Wind Plays Key Role In World Golf
With stiff winds and even stiffer competition, all four matches at the international leg of the Andersen Consulting World Championship of Golf came down to the 18th hole Monday in Kohler, Wis.
“It was a tough day today,” Nick Price said. “And I think you could see nobody was going to get a long way ahead unless they took a lot of chances.”
Playing it safe with swirling winds and sharp slopes, Price beat Vijay Singh 1-up, Ernie Els bested Frank Nobilo 1-up and Steve Elkington defeated Mark McNulty 1-up as their competitors all bogeyed the 469-yard, par-4 18th.
Greg Norman, who won the finals last year, beat Robert Allenby 2-up when Allenby also bogeyed the final hole in the match-play tourney at the River Course at Blackwolf Run.
Els is ranked second in the world, Norman third, Price fifth and Elkington seventh.
But the field, by far the strongest of the four regionals leading to the Andersen world finals in January, was confounded by the slope of the greens and tricky winds that whipped through the Sheboygan River valley.
“The wind gets in the valley here and it swirls. It’s just very hard to tell what it’s going to do to the ball. It’s almost guesswork,” Price said.
“I thought the greens were perfect. I don’t know how fast they were rolling because I never had a flat putt,” Elkington cracked.
Els faces Price in the other semifinal. The winners tee off in the afternoon for $200,000 and the right to face European champion Colin Montgomerie in the four-man world finals at Scottsdale, Ariz., Jan. 3-4.
This is the last finals matchup to be determined. Hajime Meshiai won the Japanese leg and will face Davis Love III, who won the U.S. regional.
Fred Couples Invitational
Tom Lehman and Scott McCarron shot 5-under-par 66s Monday and shared the lead after the first round of the Fred Couples Invitational at Inglewood Golf Club in Kenmore, Wash.
Scott Simpson was one shot back at 67, while Rick Fehr, Mike Hulbert and Davis Love III each had a 69.
Couples, a native of Seattle and the host of the two-day charity event for the fourth consecutive year, shot a 71.