Going into yesterday's final round I didn't have a clear idea of what I wanted to happen, though it was clear that nobody on the Ocean Course suffered from the same indecision.
This seems as good a place as any to dive in:
Coffee, meditation, and 'bombs': How Phil Mickelson defied his age to make history
KIAWAH ISLAND, S.C. — Your friends consider golf the domain of retired geezers, but at the elite level, it really is a young man’s game. At least relatively so. In your 20s, you’re fearless,
completely devoid of scar tissue, and you ram that ‘sumbitch in the back of the cup. Your 30s find you in your prime, still physically pliable but also efficient with your practice, disciplined in decision-making. The great ones get a few looks in their 40s. It’s a recent thing, the product of sports getting smarter and equipment getting, well, better.
But your 50s? You want to win a major past the half-century mark? Bollocks.
Until Sunday. Phil Mickelson pulled off the impossible, winning the PGA Championship at Kiawah Island’s Ocean Course for his sixth major. In the process, he became the oldest player to ever win a major championship, breaking Julius Boros’ record that stood for 53 years.
Defied? Pushed the boundaries a bit, sure... But Boros at 48 and Jack at 46 had already happened, not to mention Watson's one-hand-on-the-Claret Jug moment from 2009 (at age 59), which karmically (shocking, but an actual word) evokes Stewart Cink's two wins this season. This
But the "how" is worth a moment or two:
The motivation
The first step toward advanced-age greatness is passion. Simple passion. It’s a prerequisite. Without it, none of this is possible. Coming into this week, Phil Mickelson had 44 wins on the PGA Tour, five majors, a beautiful family, a gazillion dollars in career earnings…you get the picture. He did not need this by any stretch. He could’ve easily rode off into the sunset, slowly converting into a ceremonial golfer. Eight starts a year. Play the majors, maybe Torrey, the Memorial, shoot some commercials, call it a career. For normal people, this option grows more enticing with each failure. Lefty had gone 18 straight starts without a top 20; that would crush the spirit of most every 50-year-old, and would you blame them?
But Mickelson has been adamant his work isn’t done.
“My desire to play is the same,” he said Sunday night. “I've never been driven by exterior things. I've always been intrinsically motivated because I love to compete, I love playing the game. I love having opportunities to play against the best at the highest level. That's what drives me, and I think that that's what is—the belief that I could still do it inspired me to work harder.
He can be a bit insufferable when he starts nattering on about how close he is as he's missing cuts by a touchdown, but it's obviously quite irrelevant whether or not we believe it.
The speed
The most obvious answer to the why-old-guys-get-worse question: they get weak and slow. It’s
why you don’t see any 45-year-old NBA players or NFL players not named Brady. Our bodies peak sometime in the mid-to-late 20s before slowly tapering off. Golfers are not immune to this—granted, Phil wasn’t exactly LeBron to begin with, but if you had him run through a full combine at 30 and one today, 30-year-old Phil would prevail easily. But golf does not force you to run or jump or cut; it calls for a very specific type of physical exertion.
Phil has tailor made his fitness routine with flexibility in mind. He won’t get confused for Adonis, but he’s found a way to stay springy and actually gain speed in the last five years. On 16, his veins coursing with major-Sunday adrenaline, Mickelson pumped his drive well past 31-year-old Brooks Koepka, 366 down the center, with a cut. He is still long as hell.
For those of us skeptical about those golfers bulking up, Phil's seems the better model. That's of course easier when you're already monstrously long, but doesn't help explain how he was able to drive it so straight this week.
Though this is the part where my eyes involuntarily roll:
The mindfulness
If you watched Phil down the stretch closely, you couldn’t help but be struck by his sense of zen. He oozed calmness. Interestingly enough, in recent months he’d been honest about his problems focusing. He’d hit good shots and even piece together good rounds, but he’d have a hard time stacking good rounds on top of one another or re-focusing when something takes him out of the zone. Which is totally normal.
“As you age, it typically takes more effort to sustain focus,” says Dr. Bhrett McCabe, who works with a number of PGA Tour pros. “Golf is so hard because the mind is flooded constantly with processes and challenges that make it so hard to stay focused. You add in a major championship, it’s brutal.”
Unwilling to simply accept that new reality, Mickelson has proactively sought out tangible remedies to keep himself sharp.
