Golf

Subterms

    More stories

    • 125 Shares179 Views

      in Golf

      Patrick Cantlay Wins the Memorial Tournament in a One-Hole Playoff

      by

      Cantlay, who won the event in 2019, bested Collin Morikawa, but the weekend will be remembered for Jon Rahm’s withdrawal after he tested positive for coronavirus.DUBLIN, Ohio — The leaderboards positioned at critical junctures of a professional golf tournament are more than scoreboards. They are omnipresent yardsticks measuring the rhythm of the contest with hole-by-hole counts for the top golfers, collectively meant to tell the whole story of the event.But on Sunday, in the final round of the Memorial Tournament, there was a jarring omission from every leaderboard, a name conspicuously missing.Patrick Cantlay won the 2021 Memorial, outdueling Collin Morikawa in a seesaw battle that included one extra playoff hole, but the heart-rending story of the event will always be the Saturday evening withdrawal of Jon Rahm, who had tested positive for the coronavirus. Rahm, the defending Memorial champion, was informed of his test result at the end of the third round as he left the 18th green with a commanding six-stroke lead. The tournament continued, and Cantlay’s victory will not carry an asterisk in the PGA Tour record book, nor should it.But from the first holes played on Sunday by Cantlay and Morikawa, who became the third-round co-leaders after Rahm’s withdrawal, Rahm’s absence was recognized.When Cantlay and Morikawa, who played together, each bogeyed the first hole, there was a disquieting murmur in the crowd around the green that may have been a shared thought: If Rahm were still in the field, his lead might now have been seven strokes with 17 holes remaining.Play continued, and Cantlay and Morikawa eventually put on a good show. They made the turn still tied for the lead and extended their head-to-head match for more than two hours. The tournament did not lack drama. Its lasting image, however, will most likely be Rahm doubled over in tears.Cantlay acknowledged as much Sunday evening.“Everybody, me included, knows it would be a totally different day today if that had not happened,” Cantlay said of Rahm’s withdrawal. He continued: “Just so very unfortunate.”Asked how he would greet Rahm when he saw him next, perhaps at the United States Open that begins June 17, Cantlay said: “There’s not much to say. I don’t wish that kind of scenario on anybody. I would much rather have faced him down today and shot an extremely low round and beat him that way. But unfortunately there’s nothing I can do. I did everything I could with the cards I was dealt.”Morikawa said Rahm had the tournament “in his possession,” and added that tour players had feared and wondered about just such a situation playing out.“But that’s the thing with what-ifs,” Morikawa said, “we can only think about it and think what we’re going to do and try and do until it actually happens.”Morikawa shook his head.“But for him to have it like that, where he had a six-shot lead,” he said.Cantlay reacting to his birdie putt on No. 17. Sam Greenwood/Getty ImagesA spirited crowd at Muirfield Village Golf Club in the Columbus suburbs warmed to the taut competition in the closing holes, even when soaked by rain late in the afternoon.Morikawa held the lead for most of the back nine, edging ahead on par-5 No. 11 by sinking a seven-foot birdie putt that put him back at 12 under par for the tournament, which is where he and Cantlay began the day. Cantlay threatened to catch Morikawa on the 12th hole when his 42-foot putt for birdie skirted the left edge of the hole. But on the next green, Cantlay coolly stroked a 17-foot uphill putt for a birdie that tied Morikawa.Scottie Scheffler joined Morikawa and Cantlay at the top of the leaderboard at 12 under par when he nearly holed his second shot from 131 yards at the par-4 14th hole and was left a tap-in birdie putt. Scheffler hung in for several holes before faltering with a bogey on the 18th.Morikawa regained the lead at the par-5 15th hole when he delicately pitched from a bad lie in deep rough near the green then sank an eight-foot birdie putt. That lead held up until the 17th hole when Cantlay rolled in a twisting 23-foot birdie putt to tie Morikawa, who had to make an 11-foot par putt to stay even with Cantlay.At the 18th hole, both players sliced their drives right of the fairway. From the rough, Cantlay nonetheless knocked his second shot pin high on the elevated, two-tiered final green. His try for birdie just skirted the right edge of the hole. Morikawa hit his second shot into a greenside bunker, and his recovery from the sand left him a nervy 3-foot attempt for par that he converted to send the competition to a playoff. Both golfers had shot a one-under-par 71 for 13 under par.Replaying the 18th hole, Morikawa’s approach shot from the fairway missed the green short and left, while Cantlay did the same from the right rough. Morikawa’s pitch from deep rough settled six feet from the hole. Blasting from a greenside bunker, Cantlay skittered a shot that ran 12 feet past the hole, but his right-to-left par putt tracked into the center of the hole.Morikawa’s par putt to extend the competition rolled past the left edge of the hole.Morikawa and Cantlay had nervous starts to the final round. In addition to bogeying the first hole, Morikawa bungled the par-3 fourth hole when he missed a 5-foot par putt. Morikawa birdied the fifth hole but carded his third bogey in six holes when he flubbed a chip near the sixth green and badly misjudged a 10-foot putt. He made a putt of similar length just to save bogey.From there, Morikawa found some consistency to his swing and his short game. Cantlay had a similarly uneven beginning nine, and both golfers made the turn one over par for their round.Cantlay, left, lined up his putt on No. 2 as Collin Morikawa repaired a ball divot.Tannen Maury/EPA, via ShutterstockFor Cantlay, 29, it was his fourth PGA Tour victory and the second time he has won the Memorial since 2019. Cantlay’s last victory was the Zozo Championship in October 2020. Ranked 15th in the world before the Memorial Tournament, Cantlay this year has had two top-five finishes and five in the top 20. More

