Just saw something on today’s golf tournament I can’t remember ever seeing before - 2 players in the last 2 foursomes got 9s on the same hole - #14.
Including the leader - Paul Goydos.
Un-friggin-believable!
After which David Duval rolls in a bird and is one behind wih one to play.
I’m a hack and I’m not sure I can remember the last time I got a 9, so I can’t imagine how pissed these guys must be!
(Yeah - I don’t play Pebble with Sunday pins…)
Bet you all wish you weren’t watching the Olympics, huh?
David Duval is one off the lead going in to 18th hole. There are a few in back of him but he has played very well this week. If he gets it going early in the year, could he come back and be a factor again?
I’m not watching the tournament, but I will say, from having been there in person, that 14 can be quite a daunting hole. The part of the green on which they can actually play is as small a surface as I’ve ever seen used for a green. Miss it left, it’s down a hill, miss it long, it’s down a hill, miss it short, it’s in a cavernous bunker (and yet, that’s the best miss available), miss it right, and it will come all the way down to the front of the green, where you have no putt. The shot into the green is quite steeply uphill, and the pin is blind to you behind the lip of the trap. I’d not want to come into that hole with much pressure on me to win a tournament.
Gene “the Machine” Littler finished off a stretch of five holes where he lost six strokes to par in 1977 at the PGA Championship by bogeying that hole. Had he simply parred it, then parred in as he proceeded to do, he would have won the tournament. Instead, Lanny Wadkins won the first ever sudden death playoff in a major championship.
Yeah - that is just what happened. To tell the truth, I forget exactly how many and which chips these 2 guys had - there were so many of them. That shot into the green looked amazing - that bunker was HUGE. I believe the announcers were saying the best shot was to go just past the pin and spin it back - but not too much.
The guy in the 2d to last group missed long and left - down that hill. Then he chipped long and rolled off the front of the green. Next chip did not make it back over the ridge, and rolled back down to an even worse place.
While he was hacking it up, Goydos and DJ were standing in the fairway talking about how tough the shot was - whether you go for it and risk missing left, or risk being short.
I forget the exact sequence of Goydos’ chips. At one point he was short of the green and tried to flop it over the trap, but went long and down the slope. I think he then was short chipping up the hill, and it rolled back to his feet. Then he chipped up again, and miraculously the ball hung up 10-20’ past the pin. Afterwards it looked like he was having trouble counting his score for the hole!
DJ played it smart. Laid up in 2, and his his approach long and right, from where he had a tricky 2-putt for par.
Given his track record at Pebble, you’d have to like his chances for the US Open.
