Mud-Ball complaining in the Championship PGA lost in this great winner three times

Charlotte, NC – Padraig Harrington and his caddy (Ronan Flood) and the swing coach (Pete Cowan) were in the practice of practice, here in a Muggy, still on Thursday afternoon, here in The empty quilthis week’s site PGA championship. Two Dubliners and an Englishman, The Scholarlly Prof. Cowan. In his long career, Harrington has played in 86 degrees, three of which he has won.

In the verse, every lie was perfect. Every ball was perfect. Some of his shakes were better than others. But this is golf, in the rank (where you are not counting anything except your Trackman statistics) and in the course, where everything counts. This is Golf. Harrington at 53, is still one of the world’s 1,000 leading players. It must be.

Range from Harrington were two of the top 10 players in the world, Xander schauuffle AND Scottie Scheffler. Harrington was not looking at them, but he was aware of them. The tournament golfists are like that. They always know where the other boys are, what they shot, what they are talking about. not always Always, but usually.

When Harrington was European Ryder cup Captain in 2021, in Whistling Straits, Schauf-And-Chief were stars for the US winning team. Since then, each has won two degrees and killed other titles. Be fascinated. But the two were hot on Thursday afternoon, and it was not the heat of Piedmont. Harrington was hot, but that was because he had beaten balls for an hour, two a minute, pretty.

Xander and Scottie had played together, outside at 8:22am. Scheffler opened with a 69, two under. Schauffle shot 72. Sufficient enough results. But golf being golf, and players’ players are players, Both felt their results should have been lower and disown They were lower, if only the golf of the day were played under the rules of the elevator, clean and the country. Or, in the Shorthand of professional golf, up, not down, not play-like-as-lies. The yellow course, built on rich, heavy impurities, had plunged five inches of rain during the practice rounds.

Both signed and groan. Their subject was mud balls. It was glorious.

Groan It is probably a little harsh, because this thoughtful, nuanced, detailed answer to the top or-point question from Scheffler is so startling articulated, and is unlikely, by such a playful player:

“This will be the last answer I give to play it up or down. I don’t make the rules. I think when you are looking at the purest form of golf, in a golf course of connections, there is no reason you have to play the ball up. No matter how much rain can be flooded under water and the ball is still dancing somehow and strange.

“When you oversee the right roads that are not covered with sand, there will be a lot mudAnd that’s just part of it. When you think about the cleanest golf tests, I don’t think you should be punished for hitting the ball in the middle of the road.

“I understand what it would be like a golf purist,” Oh, play it the way it stands. “But I don’t think they understand what it is to work out all your life to learn how to hit a golf and control it and hit the shots and control the distance and all of a sudden, because of a ruling decision, (all).

“In Golf, there is enough luck throughout a 72 -holes tour that I don’t think the story should be whether the ball is played or not down. When I look at the golf tours, I want the purest, most right golf test, and in my opinion maybe the ball should have been played today. But as I said, I do not do the rules.”

In the weight of those words, no matter what you think about them, you can hear one thing about Din: this is a great championship, and there are only four a year and maybe 80 in your career.

In the long par-4, the seventh hole of Scheffler of the day, he drove him 322 yard and right down broadway. He had 210-novels second shot and a mud globe on his ball. He descended the second in the left green water and, after an eagle 3 in 15, made a double noise at 16. He took his head again and played the next four holes in one under.

Other America in the group, Schauffle, did almost the same thing at 16. He did 6.

“I had a funny mud ball there at 16 with scottie,” Schauffle said after his round. “We were in the middle of the road, and I don’t know, we had to target the right of ancestors (right) maybe.

When Harrington and Co. They were done with their work, they were asked about the mud balls and the rest. They had a day on the ground with it.

“I never heard the term” mud ball “, growing up,” Harrington said. “Do you have guys?”

“Never,” Dubliner said.

“Never,” the Englishman said.

“When I got into the European tour, I heard it now and again, but not until I came here I heard it more. I really thought we would have to play elevator, clean and settle today, but in trouble, we definitely didn’t need it. There were few areas they could have scored for relief – perhaps two or three.

“Overall, when I get mud in the ball, I’m playing the most conservative shot I can play. If the clay is on the ball at 3 o’clock, I play the ball to go left. If you will actually catch the mud in your goal, it will take its rotation.

“If you have a long second hook and there is mud on your ball, sometimes I will only make club hood, I will hit something along the ground in the green front and it will clean the mud from the ball and the ball is clean for the next blow.

“It’s another kind of skill, playing mud balls, but it’s part of the game skills.

“Likes like playing in bad weather. Fifty percent of boys will give up in bad weather. From the remaining half, half does not know how to play in bad weather. So now you have to beat only a quarter of the original field.

“Is it breathtakingThat we played that course while playing it, given what we had here for the three rounds of practice. “

Harrington, by the way, shot 73. He was in the first trio of the day away from the first day, at 7am, with Luke Donald and Martin Kaymer.

The US and British openings have never been played under elevator, clean and determined. The addition was made once in the Championship PGA, in Baltusrol in 2016.

Third member of Group 8:22 am AM Out of TEE was the master champion Rory Mcilroy. Lyudiously, he also made a double double 6 in 16. Mcilroy shot 74. He grew out outside the Belfast, in northern Ireland, so he knows intimate golf culture that Padraig Harrington and Ronan Flood and Pete Cowan grew. He made his 6 way old fashioned, pointing him to the tree and tough on the left side of the hole and dipping him from there.

Michael Bamberger welcomes your comments in Michael.bamberger@golf.com