    • 125 Shares189 Views

      in Golf

      Jon Rahm Withdraws From Memorial Tournament After Positive Covid Test

      by

      The golfer broke down in tears when he was told that he had tested positive. He had just finished the third round with a six-shot lead.DUBLIN, OHIO — Jon Rahm, a popular player on the PGA Tour and the world’s third-ranked male golfer, had just charged to a six-stroke lead on Saturday in the third round of the Memorial Tournament, an event he won a year ago. Walking from the 18th hole, where a crowd surrounding the green showered him with warm applause, Rahm, 26, shook hands with his playing partners and smiled.Seconds later, he was doubled over and in tears, his left hand clasping his face. A doctor for the tour had met Rahm at the edge of the green and informed him that he had tested positive for Covid-19, a result reported to the tour as Rahm was shooting a sparkling eight-under-par 64 on the difficult course at the Muirfield Village Golf Club. Rahm would be forced to withdraw from the tournament and miss the final round on Sunday.Rahm hid his face in his hands for a few moments, then stood upright before staggering as he began to ascend a steep hill, wiping his eyes as he made his way to the adjacent clubhouse.“Not again,” he said, although it was unclear what his response meant. It was also unknown whether Rahm has been fully vaccinated, although for the past year he had frequently talked at length about his worries for the health of his family back in his native Spain and about the devastation the virus had brought to communities near his hometown. Rahm currently lives in Scottsdale, Ariz., with his wife, Kelley, whom he met while they were students at Arizona State, and their 2-month-old son, Kepa Cahill.Rahm, right, fist-bumped his playing partner Patrick Cantlay at the conclusion of their round on Saturday.Tannen Maury/EPA, via ShutterstockLate on Saturday night, Rahm posted a statement on Twitter, saying that he was “very disappointed in having to withdraw from the Memorial Tournament. This is one of those things that happens in life, one of those moments where how we respond to a setback defines us as people. I’m very thankful that my family and I are all OK. I will take all of the necessary precautions to be safe and healthy, and I look forward to returning to the golf course as soon as possible.”Jack Nicklaus, the host of the Memorial tournament and the designer of the golf course, wrote on his Twitter feed shortly after the third round: “Our hearts go out to Jon and his family as well as all the patrons who witnessed a spectacular round by Jon — only to be negated by this horrible pandemic our world continues to endure.”Nicklaus, who is 81 and contracted Covid-19 along with his wife, Barbara, in 2020, added: “I wish Jon a speedy recovery and hope he gets back to competition soon.”According to the PGA Tour, Rahm was notified on Monday that he would be subject to contact tracing because he had come in close contact with an unidentified person who had tested positive for Covid-19. Tour protocols permitted Rahm to remain in the tournament if he agreed to be tested every day and avoided using indoor facilities at the event.Rahm’s test results were negative for four days, but his most recent test, performed on Saturday morning, came back positive at 4:20 p.m. A second test on the original sample provided by Rahm, who is asymptomatic, yielded a positive result at 6:05 p.m., just before he finished his third round.“It’s a very unfortunate situation, obviously,” Andy Levinson, the PGA Tour’s senior vice president of tournament administration, said. “The protocol that we have had in place for the last 50 events is being followed to the letter, and unfortunately we are in a situation where we are this evening.”Levinson was asked if there was an option that would allow Rahm to play Sunday’s final round by himself if he stayed at least six feet from others in what is a large outdoor area. Levinson said the tour’s medical advisers did not recommend participation in a competition the day after a confirmed positive test.Patrick Cantlay, who played with Rahm on Saturday and who became the new tournament leader along with Collin Morikawa, seemed stunned by the news at a Saturday evening news conference.“I’m sure it’s not as much of a jolt for me as it is for him,” Cantlay said. “It’s the worse situation that something like this could happen in, and unfortunately I guess we knew that this was a potential lurking out there even when we came back to golf. It’s just extremely unfortunate.”Cantlay said that he had Covid earlier this year and that he had not been vaccinated. The tour shut down for three months after the coronavirus was declared a pandemic in March 2020.Rahm, who has won five PGA Tour events, is required to isolate for 10 days unless he tests negative in two further Covid-19 screenings 24 hours apart. Levinson did not disclose whether Rahm had received the Covid-19 vaccine; after recent revisions, tour guidelines no longer require weekly testing for players who are fully vaccinated. Vaccinated players would also not be subject to the contact tracing that Rahm underwent this week. Levinson said that the tour had tracked vaccinations among players and that more than 50 percent of its more than 200 players had been fully vaccinated.Levinson was also asked why Rahm was notified in such a public setting by the tour’s medical chief, Dr. Tom Hospel, rather than in a private room, away from television cameras and a crowd of thousands. Levinson replied that it was “difficult to find an ideal opportunity to notify him.” He added: “But our medical adviser notified him before he went into scoring, and that was how it was conducted.”Scottie Scheffler, who is now tied for third place, three strokes behind Cantlay and Morikawa, was one of first players to see Rahm as he entered the scoring tent just after the end of his round. Scheffler knew that Rahm, who had a hole in one on No. 16 in the second round, was leading, and he was confused by the distress on Rahm’s face.“I kind of smiled at him thinking: ‘Why? What happened?’” Scheffler said. “He just goes, ‘Good luck tomorrow.’”Scheffler wished Rahm good luck in the final round as well. Rahm told him he had just failed a Covid-19 test.“My heart just sank, it’s terrible that that happened,” said Scheffler, who has also had Covid. “My heart is still — it just sinks for him and I feel awful.”Rahm had tied the 54-hole record and built a six-shot lead Saturday, leaving him on the cusp of becoming only the second golfer to repeat as the Memorial champion. Tiger Woods won the event three years in a row, from 1999 to 2001.Darron Cummings/Associated Press More

