After attending and watching the NEC Invitational yesterday, I can understand why the players are struggling. First of all, the course is completely soaked and at 7300+ yards with a bit of wind can give any player not hitting the ball in the fairway has no chance to really score. Second, the rough in spots is ridiculous. When I saw some of the grounds crew going around with rakes and “fluffing” the rough, hitting the ball in the rough doesn’t allow many players to go at the hole. Third, I feel there is a bit of a post PGA let down. The NEC Invitational is a “big” tournament, but it is not a major and after beating themselves up at Whistling Straits, players like Vijay, Phil, and Ernie are not interested.
As far as the fans go… People still love Phil. I saw him on 16 and he hit a horrible wedge for his standards, missing the green from 60 yards. However, he still was able to make par. Tiger still has the largest crowd, which was 5 deep when I saw him. John Daly doesn’t really care about his image and just wanted to get off the golf course, collect his check, and go back to his RV and drink a beer or 2 or more.
My prediction for today’s round: Cink shows why he should not have been chosen for the Ryder Cup and Tiger comes back and wins by 3.