“I'm working on it,'' Mickelson said Friday. "I'm making more and more progress just by trying to elongate my focus. I might try to play 36, 45 holes in a day and try to focus on each shot so that when I go out and play 18, it doesn't feel like it's that much. I might try to elongate the time that
I end up meditating. I'm trying to use my mind like a muscle and just expand it because as I've gotten older, it's been more difficult for me to maintain a sharp focus, a good visualization and see the shot.”
As he strolled up the final fairway on Sunday, with a mob of fans sprinting in his rearview mirror, Mickelson made a concerted effort to control his breathing. It’s a meditative practice that dates back millennia but is also backed up by modern physiology.
Yeah, we'll get to that peaceful stroll up No. 18 in a sec, but I'm guessing fear made a cameo appearance.
Eamon Lynch has his usual interesting take, including noting the curious cameos of those previously guilty of elder abuse:
For superstitious types, it might have seemed ominous that Sunday was a good day for the two men who were spoilers when guys in their 50s previously led major championships entering the final round.
Padraig Harrington, only a few months shy of the half-century himself, shot 69 and finished T-4, while Stewart Cink carded two eagles in a 69 of his own. In long-ago Open Championships, Harrington and Cink ran down, respectively, Greg Norman and Tom Watson. Norman was 53 when he led by two at Royal Birkdale in ’08 and Watson almost 60 when he carried a one-stroke advantage the following year at Turnberry.
As someone once said, "History does not repeat itself, but it does rhyme."
Though I'm not completely sold on this bit:
Considering the outcome in both instances, one would be forgiven for assuming that seniors leading majors are like dogs chasing cars—you admire the tenacity, but know it won’t end well. That was the undercurrent Sunday at The Ocean Course when Phil Mickelson, a month shy of his 51st birthday, took a one-stroke lead into the final round of the PGA Championship, achingly close to a sixth major win and the distinction of being the oldest ever (by three years) to claim one of the game’s most important titles.
Yet what separated Mickelson from Norman and Watson was frailty. They had too much of it to outlast their pursuers, he had too little of it to encourage his. Mickelson’s paperwork might say 50, but his swing, his attitude and his confidence belie the years.
Phil seemed plenty frail to me on the 18th hole at Winged Foot in 2006. Isn't the more interesting aspect how he was able to hold it together 15 years later?
This has been foremost in my mind, but Eamon is the only writer I've seen connect these dots:
It’s no coincidence that all three majors in which the 54-hole leaders had AARP cards were played on golf courses that reward the attributes that come with age. The Ocean Course isn’t a links in the literal design sense, but the demands it makes of players are identical to those celebrated courses just beyond the eastern horizon: patience, acceptance, stoicism, resilience.
Mickelson hasn’t always exhibited the first of those traits, but the gut punches he has absorbed over the years are testament to his familiarity with the other three.
Eamon's focus is obviously on the internal battles, but the specific demands on the player tend to be more favorable to those more experienced players. The game becomes less about brute force and point-to-point golf and far more about managing the wind and the release of the ball on the ground, rewarding judgment and experience. Which makes it fascinating that Phil, a man not noted for his judgement, has achieved his two most recent stunning successes, this and the Open Championship at Muirfield in 2013, in events requiring that very attribute.
Dylan Dethier has been posting inside-the-ropes accounts all week, and his account of Sunday's stroll with Phil and Brooks is worth excerpting generously, beginning with the yin and yang of their warm ups:
Sunday also served as a reminder that if you ever find yourself watching golf and feeling the pull of an inevitable result, remember: You’re watching golf. Nothing is inevitable.
But through exactly one hole at Kiawah Island on Sunday, the result felt inevitable.
In one corner you had Mickelson, an aging warrior with exactly zero major top-10s since the Obama administration and a game that seemingly shouldn’t work at the Ocean Course. He grinded his way through an intense pre-round range session that included a broken club, a last-minute equipment switch and plenty of discussion with his swing coach Andrew Getson. (“If I hold this angle it’s harder, I have to flip it,” he told Getson as he worked to refine his driver swing, exactly 22 minutes before his tee time.) Mickelson missed the fairway, mis-hit his approach and left his lengthy putt so short he was still away.
And then there was his playing partner, Koepka, who has won four majors since the last time Mickelson contended. Koepka warmed up on the far end of the range, exuding nonchalant intensity. In contrast to Mickelson, he didn’t really consult anybody. He didn’t appear to be tweaking anything in his swing. Koepka has built a reputation as a major championship killer; he was one lousy Sunday away from entering this week as a three-time defending PGA champion. All he did during warm-ups was get his body — and his putter — ready to go. It seemed to work: Koepka busted 3-iron 280 yards down the first fairway, hit a wedge to 12 feet and dripped the right-to-left swinger in the center of the hole.