    • 125 Shares189 Views

      in Golf

      At U.S. Women's Open, a 17-Year-Old Amateur Enters the Spotlight

      by

      Megha Ganne seemed at ease during her second round at the Olympic Club, and she finished the day with a share of third place.SAN FRANCISCO — The first time Megha Ganne competed on one of the world’s most renowned golf courses, her audience included the two-time major winner Martin Kaymer, a former men’s world No. 1. It was at the 2015 finals of the Drive, Chip and Putt contest at Augusta National, and Kaymer was on the range when an 11-year-old Ganne hit her first drive.Six years later, with much higher stakes, Ganne is a 17-year-old amateur and is playing with aplomb on a similar stage. In her second United States Women’s Open — which is being held for the first time at the Olympic Club, the site of five major men’s championships — she was at the top of the leaderboard after the early rounds on Friday. By nightfall, she had been passed by two players — Yuka Saso of the Philippines, who shot a four-under-par 67 for a 36-hole score of six under, and Lee Jeong-eun, who also shot a 67 and was five under for the tournament.Ganne, a high school junior from Holmdel, N.J., followed her opening-round four-under-par 67 on the Olympic Club’s Lake Course with an even-par 71 to temporarily share first place with Megan Khang (70) while the afternoon wave of players was still on the course.Ganne celebrating her birdie putt on the seventh hole.Jeff Chiu/Associated PressGanne birdied her penultimate hole, No. 7, and drained a long par putt at No. 8 to maintain her momentum on a course made more difficult by a heavy marine layer that turned the tee boxes — some of which were moved back for Friday’s round — into iceboxes.“It played a little bit longer, but other than that pretty similar,” an unfazed Ganne said.Ganne, a quick strider who swings her arms side to side as if in a hurry to get where she’s going, had a fast turnaround between rounds.She returned to the course Friday less than 12 hours after she signed her opening-round scorecard and spoke about her performance as if her audience was a passel of Holmdel High friends and not a media cluster. She credited her comfort level here to her exposure to the spotlight as a four-time finalist in the Drive, Chip and Putt contest and as a participant in this year’s Augusta National Women’s Amateur.She is an Augusta National success story, the first graduate of the Drive, Chip and Putt finals to hold at least a share of the lead in a women’s major.“It’s really similar, you know, really prestigious and a lot of cameras and a lot of attention on you,” said Ganne, who added, “It was great preparation for the pressure.”The U.S. Women’s Open has throughout its 76-year history been a kind of coming-out party for young players, like the 10-year-old Beverly Klass in 1967, the 11-year-old Lucy Li in 2014 and the 12-year-old Lexi Thompson in 2007. After gaining acclaim for their youth, none survived the cut.The tournament is, in theory, the most accessible of majors. Nearly half the players in this year’s field — 76 of the 156 entrants, including Ganne — earned their berths through 36-hole qualifiers held throughout the country. Ganne secured her spot on the second playoff hole of her qualifier. It speaks to the vagaries of golf that a teenager who was on the verge of elimination in qualifying can rise to the top of the leaderboard through two rounds.“It just all seems really fun and a better story to tell than I got in without a playoff,” Ganne said. The last amateur to lead after a round in the U.S. Women’s Open was Jane Park, a 19-year-old who held a share of first place after the opening round in 2006 at Newport Country Club.Ganne’s galleries have included members of the women’s golf coaching staff at Stanford, which she has verbally committed to attend starting in the fall of 2022, and her family. Ganne’s father, Hari, is an information-technology professional. Her mother, Sudha, is an endocrinologist, and her younger sister, Sirina, 13, is an eighth grader who also plays golf.Her mother said her phone had vibrated in her jacket pocket for the entire second nine of her daughter’s first round and well into Thursday night as texts arrived from friends and neighbors back in New Jersey. She awoke Friday to more messages from family members in India. On Thursday, Sudha Ganne expressed a desire for Megha to remain “a regular kid and enjoy other things” besides golf.A day later, Ganne’s mother waded through a gallery that had grown tenfold overnight, stared at the leaderboard with her daughter’s name atop it and worried that someone had sped up the belt conveying Megha through adolescence. She can hear the armchair career counselors now: If Megha can contend for a $1 million winner’s check while still in high school, why go to college?“She’s absolutely going to college. There’s no doubt about that,” Ganne’s mother said.But like the calculus homework awaiting Ganne’s attention, success is introducing complicated variables. “I am a little overwhelmed with the attention, but I’m hoping she will cope with it and maybe we will try to help her with it,” Ganne’s mother said.Ganne seems fine with the attention, but then, she always has gravitated to the spotlight. She has appeared in school plays, once as the Queen of Hearts after auditioning for the lead role of Alice in Wonderland. She threw herself into her portrayal as Alice’s main protagonist.“She was the Queen of Hearts and she lived it,” Ganne’s mother said with a laugh.But Ganne draws a line at social media. That kind of attention, she has decided, is unnecessary. Negativity that has been heaped on some of her friends on Twitter has soured Ganne on the platform.After her Thursday round, Ganne was interviewed by 15-year-old twins, Amelia and Adinah Dellegencia, who are student journalists. They lauded Ganne’s “girl power” and described her as “pretty cool.” They asked for her Twitter handle, and their jaws dropped in unison when she said, “I’m social media-free, actually.”Amelia recovered from the shock and said, “She’s so cool. She should be on social media.” More

