By:
Alan Bastable
January 13, 2023
Gamers’ tee photographs on 13 on the Sony Open this week greatest not bleed too far proper.
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In his pre-tournament press convention on the Sony Open earlier this week, Jordan Spieth was requested in regards to the inner out-of-bounds to the best of Waialea‘s lengthy par-4 thirteenth gap.
“The one which doglegs across the bunker? Down the best facet?” Spieth stated, considering again on his apply spherical that day. “I hit it proper of the bunker, however I wasn’t out of bounds. I wasn’t out of [the] cart path.”
To which the inquiring reporter stated, “Proper of the pink hazard space, it’s constituted inner out-of-bounds.”
“Thanks,” Spieth stated wryly. “I might’ve by no means identified, and it might’ve by no means been an issue. Now I’m going to be within the left tough for days.”
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Within the first spherical on Thursday, Spieth didn’t, the truth is, discover the left tough. He as an alternative tried to chop the nook of the dogleg-right and deposited his drive into the opening’s lone fairway bunker. That miscue led to the only real blemish on his card: a bogey 5.
However again to the O.B. A yr in the past, inner O.B. turned an early-week storyline on the Sony when match organizers alerted the sector on the eve of the primary spherical that white stakes had been put in between the 18th and tenth holes. With no grandstands on website on account of Covid, gamers teeing off on the dogleg-right par-5 18th might shorten the efficient distance of the opening by enjoying up 10. Now that the stands are again in place this yr, the stakes have been eliminated.
However inner O.B. nonetheless lurks at Waialea — on the thirteenth. The stakes will not be a brand new addition, even when Spieth was oblivious to them.
“It’s been in place for a few years, at the least 20 years,” a Tour spokesperson informed GOLF.com. “Maintains the integrity of the design of the opening. Retains gamers from enjoying down 12 backwards.”
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It additionally protects gamers on 12 from the specter of incoming Titleists.
Inner O.B. is uncommon on the PGA Tour however not distinctive to the Sony; generally it’s added to thwart shortcuts, different occasions to maintain gamers and followers protected.
In 2021, the Tour’s flagship occasion, the Gamers Championship, added inner O.B. to the 18th gap on the TPC Sawgrass Stadium to stop gamers from flying their tee photographs over the lake to the ninth gap, which arrange a better angle into the inexperienced.
On the 2017 Open Championship, the R&A added OB on the ninth gap to safeguard spectators. Two years later, additionally on the Open Championship, Rory McIlroy wasted little time discovering the inner O.B. at Royal Portrush. He hooked his opening tee shot on Thursday on to the flawed facet of the stakes, resulting in a crushing quadruple-bogey 8.
The thirteenth at Waialea didn’t produce any quads Thursday nevertheless it did yield two doubles, and, with a scoring common of 4.321, performed because the second-toughest gap of the day.
Alan Bastable
Golf.com Editor
As GOLF.com’s govt editor, Bastable is answerable for the editorial course and voice of one of many sport’s most revered and extremely trafficked information and repair websites. He wears many hats — enhancing, writing, ideating, creating, daydreaming of sooner or later breaking 80 — and feels privileged to work with such an insanely gifted and hardworking group of writers, editors and producers. Earlier than grabbing the reins at GOLF.com, he was the options editor at GOLF Journal. A graduate of the College of Richmond and the Columbia College of Journalism, he lives in New Jersey along with his spouse and foursome of children.