Phoenix Open underway; NBA All-Star Game changes
J.B. Holmes held early-afternoon lead in PGA Tour tournament; NBA to honor Kobe
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. – It’s party time at the 16th hole at TPC Scottsdale, where 20,000 rowdy fans pack the stands and decorum goes to die. At the Waste Management Phoenix Open, they wait for players to enter the infamous 162-yard par 3 as if they are gladiators entering the Coliseum.
“This is where golf meets the Coachella Music Festival plus Burning Man,” said Arron Oberholser, who played in the tournament six times and is calling the action from the 16th-hole tower for Golf Channel and NBC Sports.
Before each group tees off, a voice over a loudspeaker politely asked attendees in the sky-box suites for “Quiet, please,” which is usually as effective as telling shoppers not to run when the doors open at Walmart on Black Friday. And this week, the fans can be ruthless.
“In 2009, when you missed the green, they booed you. Now if you make par, they boo you,” said reigning U.S. Open champion Gary Woodland. “You better hit a good shot in there.”
Woodland played 16 early on Thursday
morning before fans were too lubricated, but he expects the fans to bring the noise as the tournament progresses. On Friday, hordes of business people will contrive excuses to miss work or sneak out early. On Saturday, madness will ensue with more than 100,000 fans expected to attend. Super Bowl Sunday only makes a small dent to attendance and the heckling.
“It’s a cool hole,” said early leader J.B. Holmes, a two-time winner in 2006 and 2008, who recalled fans chanting Taylor County High School, his alma mater in Campbellsville, Kentucky. “I’m like, how do they even know that?” Holmes said. “They got some (chants) that are pretty clever.”
Holmes, 37, preferred the 175-yard, par-3 fourth hole to No. 16 Thursday. He cut a 7-iron that cleared the front bunker and trickled into the hole for his fourth ace on the PGA Tour and the first at the fourth since 2007. Despite the hole-in-one, Holmes was struggling along at even par for the round through eight holes when he caught fire. He drained a 47-foot birdie putt at 10 en route to shooting 30 on his second nine to grab a one-stroke lead over Ben An,
Harris English and Tom Hoge.
Holmes attribute his turnaround to the magic hands of his trainer, Marc Wahl, who massaged his right elbow as he walked from the ninth green to the 10th tee. “My arm stopped hurting as much,” said Holmes, who said he’s been bothered by tendinitis for six years.
Holmes wore a patch of tape on his right elbow designed for pain relief and muscle support and said the nagging injury prevented him from hitting balls on Wednesday. “I was just trying to get in,” Holmes said. “I just didn’t want to hit it as many times so my arm would stop hurting, that was the goal.”
Holmes also is trying to break out of a nearly year-long slump. Since winning the Genesis Open in February, Holmes hasn’t recorded a top-10 finish and suffered through a May and June where he missed five cuts and withdrew from the Wells Fargo Championship. But he showed signs of life with a T-16 last week at the Farmers Insurance Open.
This is one of his favorite tournaments, and it never grows old to walk by the plaque on the 18th fairway commemorating his 354-yard wallop over water in the final round of the 2006 tournament that capped off his first of five Tour wins. They might want to add a plaque for his ace at No. 4. Compared to the 20,000 fans shoehorned into No. 16, Holmes was asked how many spectators witnessed his hole-in-one heroics.
“About 15. Not a ton,” he said. “I hit it like I wanted to, but I’ve hit it like I’ve wanted to a million times and it rarely goes in.”