    • 113 Shares99 Views

      in Golf

      That Brooks Koepka Feud Won’t Leave Bryson DeChambeau Alone

      by

      At the Memorial Tournament, where Koepka is not even playing, fan chants of “Brooks!” and Brooks-y!” followed DeChambeau as well as Jordan Spieth, who was playing in the same group.DUBLIN, OHIO — Bryson DeChambeau and Jordan Spieth played together in the first two rounds of the Memorial Tournament on Thursday and Friday, an arrangement that would starkly demonstrate how two top golfers, both 27, have developed such disparate followings in the sport.For DeChambeau, it reinforced his status as a lightning rod for controversy. A recent social media feud with his golfing colleague Brooks Koepka erupted anew even though Koepka was not participating in the tournament or dropping a single snarky word on Twitter. Fans on Friday repeatedly taunted DeChambeau by calling him “Brooks,” or by shouting “Let’s go, Brooks-y,” which mimicked a video that Koepka posted on Twitter last week. It showed DeChambeau snapping at fans who yelled something similar after one of DeChambeau’s shots in the recent P.G.A. Championship.Security officials at the Memorial tournament occasionally interceded on Friday, approaching fans who appeared to jeer DeChambeau, although DeChambeau denied that the effort was made at his request.“The officers take care of that,” DeChambeau said, adding that the security involvement was more about spectators yelling during his backswing.Moreover, DeChambeau, who is one over par at the midpoint of the event and several strokes off the lead, smiled and insisted that being called “Brooks” was a compliment.“They weren’t taunts at all, they were flattering,” he said and added: “When it comes down to it, when somebody’s that bothered by someone else, it is flattering.”Spieth, whose second-round 67 left him one under for the tournament, said he was not distracted by the periodic tumult. But from the start of the Memorial, which was interrupted by thunderstorms on Thursday, Spieth walked a different path from the companions in his group. It included Patrick Cantlay, who shared the lead at eight under par with Jon Rahm when the second was suspended because of darkness.On the opening hole the group played early Thursday afternoon, Spieth was treated with deference as he stood on the first tee. Hundreds of fans circling the area remained hushed until his name was announced, after which a thunderous cheer ensued.DeChambeau’s approach to the tee moments later elicited something more akin to a carnival atmosphere, with an electrifying buzz and murmur as spectators stood on tip toes to catch a glimpse of the player whose prodigious drives and boasts of transforming golf have reinvigorated the game in the last year.Jordan Spieth, left, Patrick Cantlay and DeChambeau on No. 11 during the second round of the Memorial Tournament.Tannen Maury/EPA, via ShutterstockMen hoisted children onto their shoulders so they could see the strapping DeChambeau while others pointed cellphones to capture the moment when they stood so close to golf’s most intriguing, and occasionally mocked, personality.Spieth, the slim, unimposing one-time boy wonder who claimed three major championship victories before he was 23, unleashed a syrupy swing that sent a proficient if understated drive down the middle of the fairway. The crowd, however, was not disappointed.“Atta boy, Jordan,” a man in his 40s yelled. There were smiles and knowing nods all around.Spieth, it seemed, was one of them.When it was his turn, DeChambeau, the reigning United States Open champion, flexed and twitched over the ball and then unleashed a mighty swat that lifted his golf ball high into the sky until it bounded 50 yards past Spieth’s.The crowd hooted and howled its approval.DeChambeau, undoubtedly, is one of a kind.But after that first swing, a young man in the throng just 20 feet from the tee shouted, “Let’s go Brooks-y!” One voice became two or three, also yelping and giggling: “Let’s go Brooks-y!”DeChambeau stared straight ahead but appeared perturbed, something he denied after his round.“Everybody thinks it’s a big deal; it’s not to me,” DeChambeau said evenly. Of Koepka, who has won four major championships, he said: “I’ve got nothing against him, I’ve got no issues at all. If he wants to play that game, that’s great. I think no matter what, he’s a great player and won a lot of tournaments, and it’s like somebody calling me Jack or Payne or Hogan. People think it bothers me, it really doesn’t.”As play was concluding at the Memorial, a grinning Koepka playfully threw another barb in DeChambeau’s direction. After thanking fans for shouting his name Friday, he posted a video on Instagram and Twitter offering a case of beer to the first 50 people whose time at the tournament, as he said, “might have been cut short.”The clamor around DeChambeau may have had no effect on his golf, but after shooting a one-under 71 in the first round, which included 15 holes played Friday morning, DeChambeau stumbled badly at the start of the second round Friday afternoon. With three putts from 28 feet, he double bogeyed the first hole, then took four shots to reach the par-4 third green, which led to a bogey. DeChambeau responded with an eagle and four birdies but also had three more bogeys for an inconsistent round of 72.“A long day, long two days almost,” DeChambeau said. “Unfortunately, I got it going the wrong way out there for a while.”Spieth’s experience was the inverse. After six bogeys in the final 13 holes of his first round, he spent most of a 40-minute layoff before the start of the second round eating lunch. (DeChambeau, by contrast, spent nearly the entire time hitting balls, mostly with a driver, on the practice range.)Spieth began his second round with four steadying pars, then made five birdies without a bogey the rest of his afternoon.“The biggest difference was I stopped hitting my tee shots in the rough,” Spieth said. “Pretty simple.”In the end, not surprisingly, Spieth looked across the day and felt buoyed, even by the crowd reaction. He mentioned some “outliers,” but said: “We had massive support, people trekked 33 holes with us today, and that’s pretty awesome considering the wet conditions.”Recalling his many wayward shots during the first round, Spieth laughed and said: “I mean, I know how I feel walking through the rough today.” More

