Around the wider world of golf: There were a lot of standout performances this week. Shanshan Feng won the Toto Japan Classic on the LPGA; Aditi Ashok won the Fatima Bint Mubarak Ladies Open on the LET; Justin Rose won the Turkish Airlines Open on the ET; Chan Kim won the HEIWA PGM Championship on the Japan Golf Tour; and Shiv Kapur won the Panasonic Open India on the Asian Tour.
Vegas is best known for its casinos, where thousands of common folks who dream of being "players" risk it all on a spin of the wheel, a toss of the dice, a cut of the cards or a pull on a "one-armed bandit" (also known as a slot machine). Some like to gamble on the golf course, betting on the outcomes even if they don't play the game themselves.
Rarely (if ever) do the gambles center around a player's ability to predict the wind. But at the Shriners Hospitals for Children Open, that's exactly what happened.
No one was ready for the havoc caused by the wind. A.J. McInerney said he had played TPC Summerlin since he was a child and had NEVER seen some of the pin positions dictated by the wind. The winning score was less than half the norm -- a typical winner would need around 21-under, but this week 9-under made the playoff.
While a number of players had a chance at that playoff, only three made it -- Patrick Cantlay, Whee Kim and (after a two-hour wait) Alex Cejka. It took two holes for Cantlay to win... with a par, the only par by any of the players.
Cantlay's story has been well-publicized. He was a can't-miss kid who had to fight years of back problems and the loss of a close friend (his caddie at the time) who died in his arms after a hit-and-run accident. Is it really a surprise that he finally got a breakthrough win in such testing circumstances, where he would have to hit a nearly-impossible shot to seal the win? To say this is a feelgood story is an understatement!
Will this "open the floodgates," as the analysts are wont to say? I have no idea. But Cantlay can do it if anyone can, and it is with great pleasure that I present him with his first Limerick Summary.
Vegas winds dealt the field a tough handThe photo came from this page at golfweek.com.
So their shots didn’t come off as planned;
No one had a safe play.
The pros struggled all day
Until Cantlay at last took command.
Alex Kang and AJ McInerney tied for 10th, though Danielle's brother will be in Mexico and AJ will be back at Q-School
ReplyDelete