Just Golf

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Jack Nicklaus Reacts to Matt Fitzpatrick’s Win at the U.S. Open
ZACH KOONSJUN 20, 2022


...“Couldn’t be happier for a really nice young man—a terrific young man!” Nicklaus tweeted on Sunday. “One of the greatest rounds of golf I have ever seen on a final day of the US Open. Matt had the pressure on him, having never won in the United States, and came through in flying colors!”


.....With his one-shot victory over world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler and American Will Zalatoris at The Country Club in Brookline, Mass., Fitzpatrick became the only player besides Nicklaus to win the U.S. Open and the U.S. Amateur at the same course.


https://www.si.com/golf-archives/2022/06/20/jack-nicklaus-congratulates-matt-fitzpatrick-us-open-victory

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25 dead in Tennessee as tornadoes wreak havoc on towns including Nashville
Good Morning America

https://news.yahoo.com/tornado-directly-hits-nashville-extensive-damage-reported-082805483--abc-news-topstories.html

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For Those Who Curse Their Play at U.S. Open, There’s Holy Hill
On Golf
By BILL PENNINGTON JUNE 11, 2017


Holy Hill, a Catholic basilica, overlooks Erin Hills, the golf course that will host the United States Open starting Thursday. Credit John Mummert/United States Golf Association

Every golfer who stands on the 18th tee at Erin Hills during this year’s United States Open will need faith and hope. Perhaps even spiritual inspiration and divine intervention.

All eyes will turn toward Holy Hill, a castle-like Catholic basilica and shrine looming on the horizon of the event’s final hole as if floating in the clouds. Built on the highest point in southeastern Wisconsin, the nearly century-old Holy Hill church in Hubertus has twin spires that are an aiming point for golfers, beckoning well-struck drives to safe passage on the home hole.

But then, this is golf, where broken commandments — cursing, lying on a scorecard, failing to honor the Sabbath — are as common as bogeys. Indeed, there is probably a deep connection between bogeys and broken commandments.

Still, the presence of Holy Hill, where nearly 250,000 visitors arrive annually from around the world, offers unusual possibilities for competitors at the United States Open, which begins Thursday in Erin. The shrine, three miles from the golf course, is visible from 13 holes.

The 15 priests of Holy Hill, who are called friars, have already invited every contestant to attend one of several extra Masses scheduled to take place in their Neo-Romanesque church during the event. The players can also roam the idyllic property, set on a 1,340-foot hill that was first considered a sacred site in the mid-1800s.

Asked in a recent phone interview if there was a particularly appropriate blessing for a player about to face golf’s greatest crucible, one of the friars, Father Don Brick, replied, “Probably the serenity prayer.”

Father Michael Berry, Holy Hill’s head friar, added that he would be happy to bless golf clubs for anyone in the field.

Which led Father Don, to suggest that Phil Mickelson, who has been runner-up in the event a record six times, “might want to lay his putter on the altar.” This was before Mickelson announced that he planned to put all his clubs aside during the Open, so he could attend his daughter’s high school graduation.

There is some precedent for turning to Holy Hill for help with championship golf, or at least a calming influence. By the end of the 2011 United States Men’s Amateur Championship on the daunting Erin Hills layout, the friars at Holy Hill were no longer surprised to look down from the pulpit and see several players sitting quietly in the pews.

“There are parallels between the experience on the golf course and what brings people to the shrine,” Father Michael said. “There is the whole struggle with pride and having to be humbled time and time again, and yet believing that you have the means to keep going.”

The friars noticed that the players at the 2011 Amateur tended to come to Mass before they played.

And they went to confession after their rounds.

What did they confess to?

It’s golf. You can imagine.

The friars said their confidentiality vows forbade them to disclose what they had heard. But Father Don, one of five Holy Hill friars who are golfers, said with a laugh, “We can speak to what we have to confess to after we play golf.”

The 435-acre Holy Hill site — which includes a grotto, a monastery, a cafe, a gift store and an observation tower with 30-mile views of the rolling countryside — was first graced with a log chapel in 1863.