But then they immediately swapped roles on the second hole:
But Koepka, with all the momentum in the world, served as a neat reminder that momentum doesn’t guarantee a perfectly square clubface at 120 miles per hour while an entire island of Michelob-fueled spectators screams for your playing partner. At No. 2, a downwind par-5, he tugged his tee shot, pulled a wedge, drew a gnarly lie and made double. Mickelson pulled off a nifty up-and-down from behind the green for birdie. Suddenly he was back in front by two.
One of the mysteries of this week has to be Koepka's brutal play on the Par-5's, which I believe he played in +3 yesterday, even with a birdie on No. 16. One of the necessary ingredients to a win like Phil's is the necessity of help from the supporting cast, and Koepka was especially generous. He always seemed to me to be playing too aggressively, instinctively wanting to be as close to the green as possible, though with Kiawah's pushed-up greens that's not always a great place to be. And his airmailing of that second green made this observer assume he hadn't properly allowed for the change in wind direction. Yanno, that experience thing we were discussing above.
Shall we visit with the Tour Confidential writers and see how they reacted?
1. Fifty-year-old Phil Mickelson did what no one saw coming: win the 103rd PGA Championship to become the oldest major winner in history. What will most stick with you from Phil’s performance?
Zephyr Melton: The feeling that at any moment it could all come crashing down. Every shot felt like it had tournament-deciding implications, even when he had a huge lead, and I don’t think I’m alone when I say I didn’t feel certain he would win until his approach found the green on the 72nd hole. It was vintage Lefty, and boy was it fun.
Yeah, we all did, or at least I assume we all did. But in this case that's not all on Phil. It's that type of golf course where disaster is literally always one swing away...
Sean Zak: That the entire week was decidedly un-Phil. He didn’t seem jovial with the press, he was curt with a cameraman, he flashed the thumbs-up, but wasn’t really looking at the fans. And he drove the ball like a stallion. All of that is to say that the man sort of reinvented himself to win at 50. Hitting bombs, hitting irons like he was 24, rolling the rock as good as ever. I will never forget how new it all seemed.
Jessica Marksbury: That ridiculous short game. Aside from the obvious highlight — the chip-in on 7 — Phil got it up-and-down time and again under extremely difficult, stressful circumstances, not to mention brutal lies. Also, the incredible effort he put into controlling his emotions. You could tell it took a toll.
If I never hear the term "sandy area" again I'll be a happy man. But when golf writers internalize this nonsense of there being no bunkers (a lot of rakes for a course with no bunkers) and start calling run-of-the-mill bunker explosions "chip shots", one can only suggest they find another line of work.
James Colgan: How fun it was to ride the roller coaster with him on Sunday. Phil’s performance was, as we all know, anything but sure-footed, but that added so much to the experience. Everyone, Phil included, was clinging to the edge of their seat till his approach landed safely on the 72nd hole. If that’s the last time I ride the roller coaster with Lefty, I’m leaving happy.
Michael Bamberger: The trooper shades, and imagining what went on behind them.
I would have referred to them as aviators, but Mike nailed it.
Nick Piastowski: Along the lines of what a few others above said, and what Mickelson said himself, the focus. Take his tee shot on 17. On the hardest hole on the course, in front of a spirited crowd, while holding a lead on the final day of a major, while trying to become the oldest major champion ever, Mickelson said he felt the wind. It changed directions. And he stepped away. Does Mickelson in his 20s and 30s do that? I’m not sure.
More importantly, that up-and-in birdie on No. 16 allowed him to hit the right shot on No. 17, one that the wind couldn't affect.
2. Where does this victory rank among Mickelson’s career achievements?
Melton: No. 1, no questions asked. The Open Championship win came out of left field, but this win came from another planet. There were no signs that this would be Phil’s week, yet he gutted it out and came out on top. Winning like that at age 50 is certainly the top accomplishment of his decorated career.
Bamberger: No. 1, no questions asked. Thanks, Z.
Zak: This is his greatest achievement and will go down as the greatest memory of his career. How can it not? The greatest testament to a full, full, full career in golf, and a victory at 50 on perhaps the toughest course in the world. The only thing that could top it … well, it takes place in four weeks.
Marksbury: For us, the viewers and fans, it has to be No. 1, given the sheer unexpectedness and happy-surprise factor. Who knows where it ranks for Phil. I’m sure he’s gratified by the achievement, but it feels like the emotional impact could have been higher for him if his wife and kids had been on-site. I was yearning for Phil’s version of Tiger’s 2019 Masters moment on the 18th green and felt kind of disappointed when it didn’t happen.
