“It ain’t fair playing with Kevin Na, It ain’t fair.”
/Though playing partner Robert Garrigus downplayed the impact on his game, his caddy couldn't help but wonder what it meant to be paired with Kevin Na Saturday at the Valspar Championship.
Jeff Rude encapsulates the latest antics of Na who once again is in contention and seemingly taking forever.
“It ain’t fair playing with Kevin Na,” said the voice, belonging to Robert Garrigus’ caddie, Brent Henley. “It ain’t fair.”
The veteran caddie would go on to say he thought Na’s slow pace got Garrigus out of his rhythm to the point “we felt like we were running.” Before that, Garrigus was running away on the scoreboard, having birdied three of his first five holes and getting to 10 under par for a four-stroke lead.
Na blamed circumstances that had nothing to do with the excessive number of practice swings he takes.
Na and his caddie, Kenny Harms, said the golfer shouldn’t be criticized for his pace Saturday because of extenuating circumstances. They figure they lost 10 minutes because of a five-minute wait on No. 3 after Pat Perez, in the group ahead, lost his ball and had to come back to hit another tee shot. Then a ruling Garrigus needed by a cart path on No. 5 took a while.
“We were out of position, but was it our fault?” Na said. “No. We were probably 10 minutes behind. We played at our pace after that, but we looked bad.”
Na also worried because another bad time in the round would have brought a one-stroke penalty. But lunar eclipses are more common.
Na put on quite the slow play clinic at the 2012 Players, insisted it was something out of his control, then managed to get it under control a few weeks later.