Rory McIlroy, Dustin Johnson, Rickie Fowler and Matthew Wolff brought golf back Sunday. It wasn’t a perfect performance, but that it was a performance — and raised a lot of money — was what mattered most.
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Stewart Cink was a mess. It was the final round of the 2007 PGA Championship at Southern Hills in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Heat index: 109 degrees. Cink had been scripted to wear an orange shirt made of a synthetic, wicking material that breathed. It also reeked. An emergency call to his wife, Lisa, yielded a replacement shirt, which Cink changed into after ducking into a sweltering portable bathroom on the second hole. He left his toxic orange top behind. “Probably one of the top five grossest things I’ve ever left in a porta-john,� Cink says with a rueful smile. Welcome to summer on the PGA TOUR, where high-end sportswear can quickly morph into something best handled with salad tongs and a Hazmat suit. It is in this arena that the best players in the world and their caddies do whatever it takes to survive and even thrive. This week’s Quicken Loans National at TPC Potomac at Avenel Farm is expected to be warm but not unbearable, with a forecast of 77 degrees and 70 percent humidity for the opening round. Talk to enough players and the ’07 PGA at Southern Hills, won by Tiger Woods and merely survived by Cink and others, comes up repeatedly. This year has been no picnic, either. The average high temperature in Dublin, Ohio, for tournament time, is 78 degrees, but the mercury hit a steamy 90 early in the week at the Memorial Tournament presented by Nationwide. Temps topped out at 99 at the Fort Worth Invitational at Colonial, where the winner, Justin Rose, said he drank 15 to 20 bottles of water a day and never saw the inside of a restroom. Asked how he survived, Rose says, “I played in Jakarta last December and that was as hot as Texas. Actually, I won in both those climates, so I must not mind the heat. Maybe it’s my South African upbringing. It’s not the English one, that’s for sure.� The week before Rose won at Colonial, the high of 91 at the AT&T Byron Nelson at Trinity Forest, where Aaron Wise won, felt even hotter for the lack of shade. Earth-scorching heat around the world The story of Cink and his stinky shirt notwithstanding, summer heat is no joke. Chad Reynolds, Nick Watney’s caddie, suffered heat stroke in the first round of the 2012 CIMB Classic in Malaysia. He wound up taking an IV drip in the first-aid room while Watney’s wife, Amber, stepped in for the last hole. Watney used a local caddie for the second round before reuniting with Reynolds and shooting 65-61 to win the tournament. Michael Greller, Jordan Spieth’s caddie, had to relinquish the bag in the third round of the Fort Worth Invitational last season, when the heat index soared to 108. Chris Stroud and Chris Couch required medical attention at the sweltering 2012 AT&T National at Congressional Country Club, where several caddies, fans and others also struggled. Tennis players have it worse. For one thing, they run more, and for another, blast-furnace heat bounces off the court and right back up at them through their melting soles. Then again, sometimes golfers have it pretty bad. “I worked when it was 127 in Perth,� says longtime caddie Tony Navarro. It was the mid-1990s, and Navarro was working for Greg Norman at the Heineken Classic at the Vines Resort. “In the mornings the wind would blow out of the west,� Navarro says, “which is off the coast, and then at about 11:30 every day it would switch and come out of the east, which is nothing but about 2,300 miles of desert: dead, dry heat.� Having grown up in Moline, Illinois, home of the John Deere Classic, Navarro thought he was prepared. This time, however, the heat caught him off-guard. He had flown all night to get to the Vines, which meant Moline to Chicago, Chicago to Los Angeles, Los Angeles to Melbourne, and Melbourne to Perth. He’d been in his hotel room a half an hour when the phone rang. “C’mon,� Norman said. “We’re going to go play.’� It didn’t work out; a bleary Navarro had gotten through only around six holes when Norman looked into his eyes and demanded he give up the bag. The dogged, dazed caddie protested, but made it just one more hole before the Shark insisted he turn the bag over to a boy in the gallery. “I walked the rest of the course with an umbrella over my head,� Navarro says. “I hadn’t seen the golf course, and it was Tuesday. I didn’t come to Perth for a haircut.