Equipment Roundup: A weird week for golf equipment

Seamus Power says most people don’t realize that there is an Irish language. Or, Gaeilge, to be more precise. “I sometimes tell people and they think I’m kidding,” he says. “They think it’s just a way of speaking English with a funny Irish accent.” Actually, Gaeilge is the first and official language of Ireland, recognized by the European Union. Irish uses the same alphabet as other European countries and the United States, but the phonetics are very different. It also has its own font. Many of the words bear little resemblance to English or Spanish or other more common languages, Power says. Sentence structure is different from English, too. Instead of “My name is Seamus Power,” he says the Irish way would be “Seamus Power is my name.” So in Gaeilge, he would write: Seamus de paor ainm dom. (The phonetics simply don’t translate well on paper or the Internet, though, so we won’t try here.) English, with that “funny Irish accent” that Power mentioned, is spoken by the majority on the island and is also an official language. But there are several areas called Gaeltacht where Irish speakers predominate. “I don’t think Irish will ever go away,” Power says. “We’re very proud of having our own language.” Power was born in Waterford, Ireland and grew up playing golf against Rory McIlroy and Shane Lowry. He started learning Irish, as most kids do, in what would be elementary school over here in the States. The classes continue until students graduate from high school. There are even summer camps where kids can go to improve their Irish. “So everyone’s got some level of it,” Power says. The 30-year-old Power, who came to the United States to play golf at East Tennessee State and now has a home in Charlotte, doesn’t get to speak Irish very much anymore. When he’s home in Ireland, though, he often hears Irish words used in English conversations – for example, someone might say “buachaill maith” instead of using the expression “good boy” or “good man.” “It’s funny because there’s different dialect even throughout Ireland in Irish,” Power says. “You kind of pick up where they come from when they speak Irish.” Power’s first name is the Irish word for James while Liam is a shortened version of William and Sean is John. At the Olympics last year, Power even gave his American caddy John Rathouz an Irish name – Sean Teach Francach (the latter two words translate to house rat). While Power says he was a pretty good student of the Irish language, his best courses were math, chemistry and physics. He also has a keen interest in history and enjoys reading about World War I and World War II, as well as Irish, American and European affairs. “I read more history books than I do novels,” Power says. “When I finish a novel, it’s funny, but I feel like I didn’t really get much out of it where I feel like I’m always learning when I read a history book.” Irish history is particularly rich, dating back to the Stone Age. He doesn’t remember concentrating that much on the subject in high school but his interest has grown in recent years. “There’s so many significant time periods it’s unbelievable,” Power said. “When I came to the U.S. and went to history class, there was like two history classes, one was pre-1865 and one was post, and I was like, this is fantastic. “I remember back in Ireland, we started 10,000 B.C., when we started learning history and we go from there. … I didn’t study it particularly in school. I was okay. I never focused on it. “But in the last few years, I just always enjoyed it, I tried to learn some stuff, see what happened, see what the world could have been and the reason it is where it is now, that sort of stuff.” And the Irish language is a big part of that long history. “Ireland is very proud,” Power said with a smile. “Very stubborn history. So, language is something we would like to have, like to hang on. “We don’t always use it. If someone tried to take it away, everyone would be up in arms about it.”

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The final round is underway at Colonial Country Club. Here’s everything you need to know to follow Sunday’s action and see who claims the Charles Schwab Challenge title. Round 4 tee times Round 4 leaderboard HOW TO FOLLOW TELEVISION: Thursday-Friday, 4-7 p.m. ET (Golf Channel). Saturday-Sunday, 1-2:45 p.m. (GC), 3-6 p.m. (CBS). PGA TOUR LIVE: Thursday-Friday, 8 a.m.-7 p.m. (featured groups). Saturday-Sunday, 9 a.m.-3 p.m. (featured groups), 3-6 p.m. (featured holes). International subscribers (via GOLF.tv): Thursday-Friday, 12:00 to 23:00 GMT. Saturday-Sunday, 13:00 to 22:00. RADIO: Thursday-Friday, 1-7 p.m.; Saturday-Sunday, 1-6 p.m. (PGA TOUR Radio on SiriusXM and PGATOUR.com). FEATURED GROUPS Justin Rose, Matthew Fitzpatrick: 8:43 a.m. ET Jhonattan Vegas, Brian Stuard: 8:52 a.m. ET Francesco Molinari, Joaquin Niemann: 9:55 a.m. ET Jimmy Walker, Vaughn Taylor: 10:05 a.m. ET MUST READS Na stops walking in putts – and now he’s on the verge of winning Meet the chase pack at Colonial  Blixt hoping to reverse his weekend trend Low 60s become a habit for Na at Colonial Cancer scare gives Weekley big picture Burns quitting smokeless tobacco CALL OF THE DAY

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LOS ANGELES - Tyler McCumber is literally riding an agony and ecstasy rollercoaster as he continues to contend at The Genesis Invitational despite a smashed up left index finger that required emergency minor surgery to rip off his fingernail. McCumber jammed his hand in a window on Tuesday at his hotel and feared he had killed off his hopes of playing at Riviera Country Club in the process. He even booked a flight home to Florida, but a painful procedure by a PGA TOUR doctor allowed him to cancel the early exit and take his place in the field. Despite the discomfort McCumber opened the tournament with a tidy 4-under 67 and was six deep in his second round before a late fade resulted in a Friday 68 that left him 7 under and in third place as he signed his card. "I was coming out to the course and I went to open the windows to cool off the hotel room before I left, and I smashed it in a sliding window door right in the crevice. It went underneath the back of the nail bed and lifted half of the back of the nail up," McCumber said of his painful slip up on Tuesday. "It was pretty torn up, but fortunately the surgeon on site, the emergency surgeon is a hand specialist. Dr. Modabber. So he gave me the option, he said we can bandage it up, obviously you can’t play because it’s just too painful, or we can do a procedure where we just rip off the nail, but half of the nail is still intact." McCumber, who sits 44th in the FedExCup thanks mainly to a runner up finish at the Corales Puntacana Resort & Club Championship and a T6 at the Sanderson Farms Championship last fall, chose to go through the latter. He cut off the corresponding finger on his glove to facilitate play. Of course, being a millennial, the 29-year-old had the procedure filmed. "He numbed the finger and ripped off the nail. It’s pretty gnarly. I got a good video out of it. It’s pretty bad," he added. "Watching the video is almost more gross than in person. But he did a great job, he was very professional. He actually made the experience somewhat manageable. "Basically I was able to kind of see if I could hit balls that next day and I was (able to). I just kind of altered my glove and kept it on all day and putted with it on. It’s a lot less (pain) without the fingernail on there, but you can tell it’s just kind of bleeding all the way through this bandage. Thankfully Riviera will take your mind off the pain."

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