Christiaan Bezuidenhout knew he was going to enjoy his Friday afternoon.
The South African was in the second pairing to tee off in the second round of the Memorial Tournament and shot a 5-under-par 67. The gusty winds picked up at Muirfield Village Golf Club throughout his round, turning every shot into a mystery of hit and hope. With the wind expected to get only stronger throughout the day, Bezuidenhout was eager to see the carnage on television.
“Yeah, I’m going to definitely sit on my couch at home now and watch the coverage and laugh a little,” he said.
The Memorial and weather have been synonymous over the years, usually because of rain that has often cursed the tournament. But rain, like heat or cold, doesn’t cause players to adapt from shot to shot as much as wind.
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“I would much rather play in 110 degrees and humidity than a three-club wind, especially at Muirfield,” Bezuidenhout said. “It’s already a difficult course without wind, so it just made it harder for us.”
Jason Day barely tamed the wind enough to keep his second-round score at 75, one shot inside the the projected cut. The Australian lives in Westerville and is a Muirfield Village member. But that had limited value on Friday.
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Day said he believed the sustained wind was 18 mph with gusts exceeding 30.
“That’s at like 100 feet – most golf balls go about 100 feet or a little bit higher – so it’s difficult when at 18, for instance, you watch the weather clock on top of the clubhouse and it’s moving like back and forth, back and forth. You’ve got to try and hit on the right gust.”
PGA tour golfers are remarkably skilled at hitting proper distances. Gusty winds make that impossible.
“It can be tough,” said Adam Hadwin, whose 72 gave him the clubhouse lead by a shot over Bezuidenhout, though Scottie Scheffler had taken the lead by mid-afternoon. “Honestly, I’ll be shocked if any other player said it was anything other than a guess. It’s just educated guessing, really. You try and control the ball flight to limit the amount the wind will affect it. That’s probably one of the biggest things that we can do out here.”
The average score of 73.4 was about a half-stroke higher than Thursday’s opening round. The wind would have had an even greater effect if the course wasn’t still soft from Wednesday night’s heavy rain.
“This course is penal enough anyway if you miss it in the wrong spots,” said Rory McIlroy, who shot a 71 Friday. “Thankfully, with the rain on Wednesday, the course is still pretty receptive. You get this wind and if it was as fiery as it has been in previous years, it would be treacherous.
“But still, the ball is holding on the greens and on the fairways, and you still have opportunities to make birdie. Anything under par is a good score, but it’s very hard to go low.”
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Memorial Tournament: Columbus weather makes tough Day Two for golfers
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