Si Woo Kim on Saturday on TPC Sawgrass’ 18th gap.
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One after the other, after a choking day, they exhaled.
“That is as powerful a golf as you’re ever going to play,” Keegan Bradley mentioned. “This can be a course you wish to play underneath no circumstances due to how powerful the photographs are.”
“No, it was simply extraordinarily arduous,” Brooks Koepka mentioned. “Yeah, I felt like I acquired some dangerous breaks together with not enjoying nicely. Sort of a type of issues for me. It’s simply powerful, man.”
“I believed they had been pretty simple. I can’t imagine that just one man shot underneath par to date. Guys should actually be combating their video games this week,” Kevin Kisner started.
Was TPC Sawgrass an unfair check on Saturday? The gamers don’t assume so
“No, it’s brutal, man,” he ended.
Their antagonist? A TPC Sawgrass course that turned the dial on the followers previous “maintain onto your hats” and ended on “take them off utterly,” which many gamers did. After a three-day storm that prolonged Thursday’s first spherical of the Gamers Championship all the way in which to Saturday, left behind had been winds over Ponte Vedra Seashore, Fla., that reached 40 mph in spots and blew scores up. At day’s finish, the typical for individuals who completed their second rounds was a whopping 75.320.
The toughest of the 18 had been the ultimate two — the 136-yard, par-3, island-green seventeenth performed because the second-most tough gap, with a 3.695 common rating; and the 436-yard, par-4 18th was the toughest, at almost a stroke over par. All of which begged a query to a couple execs afterward, certainly one of little question curiosity to, you, golf fan and golfer, watching from residence:
What would a ten handicap shoot on 17 and 18 on Saturday?
“Quite a bit. I imply, they may not end,” mentioned Sam Ryder, who birdied the seventeenth and bogeyed the 18th throughout his second spherical. “You simply must hit it so stable, you may’t — that’s the one method you may predict how far the ball goes to go. For guys, actually good PGA Tour gamers who miss it simply the tiniest, tiniest of margins, and it’s a 20-yard distinction with how far it goes or route. It’s simply actually powerful.”
What number of balls would a ten handicap put within the water?
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“It’s a type of issues the place they could hit the primary one on the inexperienced or they could undergo their complete bag,” Ryder mentioned. “I might say it could take a pair no less than to try to get a really feel for it. However a 10-handicapper is an effective golfer. I might in all probability put my cash if it was a coin flip; I might put my cash on it being within the water earlier than being on the inexperienced to start out.”
What say you, Kis? What would the 10-handicap shoot, after you parred 17 and bogeyed 18 in the course of the second spherical?
“They’d be fortunate to complete,” Kisner mentioned, echoing Ryder. “Seventeen, you would be there all day. I imply, I didn’t assume in case you hit it within the water, the drop zone was a lot of a bit of cake, both, since you acquired a lot spin and the greens had been simply so receptive.”
Then there’s Koepka, who was the third participant total to tee off on 17 on Saturday (as a part of his first spherical) and performed each holes twice. On the primary go-around on 17, he hit his tee shot within the water and double-bogeyed the opening, and on the second, he tripled-bogeyed after one other tee ball that was rinsed. On 18, he parred twice. His query was revised barely, however the reply was the identical.
“Brooks,” a reporter requested, “what’s a scratch golfer shoot on the market in the present day?”
“Quite a bit,” he mentioned. “Quite a bit.”
