Latest news with #SubAir
The Hindu
17-05-2025
- Sport
- The Hindu
RCB vs KKR, IPL 2025: Chinnaswamy Stadium drainage system in focus with rain threat over Bengaluru vs Kolkata match
As IPL 2025 gears up for resumption following a brief suspension, the encounter between Royal Challengers Bengaluru and Kolkata Knight Riders on May 17 is under threat of disruption with several weather forecasts predicting severe rains in Bengaluru. What happens if the RCB vs KKR game is washed out? RCB is currently placed second on the IPL 2025 points table with 16 points from 11 matches. If the game against KKR is abandoned, RCB will gain a solitary point and move one step closer to qualification for the Playoff stage. Mathematically, the side requires one win to seal a top-four spot. A point will not be enough to sustain KKR's slim chances of making it through. The side will be two points away from the top four with only one game left to play. How good is Chinnaswamy's drainage system? The Chinnaswamy Stadium is renowned for its high-quality drainage system, considered the best in the country. The SubAir system can prepare the ground for play just 15 minutes after the rain stops, no matter how heavy it has been. The sub-surface aeration and vacuum-powered drainage system, built by SubAir Systems, was introduced in 2017 and can evacuate water from the ground at a rate of 10,000 litres per minute. The system's effectiveness was evident in the 2023 IPL season, when RCB and Gujarat Titans completed a full match despite heavy rain. 'The ICC delegation [ahead of the 2023 ODI World Cup] that visited the stadium was most impressed with the SubAir system. Even a big puddle disappears in seconds; it works like magic,' said KSCA vice president B.K. Sampath Kumar last year. The system was built at a total cost of around Rs. 4.25 crore, with around 4.5 kilometres of pipe length being put into use.
Yahoo
15-05-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Scottie Scheffler frustrated by mud balls, rules at PGA Championship
Scottie Scheffler is the best iron player on the PGA Tour, with a laser-like precision that's the envy of just about every tour pro in the game. He can hit it high, low, left or right with brutal consistency — which is why he leads the tour in Strokes Gained: Approach the Green. Compared to the average PGA Tour pro, Scheffler is 1.22 shots better over 18 holes. That adds up to nearly five strokes over a 72-hole tournament. That's why it was clear something went wrong when he hit his second shot on No. 16 Thursday at the 2025 PGA Championship. From the middle of the fairway, 221 yards from the hole with an iron in his hand, Scheffler played a shot that he typically hits to within 44 feet of the cup. But this time, the ball flew past the flag, drifted left, bounced off the slope behind the green and into the pond — leading to a double bogey. Advertisement Scheffler finished the day with a 2-under 69, but the Texan made it known that the circumstances surrounding that shot, and others at Quail Hollow Club on Thursday, bothered him. "I hit in the middle of the fairway, then you've got mud on your ball, and it's tough to control where it goes after that,' Scheffler said. Heavy rain on Monday and Tuesday in Charlotte softened the course. And while the SubAir system did a strong job keeping the greens firm and fast, the fairways remained soft as the first round began Thursday morning. Scottie Scheffler Thursday at the PGA Championship at Quail Hollow Country Club. What are rules for preferred lies (lift, clean, place)? At week-to-week PGA Tour events, officials often allow players to compete under 'preferred lies.' That means if a player's shot comes to rest in the fairway or on the green, the player can mark the ball's position, lift it, clean it and place it back down in the same spot. Soft fairways can lead to mud collecting on the ball, randomly penalizing players even after good shots. Advertisement Golf purists tend to oppose preferred lies and insist that players play the ball as it lies. In their view, random tough breaks are part of the game — and even out over 72 holes. To clarify its stance, the PGA of America notified players on Wednesday that they would be 'playing the ball down.' In other words, no preferred lies. When Scheffler was asked about the decision, he didn't hold back. 'I think when you're looking at the purest forms of golf, like if you're going to go play links golf, there's absolutely no reason on a links golf course you should play the ball up,' he said. 