• “That’s what Australian James Nitties did in the opening round of the $1 million ISPS Handa Vic Open. His 8-under 64 equalled the course record over the Beach course at 13th Beach Golf Club in Geelong, Australia, and helped him into joint second place with five players, two shots behind countryman Nick Flanagan.”

• “Nitties made history by becoming the first player in European Tour history to officially make nine consecutive birdies in one round. Austrian Bernd Weisberger had nine straight birdies in the 2017 Maybank Championship, but an asterisk marks that feat since preferred lies were in operation.”

• And on the women’s side…”England’s Felicity Johnson leads the concurrent women’s tournament by two shots on 8 under par.”

• “On Wednesday, in a joint statement, the organizations stated”

• “The purpose of Rule 10.2 is to reinforce the fundamental challenge of making a stroke and to limit the advice and other help a player may receive during a round. Rule 10.2b(4) ensures that aiming at the intended target is a challenge that the player must overcome alone.”

• “In Dubai last month, Haotong Li fell foul of the rule while lining up a putt on the 18th green, and at last week’s Waste Management Phoenix Open, Denny McCarthy was penalized under rule 10.2b, after his caddie aligned him prior to an approach shot. That penalty was later rescinded as McCarthy had backed off to reset after his caddie had aligned him, and in future, resetting will prevent any potential punishment.”

• “Kenny and I have been together for 13 years, and he’s never lined me up. It’s not part of our routine, but the fear factor that comes in when you’re not trying to get any sort of advantage is difficult.”

• And…”Chesson Hadley shared the fear that he and his caddie, Josh Svendsen, could inadvertently violate the alignment rule. After watching what happened to McCarthy last week, Hadley laid out his own new rule with Svendsen.”

• “He’s never lined me up, but I’ve pretty much told him not to be behind me at any time during a round of golf,” Hadley said.

• “Hadley said Wednesday’s clarifications won’t change his new rule….”It’s still the same: `Don’t be behind me. Ever. Don’t walk behind me. Don’t do anything behind me.'”

• “In the CEO department, Comcast’s Brian Roberts is the heaviest hitter in the field, paired with Ryan Palmer. Meanwhile, Randall Stephenson, his main competition for media dominance and the tournament’s sponsorship host, is sitting out this year. Toyota CEO Jim Lentz gets to play with Jason Day this year and not coincidentally, Day is an ambassador for Lentz’s Lexus brand. Wells Fargo CEO Tim Sloan is the most prominent banker, while Siemens CEO Lisa Davis and Condoleezza Rice are the most prominent female leaders teeing it up. Tournament regulars like Kohler Co. CEO David Kohler, Charles Schwab, Jimmy Dunne and the Pebble Beach Company’s Heidi Ueberroth are also entered.”
• “From the tech world, investor and Mark Cuban business partner Todd Wagner is playing with J.B. Holmes, while Apple’s Eddy Cue drew Michael Kim as a partner. And Workday CEO Aneel Bhusri, who flirted with sponsoring a new Steph Curry-backed PGA Tour stop in San Francisco, is paired with Brandt Snedeker.”

• “I know sometimes after I’ve hit the ball I sometimes will the ball to go in the hole and in my mind I feel like that helps the ball go in the hole, so I’m going to keep doing that this week,..And I feel like in my mind the way I move my body, sometimes it feels like I have remote control that wills the ball to go in the hole, so I’m going to keep doing that, because I feel like it helps.”

• “I personally love my swing…I didn’t start golf until I was in my late 20s, so technically I didn’t take any lessons growing up. But regarding flexibility or anything like that, I might not have as much compared to the other tour players, but I do what I can with what I have. And also with the advancement in technology and with how far these players are hitting it nowadays I needed to find my own unique way to get that extra distance. And by hitting it hard and by swinging hard I was able to swing the way I do right now, so that might result in to how I’m swinging it.”

• “I couldn’t tell you since last October, years before that, a day I went without having a drink,” Mediate said. “I knew at the time that eventually it was going to get me.”

• “Mediate’s trophies spanned generations, winning for the first time at Doral in 1991 and for the sixth time at the 2010 Safeway Open. He has added three more victories since turning 50, including the 2016 Senior PGA Championship. But Mediate is perhaps best known for finishing second, having lost to Tiger Woods in a memorable playoff at the 2008 U.S. Open.”

• “Mediate struggled with back injuries throughout his career, and he admitted to drinking as a way to cope with the pain – including, at times, during competition.”

• “Absolutely I have (played while drinking). Because it was just normal for me. It was just a daily ritual, let’s say,” Mediate said. “You can put it in a lot of places. A lot of places. Was it every time? No. But most of the time when the pain came in, it wasn’t not going to happen.”

• Golf Channel’s Jason Crook…”While in New York fulfilling various media obligations in advance of his PGA Championship title defense, Koepka sat down with Danny Kanell on Sirius XM radio, and of course the pace-of-play issue came up.”

• “It is frustrating. There’s a lot of slow players, a lot of them are kind of the very good players, too, which is kind of the problem,” Koepka said. “I think it’s weird how we have rules where we have to make sure it’s dropping from knee height or the caddie can’t be behind you and then they also have a rule where you have to hit it in 40 seconds, but that one’s not enforced. You enforce some but you don’t enforce the others.”

• “[Slow players are] breaking the rules but no one ever has the balls to actually penalize them,” he added.

It’s appropriate, though, to include that article, as it is (as is so often the case) a superb summation of her life.

• A portion…“Their courses were generally known as Pete Dye designs, but Alice provided significant input, and her husband usually took her advice.”

• “Their signature hole was the 17th at TPC Sawgrass, the home of the Players Championship. When Pete was unsure how to fill in sandy terrain he had hollowed out around the green for transfer to other spots on the course, Alice provided the solution.”

• “Originally, the water was just supposed to come into play on the right side, but we just kept digging,” the Golf Channel quoted Mr. Dye as saying. “And then one day Alice came out and said, ‘Why don’t you just go ahead and make it an island?’ So we did.”

• “That green, connected to the rest of the course by a slender land bridge, has tormented even the world’s greatest golfers and become one of the most recognized images in the sport.”

• “When they were building the Ocean Course on Kiawah Island in 1990, Ms. Dye persuaded her husband to raise the fairways to harmonize them with the environment.”

• “Pete, I can’t see the ocean on the back nine,” she said, as related by The New York Times. “I don’t just want to hear it; I want to see it.”

• “Mr. Dye raised the fairways by six feet so that the ocean came into view. But that created an added challenge by exposing the course to unpredictable, sometimes strong winds.”

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