Wednesdays at professional golf tournaments are not all created equal.
Some weeks, the final practice day turns the tournament into a ghost town by early afternoon, with players opting for an afternoon of rest and recovery over the added preparation of an afternoon on the course.
Such was not the case on Wednesday at the first-ever Mizuho Americas Open, where Liberty National in Jersey City, N.J. served as the main vein for the world of women’s golf. One needn’t travel much further than the driving range to witness as much, where it seemed like players, stakeholders and celebrities flooded through in new groups every few minutes.
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One second, the unquestioned star of the practice range was the week’s host, Michelle Wie-West, who offered her restaurant picks for the week (Kote, a Korean BBQ outfit; Nami Nori, a popular sushi bar; and Carbone, a famed New York pasta joint). The next, it was former New York Giant (and current TV news star) Michael Strahan, who journeyed out from ABC’s headquarters on the Upper West Side to join former teammate Victor Cruz and Paula Creamer for an afternoon on the links. The next, it was the Larry O’Brien NBA Finals Trophy, which stopped off at Liberty National before a journey out to Ohio to visit the Memorial Tournament.
This, it seems, is the benefit of hosting a golf tournament in the shadow of the largest media market in the United States: access and excitement. And this is precisely what the GOLF team found in this week’s episode of Seen and Heard, a new show taking viewers further inside their favorite golf experiences than ever before.
Check out the video above (and linked below) to re-live the day’s journey with the GOLF team at the first-ever Mizuho Americas Open; a journey that began and ended with ferry rides alongside LPGA stars Angel Yin and Rose Zhang.