Golf is a tough game, but add wind and anything can happen.
Sunday in Reunion, Fla., winds in the 20 to 25 mph range, with gusts up to 40 mph, delayed play at the LPGA Tour's Ginn Open. And at the Verizon Heritage, winds got so bad that play was postponed until Monday.
"You know, you've kind of got to keep it low," explained eventual Verizon winner Boo Weekley after hitting a driver off the first tee Sunday during his only hole of the day. "Once it gets outside the trees the wind just takes over. You ain't got no control over it.... But if you hit the ball low kind of like I do, it kind of plays to our advantage."
While Weekley said Sunday he wouldn't tinker with the clubs in his bag the next day, other players talked about substituting clubs they could hit lower.
"I'm not in the tournament to really have a chance to win, but I'm sure the guys who are up near the lead might be thinking about something different, keep it low, maybe hit in a 2-iron or a hybrid instead of a 5-wood to keep it down," said Mark Hensby, who was in a group playing the 16th hole when officials called play.
It's hardest for the players to club themselves on approach shots. Before play Sunday was stopped, J.B. Holmes chose a 6-iron for a 130-yard shot into the wind - and came up 15 yards short. What's worse is when wind conditions change just as a shot is played.
"On 16 there, I mean, I think we had like 130, something like that, right there, and I want to say it was about 130 or something. I hit a 7-iron, and it came up short," Weekley said. "So I thought on the next hole we had 136 or something close to that same number again. I'm thinking, all right, it's got to be a 6-iron this time, and actually it stayed a little lower than the 7-iron did, which happened on 16. 17 it didn't balloon up like it should have."
The wind even affects putts.
"I guess Justin Leonard's ball hit on the back of the green and sat there for I don't know how long and then blew off the front. We just couldn't get balls to come to rest on 16," said PGA Tour Tournament Director Slugger White.
Meanwhile, at the Ginn Open, Lorena Ochoa missed a bogey putt on the 13th and a par putt on No. 16 to fall back, while Laura Davies three-putted the 17th.
"[The balls] were definitely moving," said Ginn Open winner Brittany Lincicome. "You noticed a couple of times we backed off of them you could tell the ball -- it obviously didn't move its position, but you could tell it was definitely wavering a little bit. We backed off quite a few putts today, which was kind of annoying because you're getting up there, you're ready to go, you've got the line, whatever and then you have to back off."
Out on the practice green at Harbour Town, Jerry Kelly tried to look on the bright side.
"It's always good to practice in some wind," Kelly said Sunday, noting he was looking ahead to the British Open and its typically windy conditions. "It's a very difficult situation to putt in."
MISSING IN ACTION: Kraft Nabisco winner Morgan Pressel hit her clubs well for her first major victory, but then her clubs disappeared as she headed home the next Monday.
"My grandfather thinks that they were lost or stolen in Palm Springs. I think they actually made it to Fort Lauderdale and were stolen there," Pressel said at the Ginn Open. "Nobody really knows where they are."
Pressel, who plays Callaway clubs, said she was able to practice using her old set of X-18 irons. She switched to Callaway X-Forged irons earlier this season. And by Thursday, Callaway had sent her the replacements she needed.
"The clubs that were in my bag were not that old anyway, so it's not like, you know, I was used to looking at some dent on my putter that helped me line up," she said. "The putter was two weeks old. It's not something that I'm worried too much about.
"I don't like to become too attached to any club. I always like to change just for the fact that, you know, the possibility that you do lose your clubs. I just always like to be able to adapt and change to what's new."
Pressel missed the cut in Florida, so she'll have a little longer to adapt to her new clubs. She also uses a Callaway FT-3 driver, X Hot and X Tour fairway woods, and X Tour wedges as well as an Odyssey putter and Callaway HX Tour golf balls.
ACE NO. 11: Jerry Kelly recorded a hole-in-one Saturday at Harbour Town's par-3 fourth hole. He used a Cleveland Golf CG1 4-iron 200 yards for what he believed to be his 11th ace ever.
"We were a little into the wind, but it was also a little left to right. So if I play a cut, it's usually about a 195 shot," Kelly said. "I thought with the left-to-right wind, if it was in, it could carry it up there just enough to where it could release and go into the hole. I started on a tree about 30 feet left of the hole, right on the tree I wanted to, trajectory, fade, everything was exactly the way I saw it in my eye. For that to fall right where I wanted it to and crawl in the hole, that -- it really doesn't happen all that often where we hit perfect shots to make hole-in-ones because a lot of times we're not aiming at the pin on a lot of the par-threes that we get."
Kelly said he's had four or five aces in PGA Tour competition.
"It's certainly not old hat, but I do know how to get rid of it [put the emotion out of his mind to continue play]. If it was for a boat or the car, it might have been a different story, but I was more disappointed I didn't get anything for it."
ODDS AND ENDS: Lorena Ochoa reports she's been seeing more distance from her PING Rapture driver: "Those ten extra yards, it really helps make the course easier, especially if you take advantage of the par 5s, it's always good to do that," she said. ... Ernie Els is using a new prototype Odyssey putter, with which he finished ninth in Putts per GIR (1.660) at Harbour Town. "I've got a putter now that Callaway has made, the Odyssey guys have made, and I'm happy with the way it looks, the way it feels," he said. Els finished second for the tournament. ... John Daly switched from a TaylorMade r7 SuperQuad TP to the company's Burner TP 10.5-degree driver this week. He also put a new Burner 15-degree fairway wood in his bag - as did Cameron Beckman, Bart Bryant, Tim Herron and Tim Petrovic. ... Nationwide Tour rookie John Kimbell, who is currently ranked No. 7 among the 2007 Nationwide Tour driving distance leaders (312.7 yards), used the new Bridgestone Golf Tour B330-S golf ball in his win at the South Georgia Classic. ... Golf shoe maker ECCO has been named an official partner to the 2007 European Challenge Tour.
