Ariya Jutanagarn Leads But Shoal Creek Staff Wins U.S. Women's Open Day One
/
Somehow they got Shoal Creek playable, through no shortage of manpower, machinery and insane hours put in by Rex Davis's staff and volunteer crew. Round one of the 2018 U.S. Women's Open was started and completed on time and the course looked mostly playable, writes Beth Ann Nichols for Golfweek:
Plenty of players came into the first round worried about playing the ball down in the muck, particularly with so many rough patches in the fairways due to uncharacteristically tough winter and spring seasons. Nearly five inches of rain fell at Shoal Creek dating back to late Sunday afternoon. Since 1895 the USGA has never implemented a lift, clean and place policy at one of its championships. And they weren’t starting now.
There were mud balls. And it played long with virtually no rollout – Kang hit a 5-iron and a couple 4-irons into par-4s – but in most cases it was better than expected. The fact that Round 1 began on time and remained uninterrupted by weather delays was nothing short a miracle.
The best compliment came from Michelle Wie:
“It’s incredible that we played today and got a practice round in yesterday,” said Wie. “The greens staff did an amazing job. I mean the greens were perfectly fine. The fairways are fine. You would not have known that it rained so much.”
Leader Jutanagarn's highlights:
