Fieldstock. Was. Sick. It may have started slow when Moose didn’t even show up to the Phi Delt puppy party, but after spending an hour lost in the sweet, alternative and controversial tunes of campus band Ladies Night (“This isn’t parents weekend anymore”), the party finally began. Campus was absolutely electric due to the long-awaited return of Edward Wagner ’16 and Theta Delta Chi fraternity, Hank and Fish were far from immune to this excitement. We responded the only way we knew how: by going to Molly’s at 5 p.m. and taking a table selfie with our boys in order to celebrate Hank’s chess masters win over Daniel “King of Kings” Reitsch ’16.
Sure, the weekend wasn’t perfect. We didn’t score an invite to the perennial and legendary Montreal trip despite our tactful attempt to appeal to Psi Upsilon summer president Jai Lakhanpal ’16 by name-dropping him in last week’s column. However, welcoming back the Fifty team affectionately and disturbingly named “Riding the Pine” more than made up for Lakhanpal’s snub.
Fieldstock weekend saw its fair share of quality sports action as well. Venus beat Serena for the first time since 2009 in a three-set thriller, major decisions were handed down in NCAA lawsuits and there was some incredible extra-inning baseball action. However, nothing truly compared to the best final round of major golf in recent memory. This week’s Riding the Pine relives the drama in Valhalla and pays a sports blogger’s tribute to the “baby-faced killer,” Rory McIlroy.
After the first three rounds of the PGA Championship, the tournament was McIlroy’s to lose. On Sunday, he almost did just that. Coming off back-to-back wins at the British Open and Bridgestone Invitational, McIlroy held a one-stroke lead entering the final round over Bernd Wiesberger, a relative newcomer regarded by few as a legitimate Sunday threat.
A two-hour rain delay pushed the leaders’ final round into prime time. The delay may have played with McIlroy’s nerves as he faltered on the front nine and fell three strokes off the lead. The final nine holes of the tournament were a battle between McIlroy, Americans Phil “Lefty” Mickelson and Rickie Fowler and the Swede Henrik Stenson.
McIlroy began his charge on the par-five 10th. About 280 yards from the hole, McIlroy placed a three-wood drive on a dime, 7 feet from the hole. He slotted the eagle to climb back within one of the lead. McIlroy was dominant on Sunday’s back nine, birdieing the 13th and 17th on his way to a round of 68.
The rest of the field refused to go down without a fight, providing a final round to remember for the fans and McIlroy’s stiffest competition at the end of a major to date. Mickelson’s work around the greens was particularly on point, as he came within a lip of a chip-in birdie on the 16th hole. The tiny margin of error would come back to bite him as he two-putted the hole for an extremely costly bogey.
Entering the final hole, McIlroy held a commanding two-shot lead over Fowler and Mickelson. Only a Mickelson miracle or a McIlroy meltdown would prevent the “baby-faced killer” from hoisting the Wanamaker Trophy at day’s end. The golfers were rapidly running out of daylight and would have to blitz the final hole to finish before darkness suspended the tournament until Monday morning.
Mickelson and Fowler played the 18th well off the tee, putting themselves in legitimate eagle positions. Fowler reached the green in two, but Mickelson left his shot short and would need a chip-in eagle to have any real shot at a playoff. In typical Lefty fashion, he almost holed it. Fowler missed his 50-foot eagle putt and his birdie putt lipped, pushing him out of contention for first place.
After nearly missing his eagle, Mickelson easily dropped in the birdie, putting the pressure on McIlroy to par-out or playoff on Monday. McIlroy hit a wayward drive that nearly found the drink, and his approach shot wasn’t much better, crash-landing in a greenside bunker. A chip out of the bunker left him a birdie putt of about 35 feet to win. At this point, McIlroy possessed the option to delay play on the 18th to Monday, but he elected to attempt to two-putt the final hole in near darkness.
He slammed the first putt to within inches of the hole and didn’t leave a glimmer of hope for Mickelson. A tap-in handed McIlroy his fourth career major, his third consecutive win and golf its newest, brightest and most recently un-engaged superstar.
This has been a summer of self-discovery. There have been some laughs, countless friends refusing to nominate us for the ice bucket challenge and one major epiphany. We are golf guys. We may never win the free game at Fore-U, we may never even step foot on Hanover Country Club’s immaculate greens but we will blog about the royal and ancient game until our ashes are scattered at Augusta. At some point, this article became a far too honest ode to the sport of golf. Our love nearly impossible for us to rein in. We feel like hikers hallucinating at the end of the Fifty, but we haven’t moved one inch.
