Windy conditions made TPC Sawgrass’ Stadium Course play even trickier than usual on Friday with water hazards becoming more difficult to avoid and crusty greens being more difficult to hold. And in one stunning case, those two elements combined to bite one of the best golfers in the world.
He made the hard course look easy for much of the day, in conditions that shouldn’t have allowed for such a thing thanks to an array of shots as beautiful as they were bold as they were ridiculous, a reminder that the man when he’s at his best is capable of stick-and-ball genius.
In the midst of chopping his way to a one-over-par 73 on Thursday in the first round of the Players Championship, Hayden Buckley accomplished a feat never seen before at the Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass that still gave him reason to smile.
As for the pressure of trying to lock in a second appearance at Augusta National, Lee is not letting himself look beyond the Players and the WGC–Match Play in two weeks times.
Will he play or won’t he? That’s the question that used to follow Tiger Woods on the eve of many of his signature events on the PGA Tour during the later stages of his career. Golf fans would anxiously await a message via social media to get an answer.
Any list of controversies for the year should inevitably begin with LIV Golf. Do a quick Google search for “golf controversies 2022” and the first page delivers only LIV-related headlines. The fledging Saudi-backed series made more news than anything else in the sport this year, and it ruffled a lot of feathers along the way, to put it mildly.
Australian Golf Digest
