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Korean Ryu So-yeon missed out after first round scores were annulled
‘Major’
Error of
Judgement As Mike Wilson states, LPGA commissioner Mike Whan’s recent decision – the second time in five years - to cut the LPGA Tour’s final ‘Major,’ the Evian Championship in France to 54 holes due to a near wash-out of the first day was a rare error of judgment.
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of play in the first round was warranted. Perhaps play – given the weather forecast for later in the day - should never have started. But try telling that to a Tournament Director with a high-profile event to complete - ideally in four days – with the competing and often conflicting pressures of TV and the rest of the media, players and their coaches, sponsors, spectators et al. But the 2017 Evian Championship did indeed get underway, and, even in the rain, early scores were mixed; South Korean star So Yeon Ryu was three-under after five, Jessica Korda minustwo after eight, Japanese icon Ai Miyazako, making her valedictory appearance not faring so well, three-over-par through six holes.
Image courtesy of Evian Championship
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he para l lel decision to once aga i n a n nu l a l l t he scores posted on that raininterrupted opening round should never be repeated if the game in general and women’s golf, in particular, is to retain or regain its integrity and credibility. OK, the rain on the opening morning of the Evian Championship, the final ‘Major’ of an enthralling LPGA Tour season to date, was of Biblical proportions. The Evian Resort – ironically famed for its mineral water spa - on the southern shores of Lake Geneva awash, the wind was howling too, dangerously so, hence a suspension in, as opposed to an abandonment
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Instead, the play was extended into the Monday, inconvenient for everyone, but it had to be done to preserve and protect the integrity not only of the game of golf but also one of its great occasions. And, heaping shame-on-blame, this was not the first time the Evian Championship, already the youngest and least credible of the LPGA ‘Majors,’ had been treated in such a manner. An identical situation arose at the 2013 event, its debut as a Grand Slam event, the first round abandoned, early scores out on the course annulled, a second ‘Major’ for Norwegian Susann Pettersen, but a tainted title. Of course, professional golfers are subjected to the vagaries of the weather every time they set foot on the competitive stage. An early teetime might offer benign conditions conducive to low scoring, a later start may see the wind get up, over two opening rounds when teetimes are reversed, things even themselves out but, even if they don’t, it’s the rub of the green, like a bad bounce. “It’s a very bad call - you don’t take golf off the board that’s already been played in a ‘Major,” Charlie Rymer, the former PGA Tour pro, said on the Golf Channel, “Majors are
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played over 72 holes and this indicates that this event is not being treated with the gravity it deserves. “It's not good for the women's game,” he rightly concluded, insisting, “You play 72 holes; you play as long as it takes… I just disagree wholeheartedly with this. It diminishes the event… It’s just not right. Doesn’t feel right, doesn’t look right; it ’s not good for the ladies’ game.” Even some of the players expressed their dismay. Angela Stanford, a veteran of 71 LPGA ‘Majors,’ who finished 18th in the discredited Evian Championship, asking on Twitter, “I'm just wondering who has the final say,” adding, “Those ladies at -2 deserve to keep their score.” What the official records do not – and will not – show is where the eventual winner Anna Nordqvist was, either on the golf course or the scoreboard, when the klaxon went on Thursday lunchtime, nor Brittany Altomare, the American she eventually defeated in the play-off on Sunday at the end. It is undoubtedly inconceivable that the USGA or The R&A would even contemplate reducing the U.S. Women’s Open or the Ricoh Women’s British Open to 54 holes. Let
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alone rubbing salt in the wound and adding insult to injury by erasing any scores achieved before the abandonment of play from the record book. Meanwhile, Ryu So-yeon, sitting pretty on three-under-par after six holes of the opening round that never was, slumped to a four-over 75 the following day, a reverse she was never to recover from, going from championship leader to a tie for 40th place. Or, to put it another way, earning US$16,874 as opposed to the US$547,500 she might have won had the course of events not been artificially altered. As for Ms Nordqvist, a champion of course, but a worthy winner? Her second ‘Major’ title will forever be diluted and discredited by an unnecessary and unfair intervention by officialdom more concerned with getting finished on time than staging a fair, honest and sporting contest that would stand scrutiny and the test of time. But then with a mineral water as title sponsor and an event staged in a location and at a time of year when heavy rain and high winds are well known, perhaps having the fifth and final ‘Major,’ not to mention the reputation of women’s golf ending up in a watery grave was just par for the course.
Image courtesy of Evian Championship
Image courtesy of Evian Championship
Pre-tournament favourite Lexi Thompson sees storm clouds ahead
These were real scores, actual shots made, cards marked, yet when the heavens stubbornly refused to close and play had been suspended for over four hours due to waterlogging, the LPGA made a decision they may well come to regret. Commissioner Mike Whan called playoff, not just for the day, but announcing that what had been achieved to date – good, bad or indifferent – was to be consigned to history. Thursday’s scores all wiped from the record, the fifth and final ‘Major,’ at a stroke reduced to a 54-hole tournament, despite its stellar status. “ Nobody even played ha l f-a-rou nd ,” claimed Whan, unconvincingly, suggesting the “Cleanest, fairest most competitive option,” was to scrap all scores to date, start afresh on Friday. “We know that if we said 72 holes, and we start again tomorrow [Friday], we’re probably looking at Monday and Tuesday, and that’s not great for anyone,” concluded the LPGA chief. Just imagine, the Open Championship at St. Andrews, the ‘Home of Golf,’ in 2015, the Saturday a wash-out. Parts of the Old Course resembling a river, the R&A annulling the few scores recorded before play was suspended, reducing the greatest event in world golf to a mere 54 holes, just to get finished on time.
Raining Champion Anna Nordqvist battles the early elements
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