REVIEW

What a disappointing week!  I came into the week with great expectations having played well in Dallas the week before.  I found the course tough but fair in practice and was looking forward to playing it.  However, the way I played the course in the tournament meant that it turned out to be a very tough course.

I didn’t play well and I drove the ball poorly in particular and on Bethpage Black you can’t do that.  Most of the time when I was in the rough I was only able to wedge it back to the fairway.

For a while my first round had a chance of being okay.  I was two over through 12 holes which, if I could have managed to get to the clubhouse at that score, would have been a good day.  However I missed the fairway on the 13^th and then my attempt to hit a five iron out of the rough went badly and it cost me a bogey.  Then I missed fairways on the 15th and 16th holes which cost me two more bogeys.

Going out on Friday I figured I needed to shoot one under par to make the cut, which turned out to be correct.  I just didn’t play anywhere near well enough to do it and in the end I shot seven over par, again caused by too many missed fairways.  What was quite annoying was that if you put the ball on the fairway from the tee, the course was not too bad as the greens were receptive enough to allow you to score.

I watched the weekend’s play on TV and what looked like was going to be a boring final day ended up having a bit of drama, but only just.  It was great playing by Brooks all week and good to see Shane finish so well after a poor first round.

I’m off now for a couple of weeks until the Canadian Open.  It will be nice to get home and see everyone and to have some time to work on a few things in my swing.

Talk soon,
Padraig.

Disappointing PGA Championship for Padraig as he fails to make the cut at a brutally tough Bethpage Black golf course. His second round of 77 gave him a twelve over par total with the cut line being four over par. He again missed too many fairways off the tee, which led to five bogies and two double bogies. Interestingly he birdied two of the par three holes, holing two nice putts in the process. The defending champion, Brooks Koepka, blazes the trail with his record-breaking twelve under par total leading the field a merry dance by seven shots heading into the weekend.

Padraig opened his account at the PGA Championship with a five under par round of 75. He covered the more scorable front nine in one over par after swapping two bogies with one birdie on the par four 6th hole. The back nine was a grind with four bogies, all caused by visits to the unforgiving rough and not one birdie to offset the damage. He tees off early at 7.40am in the second round.

Padraig is at the infamous Bethpage Black golf course in New York to play in the second Major of the year, the PGA Championship. As a past winner, he tees it up this week full of confidence after a morale-boosting finish last week. The course this week is extremely tough, playing very long after recent rain has soaked the layout. He tees off at 1.06pm local time with Martin Kaymer and Keegan Bradley, both winners of this prestigious tournament.

History of Bethpage Black here

Live Scoring here