Wesley Bryan (left) and Sam Stevens (proper) had an adventurous journey to this week’s 3M Open.
Tim Heitman/Getty Photos
The entire world suffered technological points final weekend on account of a worldwide outage brought on by CrowdStrike, with 1000’s of flights being cancelled or delayed as tech techniques went down. PGA Tour professionals weren’t spared. Simply ask Wesley Bryan and Sam Stevens.
The 2 professionals didn’t qualify for final week’s Open Championship, so as a substitute they performed the opposite-field Barracuda Championship in Tahoe. They roomed collectively in Tahoe, and despite the fact that Bryan missed the lower, he determined to remain the weekend and hold with Stevens moderately than change his flight. With each gamers battling to make the FedEx Cup Playoffs, their subsequent vacation spot was the 3M Open midway throughout the nation in Minnesota.
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As soon as the match was carried out Sunday, they started their journey by airplane. However once they made it to Salt Lake Metropolis, the worldwide outage made its presence recognized. Proper earlier than they boarded their connecting flight, the flight was cancelled.
That’s when Bryan got here up with a daring concept: Why not hire a automotive and drive to TPC Twin Cities, which, as Bryan informed Golf Channel, is an 18-and-a-half hour drive?
Stevens was sport.
Whereas it’s straightforward to think about that lengthy of a highway journey shortly changing into a monotonous nightmare, it turned out very otherwise. In reality, Bryan mentioned the 2 professionals had “a blast.”
“I’ll be sincere, we had a good time. That was about as a lot enjoyable as I may have ever imagined,” Bryan informed Golf Channel throughout observe on the 3M Open. “It helped not having spouse and youngsters and making an attempt to determine tips on how to coordinate. So two grown males in a automotive for 20 hours, we had a blast.”
So how precisely did our featured golfers go the time within the automotive, which ended up being a stable 20 hours? Bryan detailed their actions, too, together with listening to some podcasts and stopping at quick meals eating places and vacationer sights alongside the way in which.
“There was plenty of telephone calls, we listened to plenty of reveals, we stopped at a pair main landmarks just like the Mitchell Corn Palace and Wall Drug in South Dakota. These have been good ones. Spent plenty of time in Wyoming. I don’t even suppose we stopped, however possibly for fuel one time in Wyoming. And hit a McDonald’s and a Hardy’s, after which had a lot enjoyable we forgot to eat dinner. So received right here round 1 a.m. this morning and realized I used to be starved. So I simply went to sleep as a substitute.”
Extremely, there’s one other twist on this story. When Bryan wakened after his lengthy highway journey, he discovered that his caddie’s spouse had gone into labor three-and-a-half weeks early, in accordance with Golf Channel, and he was pressured to discover a last-minute substitute.
However Bryan and Stevens weren’t the one Tour professionals who bumped into points attending to the 3M Open. A bunch of eight professionals, Chan Kim amongst them, additionally had their flights cancelled. However as a substitute of renting a automotive and driving to Minnesota, they grouped collectively a chartered a non-public jet to the 3M, as Golf Channel’s Brently Romaine reported on X.
With everybody lastly at TPC Twin Cities, the 3M Open is ready to get underway Thursday morning, July 25.
