Golf in the time of a pandemic

My partner, Betty Ligon (left) and me, checking in at the Ocean Course on Kiawah Island, SC, for the Carolinas Cup, the month before COVID-19 put the lid on our golf competition.

With the the LPGA and PGA seasons suspended and The Masters postponed, my prospects for kicking back and watching the pros fire those stunning approach shots at the pin has dropped to zero.  The PLAYERS, the ANA Inspiration - unthinkably postponed or cancelled.

I'm bereft. No Drive, Chip, Putt national championship this year, at least not this spring. Maybe the junior golfers who represent the future of the game, those kids who thrill me with their grit, determination, athleticism will have their moment of glory later this spring (or summer), but for the moment their personal journeys to Augusta National's hallowed ground are suspended.

The young women who've been honing and sharpening their games and dreaming of the personal glory waiting to be collected when the last putt drops at the 2nd Augusta National Women's Amateur have been put into a state of suspended animation.

And the list of cancellations continues down the chain - to the regional and state levels. The spring events that mark the beginning of my personal golf season, the events I routinely enter, have been cancelled.

I won't enjoy the renewal of golf course friendships, I won't enjoy the warm familiarity of returning to a course I played last year, and the year before, remembering the hole I birdied, determined to avoid the 3-putt that brought me to my knees. 

But even as the pros sit on the sidelines, even as the spring events that mark the beginning of my own golf season are cancelled, my own game goes on.  The sun is shining. The grass is beginning to grow and I've played several rounds in shorts and shirt sleeves. Golf hasn't ended for me. At least not yet.

I've implemented a protocol that keeps me on the course, enjoying the game and the women in my local LGA. I'm fortunate in that my home course is taking the current health threat seriously. Carts are routinely being thoroughly cleaned and disinfected.

And I'm doing my part to stay healthy as are the others with whom I routinely play golf. We're wiping down our golf carts before and after we use them and we've taken some simple steps to establish and maintain healthy social distance from each other.

We're not picking up each others' clubs as we leave the green and we're not hugging each other when we finish our round. I suffer from seasonal allergies so I'm coughing and sneezing my way through the beginning or spring, on and off the golf course. But now I'm getting out of the cart and away from the rest of my foursome before I sneeze and cough. Whether or not my droplets are contaminated isn't the point. Who wants to take that risk?

I'm washing and disinfecting my clubs, balls, tees, ball marker and divot repair tool at the end of each round. It was an easy routine to implement.

I designated a container of disinfectant wipes for golf club use only, and I wipe my grips at the end of the round. It's not a big thing, but if I'm willing to clean my club heads at the end of my round, why wouldn't I also be willing to disinfect the grips?

I put a small dish on the kitchen counter, right beside the sink. When I get home I empty my pockets into the dish, and then I wash everything that was in my pocket, including the change I collected from Bingo, Bango, Bungo. That means, of course, that I've also washed my hands!

Will these behavior modifications work? Will I protect myself from COVID-19? Only time will tell. But it's worth noting I'm playing golf without fear or worry, confident that I've done what I can do to ensure my personal health and the health of my playing partners.

The Evian Championship - Cut Day Agonies

Paula Creamer didn't miss the Evian Championship cut, but for her that back nine 5-hole disaster has probably ended her hope for an 8th Solheim Cup appearance.

Paula Creamer brought memories of past glory and dreams of future ones to the Evian Championship first tee on Thursday. She finished with a flourish and slept on the overnight lead. It was a heady beginning to her 13th Evian start for the 2005 Evian Masters champion.

Coming in to the season's 4th major championship, Creamer certainly looked up to the Evian challenge.  Top-10 finishes at the Shoprite in June and at the Dow Great Lakes Bay last week seemed to signal Creamer was coming into form after those missed cuts at the US Women's Open and the Women's PGA Championship.

Last week she had teamed up with Morgan Pressel for the inaugural Dow Great Lakes Bay Invitational and the duo reprised some of their finest Solheim Cup play as they glided around the Midland Country Club track with the finesse and panache of veteran athletes. Captain Inkster watched their performance with as much interest as I did.