The surrounding area, known as the Kettle Moraine, is a mass of rocks, sediment and debris deposited by glaciers, which is why Erin Hills, which opened in 2006, has such dramatic topography.

On weekends in the spring and summer, Holy Hill can be mobbed by thousands of visitors, including people who come regularly from as far as Southeast Asia, Eastern Europe and South America. For some, it is part of a yearly religious pilgrimage. Others see it as a tranquil spot for a picnic.

Beginning in the 19th century, some visitors believed the Holy Hill site had curative powers. It was declared a shrine by Pope Leo XIII in 1903, and elevated to the status of basilica in 2006.

As many of the world’s best golfers began playing practice rounds at Erin Hills this month, the friars were asked if a trip to Holy Hill could cure golf afflictions, like nasty slices or the dreaded yips. They snickered.

At best, they said, a visit to the peaceful grounds might inspire a golfer to find a good instructor. And the friars proposed that throughout the tournament, Holy Hill would benevolently watch over all the golfers. Especially on the 18th hole, a punishing par 5 that can play as long as 630 yards.

There, every participant will surely need all the help he can get.

The tournament’s general chairman, Jim Reinhart, called the 18th one of the most difficult finishing holes he had ever seen, an expanse “dotted with a lot of cruel, deep bunkers” and a tiny, crowned green surrounded by hazards.

“There is, however, a beautiful vista of Holy Hill,” Reinhart added, “which provides a kernel of hope for the faithful as they attempt to navigate the troubles waiting ahead.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/11/sports/for-those-who-curse-their-play-at-us-open-theres-holy-hill.html?

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Willett Says American Fans Proved His Brother Right
By REUTERSOCT. 3, 2016, 5:27 A.M. E.D.T.

LONDON — Danny Willett signed off Europe's Ryder Cup defeat with a swipe at Americans fans on Monday, saying their behavior over the weekend had justified comments made by his brother.

Englishman Willett, the Masters champion, had distanced himself from brother Peter's blog in the run-up to the match at Minnesota's Hazeltine National which labeled some American fans "a baying mob of imbeciles".

But after a weekend of raucous support for the home side who reclaimed the trophy 17-11, rookie Willett changed his tune.

"Unfortunately some American fans showed that @P_J_Willett was in fact correct," he said on Twitter.

"Still shows that sometimes fans don't know when to call it a day...Shame really."

Willett had a forgettable Ryder Cup debut, failing to win a point and in Sunday's singles was thrashed 5&4 by Brooks Koepka.

While the majority of American fans stayed within the bounds of fairness, despite being extremely loud, some of the heckling edged over the line.

Northern Ireland's Rory McIlroy was targeted on Saturday and asked for one fan to be removed.

"At times it went a little bit too far," he said. "But that's to be expected when you are teeing off at 7:45 in the morning, you're seeing people on the first tee with a beer and matches aren't finishing until 4:30, 5:00.

"A couple of people crossed the line but we'll take it on the chin."

(Reporting by Martyn Herman in London; editing by Amlan Chakraborty)

http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2016/10/03/sports/golf/03reuters-golf-ryder-willett.html?ref=golf

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U.S. Captures Ryder Cup, Ending Europe’s Streak

By KAREN CROUSE 8:19 AM ET



Patrick Reed, second from right, after winning his match against Rory McIlroy, second from left, by 1-up on Sunday.

John David Mercer/USA Today Sports, via Reuters

Patrick Reed, second from right, after winning his match against Rory McIlroy, second from left, by 1-up on Sunday.

The Americans clinched their first victory in the biennial event since 2008 when Ryan Moore, the last man named to the team, won his singles match.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/03/sports/golf/ryder-cup-united-states-beats-europe-hazeltine.html?ref=golf

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Arnold Palmer, the Magnetic Face of Golf in the ’60s, Dies at 87
By DAVE ANDERSONSEPT. 25, 2016

Arnold Palmer, the champion golfer whose full-bore style of play, thrilling tournament victories and magnetic personality inspired an American golf boom, attracted a following known as Arnie’s Army and made him one of the most popular athletes in the world, died on Sunday, according to a spokesman for his business enterprises. Palmer was 87.


http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/26/sports/golf/arnold-palmer-dies-at-87.html?

