Canadians get final look at Bethpage as Tiger takes day off
On the eve of Thursday’s PGA Championship, players got their final look at Bethpage Black with one notable exception.
Tiger Woods didn’t show up to the golf course on Wednesday after saying he planned to play nine holes. During Tuesday’s news conference, Woods said he felt “rested and ready,” but apparently opted for a little more rest before teeing it up for real at the gruelling 7,459-yard layout in suburban Long Island.
“This is not only a big golf course, but this is going to be a long week the way the golf course is set up and potentially could play,” Woods said Tuesday. “This could be a hell of a championship.”
The Masters champion came to Bethpage last week and said he spent a lot of time on the course, looking it over in detail. But it certainly raises a few eyebrows that the 43-year-old will have only played nine holes of practice this week before his 8:24 a.m. first round tee time with Brooks Koepka and Francesco Molinari on Thursday.
Woods’ agent Mark Steinberg told ESPN’s Bob Harig that there is nothing wrong with his client.
“He’s all good, just getting some rest,” ESPN reported Steinberg saying. “Saw the course last week, all is good.”
Wednesday was the first pleasant day of the week with temperatures in the mid-teens, conditions that are expected to remain throughout the championship.
Canadians Corey Conners and Adam Hadwin got their last-minute preparation in on Wednesday. A day after playing all 18 holes at Bethpage for the first time, Conners played the back nine again on Wednesday, in between two sessions on the driving range.
“The course is amazing, very challenging,” Conners said. “Lots of tough holes, really. Tough tee shots, tough approaches. But I’ve got a good feel for things.”
During Wednesday’s practice round, Conners was working on his alignment, as well as making sure he found the proper places to miss around the greens to leave himself workable up-and-
This is not only a big golf course, but this is going to be a long week the way the golf course is set up and potentially could play.
downs. Most of his focus was short of the green because a) the course is long and that’s where most misses will end up, and b) many of the greens slope from back to front, making short-ofthe-green the prudent miss.
Hadwin tweeted on Tuesday that during 18 holes of practice, he was forced to hit three-wood approaches to par 4s four times, and one of them came up 10 yards short.
“But they were all from the fairway, so I’ve got that going for me,” he half-joked.
While coming in with a threewood is less than ideal, finding the fairway is a must for everyone. The rough isn’t overly long, but is extremely healthy and lush, with players struggling mightily during practice rounds trying to play out of the thick grass with any consistency. For every two balls that headed properly towards the target, there was one that had trouble getting in the air and went low and left before finishing 100 yards from where it started.
The greens at Bethpage Black are in immaculate condition despite the early week downpours, and the undulations are not very severe. Expect to see numerous long putts holed.
“It seems like they’ve been rolling them every day for the past year,” Conners said. “They are so smooth and actually rolling pretty fast. It’s definitely going to be important to make some putts.”
On most golf courses, relatively simple greens rolling so beautifully would bring a host of the tour’s top putters into contention, but Conners isn’t sure that will be the case this week.
“It’s so difficult from tee to green that I think half the field is going to struggle with that part and it won’t matter how good you can putt,” Conners said.
In many cases, unless you hit the fairway you will be holing your putt for nothing better than par.
Hadwin says he is happy with where his game is heading and, so far, is a fan of the PGA Championship’s move from August to May. The 31-year-old likes the idea of having a top-flight event every month beginning with the Players in February and ending with the FedEx Cup playoffs in August.
“If you get hot, you can get hot for a few majors now, not just some of the regular events,” Hadwin said.
The Abbotsford, B.C. native hopes his hot streak starts this week, but it likely will need to start with his driver and fairway woods here at Bethpage Black. Hadwin tees off at 6:56 a.m. on Thursday with Thomas Pieters and Patton Kizzire.
Conners begins his second major of the year with Jim Furyk and Marc Leishman at 2 p.m.