{"id":181,"date":"2011-08-31T01:34:27","date_gmt":"2011-08-31T01:34:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/daviddesmith.com\/?p=181"},"modified":"2013-05-10T00:49:20","modified_gmt":"2013-05-10T00:49:20","slug":"johnnie-walker-championship-playoff-drives-man-to-drink","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/daviddesmith\/golf\/181\/johnnie-walker-championship-playoff-drives-man-to-drink","title":{"rendered":"Johnnie Walker Championship Playoff Drives Man to Drink"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Why is this man smiling? He doesn't have to play the 18th hole again!<\/p><\/div>\n

Under normal circumstances, a five-man, five-hole playoff would be an exciting thing to watch.\u00a0 Playoffs make you sit up on the edge of your seat and pay attention — which isn’t always the case as golf tournaments wind down.\u00a0 But if ever there were an event that needed a new playoff format, it’s this one.<\/p>\n

When Mark Foster bogeyed his 72nd hole to fall into the playoff with (in order of playoff exodus) Bernd Wiesberger, Pablo Larrazabal, George Coetzee and eventual winner Thomas Bjorn, I couldn’t wait to see who would prevail.\u00a0\u00a0 Would Foster use his mulligan to birdie the 18th the second time around and take the crown anyway?\u00a0 Would two (or more) other players halve the hole with birds and move on?\u00a0 Would somebody make bogey — or worse — and drop out right away?\u00a0 A golf enthusiast’s mind was swimming with possibilities.<\/p>\n

As in many playoff situations, the nerves showed on the first playoff hole.\u00a0 Wiseberger, first up, pull-hooked his tee shot into an unplayable lie and made bogey.\u00a0 No one else bogeyed, but neither did they make birdie.\u00a0 Four players moved on to the next playoff hole.<\/p>\n

And that’s when the playoff went horribly wrong.\u00a0 Because there was no “next” playoff hole!\u00a0 Instead of moving on to one of the Gleneagles PGA Centenary Course’s other holes (such as they are), the remaining competitors returned to the 18th tee again.\u00a0 And again.\u00a0 And again.\u00a0 If you love the 18th on the Centenary, you were in ecstasy.\u00a0 Otherwise, you were probably reaching for a dram of Johnnie Black right along with me.\u00a0 The 18th on the Centenary Course is quaintly nicknamed “Dun Roamin'” — but these poor players were far from done with it!<\/p>\n

Sudden death?\u00a0 No — this was prolonged agony.\u00a0 It might have helped if the hole wasn’t a three-shot par 5.\u00a0 But whatever happened to variety being the spice of life?\u00a0 In fairness, the Johnnie Walker Championship isn’t the only tournament that uses the same initial playoff hole more than once.\u00a0 But most events will draw the line at two trips up the 18th — and dictate that if it’s still tied after that, the players move on to a different hole.<\/p>\n

Tournament organizers undoubtedly have good reasons for staging the playoff this way.\u00a0 It’s easier for the assembled spectators.\u00a0 it’s easier for the TV crews.\u00a0 It’s easier for the pudgy guys in blazers.\u00a0 And that’s all fine and good.\u00a0 But it stunk for the thousands of viewers around the world who had already seen the 18th hole several dozen times during the telecast before the playoff even started.<\/p>\n

Clearly, whoever thought up this playoff format had had one too many.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Under normal circumstances, a five-man, five-hole playoff would be an exciting thing to watch.\u00a0 Playoffs make you sit up on… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":82,"featured_media":182,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,19507,2226,2980,21760,17],"tags":[104474,104475,104476,28,4282,3239,142,104471,90098,104473],"class_list":["post-181","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-golf","category-havershambaker","category-perrygolf","category-news","category-connoisseursscotland","category-courses-and-travel","tag-pablo-larrazabal","tag-george-coetzee","tag-bernd-wiesberger","tag-scotland","tag-scotland-golf","tag-johnnie-walker-championship","tag-gleneagles","tag-gleneagles-pga-centenary-course","tag-thomas-bjorn","tag-mark-foster"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/daviddesmith\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/54\/2011\/08\/Thomas-Bjorn-for-web1.jpg_e_3d8fa790ea0b93cac948454072d9eca8.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/daviddesmith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/daviddesmith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/daviddesmith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/daviddesmith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/82"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/daviddesmith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=181"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/daviddesmith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":190,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/daviddesmith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181\/revisions\/190"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/daviddesmith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/182"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/daviddesmith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/daviddesmith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/daviddesmith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}