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On Golf: Oakmont Country Club Sets Standard for U.S. Open Play

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/16/sports/golf/oakmont-country-club-sets-standard-for-us-open-play.html?ref=golf

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Unfairly Left in the Dark at the U.S. Open While Officials Consider a Rule

By BILL PENNINGTON

The game’s necessary devotion to the exactness of its rules failed to include a dollop of common sense.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/20/sports/golf/at-us-open-dustin-johnson-is-left-in-the-dark-while-officials-dispute-a-rule.html?ref=golf

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British Open: Jordan Spieth Tips His Cap and Will Rue His Three-Putts

By KAREN CROUSE

ST. ANDREWS, Scotland

The walk from the 18th green, past the first tee, across a public walkway, into the recorders’ office and up to an interview stand took roughly 10 minutes, time enough for Jordan Spieth to swallow his disappointment and digest the lessons from his heartbreaking defeat at the British Open.

Spieth, who was trying to become the first player since Ben Hogan in 1953 to win the Masters, the United States Open and the British Open in the same year, finished one stroke out of a three-man playoff, won by Zach Johnson. After playing his way into contention with a 66 in Sunday’s third round, Spieth had said, “I don’t want to place third.”

He didn’t. He closed with a three-under 69 to tie for fourth, at 14 under, with his playing partner, Jason Day. The finish had to gall the competitor in Spieth. But when it came time to dissect his round with reporters, the side of Spieth that is a sportsman prevailed.

“Although we came in wanting to be two shots better than what we finished, with everything that went on this week and the momentum we came in with, I’m very pleased with the way we battled,” said Spieth, who collected his ninth top-four finish in his last 13 starts.

He was beaten, he said, “by some special golf” from Johnson, who closed with a 66; Marc Leishman, who played the last 36 holes of regulation in 14 under; and Louis Oosthuizen, who was two strokes better than Spieth during a chaotic second round that took their wave more than a day and a half to complete.

“That was some unbelievable golf that was played by those guys to get to 15 under in these conditions,” he said.

Spieth goes into every round with a target number, and the number he thought he needed Monday to have a chance to win was 68. So his accuracy did not fail him there.

When he returns to Dallas and reflects on the week’s events, Spieth will rue the five three-putts he made during the second round, his double bogey on the short par-3 eighth on Monday and his cumulative effort on the par-4 17th Road Hole, which became his personal Sink Hole, as it has for so many others before him. He played it in three over for the week.

Spieth’s strength is his putting, so he did not even bother trying to sanitize the mess he made on the 174-yard eighth hole. Playing his tee shot into a stiff wind and stinging rain, Spieth hit it roughly 120 feet right of the pin. His first putt rolled past the cup and off the other side of the green. He putted up to 4 feet, then missed his bogey attempt to drop three shots behind the leaders.

Of the 80 players who teed it up Monday, 78 walked off the eighth green with no worse than bogey.

“If you make bogey, you’re still in,” Spieth said. “If you make double bogey, it’s a very difficult climb, and there’s absolutely no reason to hit that putt off the green.”

Spieth posted nine scores of bogey or worse during the tournament, and six times he rebounded with a birdie on the next hole, including back-to-back birdies on Nos. 9 and 10 Monday. He moved into a tie for the lead at 15 under when he drained a 30-foot curling birdie putt on the par-4 16th.

But then the Road Hole swallowed him whole. The rain and wind, which had abated, kicked up as if Spieth had agitated the ghost of Bobby Jones with his pursuit of a calendar-year Grand Slam. The hole was playing 495 yards into a howling wind and heavy rain. After his drive, Spieth said he had 240 yards to the hole. He took his 3-iron, backed off in midswing once because of the wind, and then hit a low shot that landed 15 yards short of the green. He chipped to 6 feet and missed the putt.

“That was as hard a par 4 as I think we’ve played all year,” Spieth said, “and just unfortunately didn’t hit a very solid putt.”

