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Welcome back to the weekend, as we’re on vacation – but we just couldn’t resist. Let’s go to her!
GALWAY, Ireland – It was just before 11pm on a Sunday evening when the TV screen in the back room of the Front Door Pub flashed a graphic across the screen.
Next: MIZUHO AMERICAS OPENING, 4th round
A member of a group of four women in a corner booth moved in, glancing at the screen over the shoulder of a man in a navy shirt standing mostly in the way. She pointed to the exposed young Stanford girl whose photo had just appeared on the Sky Sports broadcast.
“There’s that girl,” she said, in a voice that rose above the cheerful pub noise. “rose. “
SUNDAY IN GALWAY was early summer Irish perfection, the kind of late June sunset night where good weather and good times feel like they will last forever. It was the kind of night that makes you want to bring some friends to a patch of grass on the banks of the Corrib River, throw your phone in the water and just… He is.
Professional golf’s day began with good news for local golf fans: Tom McKibbin, a 20-year-old rising star from Northern Ireland (a very different country from Ireland, though the two play golf under the same umbrella), has earned his first win on the Tour. DP World at the 2023 Porsche European Open. Even better, Rory McIlroy – known to McKibbin since he was 10 years old – gets a share of the lead in the Memorial Championship.
This was the event I saw through the front window of my front door on my way home from dinner. I had just arrived in the West of Ireland for a much-anticipated family holiday and had every intention of skipping the broadcast of the Final Tour, but the sight of Sky Sports in a proper pub on a picturesque evening? It was the perfect excuse for an alcoholic drink. Neither my wife nor my mother have a long history of being golf fans but both volunteered to join. In Ireland, American golf has become a prime time entertainment.
By the time we found our seats, McIlroy was in the process of eliminating himself from contention with the bogeys on the 12th and 13th; Before we could take second sips, he had taken another sip at number 14. Most of the bar-goers were relatively oblivious to what was going on, but that last inaccurate wedge and falling shot elicited a groan from the invested spectator, audible from the other room.
The list of contenders suddenly shrank to three. There was Scotty Scheffler, the world number one, who somehow kicked off the day’s round by three shots — his 67 was the only score under 70 — despite losing a stroke and a half on the greens. He finished so early that he went back to his rental home to pack his things while he rooted for the massacre.
Carnage arrived. Denny McCarthy made three birdies on his first seven holes and all the mare since then; His hot putter had built him a two-stroke shot. Viktor Hovland smashed the 15th-place five-under par, tying Scheffler’s club lead. But the rest of the contenders have backed off, some significantly as well. Mark Hubbard had started the first day with a single shot and hit 79, falling to T30. Patrick Rodgers, Patrick Cantlay and Keegan Bradley started the day two strokes back. They each shot 78 kills to end up tied with Hubbard. Their scorers were nowhere near high on the day, either: Danny Willett (81) Matt Kuchar (84), Sam Bennett (84) and Tom Hogg (85) all slipped down the leaderboard at the end.
It wasn’t surprising why. McCarthy was particularly descriptive after the round, calling the greens on the back nine “a rink,” “baked,” and “purple and tangible.” And that was from a status expert who was closest to mastering it!
He added, “You’re tapping marks and slides of the racquet.”
If the greens were ice rinks, McCarthy had a bit of a puck control problem. Equal after equal. He managed to get a 10-foot bounty in No. 15. He found the bunker in No. 16 but splashed it out to eight feet and did it. Good thing, too: Hovland had just flown his 17th front, and only third on the pits all day. McCarthy found the middle of the fairway and center of the green in the treacherous 17th as well, setting up a two-hit footing. But the 16-17-18 was three of the four hardest holes on the day, with an average of a team shot and a half above par – it was hard for anyone to escape completely unscathed.
There was no sound audible on the TV, but what played next was a simple enough story that I could tell together in symbolism on my own.
There was Hovland, a notoriously poor thrower, whose ball was long from the 18th green, against a sensitive downhill off the rough. He lifted it up and down, curling up at five feet with trembling hands to stay inside one.