Colgan: Yep, what they said. ^
Piastowski: No. 1, in a career full of highlights. The breakthrough win at the 2004 Masters and the emotional victory at the 2010 Masters are also up there, of course.
I'm sorry, but perhaps these nice folks will come to their senses after a moment to catch their breath. First and most obvious, no PGA is ever as important as any Masters, that's just how things are in our little world.
But to me this misses the far more interesting question, which is how this win will change the assessments of Phil's career in total. This isn't the time and place to go deep on this subject, but here's a quick peak at the list of major winners:
At some point I'd love to find a version of this graphic that includes how many so-called majors each played in. For instance, Young Tom Morris only won four majors, but that's a far greater accomplishment when you realize he only played in five... Not to mention the obvious Daddy issues.
Prior to this, I'd have argued that Phil deserved to be considered an all-time great, but that he wouldn't crack my top ten of all time (though perhaps he would if we limited ourselves to the modern era). But no doubt he's strengthened his position in all of those arguments, and has now won Tour events in four decades.
3. Before Mickelson, the oldest player to win a major was Julius Boros, who at 48 won the 1968 PGA Championship. One could argue fields are deeper today than they were in the 1960s, but when you also consider equipment advancements and modern players’ emphasis on fitness, is Mickelson’s win more or less impressive than Boros’?
I think you'll agree that these first two answers are a tad curious.
Melton: I know very little about Julius Boros and his win in 1968, so I will leave this question to the more seasoned staffers here at GOLF.com. *cough* Bambi. *cough*
Bamberger: Lexi Thompson’s mother’s father delivered milk to the Boros home.
Ummm, Mike, I have some follow up questions...
Zak: How could it not be more impressive? I also know little about Mr. Boros, but Phil took down Koepka! The king of majors! He gave strokes back to Koepka and Oosty and the rest of the field, and then jumped right back on them. The best field in golf.
Sean might be surprised at how lengthy the list of guys that have beaten Oosty is, given that he's built on that 2010 Open Championship by winning exactly never in the eleven years since.
Marksbury: Yeah, always tough to compare eras. Gotta give Phil the edge, especially when you consider the stage: the longest major championship ever! Phil topping the tournament’s longest drive with that 366-yard bomb was just icing on the cake.
Bamberger: I think Boros’ win is more impressive, in its time, only because there was less cultural acceptance of what a golfer could do at 48 (or 50). What Phil did is incredible. Two incredible feats.
Mike makes a good point, though the most impressive bit might be that a 48-year old man won an event played in San Antonio in July:
Colgan: With the disclaimer that I’m not yet half Phil’s or Julius’ ages when they won, I’d have to lean toward Phil. The gap between young and old has never been greater in professional golf than right now, particularly given the advances listed above. Phil’s victory (at two years Boros’ senior) seems damn-near impossible.
Piastowski: Agreed that it’s difficult to compare eras. And while Mickelson edged Koepka, Boros bested Arnold Palmer. I’ll give the edge to Phil, simply by the fact that he’s older. Two great accomplishments, for sure.
Boros seemed to have Arnie's number, also beating him in the 1963 U.S. Open playoff. What was it I said about history rhyming?
4. Brooks Koepka started the final round one stroke behind Mickelson and well within striking distance of his fifth major title. But he played the par-5s in three over and shot a 74 to finish two back, albeit on a still balky knee. Does this Sunday at all tarnish Koepka’s reputation for unflappableness in the majors?
Melton: Koepka was never going to win every time he was in contention. Golf is just too hard. Even Tiger didn’t close the deal every time (hello, Y.E. Yang), so a runner-up finish shouldn’t diminish his achievements in the big ones. I was still extremely impressed with Koepka’s ability to keep himself in it until the very end despite being less than 100 percent.
Zak: It shows he’s not invincible. He had a bad left miss going on all afternoon and couldn’t fix it until it was too late. When he needed to carry that bunker on 16 for an eagle chance, he didn’t. I think he’s still unflappable, but nobody conquers this game forever. That said, all he needed was a 71 to win.
Marksbury: Not at all. Koepka put himself in the mix yet again, and there’s a lot to be said for that at the game’s highest level. Plus, as Zephyr said, you can’t win them all. Just ask Jack Nicklaus.
Bamberger: Oh, Jess. It pains me to disagree with you. But, yes, it does. After turning the table after just one hole? That was Koepka’s moment to step on Phil’s throat, Tiger-style.