With Johnson and Leishman in the clubhouse at 15 under, Spieth knew he needed a birdie on the par-4 18th. He drove the ball almost to the right edge of the first fairway and hit a shot with his lob wedge that reached the green but rolled off into the Valley of Sin. Using his putter, Spieth missed what would have been his biggest rebound birdie yet by inches.

In the crucible of competition, Spieth closes the aperture in his mind so that everything goes black but the dot that is his target.

“The smaller of a target that you can pick, your misses are going to be smaller,” said Spieth, who aims for branches instead of trees and a colorful sweater instead of the whole crowd.

“When I get in those positions, that’s what comes to mind, is how can I zero in even more and more and more,” he added.

He was talking about inside the ropes. As soon as he leaves the course, Spieth is able to widen his scope. All week he had been aiming for the smallest number — 1. Ten minutes after coming up short, he was focused on the big picture.

“I struck the ball phenomenally well, I drove the ball as good as I’ve driven it this entire year, including the other majors,” he said.

The P.G.A. Championship begins Aug. 13 at Whistling Straits in Wisconsin. Hogan in 1953 and Tiger Woods in 2000 are the only men to have won three majors in a season.

“So that would be the next goal as far as the history goes,” Spieth said.

The week before the British Open, Spieth and Johnson played in the John Deere Classic, won by Spieth in a playoff, so they were among the last to arrive here. Before the tournament began, Johnson said he found it “impossible to comprehend” what it must be like to stand, as Spieth did, on history’s doorstep.

“He’s such a normal kid,” Johnson said. “That’s the beauty of it.”

He added: “I say normal — he’s got some intangibles and some qualities that I can’t quite pinpoint, that you can’t quite see. Tiger had them, specifically. We saw those back in the day. It’s just a rare thing. But it’s awesome as a fan.”

After his interview session was over, Spieth stuck around and waited for Johnson to finish the four-hole playoff. When Johnson came off the course, Spieth was one of the first to congratulate him.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/21/sports/golf/british-open-jordan-spieth-tips-his-cap-and-will-rue-his-three-putts.html?ref=sports

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Sundays on the Old Course at St. Andrews: No Golfers Allowed
By SAM BORDENJUNE 12, 2015

ST. ANDREWS, Scotland — For those who arrive at the birthplace of golf on a sunny Sunday morning, the rules of play are simple. You can pretty much do anything you want on the historic grounds of the Old Course, as long as it does not involve actually hitting a drive or rapping a putt.

Frisbees are fine. Picnics, too. Locals might tell you that pushing a baby stroller (or pram, in the vernacular) can get a little challenging on some of the more uneven parts of the course, but if your little one will be soothed by the strong winds whipping in off the North Sea then, well, so be it.

Wedding photos on the famed Swilcan Bridge are no problem, either, though guests in formal attire should be advised that they may not fit in with the more casual university students who like to loll about on the 18th fairway.

Put another way: All are welcome at the home of golf on Sundays. Except golfers.

“Why is it this way?” Alastair Matheson, 86, said as he led a small group of visitors on the daily guided tour of the Old Course in the spring. “Because that’s the way it has always been.”

As with many regulations from a different era, the Sunday slumber for the Old Course is a rule that is simultaneously charming and maddening. For most purists — a group that seems to include a majority of the residents of this town on Scotland’s east coast — the centuries-old edict to refrain from golf on Sundays is a sacred part of the Old Course’s venerable traditions. For many golfing tourists — a group that has only been more feverish this year ahead of next month’s British Open on the Old Course — it is downright cruel.

In a city where good weather means it rained for only half the day, and at a course that most every golfer in the world would dearly love to play, why would anyone ever think it’s a good idea to close on a weekend?

Jonathan Kwiatkoski, who traveled here from Chicago on a golf vacation, paused near the renowned Road Hole bunker alongside the 17th green on a recent Sunday morning. He was on his way to play one of the other courses at St. Andrews, and he grinned when asked about the Old Course’s weekly hiatus.

“This is all a little strange, for sure,” Kwiatkoski said, motioning around at the area’s general stillness while watching another man, presumably also a visitor, squat down and appear to closely examine the famous bunker’s grains of sand.

