Full barn of birdies at Conway Farms

Writing from Lake Forest, Illinois

Thursday, September 12, 2013

The first clue came less than a half-hour into play on Thursday morning, when John Merrick, not exactly a household name in most households, dropped his wedge shot on the par-4 third hole at Conway Farms Golf Club into the cup for an eagle 2.

The cascade of red numbers had begun.

Before it ended, Brandt Snedeker had surfed a wave of seven straight birdies into the lead of the BMW Championship, Zach Johnson was a stroke behind him after a similarly bogey-free round, and a trio including Tiger Woods was three off the pace.

Snedeker had visions of a really low number after his putt on the first hole, the 10th of his round, dropped for his seventh straight bird – tying the Western Open / BMW mark set by Hubert Green at the start of the third round in 1985.

“A 61 or 60 was very doable,” Snedeker said.

He settled for an 8-under-par 63 and the lead.

Johnson, crediting recent improvement to better driving, birdied the par-5 18th to finish at 7-under 64. For him, the low scoring at Conway Farms is a reminder of that other tournament in Illinois, which he won last year.

“It’s not quite the John Deere Classic, but it reminds me of the John Deere Classic, at TPC Deere Run,” Johnson said. “I’m not complaining.”

Nor is the sponsoring Western Golf Association. Spectators turned out in huge numbers, causing traffic jams and forcing the WGA to close the gates during the lunch hour, because it ran out of parking. If one person was traipsing across the leafy acreage, 40,000 people were.

The high attendance contributing to the bottom line will eventually benefit the Evans Scholars Foundation, but for the nonce the low numbers being posted will contribute to the mad rush to the pay window in this $8 million turkey shoot. The winner gets $1.44 million, and the way Snedeker posted birdies on Thursday – eight of them – each birdie might end up being worth its weight in gold.

For Snedeker, there wasn’t a great deal in his recent resume to anticipate such an outburst.

“It kind of came out of nowhere,” Snedeker said of the birdie binge. Given that he holed out from off the green on the 13th, 14th and 17th holes, the first two times from about 14 feet and the third time from 37 feet, a right-to-left curler from the fringe of the green, that’s understandable. Snedeker’s a good guy, but he’s not unconscious. On this day, his play was.

“When I do have these days, I try to go as low as I possibly can,” Snedeker said.

Everyone expected low numbers, and most delivered. Those who did not included Lee Westwood, whose 9-under 80 was exaggerated by back and neck problems. Said Westwood before trudging up a staircase, “I feel sick.”

Scott Piercy went him one worse, with a 10-over 81 lowlighted by a nine on the par-4 16th. Water was involved. He played with Rickie Fowler, whose neon blue shirt didn’t hide a 6-over 77, and Nick Watney, who fired a 4-under 67 and had to wonder why the pro-am extended over to Thursday.

Then there was defending champion Rory McIlroy. His mysterious year continued. A 7-over-par 78 featured a double-bogey 5 on his second hole, and a mid-round stretch of 5-over in three holes, including a triple bogey on the first hole. He was in a greenside bunker in two and made a hash of it.

But up front, everyone was smiling. Well, almost everyone. Woods, who annexed five Western Open / BMWs on Cog Hill’s demanding Dubsdread course, the most recent in 2009, found fault with his effort, never mind that 5-under-par 66 places him third after one lap of this 6,997-yard bull ring. (While the scoring average was an over-par 71.314, that’s surely the shortest course setup for a Western since the turn of the century; Dubsdread was listed as 7,051 yards in 2001. Since the move to the fall, the shortest setup had been for the first round in 2007, with Dubs at 7,196 yards.)

“I certainly wasted a lot of shots out there today,” Woods said. “I missed three short putts and played the par-5s ‘stupendously.’ One of those days. It was a golf course in which you could be really, really aggressive.”

Woods, who parred the three par-5s, said 3-woods were traveling over 300 yards, partly because the fairways were fast. But whereas it was 82 and sunny on Thursday, with a 21-mile-per-hour wind from the north-northwest much of the day, Friday is slated to be nippy, with a high of 62 and the wind from the northeast, almost a 90-degree shift and the opposite of what prevails in the summer. That will mean a new golf course in terms of clubs into each hole, and a wind the pros haven’t practiced with.

But will that mean low scores? A betting man would lean in that direction.

The object of this week’s game is both to win and to advance to next week’s 30-man Tour Championship at East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta. That means players like McIlroy, ranked 40th coming in and tied for 66th in the tournament after one round, need to step it up over the last three rounds.

Snedeker is a lock, a far cry from the situation he found himself in at Cog Hill in 2009. With one hole to play, he was headed to Atlanta. He four-putted Dubsdread’s last green and fell out of the final field. Last year, he won the FedEx Cup and the $10 million bonus that goes with it. This year, even if he withdraws, he’ll be ranked no worse than 17th heading to Atlanta.

Nice guys do finish first sometimes.

Traffic a nightmare, but ...

... that’s a good thing in the long run. First, it means the tournament, which languished in the fall at Cog Hill, largely because fans used to coming out in the summer no longer did so, has renewed its Chicago base, and in one fell swoop.

Second, there are plans to open auxiliary parking lots adjacent to the main lot for the weekend to lessen the strain on the main parking lot on Everett Road, which was filled by about 12:30 p.m. At 12:40 p.m., the WGA announced a sellout for the day – daily tickets are $55 at the gate – the first time they’ve had to do so. It had the look of a Masters practice round crowd in places. The IG estimate for the day is 40,000, the largest crowd for the tournament in Chicago since it moved to the fall in 2007. That equaled the WGA’s estimate for last year’s final round at Crooked Stick last year, which was whispered into NBC’s ear.

(There was no limit to the crowds at Cog Hill, which often topped 50,000 in the summer, because of the huge parking lots across the street.)

The morning’s headache, however, included a backup of about 1.5 miles on the northbound Tri-State Tollway at the Route 60 (Town Line Road) exit. The problem was increased by a lack of police overriding the traffic lights on the overpass or at the turn from Town Line to the parking lot. With poor traffic flow, there was no flow at all. Traffic also backed up to the east of the main entrance.

Around Conway Farms

Phil Mickelson, who didn’t play in the pro-am because of a family issue back home, rolled in Thursday morning and posted a 1-under-par 70 on his first trip around Conway Farms. (Luke Donald, who has played the course more than anyone, came in with the same number.) ... One must hope that the WGA is getting a cut of the concessions this week. Aside from a glass of wine, the most expensive item is a $7.50 veggie wrap that likely costs no more than a dollar to wrap together. ... Friday’s round starts at 10:20 a.m., the same as the first round, when the last tee time 12:21 p.m. Leader Brandt Snedeker will be off the first tee at 11:48 a.m. ...  The longest drive of the day belonged to Ernie Els, who belted his tee shot 361 yards on the par-5 eighth hole, which had a following crosswind.

– Tim Cronin