you guessed it, Hideki Matsuyama.  The first-tee handshake should be delightfully awkward.

Sit back and enjoy, as one announcer told us yesterday that the weather forecast calls for four different winds on each day of the tourney.  Should be fascinating viewing and I'm going to withhold judgment of Hanse's handiwork until Monday at the earliest.