"You wanted to scream out, 'Where’s John Paramor when you need him?'"
Here's a beautiful Jim McCabe rant on day one slow play at the "Slowheim Cup."
Yes, it was slow – painfully, agonizingly slow, which is a shame, because in this, the most forgettable season in LPGA history, the Solheim Cup is coming at a perfect time. It is a showcase event that is desperately needed to generate excitement, so what seemed to be holding things back?
“Most of the problem,” conceded chief of rules Doug Brecht, “was with the first match.”
That would have been Paula Creamer and Cristie Kerr against Sophie Gustafson and Suzann Petterson. They required a silly 21 minutes to play the first hole and before all the face-paint had dried you wanted to scream out, “Where’s John Paramor when you need him?”
And while he was fired up, McCabe dared to slay host site Rich Harvest Farms. Not sure how, I mean, I haven't seen bunkers and fountains that pretty since Kemper Lakes.
Alas, Brecht and his fellow rules officials pretty much had their hands tied. To begin with, they have been handed a golf course that is – and we’re trying to be nice here – a nightmare. Besides not being a very good course, the routing is atrocious, so much so that players need shuttle rides from the ninth green to 10th tee (pretty sure you see an “Entering Iowa” sign) and again from 11th green to 12th tee (at least you are back in Illinois).
That’s not to mention all the extra time it takes to navigate more bridges than you’ll find in Pittsburgh, and perhaps had trees not been planted in the middle of fairways players would have been able to negotiate straight shots with greater speed.
Hard to imagine you could say such things about a course that the Golf Digest panel rates above LA North, Garden City, Cherry Hills, Kittansett, Scioto, Winged Foot East, Plainfield, Shoreacres, Long Cove, Harbour Town and Somerset Hills, to name a just few you wouldn't have to charter a jet to make me play.
Saturday, August 22, 2009 at 02:13 PM
Reader Comments (5)
I suspect her silence on the course is that if you don't have anything good to say, don't say anything.
The officials are scared to death of the players and if anybody stands up to them they get fired!
Warned one prominent player(2 1/2 holes behind after 7!) and was given a swearing that would have made Ian Poulter blush-then was promptly replaced by a full-timer!
Do I watch womens golf?-no way!!