“It’s hard to imagine a public course in America closing on a Sunday,” Kwiatkoski added. “Usually, that’s when everyone plays, not when nobody plays.”

Historians trace the Old Course’s Sunday closure to religious laws dating at least to the 16th century, when some residents of St. Andrews were cited in town criminal logs for playing on the Sabbath. According to Gordon Moir, the director of greens keeping at St. Andrews, it was not until 1941 that the other courses at the complex were opened for play on Sundays.

The Old Course, though, has always stayed shuttered, essentially morphing into a bumpy, sand-dotted parkland that attracts an inordinate number of joggers, dogs and, sometimes, joggers with dogs. (Several signs warn visitors against “dog fouling” and threaten to assess a fine of roughly $60 against any offender who might, say, think about leaving a companion’s bowel movement in a bunker.)

Sunday activities on the Old Course over the years have run the gamut. A local woman named Marie-Noel, who declined to give her surname, said she recalled members of her family laying out their laundry on the course some weeks and added, with a mixture of sheepishness and pride, that she and her friends used to participate in an on-course drinking game known as Port Golf when she was attending a university nearby.

Matheson, one of four guides handling the daily tours, recalled seeing fishermen spread their nets on the fairways so they could mend them. He shook his head when relating a story about a woman in high heels trying to walk across one of the greens.

“That happens more than you would think,” he said. “Then you sometimes see some of the boys out with a football trying to have a proper game before they get chased away.”

Matheson said he had never heard of any serious discussion about changing the Sunday rule. He noted that Old Tom Morris, the legendary player and greenskeeper who revitalized the Old Course in the mid-1800s, was said to have preached, “Even if the golfers don’t need a rest, the course does.”

Moir, who is charged with keeping the course in top shape, heartily endorsed that line of thinking, particularly in a year when the British Open will be played on the Old Course. Each Sunday is a full workday for Moir and his crew, with about 20 workers dispatched over the course to handle tasks from spreading sand to filling divots.

Sundays are the chance to tackle more labor-intensive repairs and get a full reading on what the course needs. (The course will be closed to the public — golfers and picnickers alike — beginning June 19 to prepare for the British Open.)

If members of Moir’s staff see any particularly unruly behavior on Sundays — he chuckled as he detailed the time he witnessed several students engaged in a snowball fight on one of the fairways — they will not hesitate to admonish the offenders, though most visitors are respectful.

For a long time, Moir said, the biggest problem was the number of people who wanted to take pictures next to the flagstick on the 18th green. With the well-known clubhouse standing majestically in the background, the tiny ropes that staff members put up to deter people did little to slow traffic across the putting surface.

These days, however, Sunday visitors will find an authentic St. Andrews flagstick stuck in the ground to the side of the green about halfway toward the adjacent first tee. This way, Moir said, both the ground and everyone’s selfies are preserved.

There are, of course, some exceptions to the Sunday rest. Practice rounds for the British Open, for example, are scheduled to begin on July 12 — a Sunday — and play will, naturally, be allowed on the next weekend, when the final round is played on July 19. There are also a few other tournaments throughout the year when Sunday play is permitted.

On a vast majority of weekends, however, this gem of a course separates itself from most of its brethren. Indeed, while the rest of the golf world is on the first tee at dawn or traipsing through a six-hour round at a packed municipal course or trying to squeeze in a quick nine before sunset, the birthplace of it all stays quiet.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/14/sports/sundays-on-the-old-course-at-st-andrews-no-golfers-allowed.html?ref=sports

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Amen,

A Golf Writer’s Term, Forever: Amen


By KAREN CROUSEAPRIL 8, 2015

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/09/sports/golf/golf-writer-who-coined-amen-corner-was-a-master-in-his-own-field.html?ref=sports

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Tom Watson: Mistakes were mine
Updated: October 6, 2014, 3:06 PM ET
By Bob Harig | ESPN.com

Tom Watson acknowledged missteps as U.S. Ryder Cup team captain Saturday, saying he takes responsibility for mistakes he made while expressing regret that some of his comments to the team may have sent the wrong message.

