When you come to think of it that is the secret of most of the great holes all over the world. They all have some kind of a twist. C.B. MACDONALD
And greens too fast for their contours. Again. This happened at the 2010 Open Championship and now at the 2013 Ricoh Women's British Open.
The irony? Greens are sped up to offset modern driving distances and to prevent low scoring, yet whenever we've seen modern elite players on slow greens they don't make many putts.
The official announcement:
Third round play was suspended at 12.33pm on Saturday due to high winds gusting at 38 miles per hour.
Balls were moving on the greens, with the 10th green particularly affected.
Play has been suspended until at least 4.30pm and tournament officials will make a further announcement at 4pm local time.
**Martin Dempster's account of the strange day at St. Andrews.
In case you were wondering about how the greens were prepared with the strong wind forecast, Alistair Tait has your answer.
The LGU had already prepared for the strong winds by not cutting the greens as close as the previous day. “The 11th green wasn’t cut,” she said. “The greens were 9.4 on the stimpmeter as opposed to 10 the day before. They were really quite sticky.”
The weather forecast for tomorrow calls for strong winds again, although not quite as strong as today. If the wind gets up and play is affected, then a Monday finish is an option.
Only nine players finished their third rounds. Those nine players were 56 over par. Rikako Morita was the worst of that bunch with a score of 86, 14 over. Cristie Kerr and amateur Lydia Ko had matching 3-over 75s.
Ron Sirak on Inbee Park's unlucky draw as Friday afternoon saw winds kick up, leaving the Grand Slam wannabe eight back heading into the weekend.
The change in conditions seemed unsettling for Park, and that is a rarity for the Korean who plays with a Zen-like calm. Her ball striking was not nearly as crisp as Thursday, when she opened with a 69, and her putting was not as precise as usual, although she did make several good six-foot par saves.
"[I was] a little bit unlucky with the draw, getting afternoon today, not playing in the morning when it's lovely, but that's the way it is," she said.
ESPN's highlight package and wrap up from Rinaldi and Pepper.
Ron Sirak on Inbee Park's opening 69 at the Old Course in her quest to win a fourth straight major. The normally reliable putter had a few slip-ups on the way in.
"There were a couple of bad drives and a couple of bad putts on the back nine, but it's the first round and could have been much better," she said. "A little bit disappointing, but I'm glad that I've done that in the first round instead of the final round. I'm looking to improve the next three days."
Park blamed the back-to-back three putts on Nos. 16 and 17 -- something that happens for Park about as often as Yankees legend Mariano Rivera blows a save -- on the fact that she had faced no long lags putts until late in the round.
Park is, after all is said and done, perfectly positioned after 18 holes and perfectly prepared to deal with the mental challenge ahead.
Considering it took almost six hours the last time they played the Ricoh Women's Open at St. Andrews, this from Susan Simpson of the Ladies Golf Union seems optimistic.
"This week is the only week we deal with the professionals and we've obviously got to deal with two other organising bodies too. But we have full support from the LPGA and the Ladies European Tour for our slow-play policies. The rules officials out there are under instruction to come down hard on any slow play. We've set four hours and 30 minutes and we think that's achievable."
...which rules out the 2015 Scottish Open going to Turnberry as many had suspected was the hope for a Scottish Open rota (of sorts). The news should bode well for Renaissance Club's hopes of hosting in 2015.
This will be the second time Turnberry hosts the Ricoh Women's British Open.
Installed as a 5-1 favorite from our good friends at Ladbrokes according to Randall Mell, Inbee Park has karma on her side based on her distant namesake relatives, the Parks of Musselburgh!
Mell writes:
Yes, she’s South Korean, but the name Park is revered in Scottish golf. Willie Park Sr. won the very first British Open ever played back at Prestwick Golf Club in 1860, beating the favored Old Tom Morris by two shots. Park won four British Opens overall. His brother, Mungo, won the Open in 1874. Willie’s son, Willie Park Jr., won two Open titles.
As for the whole Grand Slam debate, David Fay ended the debate on Morning Drive today, reminding us during his hit in between a visit from the latest Big Break winner that Grand Slam was taken from baseball's four-bag home run. Four.
And in our poll here, it's clear you all (69%) agree that she's going for a Grand Slam this week.
As for her game, Ron Sirak says the beauty of her performance to date has been in her "lack of distinctive quality."
Here is how Inbee gets it done: She keeps her ball out of trouble; she never loses her composure, at least not outwardly; and she can putt. All of those are skills that anyone can master with discipline and focus.
