[jwplayer ISQqCuwE-9JtFt04J]
After a windy week at the Plantation Course at Kapalua for the Sentry Tournament of Champions, a new word has entered the golf lexicon.
‘Gusted’.
We heard it a couple times on TV and later in the interview room from the tournament’s playoff runners-up, Xander Schauffele and Patrick Reed.
Reed talked about the wind on the 18th hole, which he birdied in regulation and on the first playoff hole.
“Unfortunately I had two putts really to close it, and one of them I got gusted on, and then this last one with the wind and the break, just got me again,” he said.
Schauffele claims the wind gods got him on the final hole of regulation.
“Yeah, I think I got gusted, honestly.”
Sentry TOC: Scores | Photos | Money | Winner’s bag | Trophies
He described three-putting the 18th in regulation.
“On the initial putt, it went – I honestly thought it was going to go like four feet by, but it caught some speed, and once it started breaking right with the wind, it kept going,” he said. “I was so convinced that it was going to go back right to left coming back up the hill, but it really wasn’t going to do that. It was just bad.”
Schauffele then three-putted the 18th in the playoff, which knocked him out.
Reed said the wind was a factor for most of the tournament.
“You knew especially really the last three days that the wind was going to be a factor on putts, and unfortunately it came down to having to make too long a putt in order to either extend or to win, and at the end of the day when you have that long putt and you have the wind, it just makes it a little harder.”
Tournament champ Justin Thomas didn’t use the word but did talk about the wind and about the missed putts that worked in his favor.
“I was very fortunate to have a couple putts miss to give myself a chance.”
Gusted. Get ready to hear that in your weekend golf outings.
[lawrence-related id=778018804,778018766,778018702,778018775]