Watson's six-paragraph statement released through the PGA of America came after four unnamed sources revealed details, for a story published by ESPN.com on Friday, of a team bonding session at the Gleneagles Hotel in Scotland last weekend that went bad.

"First, I take complete and full responsibility for my communication, and I regret that my words may have made the players feel that I didn't appreciate their commitment and dedication to winning the Ryder Cup,'' Watson said in the open letter. "My intentions throughout my term as captain were both to inspire and to be honest.

"Secondly, the guys gave everything. They played their hearts out. I was proud to get to know each and every one of them. I know they are all going to win tournaments, be on future Ryder Cup teams and have wonderful careers.''

Watson, 65, was the oldest captain in Ryder Cup history when the event was played last weekend at Gleneagles, where the U.S. suffered a 16½ to 11½ defeat, its eighth in the last 10 Ryder Cups.

Watson is the last captain to win a Ryder Cup on the road, doing so in 1993. He was brought back to try and regain a Cup that has been elusive to the American side, but his weekend was marked by second-guessing and what turned out to be some bruised feelings among American players -- especially from Phil Mickelson, who wasted no time in voicing his concerns about the entire Ryder Cup process following the closing ceremony Sunday.

Mickelson's blunt assessment turned out to be fueled, in part, by a Saturday night session in the U.S. team room that was attended by more than 40 people, including players, caddies, spouses, girlfriends, workers and PGA of America officials.

The bottom line is this: I was their captain. In hindsight whatever mistakes that were made were mine. And I take complete and full responsibility for them.
”
- Tom Watson

According to the sources, Mickelson was one of several players who took issue with the way Watson handled his remarks to the team, as well as his response to a well-intended session in which he was presented a gift by team members.

Mickelson, who earlier that day sat out an entire session for the first time in 10 Ryder Cup appearances, also felt the need to address the team to change the tone.

"As for Phil's comments, I completely understand his reaction in the moment,'' Watson said in the statement. "Earlier this week I had an open and candid conversation with him and it ended with a better understanding of each other's perspectives. Phil's heart and intentions for our team's success have always been in the right place. Phil is a great player, has great passion and I admire what he's done for golf.''

Watson is one of the game's greats, an eight-time major champion who won five Open Championships, including four in Scotland. At age 59, he nearly won a record-tying sixth Open, losing in a playoff to Stewart Cink at Turnberry in 2009.

He also won 39 times on the PGA Tour and played on four U.S. Ryder Cup teams.

The PGA of America, which chooses the U.S. captain, made him the first to repeat in that role since Jack Nicklaus in 1987, but his tenure was marked by a lack of communication and second-guessing of his pairings during the U.S. defeat.

"The bottom line is this: I was their captain,'' Watson said in the statement. "In hindsight whatever mistakes that were made were mine. And I take complete and full responsibility for them.

"I want to say again to the players, their families, the PGA and our country how proud and honored I was to captain this talented group of golfers, and how privileged I was to spend the past two years working this labor of my love for the Ryder Cup.''

http://espn.go.com/golf/rydercup14/story/_/id/11641578/2014-ryder-cup-tom-watson-says-takes-full-responsibility-mistakes

[BullNBear52]

Mickelson is such a scrub.

http://sports.yahoo.com/news/mickelson-calls-watsons-style-captain-183715929--golf.html

Note to Phil what is said in the clubhouse stays in the clubhouse.

[BullNBear52]

A Touch of Class Lightens the Darkness
P.G.A. Championship 2014: Foursome Helps Finish Round in Time
By BILL FIELDSAUG. 10, 2014

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — All the scene lacked were a few cars pulled up to the edge of the 18th green, their high beams on to illuminate the gloaming that had enveloped Valhalla Golf Club.

Then it would have seemed like two high school golf teams trying to complete a match on a spring afternoon before daylight saving time had kicked in.

But this was the P.G.A. Championship, and even without any automobile lights pointed at the putting surface Sunday evening, it was a surreal atmosphere that had been preceded by an unusual decision to allow the last two pairings to essentially play the last hole together.