'It doesn't matter how much rain they get. The course could be flooded under water and the ball is still going bounce somehow because of the way the turf is and the ground underneath the turf. In American golf it's significantly different. When you have overseeded fairways that are not sand capped, there's going to be a lot of mud on the ball, and that's just part of it. When you think about the purest test of golf, I don't personally think that hitting the ball in the middle of the fairway you should get punished for. On a golf course as good of conditioned as this one is, this is probably a situation in which it would be the least likely difference in playing it up because most of the lies you get out here are all really good.' Scottie Scheffler plays a shot on the 11th hole during the first round of the 2025 PGA Championship at Quail Hollow Club. Scheffler reiterated that he doesn't make the rules and said he was proud of how well he competed given the tough conditions. But he also pointed out that people who have strong opinions about preferred lies may not fully grasp the situation. Advertisement "I understand how a golf purist would be, 'Oh, play it as it lies.' But I don't think they understand what it's like literally working your entire life to learn how to hit a golf ball and control it and hit shots and control distance, and all of a sudden due to a rules decision that is completely taken away from us by chance.' What does mud do to a golf ball? Mud on a golf ball does more than make it look dirty. It creates asymmetrical drag. If there's mud on the left side of the ball, it tends to veer right in the air — and vice versa — because the clean side of the ball moves faster through the air. The actual result can vary depending on the amount of mud, the club used and how much the ball is spinning. 'Like I said, I don't make the rules. I deal with what the rules decisions are," Scheffler said. 'I could have let that bother me today when you got a mud ball and it cost me a couple shots. It cost me possibly two shots on one hole, and if I let that bother me, it could cost me five shots the rest of the round. But today I was proud of how I stayed in there, didn't let it get to me and was able to play some solid golf — on a day in which I was a bit all over the place — and still post a score.' This article originally appeared on Golfweek: Scottie Scheffler frustrated mud balls rules 2025 PGA Championship
Yahoo
15-05-2025
- Climate
- Yahoo
PGA Championship 2025: Weather drastically improves, no preferred lies in Round 1
After enduring roughly 5 inches of rain in the last 10 days, including downpours this week, Thursday offers a much brighter forecast for the start of the 107th PGA Championship. Temperatures are expected to reach the mid-80s with winds blowing up to 15 mph — and no rain at Quail Hollow Club in Charlotte, North Carolina. There will also be no preferred lies. PGA officials said Wednesday that the field will play the ball as it lies in the fairway. Quail Hollow is equipped with a SubAir system.
NBC Sports
15-05-2025
- Climate
- NBC Sports
PGA Championship 2025: Weather drastically improves, no preferred lies in Round 1
After enduring roughly 5 inches of rain in the last 10 days, including downpours this week, Thursday offers a much brighter forecast for the start of the 107th PGA Championship. Temperatures are expected to reach the mid-80s with winds blowing up to 15 mph — and no rain at Quail Hollow Club in Charlotte, North Carolina. Thursday weather forecast for the PGA Championship There will also be no preferred lies. PGA officials said Wednesday that the field will play the ball as it lies in the fairway. Quail Hollow is equipped with a SubAir system.
NBC Sports
14-05-2025
- Sport
- NBC Sports
At PGA, Quail Hollow's challenge remains the same: Hit it like Rory
No matter how thick the rough grows. No matter how long they run the SubAir. No matter how many tickets are sold or chalets placed around the property, which has been stretched out to 7,626 yards for this 107th PGA Championship. To Rory McIlroy, Quail Hollow Club is still Quail Hollow Club, the annual PGA Tour stop where he's won four times, including last year's five-stroke romp at the Truist Championship. 'I thought it was going to feel different just because it was a major championship, and I got out on the golf course yesterday, and it felt no different than last year at the Wells Fargo,' said McIlroy, so familiar with Quail that he refers to the Truist by its previous name. 'The rough is maybe a little juicier. But fairways are still the same cut lines and same visuals. It doesn't feel that much different.' The test that Quail demands remains simple though hard to master if one doesn't possess the proper gears. McIlroy is supercharged under the hood, ranking third on the PGA Tour in driving distance, second-best in this field behind Niklas Norgaard, and first in strokes gained off the tee, ahead of world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler. That helps explain why he's been impervious to Quail's defenses, carrying bunkers with mammoth drives and giving himself plenty of wedges and short irons around this property, nearly 200 yards longer than it was last year. 'I would argue he's the best driver of the ball I've ever seen, and that is extremely important here,' said Justin Thomas, the winner the last time the PGA came to Quail, in 2017 (McIlroy tied for 22nd that week, though that was a year in which he went winless for the first time in his pro career and struck out mightily in the playoffs). 'I think his shot shape, I think this golf course fits a high draw really, really well,' Thomas continued. 