“Epic fail.”
“Catastrophe.”
“Debacle.”
“S***present.”
That’s how followers who truly made it to Robert Trent Jones Golf Membership on Friday morning described their shuttle expertise attending to the course. For the remainder of the 1000’s of followers nonetheless standing in line on the Jiffy Lube Stay parking zone as of mid-morning native time, we’ll have to attend properly into the afternoon to listen to what phrases they use to recount their journey. That’s in the event that they haven’t given up and gone residence out of frustration – an inexpensive plan of action while you’re locked out of the moveable restrooms when you wait.
What a nightmare https://t.co/8HVtjAShha
— Fried Egg Golf (@fried_egg_golf) September 13, 2024
Mannnnn it is a brutal scenario for followers … look how many individuals are in line making an attempt to get in! https://t.co/9WPed4beyv
— Shane Bacon (@shanebacon) September 13, 2024
Let’s rewind a number of hours to earlier than dawn on the first tee. I visited the grandstands shortly after 6:00 am and located only a couple hundred followers of their seats. Extra alarming was that the staircases had been utterly empty. Nobody was streaming into the first-come, first-serve stands to assert their spot at one of the best theater in girls’s golf.
Issues then went from unhealthy to worse. It shortly grew to become clear that the primary tee ambiance can be severely missing when two of probably the most recognizable faces within the recreation, Nelly Korda and Charley Hull, led off the proceedings simply after 7 a.m. native time. Studies from these a number of miles away who arrived on the shuttle web site in what ought to have been loads of time to see the primary teams tee off shared that they’d barely moved in any respect.
It’s lower than 25 minutes till the primary group tees off. There are complete sections of the stands which might be empty. Transportation catastrophe. pic.twitter.com/SWVBRKuKpT
— Fried Egg Golf (@fried_egg_golf) September 13, 2024
“Clearly you discover that the stands aren’t full, however what issues is everyone seems to be out right here now cheering for us loud,” Korda stated after closing out a gap level for the USA facet within the morning foursomes session.
Shortly after 9:00 a.m. native, the LPGA despatched out the next assertion:
We acknowledge and deeply apologize to all followers affected by the challenges with shuttling from parking to the golf course. We’ve made vital modifications to our transportation system to mitigate these points shifting ahead, and we’re engaged on methods to specific our remorse to these impacted.
Primarily based on the temper (which may solely be described as mad as hell) of the dozen or so followers I spoke to this morning, these phrases gained’t do a lot of something to ease their frustrations. A bunch of older girls utilizing their moveable seats for help whereas getting into the course stated they gained’t be returning tomorrow. The harm has been carried out, and the LPGA, by its personal hand, has one way or the other managed to possibly even shrink its fan base at its greatest occasion of the yr. An wildly spectacular feat on a morning that must be a stain on the group into the long run.
Dropping followers throughout what must be a celebration of the game is de facto one thing else https://t.co/gq4nlCfdJx
— Meg Adkins (@megadkins_TFE) September 13, 2024