After what insiders are calling "an ugly, 4-day binge," the 16th hole at TPC Scottsdale checked itself into a Phoenix-area rehabilitation clinic on Tuesday.Workers arrived at the 16th on Monday after the FBR Open and discovered the hole without its bleachers and covered in a layer of beer, vomit and fertilizer. Head greenskeeper Tim Keever admitted it wasn't the first time he'd seen the hole like this. "We all knew knew she had a problem. But in the end we figured she was just having fun and wasn't hurting anybody. Truth is she was hurting someone. Herself."
Evidence of just that comes from insiders familiar with the hole who say that in 1987 when TPC Scottsdale opened, the 16th was the most beautiful place on the course, but after years of abuse the grass around it had turned dry, patchy and brown. Ryuji Imada played it early Thursday and said it wasn't so much the look of the 16th that bothered him, it was the smell. "It was sort of a... frat celler meets rundown nursing home kind of stink." Imada was so disturbed by it that he bogeyed the 18th to shoot an opening-round 75 and withdrew.
The rehab center, known as the Green Horizons Spa, is located in a quiet neighborhood ten miles southwest of TPC Scottsdale and has treated other famous holes like the 17th at The Players Course, the 7th at Pebble Beach and, though the members vigorously deny it, all of Augusta National's Amen Corner.
1 comment:
My thoughts and prayers are with the 16th at this difficult time. But honestly, after 10+ years of abuse it may be too late.
I just hope her father and manager don't start to fight over who can make medical decisions.
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