It is not rare for a golf tournament, even a major championship, to be in a race to beat darkness in the final round. This has been especially true in the last couple of decades as the majors, eager to extend the broadcasts of their events into prime time to try to attract maximum ratings, have routinely had the last pairing tee off at about 3 p.m.

Sunday’s final pairing, Rory McIlroy and Bernd Wiesberger, was scheduled to tee off at 2:55 despite a dodgy forecast that panned out when heavy rain caused play to be suspended at 12:53.

“There was no real consideration to move the tee times forward,” said Kerry Haigh, the P.G.A. of America’s chief championships officer, noting that the forecast had been for isolated storms. “Yes, there was a reasonable chance of showers, but they were going to be sporadic, and it was either going to hit us or miss us. Unfortunately, the one that hit us was literally only three miles wide but was moving very slowly.”

Play resumed at 2:44 and was not interrupted again, but the McIlroy-Wiesberger pairing did not begin the final round until 4:26.

At that point, everyone knew it was going to be nip-and-tuck as to whether play could be completed, even without further delays, before sunset.

And it was.

Television camera technology distorted how dim a view the players had for the latter stages of the round.

“It was a little different playing the last few holes in the dark,” said Rickie Fowler, who was in the penultimate pairing with Phil Mickelson.

McIlroy and Wiesberger arrived at the tee of the par-5 18th hole as Mickelson and Fowler were hitting their tee shots. At that point, Mickelson and Fowler allowed McIlroy — who had a two-stroke lead over Mickelson, Fowler and Henrik Stenson — and Wiesberger to tee off so that the championship would have a better chance of finishing.

Mickelson and Fowler stood to the side of the 18th fairway, short of the landing area, while the final pairing teed off.

“We were cool with them hitting the tee shot,” Fowler said of McIlroy and Wiesberger. “We weren’t expecting the approach shots. Typically if it’s getting dark and they are going to blow the horn, you at least get the guys off the tee, and it gives them the opportunity to play.”

McIlroy said the timesaving idea was his. “I suggested that we play up as a foursome,” he said. “Then I was told we could hit right after them. They didn’t need to do that. They showed a lot of class and sportsmanship. If they hadn’t done that, we might not have gotten it in. It was getting really dark out there.”

According to Haigh, who was not at the 18th tee but communicated with walking officials who were, it was Wiesberger who suggested playing up. Haigh said he was told by the officials that Fowler and McIlroy had discussed having the last twosome hit approach shots before Mickelson and Fowler completed the 18th.

Mickelson hit the 18th fairway, then came up just short of the green on his second shot. His chip threatened the hole, and he had a tap-in to finish at 15 under and force McIlroy to make a par to win. After driving near a water hazard on the right, McIlroy hit his second shot into a greenside bunker. His sand shot came up 34 feet short. With little light left, he lagged the putt close to ensure victory. He tapped in at 8:43 p.m.

“It didn’t affect the outcome of the championship at all, I don’t think,” said Mickelson, who birdied the hole after chipping close on his third shot. “Not what we normally do, but it’s not a big deal either way.”

McIlroy, who started the round with a one-shot lead over Wiesberger but had fallen two shots back after nine holes, appreciated not having to linger on the 18th tee.

“They could have had us standing and wait on the 18th tee while it was getting dark,” he said. It was great sportsmanship and shows the great character of those two guys, and I’m glad they did it.”

Having won four majors and playing the kind of golf that is drawing comparisons to Tiger Woods at his zenith, McIlroy has something else in common with Woods. A 14-time major champion, Woods putted out at Bethpage State Park in the 2002 United States Open as dozens of camera flashes went off.

Now there are similar images of McIlroy, standing out in the dark, as his game allows him to stand out from the crowd.

[KINGMADE]

How Kings Are Made: The Next Big Little Thing On Tour

http://www.golfwrx.com/137689/how-kings-are-made-the-next-big-little-thing-on-tour/

[KINGMADE]

out on the course today shook hands with the greatest as we exchanged #kingmadejerky!