'There's a lot of tee shots, whether it's holding fairways or fitting doglegs, taking bunkers out of play, whatever it is. When he's on, he has such control of that driver, it seems like he can hit it in a window and an area that some guys are trying to hit short irons. That's a tremendous advantage or threat at any golf course, but I feel like a place like this, where it doesn't necessarily require a lot of thought or strategy off the tee, it's generally pulling out driver and just I need to hit this as far and straight as possible, and he's really, really good at that.' Scheffler, the betting favorite over McIlroy according to some oddsmakers, echoed that thought: 'On this golf course, with it being so big, it's a little bit easier just to step on the tee box and pretty much every hole is a driver. Outside of that off the tee, there's not really a bunch of strategy stuff you can do.' And Bryson DeChambeau, another big basher: 'Considering the wetness and everything, I'm just going to go out to the driving range and use the Foresight to see how far the golf ball goes.' Options are indeed scare at Quail, especially tee to green. Unlike those classic U.S. Open venues or even last week's Truist substitute Philadelphia Cricket Club, where undulating greens and mounding negated much of the fact that the Tillinghast design measured just over 7,100 yards, angles are mostly an afterthought. As Lucas Glover said in an interview a few days ago, everyone, for the most part, will be hitting it to the same spots around Quail. Because of that, there's probably little that Kerry Haigh, the PGA's chief championships officer, can do to drastically alter the monotony that is Quail. Haigh was asked what the setup team was trying to accomplish this week in terms of setting up the golf course, which has undergone some recent work that has added several new tees, removed some 100 trees and softened 12 greens while resurfacing all of them. It's not a great sign when Johnson Wagner, a former Tour pro turned Golf Channel analyst and a longtime Quail member, says, 'We haven't necessarily made the golf course better when we've made the changes.' It's not encouraging either that Haigh started with the company line: 'Every PGA Championship, we challenge all of our staff to make this one the greatest championship we've ever held.' Thankfully, the reporter interjected: 'By doing what?' 'Making it so that you, the media, enjoy it, the players enjoy it, the caddies enjoy it, spectators enjoy it, and the TV viewers enjoy it,' responded Haigh, still missing the point. A third try followed: 'I need to be more clear. I wasn't talking about our parking. I was thinking more about the golf course. Exactly what kind of test are you trying to present, and how do you go about it?' Haigh mentioned the overseed, a change from eight years ago when this championship was played in August on a freshly redesigned Quail with four drastically different holes and wall-to-wall Bermudagrass. He added that the rough, cut to 2¾ inches on Saturday, likely won't be cut again this week – and with several inches of rain having fallen already, mowing elsewhere will be limited until things dry up. Despite the weather challenges, Quail remains pristinely manicured. 'It's a beautiful golf course,' Haigh said. 'It's a great challenge. We try and set the rough up so that players can play, but there's a penalty if you do go in there. Set it up, the tees, and there's some wonderful short par-4s that you have opportunity, some long par-3s, and that is what setting up a golf course is. There are so many aspects to it. Let's try and bring out the very best in all of those on a magnificent golf course.' Longer holes and firm, new greens with less slope? Over and over again? To be fair, that will likely get us a highly ranked champion, whether it be McIlroy, Scheffler or another superstar, maybe every single one of them, who can launch driver, hit towering irons and do so with less club, all prerequisites for success in this modern game. No wonder many top Tour pros have loved Quail's transformation from the quirky, rye-bent test it used to be a decade ago. 'There's a number of great golf courses that we play, and this is one of them,' Jordan Spieth said. 'There's no faking it.' When Thomas won here in 2017, he led the field in driving distance, but he was also fourth in strokes gained putting. Francesco Molinari, Patrick Reed and Louis Oosthuizen, none of whom will be confused with prime John Daly, tied for second while Kevin Kisner, the guy who said he has absolutely no chance at Torrey Pines, held the 54-hole lead. Then there's last year, where McIlroy raced past skilled drivers Schauffele and Ben An, but also where rollers Denny McCarthy and Mac Hughes tied for sixth. Sure, anybody has the potential to contend if they absolutely bring it. But over the course of 72 holes, Quail will eventually wear most players down by brute force. Major pressure will do the rest of the work in whittling down this field to just a handful of powerful guys. 'It's just long,' Viktor Hovland said when asked why Quail's 'Green Mile,' also known as Nos. 16-18, is so difficult. '… This course doesn't allow you to hide.' Unless, of course, you hit it like Rory or Scottie or Bryson, then you could run away like McIlroy did last year. The only difference this time is the winner will receive the Wanamaker.