And then there was McCarthy, minutes later, lying in the rough so he could lean on his short game again. But a mediocre putt left him with a 23-foot slider for the win and he did just fine for the win. the next One, five foot back ghost. One man reconciled by overcoming his greatest weaknesses. The other let him down his greatest strength. (Okay, it was really a tee shot, but you get the point.) The score was game time!
Galway has a five-hour lead over Ohio, so we’ve drawn a line in the sand: We’ll leave after one playoff hole. This put pressure on Hoveland and McCarthy to close things stat. forced; McCarthy’s 12-foot par seemed to be going well until it didn’t, while Hovland’s seven-foot par seemed to be going for a miss until it disappeared.
It was such a good win that it was easy to get complacent about Hovland. Memorial was an impressive rebound after finishing second at the PGA Championship and fading Sunday from competition at the Charles Schwab Challenge. In addition, W didn’t just validate the work he was doing in the shredder. He has fully validated his CV.
“I feel like I’ve won a lot of tournaments just being a pro for four years; however, they’ve been in lower key venues, resort courses, and overseas, so it’s really cool to get my first win on US soil,” he said after the tour. . We can debate the geography of his Puerto Rico Open victory again, but his point was clear: This was big.
We returned our paper glasses to the bartender on his way out; Mizuho’s icy pace of play meant there were so many holes that we safely wouldn’t recommend waiting. The last call would have hit us with it.
Where were you when Rose Chang won her first LPGA event? Back at the rental site, I tried YouTube TV, which I forgot didn’t work abroad. We tried the TV in our living room but the wifi was on the fritz. For me, Chang’s arrival wasn’t televised; It would be illegally streamed via TravelPass data and eventually frantically tracked across social media.
A few limited impressions, from this point of view:
1. Closing your first LPGA win without a birdie action doesn’t quite close the door, but it’s a testament to her grit. the athleteBrendan Quinn great books profile account From Zhang that included this exchange:
“Then why do you always win?” one girl asked.
She replied “I make fewer mistakes than they do”.
2. Zhang won the event with her 10-foot putt at 17th. That gave her wiggle room to bogey 18th and she still headed into the playoff, where she…
3. YOUR CLOSE SHOT WITH A HYBRID FOUR WAS A GREAT STATEMENT. It was all but round. It was, in her words, “one of the best shots I’ve ever had.”
4. Chang is obviously smart. Contrary to what might be expected, she is smart enough to keep things from getting complicated. This doesn’t mean she doesn’t get nervous — she has said she does — but it does mean her approach is very simple.
So, yeah, when I got out there [in the playoff] With Jennifer, all I could think about was trying to hit the track, trying to get to the green, trying to putt. Very simple, but that’s all I could think of in the end.
5. Zhang shared a moment with tournament host Michelle Wei after the round. The two have a lot in common. Like Wie, Zhang was promised an international star, with unfairly high outside expectations early in her career. Like Wie, Zhang would attempt a tough set by continuing to attend Stanford while playing professionally.
Wie was a personal reminder that none of this is foolproof and none of it will last forever. She’s been out of the game long enough that she’s risen to senior stateswoman status, which betrays the fact that she’s still only 33, younger than McIlroy. That would provide some good perspective for Zhang except for the fact that Zhang already seems to understand exactly that.
“Going forward, I know there will be a lot of bumps in the road, and I expect a lot of obstacles,” she said. An immaculate first result does not guarantee an immaculate profession; There is no such thing. So it’s worth embracing the trip.
Zhang and Hovland didn’t seem overly excited about drinking champagne or going to a club; These two seem to have embraced the journey by doubling down on being themselves. This week, Zhang will celebrate her victory by making the finals, and will be moving out of her condo and into a new place — her professional digs. Hovland celebrated by hitting the caddy — yes, caddies — of his friend, former Oklahoma State teammate Zack Paocho, in qualifying for the US Open.
Life is good for these winners. It’s a good thing for almost winners, too. Kupcho, who came one shot short. McCarthy, who embraced the outcome not for what he lost but for what he learned. It’s early June. The days are long. Bars are open. Golf is good.