    • 150 Shares169 Views

      in Golf

      At the U.S. Women’s Open, Jessica and Nelly Korda’s First Rounds Diverge

      by

      SAN FRANCISCO — Jessica and Nelly Korda often play practice rounds together but Thursday at the United States Women’s Open was the first time they had been in the same grouping for the first two rounds of a major tournament. The sisters and their parents were thrilled at the prospect of spending five-and-a-half hours together hiking the sloping labyrinth of a course that is the Olympic Club, the site of five U.S. men’s Opens, in the cool morning murk.It was one of those family gatherings that was a much better idea in theory than in practice.Starting on the ninth hole, Jessica, 28, birdied three of her first seven holes to share the early lead with Britain’s Mel Reid before the San Francisco Bay’s bedeviling winds upended her round.She carded a one-over-par 72, five strokes behind the pace-setting scores by Reid and Megha Ganne, a 17-year-old amateur from New Jersey, who were tied atop the field as other players were finishing their rounds. She spoke afterward as if she had survived a ride on a bucking bronco.Nelly Korda teeing off on the third hole.Michael Owens for The New York Times“I’m sore,” she said.Nelly, 22, the higher-ranked Korda and the top-ranked American at No. 4, seven spots better than her sister, opened with four pars. But three consecutive bogeys, starting at No. 13, were the start of her unraveling. She carded a seven-over-par 78 that was encapsulated by her troubles on her penultimate hole, the seventh.She had to hit her approach shot out of rough thicker than a camel’s eyelash while branches from a sapling fir tickled her face and neck. Her caddie, Jason McDede, asked the onlookers lining the right side of the hole several yards ahead of her to move back because, as he said, “We’re not sure where this is going.”Nelly, left, and Jessica talked while waiting to putt on the 11th.Michael Owens for The New York TimesThe crowd watching the shot after Jessica teed off on the 18th.Michael Owens for The New York TimesWith a compromised swing, Nelly was only able to advance the ball a few yards. Her next shot found a greenside bunker and she walked off the hole with her head down after a seven-shot triple bogey.After making a long putt to save par on her last hole, Nelly signed her scorecard and then left in a rush, stopping only to take selfies with a couple youngsters.“She’ll be fine,” said Jessica, whose heart ached as she watched her sister struggle. She did what she could to help. On the 12th and 14th holes, Jessica held up a hand to stop a man holding a fuzzy microphone who was walking into Nelly’s line of sight while she was standing over par putts.Jessica said: “Obviously I pay attention. It doesn’t matter who I play with, I don’t want anyone to play poorly. It’s tough to watch. You just know how it is. You’ve been in that position yourself. You don’t want anyone struggling with you or around you. So it’s never easy. At the same time, I have to play golf. You have to learn how to be slightly selfish.”Jessica, left, Nelly, and both their caddies sharing a laugh as they walked to their tee shots on the 11th hole.Michael Owens for The New York TimesThe sisters’ parents, Petr and Regina, carved out separate vantage points in the gallery, converging every so often to compare mental notes and commiserate. Pandemic-related restrictions limited the number of fans allowed on the course to less than 5,000. A few hundred of those followed the Kordas and the third player in their group, South Korea’s So Yeon Ryu, the 2011 champion, who posted a 74.Petr yelled encouragement, but as the round continued, his voice became harder to hear over the wind.“I think it’s kind of funny because I heard my dad, you can always hear my dad,” Jessica said. “He was telling Nelly, ‘Come on,’ and then like ‘Good birdie’ to me.”Jessica kept a few tees in her hair while playing.Michael Owens for The New York TimesThe sisters’ parents, Petr and Regina, looked on as Jessica putted.Michael Owens for The New York TimesShe added, “I think they’re just enjoying watching us out here and trying to strike the balance of being supportive and also uplifting.”The sisters’ parents made a beeline for the clubhouse as soon as the round was finished. Jessica and Nelly both have L.P.G.A. victories this year and they came into the week expecting to contend.“You try not to play yourself out of it,” Jessica said. “Obviously it was so frustrating, making some silly mistakes and then the wind switched and it got warmer so we were trying to figure out how everything was going.”She added: “I was throwing up grass and it was going one way and then another way so it was a little annoying. But you expect all of this at a U.S. Open.”Nelly reacted after hitting out of the sand bunker on the seventh hole, where she shot a triple bogey.Michael Owens for The New York Times More

    • 138 Shares119 Views

      in Golf

      Michelle Wie West Was Ready to Retire. Then She Got Mad.

      by

      A golf phenom since she was 10, Michelle Wie West was ready to focus on motherhood. Rudy Giuliani’s vulgar remarks convinced her that she should keep fighting and playing.SAN FRANCISCO — From a distance approximating one of her prodigious drives, Michelle Wie West caught a glimpse of her infant daughter in the arms of her mother, who was standing on a hotel balcony. It was Wie West’s first competitive tournament as a working mom, and at the sight of her child, whom she felt guilty about leaving, she burst into tears.“And then I hit in the water,” Wie West said with a laugh, recalling her “meltdown,” as she described it, during her opening nine-over-par 81 at the Kia Classic near San Diego in March.Wie West, 31, who is competing in the United States Women’s Open, which begins Thursday at the Olympic Club, has missed the cut in all three of her starts this season. The impenetrable focus that carried her to five L.P.G.A. titles, including the 2014 U.S. Open, has been diffused by marriage, motherhood and a motivation to deepen the conversation about, and commitment to, women in sports.Reams of copy have been written about Wie West since she became, at 10, the youngest player to qualify for the U.S. Women’s Public Links and announced her intentions to grow up to play on the L.P.G.A. and PGA Tours. She turned pro before her 16th birthday and contended deep into the final rounds of her first three L.P.G.A. major tournaments that first year, establishing a bar that proved hard to clear. She won her first tournament in 2009 at the age of 20, then three more before she won the U.S. Open at Pinehurst. But she has only won once since, the HSBC Women’s World Championship in 2018.And so, in 2019, Wie West could not have imagined herself here. Chronic wrist injuries precipitated a two-year layoff that she presumed would become permanent when she became pregnant a few months after her 2019 wedding to Jonnie West, the director of basketball operations for the N.B.A.’s Golden State Warriors. She told her husband that she was done playing.“I thought there was no chance of coming back,” said Wie West. She had opportunities to move into the broadcasting booth, and motherhood seemed like a natural pivot point.“But my husband was like, ‘No, no, just think it through,’” she said.When Wie West learned that she was having a daughter, her feelings about a comeback shifted for reasons she struggled to articulate. And then in February, a month before her official return, Rudolph W. Giuliani, the former mayor of New York City, appeared on Steve Bannon’s “War Room” podcast and asked if he could share a “funny story” about Rush Limbaugh, who had recently died.Giuliani recalled how Limbaugh had been perturbed by the photographers trailing them in a 2014 pro-am in which they were grouped with Wie West. Giuliani said that the “gorgeous” Wie West’s putting stance was attracting the photographers, who, he said, “were trying to take pictures of her panties.”Giuliani’s comments crystallized Wie West’s reasons for a comeback, irking her into action. After 25 years of speaking into a microphone as a matter of duty, Wie West realized that she actually had a lot to say, and a return to competition would give her the platform to address inequities and ignorance that she hadn’t been aware of as a teenage phenom.More affirmation came this week as she watched Naomi Osaka, another young nonwhite woman who is a star in a white-majority sport, quit the French Open rather than participate in news conferences she said were damaging to her mental health.“I thought what Naomi did this past week was incredibly brave,” said Wie West, who described her own experience with anxiety:“It’s tough, especially when you’re not doing well or there’s a lot more to life than your game. There could be other stuff happening. It is sometimes crippling at times, but I’m really proud of athletes taking charge of their mental health and making it a priority. More conversations need to be had about that.”Wie West is willing to wade into difficult conversations because she wants her daughter, Makenna Kamalei Yoona West, who will celebrate her first birthday on June 19, to grow up in a world where women athletes are seen and heard, and enjoy equal billing with men.In the past year she has revealed a different side of herself — as a leader in the drive for equity and change. With his words, Giuliani triggered Wie West’s election to the L.P.G.A. board of directors and her commitment to speak up more.“She texts me and calls me all the time,” said Heather Daly-Donofrio, a two-time tour winner who is now the L.P.G.A. chief communications and tour operations officer. “It’s great. I’ve had more conversations with her in the last two years than in her whole time on tour.”Wie West hits out of the bunker on No. 11 during the first round of the ANA Inspiration in February.Kelvin Kuo/USA Today Sports, via ReutersWie West has sought out other athletes who fought for change, including Renee Powell, one of the first African-American members of the L.P.G.A., and tennis icon Billie Jean King, who described how her threat to boycott the U.S. Open in 1973 as the defending women’s champion spurred the tournament to become the first of the Grand Slam events to pay men and women equally for their victories. Wie West has compared notes with W.N.B.A. standout and players’ association president, Nneka Ogwumike, whose undergraduate years at Stanford overlapped with hers.The conversations inspired Wie West to float the idea of forming an inter-sport council that could address the pay disparity and unequal resources between men’s and women’s sports.In 2019, the last full season before the coronavirus pandemic disrupted the playing calendar, 73 women’s players exceeded $50,000 in on-course earnings. That same season on the PGA Tour, the 73rd-highest earner made $1,553,149.The golfer who wins this Sunday will take home $1 million, from $5.5 million, the largest purse on the tour. The winner of the men’s U.S. Open at Torrey Pines this month will earn $2.25 million from a $12.5 million purse.Recently Wie West was reminded by her father-in-law, Jerry West, who works for the Los Angeles Clippers as a consultant, that the big money in men’s sports didn’t materialize overnight.West, the second overall pick in the 1960 draft, told her that he didn’t have an agent when he turned pro and for the duration of his first contract he held an off-season job in community relations for Great Western Savings to supplement his N.B.A. income. “He told me the N.B.A. was not something that they considered a full-time profession,” said Wie West. Like king tides, the wave that will lift all paychecks requires a perfect storm of leadership, talent, exposure, performances, marketing — to be aligned.With her 300-yard drives and fearless forays into men’s tournaments, a teenage Wie West was positioned as the game changer, the charismatic player who could take the L.P.G.A. Tour that Nancy Lopez popularized and deliver it, Tiger Woods-like, to a mainstream sports audience.Wie West was driving coverage of the women’s game before she was old enough to get behind the wheel of a car. So she was surprised when she stumbled onto the statistic recently that women are afforded roughly four percent of sports media coverage.Looking back, Wie West said, “I definitely can remember thinking, ‘Ugh, another interview. Stop talking about me.’”As a teenager, she was criticized by other golfers for hogging the spotlight, when in reality, she was attracting eyeballs that otherwise would have ignored women’s golf. Her visibility gained women’s golf new fans — and Wie West more critics. Dottie Pepper, a two-time major winner, described her in a 2007 essay published in Sports Illustrated as “overexposed, miserable and manipulated.”“I’m pretty honored that people chose to care about me,” Wie West said, “but it definitely was tough at times because I went through a lot of lows, really never a moment where I could just go under the radar.”Giuliani’s comments yanked Wie West out of her maternity leave and back into the spotlight. When she learned of his vulgar remarks, what she had lived and what she had learned recently about women’s place in the sports firmament coalesced into unadulterated outrage.Wie West said she started to tap out a social media response, “but I was so riled up, everything I was saying wasn’t really coming out right.”Her husband gently suggested that she carefully consider her message. “You have a chance to say something really important here,” Jonnie said he told her.In the response she drafted with input from her husband and posted to Twitter, Wie West said, in part, “What this person should have remembered from that day was the fact that I shot 64 and beat every male golfer in the field leading our team to victory.”When the writer Eric Adelson saw Giuliani’s comments, he recalled the men’s U.S. Open sectional in 2006, and following a 16-year-old Wie, who was the youngest competitor and only woman trying to earn a spot in the men’s field at Winged Foot.As he wrote three years later in the book, “The Sure Thing: The Making and Unmaking of Golf Phenom Michelle Wie,” he overheard an exchange between two college-aged men. One said, “Pretty swing,” to which the other responded with a crude comment about her physique.Speaking recently by telephone, Adelson said, “I remember cringing when I first heard that. I thought it was gross, and then when I heard what Giuliani said, I thought it was extremely gross.”He applauded Wie West’s response. “It just shows that she grew up,” Adelson said, “but a lot of other people didn’t.”A grown-up Wie West knows how to turn her anger into agency. She pitched a cotton candy blue-and-pink tie-dye hoodie with the L.P.G.A. logo to tour executive Roberta Bowman, who loved the idea. The limited-edition sweatshirts sold out after they were worn by Warriors players, and to Wie West’s surprised delight, the large and extra large sizes were snatched up first.Men clothed as billboards for the women’s game instead of ogling the women athletes. For Wie West, the victories don’t come much bigger than that. More