Colgan: Now you’re speaking my language, Michael. Brooks’ mythos is as a stone-cold killer. Phil left the door firmly ajar for him this afternoon, and he didn’t capitalize. (Though I’ll admit I admired his grace in defeat — maybe Brooks isn’t ALL frat bro, all the time.)
Piastowski: No. Capital N. Golf is hard. But on one knee — and shoot, maybe no knees — he tied for second. That’s incredible. The dude knows how to show up when the tournaments are the biggest. No one wins every time out, not even Tiger.
Yeah, I've certainly struggled to know what I think of the guy. I'm not sure any of us should have considered him bulletproof, at least not after he almost lost a seven shot lead at Bethpage. I just don't see much subtlety in his game, nor much strategy.
Lastly, their thoughts on the golf course:
5. The windy Ocean Course at Kiawah Island lived up to its fearsome rep, giving the players all they could handle over four rounds. Would you like to see Pete Dye’s design appear more frequently on the major rota?
Melton: I have no issue with the Ocean Course becoming a regular stop for the PGA Championship, and we can throw Whistling Straits in there, too. So I guess what I’m saying is yes?
Zak: With the PGA Championship moving to May, perhaps it should take the ceremonial spot of Whistling Straits, which won’t be able to host that event in May anymore. Whistling hosted three PGAs in 12 years, and I think we’d learn to really love Kiawah in a sick and twisted way if it came around three times every two decades.
Do they intend to go to Wisconsin in May? If you're Ok with Rochester, NY, why not cheese country?
Bamberger: The golf course exists, as best I can tell, as an excellent venue for major events in beautiful weather on TV. But it’s not a real course, not in the conventional sense of walk the course, find your ball. I’m sure they sold a million tee times this week. The setup was excellent. It was a great event. But it’s really tough on spectators, and I just don’t know. By which I mean alternate every year between the Ocean Course and Pebble Beach.
They did once play a PGA at Pebble (Lanny Wadkins won that one), but Pebble is firmly in the USGA rota for eternity. More likely, it would alternate between Kiawah and Frisco, TX, at least in Mike's fever dream.
Colgan: Eh. I think it’s worth noting that we were four windless days away from a 16-under winner. Kiawah seems like a lovely location, but I’d stop short of calling it a blue-chip location.
Marksbury: Most definitely. The vistas we were treated to of the crashing surf and perfectly manicured golf course made for a sublime viewing experience. And why should the U.S. Open have a monopoly on carnage? Bring it on!
Piastowski: Yes. Capital Y. The golf was entertaining for all four days, which is what we want, and most every player said the course was firm but fair, which is all they want.
It's a bit of a weird venue for sure, and you can add the logistical nightmares as well. The real question might prove to be whether they can manage to get everyone on and off the island with a full crowd, which was a disaster in 2012.
Just a few more bits from the week, and then I'll release you to your busy day. About that rugby scrum at the finish, Luke Kerr-Dineen has a first-hand account:
Louder and louder, more and more. Once Mickelson’s drive found grass on 18 and he made his way down the fairway — two-shot lead and smelling that Wanamaker — the seams finally burst. Or rather, the ropes did.
It seemed to start with a small group of friends, holding their beer in one hand and lifting the rope with the other. They ducked under and ran forward. All it takes is one. The dam was broken, and the water poured. A group of police swarmed around Mickelson and another around Koepka. The remaining marshals tried to hold the line, but it was a fruitless task.
And that's the calm before the storm:
Things calmed for a moment, and the marshals formed a line. A nice gesture, but it was obvious what was going to happen. As soon as Koepka — the second to play — hit his shot, the race would be on.
Trying to stay within one-arm’s length of a rope that no longer existed, I had walked up the fairway behind Mickelson and his caddie, Tim, but I had meandered my way over to Koepka by this point. I thought the crowd would be more interested in sticking to Mickelson and therefore give Koepka (and myself) some breathing room. I didn’t realize that at this point, they had forgotten about Koepka, the four-time major champ, altogether.
Koepka set up to his ball. A marshal manning the crowd went to plug a gap in the line, but it had the inadvertent effect of his shadow hovering over the ball. Koepka backed off and asked the crowd to move back 10 feet. They managed about a foot. Koepka stepped into the shot again, sent the ball into the air and the crowd rushed past before it even fell to the ground.
It was exciting and beautiful and terrifying all at the same time.