� Who says golfers aren’t tough? The toughest among them might be those indefatigable world travelers like Navarro, players and caddies who are no stranger to stifling, equatorial heat. “The hottest I’ve ever been on the golf course was this place called Kota Kinabalu,� says Asian Tour veteran Anirban Lahiri. “It’s a Malaysian territory, but it’s on the Java Island. It was probably like 100, 102, but it was like 98 percent humidity. “Same thing with Brunei,� Lahiri adds. “Just standing around the driving range, you’re wet. You haven’t even hit a ball. I don’t like playing in cotton; you have to have the right fabric or you’re always pulling it away from you to get some air. You also need clothing that doesn’t smell; certain types of materials get really stinky. I don’t mind the heat; I’ve always played well.� Hydration: The earlier the better Pat Perez and his caddie, Mike Hartford, believe Perez momentarily blacked out in the heat at the 2007 PGA at Southern Hills. He not only remained upright, he shot a final-round 68 to finish T18. Fast-forward to the CIMB Classic at TPC Kuala Lumpur last fall, where it was 90 degrees and thick with humidity, and Perez played lights-out, shooting 24 under for his third win. “I just walk slow when it’s really, really hot,� he says. Rickie Fowler had another strategy at the Fort Worth Invitational at Colonial, where he finished T14. “I carried a little hand towel around,� Fowler said, “to throw some ice and water on it to wipe the neck and face and try to trick the body into not getting too hot.� Experts say the best defense against the heat is early hydration. If you wait until you’re on the course to start bolting water, you could already be too late. Also, water isn’t always enough. “I use electrolyte powder,� Lahiri says. “I usually start hydrating like an hour before I go out to practice and play. A lot of times if you start hydrating three or four holes in, you’ve already lost it; you’re already behind and now it’s going to take your body longer to absorb it.� Troy Van Biezen, a Dallas-based trainer who works with Jordan Spieth and several other TOUR pros, agrees. “Once you’re behind the 8-ball,� he says, “it’s hard to catch up.� The worst sign of heat distress is when a player stops sweating. Then there’s the headaches, dizziness, and muscle-cramping. “I honestly seem to struggle in the heat,� says Adam Hadwin, who grew up outside Vancouver, Canada, in a climate he describes as temperate. “Not necessarily struggling playing, but I get headaches. I try to pop as many electrolytes as possible.� He also limits practice time and seeks out air conditioning wherever possible. The story of Ken Venturi at the 1964 U.S. Open at Congressional has become legend. Venturi’s temperature reached a potentially fatal 106 degrees midway through the sweltering, 36-hole final day, and he lay on the locker room floor as concerned doctors and tournament officials looked down at his seemingly lifeless body. To keep playing, it seemed, was to invite disaster. “I’ve come this far, and I’ve never been this close,� Venturi said. “I’m going to try.� Against the advice of doctors, he not only kept playing, he won. Heat stress isn’t always so obvious; one symptom is far less visible, but still costly. “You deplete a lot of Vitamin Bs when you sweat, and the B complexes are very important for cognitive thinking and decision-making,� Van Biezen says. “When you’re dehydrated, you’re not aware of it, but sometimes you just don’t make those right decisions, maybe on the 12th or 13th hole on a Sunday. With the dip in blood-glucose, the brain isn’t getting what it needs.� Enjoying the heat To avert such problems, Van Biezen says, he instructs his clients to ingest a hydration product with Vitamin B and amino acids both the night before and the morning of a round. Caddies are also reminded to push bottled water, often with electrolytes, every three or four holes, and the right foods and post-round recovery drinks are also important. It’s all become second nature for clients like Fowler. “Summers in South Florida are hot, too,� he says, “but I prefer the heat over the cold.� Louis Oosthuizen agrees. “I enjoy the heat,� he says. “My body is better; it’s sort of looser. When it’s really cold and windy, it gets tough. I don’t get the same turn.� Lahiri says he feels like he has an advantage in the heat in the same way that, say, Padraig Harrington might have an advantage in cooler weather. Rose stresses the importance of proper nutrition, and says he didn’t practice much after his rounds at Colonial in order to keep fresh. Meanwhile, Perez keeps to his strategy of slowing things down, if not actually swapping tops. “Nah, I don’t change shirts,� he says. “You’re sweating like hell again five minutes later. Why ruin two?�
Alex Myers discusses what makes the Patriots’ latest title run extra tough to watch for non-New Englanders.