    • 88 Shares149 Views

      in Golf

      Phil Mickelson, at 50, Wins P.G.A. Championship

      by

      Mickelson became the oldest winner of a major golf tournament after a tense final round on the treacherous Ocean Course at Kiawah Island.KIAWAH ISLAND, S.C. — Weathering a riveting, roller-coaster test of nerve over five hours, Phil Mickelson, who will turn 51 next month, won the P.G.A. Championship on Sunday to become the oldest golfer to win a major championship. The record was previously held by Julius Boros, who was 48 when he won the 1968 P.G.A. Championship.Mickelson shot six under par for the tournament, finishing two strokes ahead of the runners-up, Brooks Koepka and Louis Oosthuizen.Mickelson becomes the latest in a growing group of sports stars who have defied traditional retirement ages for athletes and proved that championships can still be won in careers that last into middle age. Mickelson has followed the lead of Tom Brady, who won his seventh Super Bowl title three months ago at 43. Serena Williams has remained consistently in the hunt for elite titles at 39, an age that historically has seen tennis players recede to a senior circuit. Tiger Woods, although seriously injured in a car crash in February, won his fifth Masters tournament two years ago at 43.“I hope that this inspires some to just put in that little extra work, because there’s no reason why you can’t accomplish your goals at an older age,” Mickelson said after his round. “It just takes a little more work.”Mickelson has been among the most popular American golfers for three decades, and the final scene of his Sunday triumph made it obvious that his appeal had not waned.At the final hole, Mickelson rocketed his tee shot into the gallery left of the fairway, but he lofted a 9-iron from the rough to within 16 feet of the hole as the crowd roared its approval. He walked toward the green shaking his left fist above his shoulder. As he did, he was enveloped by hundreds of fans, who surged past security guards and the police to celebrate alongside him.Hugged, jostled and patted on the back, Mickelson needed several minutes to walk the final 50 yards to the 18th green. With spectators chanting his first name, he finally emerged to a green encircled by the crowd. Two putts sealed his victory.Mickelson later called the experience “slightly unnerving but exceptionally awesome,” and said he would “cherish it for my entire life.”Mickelson, surrounded by security, had to press through a throng of fans on the 18th fairway.Matt York/Associated PressMickelson’s achievement, his sixth major title, could prove to be a bookend to three decades in golf’s spotlight. A four-time college all-American, he won his first professional tournament while an amateur and was unable to cash its hefty check. After turning pro, he racked up victories on the PGA Tour, but soon became better known for his failure to win his first major championship.Mickelson has also had the misfortune of playing most of his career in the shadow of the superstar Woods, who won six major championships before he was 26. But Mickelson did not break through until he was 33, when he claimed the 2004 Masters during his 13th year on tour. Two other Masters championships followed, in 2006 and 2010, as well as a victory at the 2005 P.G.A. Championship, but there were also frequent, dispiriting setbacks, including six second-place finishes at the United States Open, American golf’s national championship. Before Sunday’s victory at the treacherous Ocean Course at Kiawah Island, Mickelson had not won a major since the 2013 British Open.Mickelson misses a putt on the par-5 No. 11 hole.Matt York/Associated PressMickelson, however, has remained a fan favorite, in part because of a daring style of play and because of his Everyman physique, which stands in stark contrast to the fit, muscular bodies of the modern golfer best typified by Woods. Known as Lefty because he swings at a golf ball left-handed — even though he is naturally right-handed — Mickelson has spent decades comfortably engaging with golf galleries, often using a smile and a thumbs-up, a gesture he learned from Arnold Palmer.Mickelson’s rush up the leaderboard at this P.G.A. Championship was not foreshadowed by his recent performances. Since missing the cut at last year’s U.S. Open, his best result on the PGA Tour had been a tie for 21st. He finished outside the top 50 nine times.Playing in dark sunglasses and with an air of calm, Mickelson began Sunday’s round with a one-stroke lead over Koepka, who finished the event in a tie for second place with Oosthuizen at four under par.But long before Mickelson’s triumphant outcome was certain, he was locked in a tense, topsy-turvy battle, first with Koepka and then in the closing holes with Oosthuizen.While Mickelson appeared to have a comfortable four-shot lead over the field with six holes to play, his second shot at the 13th hole hooked into a water hazard, which led to an unsettling bogey. On the par-3 14th hole, Mickelson came up short and right of the green. He chipped to eight feet, but missed the par putt for another bogey.Almost simultaneously, Oosthuizen made two steadying pars at the 14th and 15th holes to pull within three strokes of Mickelson, who was at six under par for the tournament. Mickelson made par at the 15th hole, but Oosthuizen birdied the par-5 16th hole — his eagle putt narrowly missed — to cut Mickelson’s lead to two strokes.Mickelson responded with a par on the 15th hole, then hit a towering 337-yard drive to the middle of the 16th fairway. His second shot bounced on the green but skipped off the back. A dicey chip nestled next to the hole for an easy birdie, and Mickelson headed to the hardest hole on the longest golf course in major championship history with a three-shot lead.Mickelson’s 6-iron from the 17th tee took a big bounce just to the left of the hole and trundled into knee-high grass behind the green 60 feet from the flagstick. After several minutes of deliberation, he wedged his ball safely on the putting surface, where he two-putted for a bogey that still kept him two strokes in the lead.Brooks Koepka hitting out of a bunker on No. 16 Sunday. He birdied the par-5 hole.Matt York/Associated PressHours earlier, in the middle of a sunny, humid day along the South Carolina coastline, Mickelson had taken a gut punch to his chances when Koepka wrested the lead from him on the opening hole. In a matter of minutes, a three-putt bogey by Mickelson and a Koepka birdie had reversed the names atop the leaderboard. But Koepka gave away the advantage with a double bogey on the second hole, even as Mickelson continued to struggle with his accuracy.His brother and caddie, Tim, pulled Phil Mickelson aside after the sixth hole and gave him a mild scolding.“Tim said, ‘If you’re going to win this thing, you’re going to have to make committed golf swings,’” Mickelson said, adding that he had been too passive. “It hit me in the head — I have to swing committed. The first one I made was the drive on 7.”Mickelson birded the seventh hole, which Koepka bogeyed. By the turn, Mickelson had pushed ahead by two strokes.When Mickelson’s final putt dropped into the cup on the 18th green, the brothers embraced for several seconds.Celebrating on the 18th green with his brother and caddie, Tim Mickelson.Jamie Squire/Getty Images More

