Scottie Scheffler's eagle at the US Open Golf was remarkable, says Wyn Drabble. Photo / AP
Scottie Scheffler's eagle at the US Open Golf was remarkable, says Wyn Drabble. Photo / AP
Last week I was lucky enough to make a four-day trip to Los Angeles.
I’ve been there twice before for holiday purposes and on other occasions I have used its airport as a transit stopover.
The transit times have involved a huge eyeball camera on a bendy stalk but that’sprobably been replaced by something more modern now – like a miniature eyeball camera with a bendier stalk.
This time I was there for a full four days of US Open Golf. There was plenty of extraordinary playing but conditions for me were not always easy.
My viewing was often interrupted by physiotherapists, a surgeon, an anaesthetist, and countless nurses doing “obs”. Some of them even stood in front of me and blocked my view of the television screen!
That’s right, I only allowed myself the luxury of four days’ television viewing as I was virtually immobile in a post-operative hospital room.
Under normal circumstances I would have taken the “highlights only” option but there I was with nothing else to do so I was delighted to be able to watch the full coverage for the first three days (7am to 3.30pm) and the final day (7am to 2.10pm) back at home after being discharged.
It’s not easy to make a hole-in-one but I witnessed three. The chances are only 12,500 to one so even professional golfers can go their whole career without making a single hole-in-one. But even more remarkable to me was the eagle by Scottie Scheffler on the 17th hole.
The physiotherapist thought I was concentrating on how I should exercise my right leg but my attention was clearly on the eagle swooping in on 17. And when I was being shown how to extend my right foot sideways, Scheffler was following up his eagle with a birdie. I’m sure you can imagine where my attentions were directed.
Watching all this golf certainly firmed up a resolve I have had for some time. It is simply to eliminate a comment called out by macho spectators every time a putt – but even an approach shot or a tee-shot – is struck.
A nano-second after the putter – or the iron or wood – has struck the ball, a number of growly macho voices will ruin the natural silence by shouting in bassy, sonorous tones, “Get in the hole!”
These blokes are directing an imperative to a small, white ball with a tough, dimpled exterior and a resilient core of rubber!
If my remaining time on this planet allows it, I might make it back to the real US with a little business venture which could be a good little earner. It will involve selling inflatable rubber hammers which the bearer is entitled to use for whacking the head of anyone in the gallery who shouts “Get in the hole” when a ball is struck.
Not only might it eventually eliminate the problem but it could be lots of fun.
Luckily for me, the timing of the US Open also allowed me to watch a couple of very different rugby semifinals, the first a rather embarrassing blowout of the Blues and the second a tense, sodden, kick-heavy match in Hamilton, won by the Chiefs.
It prompted another inflatable hammer idea. This hammer would not be available to the general public, just to those interviewers who chat with the coaching staff at halftime and after the game is over.
