FIRST SHOT
you see that he is long-limbed and lanky,
but up close you really see how powerful he
is. The man has steel cables for arms.
To a person, they were all friendly and
approachable, but there was no mistaking
that each was serious and focused in their
preparation.
There were two ways to play the tee
shot on the difficult 10th hole, either an iron
to a plateau that would leave a longer sec-
ond shot to a green that sits shelf-like above
a steep slope, or a driver or 3-wood into a
narrow valley that would leave roughly 100
yards to what would then be an extremely
elevated green.
A nice reunion with Aaron Baddeley
by the fingers I’d have been crippled.
The liveliest were South Africans Ernie
Els, Louis Oosthuizen, Branden Grace, and
Charl Schwartzel. They were all talking at the
same time, laughing and speaking the inde-
cipherable Dutch-based Afrikaans language
of their homeland. Oosthuizen had Grace in a
headlock and the two were laughing like long-
time friends who hadn’t seen each other in a
while. I half expected these two short, mus-
cular men would end up on the ground in a
wrestling match.
There were common themes we noticed.
Whatever the body type, nearly every player ap-
peared to be exceptionally fit. TV doesn’t do
justice to a lot of these guys. I always thought
Ross Fisher was skinny, but he is definitely no
weakling. Koepka is a huge man, and Johnson
is even more impressive as a physical speci-
men in person. You watch him on the tube and
8 | CSGA Links // July 2018
“DJ” was grabbing a bottled water
when Gary Woodland teed off, and before
the ball had even landed Johnson was all
over Woodland’s bag and caddy wanting to
know what Gary had hit and what he was
trying to do. As both of these guys smash
the ball it was easy to imagine their strategy
off the tee might be similar.
A few groups later I was reminded of
how precise these players are when I asked
Paul Casey’s caddie, “From here, how far
do you have to carry the ball to take advan-
tage of the slope to get down the hill?”
He answered instantly, “248.” Not,
“Oh, maybe a little more than 245,” or
“around 250,” but “248.” I am certain if we
had taken two steps forward he would have
said, “246.”
Security was noticeable but not om-
nipresent. Tiger and DJ played nine holes
late on Monday and were accompanied at a
distance by two bike riding police officers.
A retired FBI agent who was handling one
particular detail told me they did their best
to maintain a low profile while trying to an-
ticipate potential problems. In the absence
of credible threats it made sense to follow
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