We all know Paula Creamer brings guts and grit to the tee. There's no question about her determination and her competitive juices. But Creamer hasn't hoisted a trophy since 2014. It's been a long dry spell. She's struggled - with injuries, with a flagging game, with personal distractions.  But a new, open-stance putting style seemed to be curing some of her on-course problems and her irrepressible persistence gave me reason to be hopefully optimistic that she would forge a path to Gleneagles.

The 2019 Solheim Cup looms and the only way she'll be on the tee at Gleneagles is if Captain Inkster taps her on the shoulder. A T6 finish with Pressel in Michigan followed by a victory at Evian just might have convinced Juli Inkster to summon the Pink Panther.

Then Thursday rolled over to Friday. Creamer's flawless opening round - a beautiful 7-under 64 -  positioned her nicely, even though  by the time she teed off in the afternoon she was trailing Koreans Sung Hyun Park and Mi Hyang Lee.

Creamer followed her birdie at the third with a steady string of pars and then another birdie at the 12th. She was at 9-under and holding on to a clear look at the top of the board. All seemed well. Until the horn blew, play was suspended, and the Pink Panther lost her momentum and focus.

Creamer bogied (or worse) five of her last six holes. Thursday's first round 64 became Friday's second round 76, and Paula Creamer tumbled down the board. She goes to the weekend at two-under par and T24, not a position that gives her a hopeful peek at victory come Sunday afternoon, not a situation that will hold Captain Inkster's attention as she scans the field of American players for the two best picks to fill out Team USA.

Never mind that Gerina Piller, Lizette Salas, Nelly Korda, and Austin Ernst will all go into the weekend at Evian trailing Paula Creamer. Never mind that Cristie Kerr and Lexi Thompson missed the cut. They'll both pack up and move on to Woburn for some early and extended practice, their spots on the Team USA Solheim Cup roster secure.

Paula Creamer's hopes and dreams of an 8th consecutive Solheim Cup probably came to an end on the par 3 16th hole at Evian on Friday.

Rules of Golf vs Sportsmanship: The Sad Case of Lexi Thompson and the LPGA Decision

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It all looked good Sunday afternoon as Lexi Thompson and Suzann Pettersen made the turn at the ANA Inspiration. If I hadn't know it was the LPGA's first Major of the 2017 season I might have assumed the scene was a fast-forward snapshot of the Sunday singles matches at the 2017 Solheim Cup.

Thompson had a slender 2-shot lead and Pettersen was pushing hard. The golf was fantastic!

Then disaster struck. A viewer email calling a 3rd round violation on Thompson landed in the LPGA's inbox and backstage the wheels were set in motion to assess the situation. As Thompson and Pettersen battled through the 10th and 11th holes, video of the situation was called up and reviewed. A decision was reached and then the contenders were advised, first Lexi, then Suzann, and then the other players who were still on the course.

Thompson fought through disbelief and tears and got herself back into contention, only to lose on the first hole of a playoff.

In the end, as we all know, the 2017 ANA Inspiration champion was neither Lexi Thompson nor Suzann Pettersen, but So Yeon Ryu who was, herself, caught in a double bind not of her making, feeling that the 4-stroke penalty imposed on Thompson was essentially unjust but at the same time wanting to claim the ANA Inspiration victory.

The LPGA's official explanation of this fiasco leaves begging a number of questions: How long after the completion of a round can or should accusations of rules infractions be investigated? Why would the Tour management not rely on the rules on-course rules officials who accompany each group?

Judy Rankin, commentating on Golf Channel, and Dottie Pepper, commenting via Twitter, both expressing dismay, were in agreement: once the issue was put on the rules officials' table they had no choice but to address it.

The issue is that once the @LPGA was made aware of the violation they had no choice but to review and act. Sad, yes, but the rule. https://t.co/cKVYHJ99Ao

— Dottie Pepper (@Dottie_Pepper) April 3, 2017

But is that actually the case? Did Tour officials have options they failed to exercise? Ron Sirak and Beth Ann Nichols were alike appalled.

