A 5-putt from 10 feet? No fans allowed? Havoc rules at Vegas Tour stop

The pros, forever tuned to the mantra of one shot at a time, were suddenly looking ahead a whole day. 

Golf.com? This was more weather.com. 

Said Ryan Moore: “I mean, amazing weather this morning for what’s coming potentially this afternoon and on to tomorrow.”

Said Taylor Pendrith: “The conditions are going to get tricky, I think, the next day and a half. Just got to grind through that.”

Said J.T. Poston: “Tomorrow we’ll just try and grind it out and try to post whatever we can post.”

The thoughts came Thursday, after first-round play at the Shriners Children’s Open in Las Vegas, where conditions were calm, but the forecast was foreboding. High desert winds were approaching, but knowing they were was one thing. Coping was another. 

The fall-out, in order, featured:

— An announcement by the PGA Tour, at about 5:30 a.m. local time, that play would be delayed two hours.   

— A second announcement, at about 7 a.m., that added another two hours to the delay. Play would now start at 10:55 a.m. as officials waited for gusts that were as strong as 50 mph to settle to something more playable.

“We just didn’t feel, given gusts of 50 miles per hour, it was safe for those people to operate at those early hours,” Tour chief referee Stephen Cox said later in the day on Golf Channel. “We needed the additional time to assess the damage, and we needed the additional time from a safety perspective to secure what was out there.

“And that time also the forecast was going to drop off in terms of intensity aligned nicely, and we felt that at 10:55, that four hours, that allowed us to do what we needed to do and for those winds to drop.”

— A third announcement, at about 11 a.m., that said fans wouldn’t be allowed into TPC Summerlin. Read the statement: “Second-round play at the Shriners Children’s Open began at 10:55 a.m. PT following a four-hour delay due to high winds. Out of an abundance of caution for spectator safety, gates to the Shriners Children’s Open are closed to all spectators on Friday, October 18 until further notice. General admission and hospitality tickets for Friday will be honored for Saturday at TPC Summerlin.”

— A battle. 

Play did start, but with winds still swirling around 25 mph, scores climbed. In round one, the 18-hole stroke average was 68.779; in round two, it was 71.630. Among those who completed their second round on Friday (play was eventually suspended due to darkness), Doug Ghim shot seven-under 64 over his first 18 holes, and 70 over his second 18. J.J. Spaun went 65-69. Jacob Bridgeman went 65-70. Kevin Streelman went 67-76. There were exceptions, of course, the most notable of them being Pierceson Coody, who opened with a 72, then managed a 65 and rocketed up the leaderboard.  

Then there was Joseph Bramlett. On Thursday, he fired a 64, and Friday, he was 11 worse — with five of the strokes coming after he’d hit his second shot to 10 feet on the par-4 1st. He missed the birdie putt. And the par putt. And the bogey putt. And the double-bogey putt, before making a 2-footer for triple. A five-putt. Notably, pros are dialed enough from tee to green to maneuver the ball through the toughest of conditions — but wind can often wreak its most havoc near and on the putting surface. As Bramlett putted, his pants visibly flapped. 

“Your mind is spinning so much,” analyst Smylie Kaufman said on the broadcast. 

Notably, a distinct wave advantage was also being formed. Remember those thoughts at the start of this article? They were from players who played in the morning on Thursday, then didn’t tee off until late Friday, when conditions improved — while the Thursday afternoon wave wrestled with the wind’s worst on Friday afternoon.   

So what did those players think?

Most, understandably, were relieved. 

Said Greyson Sigg, who was part of the first group out on Friday: “I’m happy to be in the clubhouse right now. Some guys were giving me grief walking through the putting green. ‘Why didn’t y’all play this morning?’ I said, ‘You guys will have a good afternoon out there. Y’all enjoy. I’m super excited to go home and get some rest.”

Said Ghim: “Yeah, it was probably a test of patience. It usually is when it gets that windy. I think the toughest part was trying to figure out when we were going to play. I think I was in the fitness trailer at 5 this morning. You can’t really be caught off guard and expect to be a delay and not be ready.

“So to kind of be up that early and then get a two-hour delay, then another two-hour delay, and looked like maybe another two-hour delay, and all of a sudden they were like, we’re going out to play, that was probably the toughest part of the day. But happy to be in. I feel like I played pretty good golf. Hopefully the wind continues to blow.”

As for the weekend? 

Our friends at weather.com forecasts winds will be 14 mph on Saturday, and 5 mph on Sunday.