[KINGMADE]

There's the beef: Tour caddie hits it big with homemade jerky for golfers
http://www.worldgolf.com/blogs/mike-bailey/2013/09/15/tour-caddie-hits-it-big-with-homemade-jerky-for-golfers

[KINGMADE]

Hutton: ‘Kingmade Jerky’ turns Hammond native into celebrity

When Jeff King talks about dehydrators, jerky flavors, Davis Love III, the region and the wacky life of caddying all in one breath, I wonder: Is there a chance I could quit my job, hitch-hike to where ever his next tournament is and just hang out with him for a year and see what happens next?

King has made regular appearances in this space over the last decade for his caddying, most of it with LPGA players like Candy Kung and Christie Kerr before hitching a ride with Luke List, a powerful but inconsistent player who is struggling to keep his card on the PGA Tour.
King was thrust into the news last week when word of his newest venture got out via Sports Illustrated: “Kingmade Jerky.”

“I think I’m a guy with too much time on my hands,” he laughed from North Carolina, where he was in a laundry mat, washing his clothes before List played in a Web.com event.

King, from Hammond, makes beef jerky. He is the proud, sometimes overwhelmed founder of the new company (www.kingmadejerky.com).

King’s jerky story is, like King himself, one-of-a-kind.
He came home from looping one day a couple of years ago and decided to make jerky. (We’ve all thought that before, right?) He had no inclination to make jerky, aside from the fact that he liked jerky as a snack when caddying.

The PGA, apart from a few lumpy players, like Angel Cabrerra and Tim Herron, is a health conscious place. Television often shows players munching on snacks in between shots. King dove into jerky making because he could rarely find the jerky he liked when he was on the road.

He did what any normal person who wanted to make jerky would do: He bought a dehydrator, a contraption that dries out meat and he went to work.

His first few batches were awful.

After a few tries, the jerky got better and word got out, first on the LPGA Tour, where King was caddying. Pretty soon, King was a certified jerky snob.

His jerky is made from flank steak, the other stuff is usually “round steak.”

He had three flavors: Sweet Chili Pepper, Classic and Buffalo Style. His jerky is all natural and hand crafted and it has about a third as much sodium in it as most of the jerky on the market.

More importantly, it’s hugely popular with the jerky crowd on tour. Tiger Woods eats King’s jerky. Thirty players follow King Jerky on twitter.

Love told SI that he wanted to get the recipe for it so he could make it at home. King’s little hobby turned into another full-time job for him — with a list of 70 players regularly requesting the jerky.

He had so many requests for the jerky from PGA players that when he went back home to Texas he rarely slept.

Making jerky is a 24-hour cycle of drying and marinating the meat. He charged $40 per pound, but he made about three bucks an hour.

“You have to baby-sit this stuff non-stop,” he said.

King’s entered rarified jerky status when a former pro golfer turned food and beverage marketing executive heard his story, tried his product and asked him if wanted to turn it into a business.

That was almost like a joke to King, a humble, rooted Northwest Indiana kid who basically lived on a golf course as a kid.

Except it wasn’t. It was real stuff.

That was at the beginning of the year.

Adam Papazian, his partner, helped him raise around $175,000 to get the product to the public.

They found a plant in Nebraska that would make the jerky and they officially launched the business a couple of months ago.

The product — 2.25 ounces — sells for $8.99 in about a dozen places in the United States.

J&M Golf in St. John is the only place in Northwest Indiana that has it right now.

Or, it can be ordered off his website.

King has plans to unveil a few more flavors in the next six months or so.

For now, King is both grateful beyond words and still a caddie at heart.

He has no plans to give up his day job. He wants to help List make the Ryder Cup someday.

He is worried that the business might become a distraction for List so he plans on hiring someone next year to help take care of all the requests he gets for jerky.

And whatever happens with the business, whether it takes off and soars or fades into jerky purgatory, King figures he has won.

“Everything that has happened already is priceless,” King said.

Everybody — tour players, caddies, friends from Northwest Indiana — is pulling for him big time. They really do want King to be the “King Jerky.”

http://posttrib.suntimes.com/sports/22466340-556/hutton-kingmade-jerky-turns-hammond-native-into-celebrity.html