In many methods it seems symbolic of the problems plaguing the European Tour's Nelson Mandela Championship.
No one has ever shot an professional fifty nine in an ET occasion. Peter Uihlein got here close in advance this yr on the Alfred Dunhill Links but needed to accept a 60.
The Nelson Mandela Championship has been plagued by using bad weather this week. The start become moved up an afternoon -- from Thursday to Wednesday -- which will avoid conflicts with the past due Nelson Mandela's kingdom funeral on Sunday. But rain saved the primary round from being finished... Then the second spherical... And organizers in the end had to cut the occasion to fifty four holes. Even so, at the fourth day of the occasion (Saturday) the second one round is yet to be completed.
That failed to prevent the fireworks though. Spain's Jorge Campillo and South African Colin Nel both shot 59s within moments of each different. Imagine their pleasure at in the end breaking thru and making records!
Imagine their disappointment on finding out that neither will make the ET document books in spite of everything.
(The image came from the ET's precis of the spherical.)
Here's the problem: The Mount Edgecombe Country Club has been absolutely saturated by all the rain, forcing officials to allow preferred lies. You know what that means -- through the green you pick up the ball, clean it, and replace it to ensure that the ball isn't plugged or covered with mud. But that also means you aren't "playing the ball as it lies." You don't make the record books that way.
Believe it or now not, it receives worse. The course had to be shortened to make it playable. The commentators mentioned that the period of a few holes and their distinctive par did not without a doubt make any kind of experience. Overall, the period of the path changed into reduced to someplace among 6300 and 6500 yards -- rarely the take a look at of golf that organizers had was hoping for.
Both gamers can nonetheless be proud of their accomplishments. By my be counted, over forty of those who've finished their rounds nonetheless could not ruin par. Nel's fifty nine added him as much as T28 (-4), ensuring that he's going to make the reduce. And Campillo's 59 catapulted him all the way to T2 (-11), even though he is nevertheless three strokes off the lead of England's Daniel Brooks.
But the ET continues to be waiting for someone to break that big mental barrier and get it into the 50s for the primary time. They knew it might be hard; they simply failed to recognize they'd have to break a weather barrier as nicely.
0 comments