Golf mirrors life in that often it’s simply not fair. We present this week’s Players Championship as Exhibit A.
We present this week’sDepending on which side of the draw players were, their tee times very much determined their fate this week — good and bad.
But almost all of those players never had to strike a ball in the second round on Saturday, when the weather conditions were at their absolute worst for the week. Saturday began with dangerous storms that prevented play until noon and also featured plummeting temperatures and sustained winds of 25 to 30 mph with higher gusts.
Some top players — such as defending champion Justin Thomas, McIlroy, Dustin Johnson, Collin Morikawa, Xander Schauffele, Brooks Koepka and Scottie Scheffler — had to complete their respective opening rounds by playing the back nine at TPC Sawgrass, which is the trickiest of the two sides. Koepka lost two balls and five shots to par on 17 and completely derailed his chances of making the cut en route to shooting 81 in his second round.
Kevin Kisner called the conditions “brutal’’ and added, “It’s pure luck and somewhat loss of integrity of the tournament in my opinion [with] balls rolling on the greens and only 72 of us playing in that.’’