Given odds of 50-50, most of us would surely err on the side of caution. Not so the PGA Tour.
Odds of 50-50 that a vicious storm could come through mid-afternoon and wreck the end of a prestigious tournament?
Egged on by their paymasters — the big television stations who hate it when tee-times are brought forward and they have to show the action by tape-delay — they take their chances every time.
The wisdom of this stance, or rather palpable lack of it, was brought into sharp focus on Sunday when a meteorologist working for the local TV station Channel 6, whose daughter was working as a volunteer at the Arnold Palmer Invitational, told her not to go because the risk of dangerous weather was too high.
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‘As far as weather forecasts go, this was a no-brainer,’ said Tom Sorrells.
‘This wasn’t a bunch of pop-up thunderstorms that are hard to predict, this was a squall line that everybody knew was coming.’
‘We just got unlucky,’ insisted Mark Russell, the PGA tour’s vice-president of rules and operations.
Given the evidence of the local weatherman, the decision wasn’t unlucky, it was reckless, and really ought to give the tour pause for thought.
Quote of the week‘Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome on to the first tee..... from Northern England......Graeme McDowell!’Where would we be without these wonderful gaffes from first-tee announcers at PGA Tour events?
Over the years we’ve had everything from Steve Ballesteros to Paul Lawrie (pronounced Lowry) from Scotland, England, and now here’s another from last week to add to the list.
Maybe things would be different if only these players could win a major or two, or do something at a Ryder Cup. Oh, hang on...
Northern England's finest... Graeme McDowell was the victim of a gaffe from a PGA Tour first-tee announcer Rose’s solitary flawNo prizes for guessing the area of Justin Rose’s game that will be receiving the most attention between now and the Masters. During an 18-hole spell last week, from his 18th hole on Friday to his 17th on Saturday, the hard-working Englishman missed four putts of 6-8ft and all of them to the right of the hole.
During that stretch he went from holding a four-stroke lead to losing his momentum, although he bounced back nicely to finish runner-up at Bay Hill. Rose’s putting has improved considerably over the past six months, and he showed against Phil Mickelson at the Ryder Cup last year that he can hole big putts under severe pressure.
Putting problems: Justin Rose finished second at Bay Hill, despite some misses from short range on the greens Guess who...In the players’ car park at Bay Hill, a gleaming white Ferrari, complete with the number plate: IANS.
Wonder who the owner could be?
But no player can hope to compete at the Masters with a technical flaw from short-ish range and here the blade of the putter was clearly open at impact on all four putts.
No matter how good a ball striker, you are always going to leave yourself putts of that length at the Masters because of the severity of the greens.
Time is short, but let’s hope Rose can solve this tiny anomaly, because everything else is in place.
More... Tiger back on top of the world after victory march at Arnold Palmer Invitational McIlroy plans humanitarian mission to Haiti during build-up to Masters Molinari boosted by progress in Malaysia, but targets further swing improvements VIDEO: Tree iron please, caddie! Garcia branches out to hit miraculous one-handed shot backwards from 12ft in the air