In the 216 holes Park as played in winning three consecutive majors she has only had one hole higher than bogey, a double on No. 18 in the first round of the LPGA Championship.
She has done that in large part because she hit 126 of 168 fairways -- 75 percent -- including a remarkable 51 of 56 in the U.S. Women's Open at Sebonack on Long Island.
Inbee has also averaged 28.08 putts for the 12 rounds of her triple.
**Park draws a 7:03 am tee time Thursday alongside Jodi Ewart Shadoff and Beatriz Recari. That's 2:03 ET.
When the LPGA designated the Evian Masters (now The Evian Championship) their fifth major starting in 2013, little could the tour have known that a player would go and win the first three majors of 2013, setting up a debate about what a Grand Slam actually constitutes.
LPGA Tour Commissioner Mike Whan, who is to blame for this first world semantic mess, made his view clear last week on Morning Drive.
"I'll call her a 'Grand Slam' winner if she wins four," Whan explained during an interview on "Morning Drive" Thursday. "I think we've created the 'Super Slam' for five."
Oy. We, being the marketing team I'm guessing?
My vote: this is a Grand Slam. It's four majors in a row.
But let's get the silliness out of the way to focus on a historic week of golf at the Old Course: will Inbee Park be winning a "Grand Slam" this week if she is victorious at St. Andrews in the Ricoh Women's British Open?
Aladair Reid says Karrie Webb was "far clearer than any of the mealy-mouthed utterances the male players produced at Muirfield last week" when talking about the male-only membership issue:
“If you are going to hold a public event, take money from the public and from public companies, it is pretty hard to say that only a certain kind of person is allowed to be a member here. I would have no problem with Muirfield saying: ‘We are a great links course and a private men’s club’, and just never holding the Open Championship there.”
Mickelson tries to catch Stenson in the Scottish Open.
Geezer Michael Allen tries to hold off Perry and Funk the U.S. Senior Open.
Daniel Summerhays leads the John Deere Classic.
Hee Young Park leads the LPGA Manulife Financial Classic with Inbee trailing by 7.
I'll be stopping in at Muirfield for a look around and then making sure that North Berwick is as good as I remember it. Ta-ta!
Randall Mell with some great behind-the-scenes stuff from Inbee Park as the seemingly cool cat was just like all of the perpetual worriers who've won majors, fretting away her Saturday night away en route to a positively stunning third-straight major win in the U.S. Women's Open.
Unable to sleep, Park opened the door of her bedroom and waved for her mother to come inside for a talk. Park confessed she was feeling nervous trying to become the first player since Babe Zaharias in 1950 to win the first three majors in a season. She confessed that she was worried about letting down friends and fellow South Koreans. She confessed she was worried about disappointing her family.
LPGA has designated the Evian Championship in September a major.
Beth Ann Baldry on the possibility of Park winning the Women's British at St. Andrews (talk about stars aligning...), but not a true "Grand Slam" because the LPGA de$ignated the Evian Championship in September a fifth major.
This year, however, there are five major championships up for grabs, and according to golf historian Martin Davis, that means she needs to win all five to, by definition, win the Grand Slam.
The term "grand slam" originates from bridge, a card game in which players win tricks. When someone clears the table, they earn 13 tricks, or a "grand slam." Bridge was quite popular around the time Bobby Jones won the four biggest tournaments of his era in 1930, prompting The Atlanta Journal's O.B. Keeler to use the bridge term to famously describe Jones’ improbable feat.
“It doesn’t refer to four,” Davis said. “It refers to running the table.”
John Strege looks at the putting mastery that is key to Park's success.
Putting guru Dave Stockton believes that good putting begins with the mind, not the mechanics, and that Park "mentally is in a league of her own out there," he said. "What I love that I see is her total lack of being affected by where she stands. She's very calm, very composed and it serves her well. The rhythm with her stroke and throughout the whole swing, most of the time in a U.S. Open you see others losing that. But she's withstood it really, really well. I think it's because of that demeanor that no shot is more important than the last one or a future one. She doesn't change her routine depending on the pressure."
Inbee will be making the rounds Monday morning with her third major championship trophy of 2013. Courtesy of the LPGA media relations folks:
7:30 a.m. – Golf Channel’s Morning Drive
8:30 a.m. – NBC’s Today Show
9:30 a.m. – ESPN’s Sportscenter
The champion's post-round interview highlights from the USGA:
The USGA's recap helmed by Senior Southampton Correspondent Hunki Yun:
Geoff Shackelford is a Senior Writer for Golfweek magazine, a weekly contributor to Golf Channel's Morning
Copyright © 2022, Geoff Shackelford. All rights reserved.