Koepka's walk to the green was not a pleasant stroll:
Koepka’s walk up 18 was slow and cramped. He kept his eyes locked onto the ground, and his head bowed as the noise intensified. He needed a birdie. Mickelson needed to three-putt. Security had formed a box around him, about the size of a small elevator shaft. What was he thinking?Trying to stay focused, I assumed. Professional golfers, I like to say, are essentially robots. What else could Koepka be thinking about in this moment but the next shot he needed to hit?
Turns out, what was going through his mind was far more human.
“I don’t think anybody really understands, unless you’re coming out of surgery how, when there’s five people kind of standing by your knee, you get a little skittish,” he said afterwards, obviously referring to the knee doctors worked on months earlier.
Things came to a grinding halt at one point. The smallest of steps forward had became a standstill.
“Guys, we gotta get through” a security guard bellowed at the crowd, which didn’t part as much as it got pushed through. Koepka was worried about his knee.
“It got bumped a few times,” he said. “Somebody jammed [my caddie] Rickie. Rickie stopped unintentionally because he got drilled in the face, and then I got drilled in the bag because he got stopped so quickly. It feels like s— right now.”
This is SOP at Open Championships, but seemed far more combustible here, and potentially dangerous for the two players and caddies. The PGA ran a great event for most of the week, but even Jim Nantz had to recognize that the organizers had lost control of the crowd.
One little bit on rangefinders, which in general was the non-event most of us expected it to be. But one pre-tourney skeptic was Webb Simpson, who has changed his tune:
“I feel like, this is a fact that it’s not going to speed up play, because everybody I know and have talked to, we still want front [of the green] numbers, and the rangefinder, you can’t always get the accurate front number,” Simpson said last week. “So you’ll probably have the player shoot the pin, the caddie walk off the number because I’m going to want, what’s front, what’s the pin? I haven’t read the reasoning behind it or their desire to test it out that week, but I don’t think it will really make a difference.”
It didn't exactly make a difference, but the Webber at least keeps an open mind:
“I was definitely against it coming in but we have seen how there’s a lot of situations where it helps,” Simpson said. “I was in the right rough on 10 yesterday, so you know, it’s a funky angle to that back left pin and my rangefinder got about six yards different than what we had come up with.”
“So you know, the carries over bunkers, if they move the tee up, instead of walking it off and calculating it in the yardage book, we’re just able to shoot it,” he said. “I think I was one of those old-school guys thinking we’re going to need both numbers still, it’s going to slow down play, but I actually do think it’s been a good thing. The more we did it each round, the more I like it.”
So, can we now discuss green-reading books?
Did anyone catch Cameron Tringale on Friday?
At 1:00 p.m. local time on Friday, Cameron Tringale stood tied for second at the PGA Championship. By 2:45, he’d fallen into a tie for 125th place.
How does an individual fall one-hundred and twenty-three leaderboard spots in the span of a little under two hours? Well, a quintuple bogey and a quadruple bogey on consecutive holes is a good place to start.
In this case, pictures tell the story:
I don't remember seeing anyone else in the water off the tee on No. 16, but he did it twice. A brutal stretch of holes into a 20-mph wind, but when have we ever seen a 48 from one of these guys?
The last item of interest to your humble blogger was the issuance of an actual penalty for slow play. Now pace-of-play was dreadful this week, with most rounds in the 5 1/2 hour range. At one point the TV coverage actually showed us four groups on the 17th tee, so it was very much that kind of week. Though, to be fair, it's that kind of golf course:
John Catlin was issued a rare slow-play penalty Thursday during the opening round of the PGA Championship, with the extra stroke resulting in a 3-over 75 at the Ocean Course.
Catlin, an American who plays on the European Tour and is making his major championship debut, first received a pace-of-play warning on the 16th hole (his seventh), where he took 74 seconds for his second shot.
When he used 63 seconds for his second shot at No. 3, he was in violation of Rule 5.6b (3) and was given a 1-stroke penalty.
Ironically, Caitlin was the recipient of the second (non-controversial) exemption into the event, the other being to the man in orange. Amusingly, our head profesisonal asked me whether it was possible that he was invited by the PGA of America for the purpose of being penalized, but even your humble blogger isn't that big a conspiracy theorist.
But I'll just ask the reader rhetorically whether Catlin was the only guy to take that long to play shots? The question isn't so much rhetorical, but it is one that answers itself, that the few instances of actual penalties for this crime always seem to land on the downtrodden of the golf world. Tianlang Guan was unavailable for comment.
I'm sure we'll have more as the week progresses. Come back early and often...
