![]() ![]() The volunteers pointed and glared at certain individuals, but their efforts were in vain. Unfortunately, the crowd had somehow gotten hold of their own placards and waved them right back as they continued shouting. Some of them loved the attention, but others were plainly uncomfortable and tried to ignore it, at which point they were roundly booed while a well-meaning boyfriend tried to console them.Īs golfers addressed their ball, the tense marshals waved thin placards with the word “Quiet!” at the crowd. Immediately, as though they operated from a hive mind, the men would begin chanting at her to chug her beer. And God forbid anyone spotted an attractive woman. The fans were hungry for drama, and they could smell weakness. I was disappointed on the violence front, but the scene teetered very close to chaos. When I first saw the hole on Thursday, the stands were buzzing with the kind of alcoholic activity that signifies either a very good party, or a place where a fight is about to break out. When the seats are full, there are more than 20,000 of them, and they’re the reason the Waste Management Phoenix Open is shortened in slang to “The Wasted Open.” These fans, I’d like to emphasize once more, are very drunk, and very numerous. They try to re-create this atmosphere elsewhere on the Tour, most notably at the 17 th hole of the Byron Nelson in Dallas, but everyone there is a little too polite, and probably rich, to reach anywhere near the same level of lunacy. The effect for players who emerge from the tunnel and onto the tee box is that of a Roman prisoner entering the Coliseum with his hands shackled, waiting to be torn apart by lions as the rabid spectators jeer. What sets this hole apart is the venue-a fully enclosed stadium, which players enter and exit via tunnels that run beneath the stands-and the gallery, which can best be described as a collection of creative drunks who spend hours making life miserable, through various forms of psychological torture, for each golfer passing through. The short par three is one of the famous holes in American golf, and it has nothing to do with the layout or the difficulty, neither of which is remarkable. In late winter, the yellow sunflower-like blooms of the brittlebush and the red flowers of the chuparosa set off the thorny plants the saguaro cacti and the beavertail and the jumping cholla, and all manner of growing things that can draw blood if you venture too close.īut if you’re content to settle for metaphorical blood-the kind drawn from golfers-you won’t need a cactus. Any spot that doesn’t received a steady supply of water becomes “waste area.” Which doesn’t mean it lacks a certain stark beauty. On a course like this, the sand traps and rough are easy enough to manufacture just let the desert have its way with the land, as it’s done for centuries. Every time you flush a toilet in Phoenix, you’re helping the Stadium Course.) The unavoidable thought is, “wait…where did they get the water?” (It turns out, they use an irrigation system that takes advantage of reclaimed “effluent water,” which is a euphemism for partially purified waste water from sewage works or factories. It makes for a ecological shock when you first step on the famous Stadium Course at TPC Scottsdale, the home of the Waste Management Phoenix Open, to find yourself in the midst of a verdant green expanse that wouldn’t be out of place in an Irish pasture. The Sonoran desert landscape in Scotsdale, a Phoenix suburb, is a study in progressive shades of brown, from tan to raw umber, with the occasional wildflower or faded cactus providing a glimpse of color. Standing on the first tee on Sunday at the Phoenix Open, under bright desert skies, Bubba Watson led Kevin Stadler by two strokes. “Well, if you ever heard about Bubba Watson’s career, you know that I’m in trouble a lot.” -Bubba Watson, Saturday, Phoenix Open Kevin Stadler and Bubba Watson at the Phoenix Open The Lunatics on Hole 16 Graham DeLaet, the Hope of Canada ![]() Order the book here, and thanks for reading! Note: This is a chapter from my book Slaying the Tiger that didn’t make the final cut.
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