Column: Lexi Thompson mugged by armchair weasel at ANA heartbreaker https://t.co/Em1FobPVlV

— Beth Ann Nichols (@GolfweekNichols) April 3, 2017

Was Any Action on the Part of the LPGA Rules Officials Even Necessary?

How the rules officials addressed that email remains problematic. There is always a certain imprecision involved in replacing the ball to the exact position where it came to rest. There is, as well, a given difference in perspective between Thompson, who was standing a bit to the side of her ball when she marked and then replaced it, and the camera that recorded the act, perhaps exacerbating the lack of precision by visual distortion. And there is the issue of time lapse - more than 24 hours between the questioned action and the rules infraction accusation.

That's the rules part of this situation. Now, for the sportsmanship part. How did the players respond? To my complete astonishment, they played on. Not one of them challenged the validity of the time lapse. Oddly, any of them could have been the target. It was Thompson because she was leading and on camera.

Where Does Sportsmanship Eclipse All Else?

What could Pettersen have done? Had she been more generous than she is - and I can't help but recall her behavior at the 2015 Solheim Cup that raised a similar question of rules vs sportsmanship - Pettersen could have simply picked up her pitching wedge rather than her driver when she teed off on the 13th hole - or the 14th, 15th, or 16th - and let Lexi pick up those 4 shots she'd just lost.  That she didn't speaks to Pettersen's flawed understanding of sportsmanship.

What could So Yeon Ryu have done? She learned the full scope of the situation when she was waiting in the scoring tent and the look on her face spoke volumes. Ryu, one of the kindest and most gentle players on the Tour, was appalled by the decision. And yet she, too, failed to take action - it could have come with her chip onto the 18th green in that playoff hole - within her control to right what she clearly believed was a fundamental wrong.

Alternatively, Ryu might have at least invited Lexi to join her in taking that Poppy's Pond victor's leap. Even a symbolic leap, which Thompson might or might not have accepted, would have sent the message Ryu (and the vast majority of the fans who were following this "situation") felt.

In the end, this situation demoralized the entire field and left LPGA fans in dismay. Let's put a stop to this obsession with the rules and put a stop of viewer-generated reviews of completed rounds. We're tarnishing the sportsmanship that has historically informed how we play the game.

My Fantasy Foursome

IBM CEO Virginia Rometty waited two years for her
Augusta National membership invite.
Photo credit: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/

With IBM CEO Virginia Rometty's invitation to join Augusta National Golf Club, the Dynamic Duo, Condoleezza Rice and Darla Moore, has been transformed into a Terrific Threesome and it's time to start dreaming about the next step in Augusta National's amazingly slow progress toward joining the rest of us as we bravely go forth into the 21st Century.

Almost A Great Shot (Except For The Bad Bounce or The Errant Pine Cone)

Heartbreak.  Photo credit: www.lpga.com

Along with thousands other women's golf fans I was riveted to Golf Channel late Saturday afternoon when Cristie Kerr and Lexi Thompson gave it everything they had to save Team USA's place in the Sunday Showdown lineup at the International Crown.   They couldn't pull it off.

Friends who neither play nor follow golf and who do not share my passion were waiting for me to join them for dinner.  I texted -- order some appetizers and have a drink -- I'm going to be late -- must see this hole to the end.

US Women's Open: The Grand Vision

LPGA Founders & Pioneers.
Photo Credit: www.lpga.com

They don't appear very dangerous or subversive, these thirteen women who challenged prevailing notions about true womanhood and athleticism more than half a century ago.  They could have been any group of club women -- bankers' and doctors' wives, perhaps -- gathered for a group photo taken with somebody's box Brownie after their Thursday golf round at the local country club.  The sweater sets are a nice touch.

To be sure, there are thirteen personal stories behind this snapshot, brought together and united around an extraordinary and thickly textured vision that has shaped and continues to define opportunities for women to participate in competitive athletics at many different social levels.

Chicks With Sticks: 2014 Forecast

Paula Creamer's Instagram Shot. Courtesy LPGA.com

With the 2014 season just days away from tee-time, I'm going to stick my neck out and make some predictions.