   
| Blog: Wednesday practice at THE PLAYERS  Editor's Note: The best players in the world are hitting THE PLAYERS Stadium Course to get in some practice before THE PLAYERS Championship begins on Thursday. PGATOUR.com Interactive Producer T.J. Auclair is there with them and he's filing a blog all day long to keep you close to the action. All times are eastern. 
11:42 a.m. -- The rain has reached the steadiest and heaviest it's been since first thing this morning. I'm running to take cover. Looks like this will be hanging around for a while. 11:40 a.m. -- Several TOUR players will be sporting pink spikes this weekend for Mother's Day. CHAMP will make a donation to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation (BCRF) on behalf of each player who agrees to participate. Among others, the current list includes: Mark Calcavecchia 11:24 a.m. -- Right now I'm paying a visit to PGATOUR.com's LIVE@ booth behind the 17th tee, where live coverage of 17 will be provided all week long. What a set up. The booth is located just to the left of the tee box and looks right out at the green -- the perfect vantage point from which to take in the action. I may need to sneak back in here at some point later this week. It's like having the most famous hole in golf in your living room! 11:12 a.m. -- My final thought on the caddie challenge is this -- if the caddies used water-absorbing golf balls when they hit their shots on 17, the green would be an island surrounded by NO water once the tournament starts on Thursday. 10:59 a.m. -- Anthony Kim's caddie Ron Levin just knocked his tee shot to 17 feet and holed the birdie putt. These caddies can play! Actually, maybe they can't. A graphic just appeared on the monster screen behind the tee. Of the 35 caddie shots here this morning, 24 have found the water. 10:40 a.m. - After spending some time on the range, it dawned on me - today is the caddie challenge day at 17! So, here I am, back at what I consider the single most exciting hole in golf. Long story short: Each year during Wednesday's practice round, players put together a pot and then their caddie gets to tee off and try to hit the island green. Rumor has it that the caddie who gets closest to the hole takes the pot and has bragging rights for a year. The first group on the tee when I arrived a few minutes ago was J.J. Henry, Chad Campbell and Rod Pampling. Pampling's caddie was the only one to hit the green and followed it by holing his 20-footer from below the hole for a spectacular birdie - one he'll never forget. 10:27 a.m. -- Paul Azinger and Bubba Watson are clowning around in a bunker on the short-game area of the range. They're doing impressions of various players, including Vijay Singh, by digging their feet deep into the bunker and getting their hands real low. Looks like Zinger should stick to his own bunker game. Playing the role of Vijay, he just sent two ankle-biters zipping through the green. He and Bubba both got a kick out of it. Unfortunately, the fans aren't close enough to hear parts of the conversation, so they're probably thinking Zinger needs to jump back in the bunker and work things out. I'm pretty sure he'll be OK. 9:55 a.m. -- It looks like the threatening weather must be scaring people away from the course. Usually the range is a great place to be during the practice rounds, but there aren't a whole lot of people out here now. The sun is trying to peek through the clouds behind the clubhouse, but isn't winning that battle just yet. I touched on it a number of times yesterday, but the new clubhouse here is just incredible. It looks like a mirage. Today -- I'm assuming it's because of the weather -- there's a "blue" carpet rolled out with the PLAYERS logo. Heading into that unbelievable facility is like walking down the red carpet at a movie premiere. Just as I finished typing that last sentence the sun did break through a bit. Maybe -- shoot, hopefully -- it's not losing that battle to the clouds after all. 9:46 a.m. -- The heavy rain seems to have pushed away for now and it's been reduced to an annoying pattering. The driving range is half-full and there are about 10 players on the practice green closest to the clubhouse. Brett Quigley just walked through a crowd to get back up to the clubhouse from the range. He had an ear-to-ear smile like a proud father would as he heard fans congratulating him on the birth of his daughter, who was born during Masters week. He said, "she's unbelievable." 8:55 a.m. -- I just ran into a photographer friend, who -- coincidentally -- was running into the media center to take cover from the rain. "So were you shooting Tiger?" I asked. "He's done, man," my friend said. "He bounced around and just played 1, 2, 3, 10, 16, 17 and 18." Tiger was out most of the day on Tuesday, so maybe he's resting up for what will be a tough week on this brutal layout. 8:44 a.m. -- Weather update - it's still raining. Not as bad as it was just a little while ago, but I've done some investigating (thank you, Weather Channel). Looks like it's going to get worse before it gets better. We're expecting showers all day long with temperatures in the low 70s, before the thunderstorms roll in late in the day. The extended forecast calls for scattered thunderstorms throughout the week with temperatures rising into the high 80s. For your PLAYERS Championship weather team, I'm T.J. Auclair. 8:15 a.m. --There's quite a difference between Tuesday morning and this morning - specifically, rather than hanging out with Tiger on the 10th tee I'm sitting in the media center, looking out the window at a torrential downpour. I'm not sure how long this weather will last, but it's almost as dark as it was at 8:30 last night. It's just nasty out there and certainly not the conditions the world's best players wanted to have to deal with on the eve of one of the biggest tournaments in golf. I'm staying dry for right now, but hope to be back out there for you soon. |
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