“He did inform us who he was,” Fisher said in a telephone interview. “It is what it is. He was intoxicated.”
Steinberg, in an e-mail, said “it’s a medical issue that I was dealing with. It’s not what you think.” Fisher said Steinberg gave no indication of a medical issue.
“It was alcohol related,” Fisher said. “He submitted to a chemical test to determine alcohol-blood content and he failed that test.”
Who knew the PGA of America's Glory's Last Shot would encourage a slew of slogan's for tournaments seemingly not in need of any introduction?
So for the U.S. Open (Golf's Toughest Test), Golf Channel unveils Monday coverage of U.S. Open Sectional Qualifying (Golf's Longest Day). For Immediate Release:
GOLF CHANNEL PREPARES FOR MAJOR TV FEAT AND 'GOLF'S LONGEST DAY'
June 4 to be Golf’s Version of ‘Super Tuesday’
Reporters at 14 U.S. Sites Will Follow More Than 1,000 Hopefuls Attempting to Qualify for the U.S. Open Championship
ORLANDO, Fla. (June 1, 2012) - Dreams of playing on one of golf’s brightest stages either will be realized or dashed on June 4 for nearly 1,000 golfers who will attempt to qualify for a mere 79 slots available in the final field of 156 players for the 2012 U.S. Open Championship. Through a first-of-its-kind golf television undertaking, Golf Channel will devote an entire day of programming and updates in order to follow these compelling stories during what the network is calling Golf’s Longest Day, or more commonly known as U.S. Open Sectional Qualifying.
Starting at 7 a.m. ET and lasting until Midnight (or when final results are in), Golf Channel will feature interviews, analysis and scoring updates delivered by a team of more than 50 reporters and production professionals embedded at 14 locations throughout the United States. In addition to the 11 USGA Sectional Qualifying sites, the network also will have reporters located at The Olympic Club in San Francisco – site of next month’s U.S. Open – and at USGA headquarters in Far Hills, N.J. All of the content throughout the day will be hosted by Steve Sands and Kelly Tilghman from Golf Channel’s Orlando studios.
Golf’s Longest Day will begin with an expanded, four-hour version of Morning Drive, hosted by Gary Williams. The telecast will include live and taped reports from the 11 sectional qualifiers, as well as interviews with USGA members past and present. Mark Hill, former executive director of the Kentucky Golf Association who ran USGA qualifiers for many years, will serve as a special in-studio expert and will be featured on Golf Channel throughout the day. Hill now serves as USGA senior director of competitions, overseeing the Association’s 12 national amateur events.
Three Golf Central special presentations (1-2 p.m. ET; 6-8 p.m. ET; and 10 p.m.-12 a.m. ET) will cover emerging stories, interviews with medalists and other qualifiers, and studio analysis from Tripp Isenhour (who has qualified for the U.S. Open three out of seven attempts in the past) and Hill. In between, frequent news updates throughout the day will keep viewers up to date on all the news and scores. GolfChannel.com also will serve as a source for U.S. Open qualifying news and information, with feature stories written by correspondents in the field, scoring updates and posting social media content from Golf Channel reporters covering the Sectional events.
Inexplicably, not only was Tiger's "tasty" wedge out of the 17th hole fairway bunker not the shot of the day, but it wasn't even in the PGA Tour highlights. He made birdie too, but to recover from that bunker with such a shot and not get acknowledged on video is just plain wrong!
That other Rory – Rory Sabbatini – played his best golf in the worst weather Friday at the Memorial and made a surprising appearance atop the leaderboard. Right behind him was a Tiger Woods that looked all too familiar.
He also noted this about Tiger, who lurks one back in search of his 73rd PGA Tour victory.
Woods looked strong for the second straight day, though he also had another double bogey that slowed his progress. What pleased him was controlling his ball in the wind for plenty of birdie chances that led to a 69.
''I hit the ball well all day, and it was a day that I needed to,'' Woods said. ''The wind was blowing out there, swirling in those trees, and it was just a tough day.''
Tiger Woods politely declined to shake hands with a couple of folks after his round at the Memorial Tournament, and not because he was upset with his round or didn't wanna mingle with the little people.
Somewhere over the course of the week, and it wasn't helped by the rain and 50-degree weather on Friday, he caught a cold of flu bug.
On the par-5 11th, McIlroy layed up poorly on the edge of a creek right of the fairway and then watched his third kick backwards into the water when he tried to hack his ball into the fairway from a thick lie.
"Probably a bit of bad judgment because I thought I could just chip it back out," said McIlroy, who finished fifth in last year's Memorial. "But if I had have examined the line maybe a little bit closer, I might have just taken a drop straight away."
When he drove into another creek left of the fairway at 14, it marked the fourth time that McIlroy had found a water hazard in two rounds.
And yet, you won't see McIlroy take the same kind of bashing Woods would receive if had missed three straight cuts. There will be no cries for McIlroy to dump his swing coach, Michael Bannon, who came over from Northern Ireland to help his star student this week.
Jim McCabe talked to Luke Donald, who sounded very excited to be chatting about his rival, but did offer a blunt take on Rory's troubles.
Donald shrugged.
“He made a few errors, careless errors. I’m sure when Rory puts a few solid rounds together he’ll be fine.”
Elling looked at Rory's day, with full quotes from the lad, and noted how long it's been since Rory played this poorly:
McIlroy, 23, last missed three straight cuts in August, 2008, on the European Tour.
Ashleigh Ignelzi and I discussed the first two rounds of the Memorial. It's about 5 minutes long:
And the PGA Tour highlights include Tiger's 194-yard 8-iron at 16.
There's just one thing I don't understand in Bubba Watson's harrowing story of a post-Bubba Bash stalker who trailed the Masters champion and his family on their way back to the rented home they have here in Dublin for the Memorial.
Geoff Shackelford is a Senior Writer for Golfweek magazine, a weekly contributor to Golf Channel's Morning Drive, is co-host of The Ringer's ShackHouse is the author of eleven books.
