Loudest place in golf
There is no quiet place at the Phoenix Open.
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — Brandt Snedeker talks fast, swings fast and plays fast.
But he was stumped by a question as he stood on the back of the range at TPC Scottsdale and needed some time to think.
As he searched his brain, he was startled by a loud roar from the nearby 16th hole, the famous stadium-enclosed short hole where the golf clap goes to die, and just smiled. It was Monday — Monday! — at the Waste Management Phoenix Open, the loudest tournament in golf.
This is where eardrums take a pounding even on the first day of tournament week — 18,154 came through the gates on Monday — and Richter scales are triggered by the mass of humanity that descends on the 7,266-yard course that rambles through the 240-acre property.
Heckling is a way of life around this course during the tournament, and players will tell you that you never, ever respond to the hecklers. In other words, you don’t feed the beast.
Last year a record 655,434 stopped by, including a record 204,906 for Saturday’s third round. Well, more grandstands have been added and more corporate tents and towers have been erected as officials continue to build up the infrastructure for this one week in paradise. With perfect weather on tap — plenty of sunshine and highs in the upper 70s and lower 80s — those attendance marks are in jeopardy this week.
So now the question, Mr. Snedeker: Is there a quiet place on the course during the tournament?
“In your car in the parking lot,” Snedeker finally answered.
“In the port-o-john,” Kevin Na added. “The locker room,” Ryan Palmer said. None of them was joking. “There really isn’t a quiet place,” Snedeker said. “Early in the morning it’s quiet, or, let’s say, less loud, because there aren’t a lot of people here yet. It’s not as crazy. But that being said, I’ve seen people throwing up in the parking lot at 9 a.m.
“… You know it’s going to be loud, you know there will be people who are overserved and you’re going to hear about it whether you hit a good shot or a bad shot. But this is what you signed up for. There are certain things in life that exceed expectations and I’ve had high expectations every year I’ve come here and my expectations have always been exceeded. There is nothing like it.”
Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. For one, the huge throngs of people are a big reason reason the tournament gave more than $10 million to charity last year and will likely give more after this year’s run. As for the players, loud is better than silence while playing the gentleman’s game — at least this week it is.
“I actually like it loud because when it’s dead quiet you can hear a pin drop,” Na said. “You get used to the noise and then if you do come up where there are only 10, 20 people, you hear everything they do. So you want it loud all the time when you’re playing in this tournament.”
Billy Horschel said when you do come upon a quiet place, like say the tee box on the sixth hole, it can be a shock to the senses.
“It’s funny, we always say we’d rather have hundreds of people watching because you don’t hear anything rather than 20 people watching because you hear everything,” Horschel said. “That’s definitely the case this week.
“Seriously, there is no place like it. You have to experience it to really know what this week is all about, how loud it can be.”
And no matter how hard you try to prepare for it, Keegan Bradley said, you’re still thrown off kilter from time to time.
“You know it’s coming but it still can jar you,” he said. “From the first hole to the last, you know it’s going to be loud. You know there will be shots where people will be yelling and you’re going to hear things during your swing and people are going to be crazy.
“But that’s one of the reasons this tournament is great. It’s so different than anything else we play all year.”