Notes from Bay Hill: Saturday

Sometimes the proverbial “journey of a thousand miles” doesn’t always turn out as expected. It looks like that will be my “thought of the week” for this tournament, and I probably am not alone. Saturday was a beautiful day in Orlando, sunny and reasonably warm, but the scores on the golf course were anything but lovely. Only six players in the field managed to shoot in the 60's, three couldn’t break 80, and the number of high-70's rounds is enough to bring a U.S. Open leaderboard to mind. This was my first round at Bay Hill, so I can’t say whether there is just something about the course (though #17 seems to be especially diabolical in design, and several other holes are “interesting”), whether it was the wind (up, but not as high as Doral a few weeks ago), or something else that made today especially unpleasant for players.

I got to the course in the late morning and watched 15-20 players at varying points on the front nine, before deciding to walk with the pairing of Joe Ogilvie and Paul Goydos. That was definitely not a pairing for those who are sensitive to bad rounds, as the final scores for the day were 79 and 82. There were a few miscues (Goydos trying to go over the wide part of the water on #6 being a notable one; that shot would have been challenging for all but the longest hitters, even more so for one who gives up a lot of yardage off the tee to most of his competitors), but overall it was just “one of those days” for both of the guys, where the putts don’t quite go in, the shot doesn’t quite go where it was supposed to, etc.

My “Seriously???” Award goes to the owner of one of the houses off what I think was the 8th green (possibly the 9th). Like many of the residents in the area, they were having a party while watching the tournament from the comfort of their home. Unlike the other residents, they were having a party with a DJ–and a public-address system. While “our” group was trying to putt, all of a sudden over the loudspeaker a voice blares: “Okay, it’s time for tequila shots!!!” The players were rightly incensed, as were the spectators. This went on for several minutes. Apparently, the owners of the house were given a “cease and desist” order shortly thereafter, thankfully. That kind of thing isn’t fair to the players; general party noise is unavoidable, but broadcasting over a loudspeaker is another matter entirely.

You can insert any of my pace-of-play rants from Doral here, and they would fit nicely. Waiting was the name of the game once again. At least once, we were waiting for the group ahead of us, who were waiting for the group ahead of them. On the par-5 16th, at one point three different groups were playing the hole, and none of them were on the green yet. There was one player known to be slow a few groups ahead, but this seemed to be an issue even further “upstream”.

Sam Saunders had quite a gallery following him. No surprise there.

I did have a “King Sighting”. While waiting (again) to tee off on #11, Mr. Palmer came within 15 feet or so, driving a golf cart with Mrs. Palmer. Lots of people just watched as he went by, and most of them were smiling, as was I.

With the anticipation of bad weather arriving on Sunday afternoon, final-round tee times have been pushed up, and the players will go off split tees in groups of three. The last groups tee off at 10:19 a.m., so they should be finished before the worst of the storms arrive in mid-to-late afternoon.