Lift, clean and place in place at Crooked Stick

    Thursday, September 6, 2012
    Writing from Carmel, Indiana

    Proper golf at Crooked Stick Golf Club will have to wait for Friday. Today’s first round of the BMW Championship – or 109th Western Open for old-timers – is being played as “preferred lies,” to use the PGA Tour’s term.
    Others call it lift, clean and place.
    Still others call it lift, clean and cheat. Vijay Singh, maybe.
    The decision by Tour staff came about because of Wednesday’s downpour, which softened a course already made soft by weekend rains. Apparently, the embedded ball rule commonly employed in golf wasn’t enough to create a festival of birdies, so the Tour went the extra step to allowing the players to put the ball in their hand.
    The rule was last invoked in the Western / BMW for the first round at Bellerive in 2008, after more severe downpours pushed the opening round back to Friday. It was also used in the first two rounds at Cog Hill in 2007.
    In the early going, the low numbers aren’t too low. As of 12:58 p.m. ET, six players are tied at 3-under-par: Jimmy Walker, Kyle Stanley, Bo Van Pelt, Jim Furyk, Graham DeLeat and five-time champion Tiger Woods.
    The grouping of Woods, Nick Watney and Rory McIlroy has attracted many in the large gallery, which may have numbered 20,000 by their 11:48 a.m. tee time. It didn’t hurt that Phil Mickelson, Zach Johnson and Jason Dufner were the threesome immediately in front of them.
    Updates as warranted, with a complete report at the end of the day.
    – Tim Cronin