With the Olympic games taking a majority of the world’s greatest players out of the field for the Wyndham Championship, the PGA Tour was desperate for drama at their final regular season tournament before the 2024 playoffs begin. Be careful what you wish for…
When the CBS broadcast panned to a shot of the moon, I was shocked it wasn’t full. That’s just how strange the progression of this event was. Located in Greensboro, NC, Sedgefield CC was subject to torrential downpour that dropped around six inches on the Donald Ross designed masterpiece. So much rain, they could not officially start tournament play until Friday which meant long days ahead for players, caddies & everyone else involved. Because of scheduling, travel, volunteers etc. the goal of the PGA Tour is to finish their tournaments on Sunday by any means necessary. Even if that means jamming 2.5 rounds into one day, which is exactly what they did.
Keep in mind, a “quick” round on the PGA Tour is anything five hours or less. So, they knew it would be a marathon day to crown a victor. With some planning, split tee times, and some players playing close to 40 holes yesterday, the Tour was able to get the tournament in the books by sunset yesterday, well… they almost did. But we will get to that later.
First, we must address the elephant in the room. Max Greyserman, a PGA Tour rookie, looked like he was going to cruise his way to his first PGA title after he holed out for eagle on the 13th hole of his final round to extend his lead to four strokes. Having a four-stroke lead with five holes to play on the PGA Tour is like having an 8-run lead going into the bottom of the 9th inning. You need a catastrophe not to come out on top. But, for Greyserman, his entire week would come crashing down as he stood on the tee box of the 14th hole. His drive sliced right of the fairway, hitting the cart path and careening into the woods out of bounds. His (now third) shot off the tee then found the left rough of the long par 4. Compounding his errors, Greyserman punched it out in attempt to give him a short chip into the green, but it found one of those bunkers about 100 yards short of the green that Donald Ross puts on his courses to really get in your head. Greysermans bunker shot didn’t make it to the green. You could tell things were happening at a mile-a-minute for Max. He would go on to make a quadruple bogey on the hole and surrender his four-stroke lead all in one hole.
Greyserman battled back with a bridie on the following par 5, but would miss two “gimmie” putts on the par 3 16th that would ultimately dash his hopes of winning. Aaron Rai instantly went from needing to have a perfect finish to his round to holding onto the lead for dear life, and he did just that, birdying the 72nd hole winning with a score of -18.
The PGA Tour now begins playoffs, with the top 70 players of the season heading to the FedEx St. Jude Championship in Memphis, TN. The top 50 from that tournament will advance to the BMW Championship August 17th.
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