    • 150 Shares149 Views

      in Golf

      Four Major Tournaments in Four Months Is a Lot of Important Golf

      by

      Professional golfers worry about sustaining peak form, but say that scheduling four championships April through July is good for the game, and anyone who gets on a roll.KIAWAH ISLAND, S.C. — This is just the second time in the modern era of men’s professional golf that the sport’s four major championships will be contested in consecutive months, one each from April through July. The schedule was similar in 2019 when, after years of deliberation, the P.G.A. Championship opted to move to May, from its long standing date in mid-August.But the pandemic in 2020 forced three major championships, the P.G.A. Championship, the United States Open and the Masters, to be held from August to November. So, when this year’s P.G.A. Championship concludes Sunday at the Ocean Course on Kiawah Island, the world’s top men’s golfers will have played five majors in 10 months. Moreover, if the 2021 U.S. Open and this year’s British Open are held as expected in June and July, respectively, golf will have crammed seven majors into 12 months.If that weren’t enough, many of the best men’s players will also be competing in the Tokyo Olympics golf tournament from July 29 to Aug. 1.It is unlikely such a grueling schedule would occur again, at least intentionally, but it raises the question of whether golf’s best players can be expected to peak for the sport’s biggest championships repeatedly in a compressed time period. And moving forward, what are the challenges to staying mentally and physically prepared for golf’s new format of four majors in four months? For pro golfers, it is a little like the lengthy playoff runs in professional basketball, hockey, soccer and baseball.“It feels like every two or three weeks we’re at a venue where it’s super stressful because it’s a difficult golf course or a difficult event,” Kevin Kisner, a three-time winner on the PGA Tour, said.Kisner added: “It feels like I’m constantly getting beat up out here with the big schedule. The hardest thing is every event feels big. I haven’t played well in any of them.”It has forced some players to make difficult choices, like skipping regular tour events that they used to play so they can rest for the condensed series of major tournaments. Justin Thomas, the world’s second ranked golfer, made such a decision last month when he took two weeks off after the Masters, even though not playing can diminish a golfer’s competitive edge.“I’m just not in the physical or mental state to be able to play a golf tournament after the grind of a pressure-filled event like the Masters,” Thomas said. “I need the time to relax and then get into it later where I feel like I’m peaking for this big stretch coming up.”While the new schedule has added to the strain of trying to claim what can be a career-defining major championship, most players believe it is worth it for two chief reasons: Golf no longer goes head-to-head with the N.F.L. in the fall, and players can take a break and put their clubs away earlier.Moving the P.G.A. Championship from August to May does both because it allows the PGA Tour’s season-ending FedEx Cup playoffs to start, and end, sooner.“If you poll all the players, I would think they would be happy about the way it is now,” Jordan Spieth, a three-time major winner, said this week. “We can finish our season in August and not compete with football. And then create a little bit of an off-season for ourselves.”Playing the P.G.A. Championship in the spring rather than the summer also allows the event to be played in more parts of the United States. Scheduling the tournament in August meant that areas of the country that experience especially hot summer conditions, which are ruinous to greens, could not stage a P.G.A. Championship. That eliminated wide swaths of the country.“We think the cadence of the schedule is just better for fans — better for players,” said Seth Waugh, the chief executive of the P.G.A. of America, which conducts the P.G.A. Championship. “Obviously it’s exhausting for them to go April, May, June, July, and then if this year you’ve got an Olympics. It’s a long grind.”The P.G.A. of America represents more than 28,000 teaching and club golf professionals nationwide who serve the recreational golfing public. More golf majors early in the year theoretically enhances overall interest in the sport. Said Waugh: “Our chance to kind of light the fire for the game in May is pretty significant.”In the end, Adam Scott, the 2013 Masters winner, thinks that tour players will be better adjusted to the new schedule after having done it a second time in 2021. He pointed to Brooks Koepka, who won two U.S. Opens and two P.G.A. Championships in a 26-month span beginning in 2017, as inspiration for his colleagues.“I look at it as a huge opportunity,” Scott said of the condensed schedule. “And I think seeing what Brooks has done from the schedule of winning a couple in really quick succession, or four in quick time — that’s what is possible if you can get on a roll.” More