Wesley Bryan (left) and Sam Stevens (proper) had an adventurous journey to this week’s 3M Open.
Tim Heitman/Getty Images
The complete world suffered technological points final weekend due to a world outage brought on by CrowdStrike, with hundreds of flights being cancelled or delayed as tech techniques went down. PGA Tour pros weren’t spared. Just ask Wesley Bryan and Sam Stevens.
The two pros 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 regardless that Bryan missed the reduce, he determined to keep the weekend and cling with Stevens somewhat 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.
3M Open betting information: 4 picks our knowledgeable loves this week
Brady Kannon
Once the event was performed Sunday, they started their journey by aircraft. But once they made it to Salt Lake City, the worldwide outage made its presence recognized. Right earlier than they boarded their connecting flight, the flight was cancelled.
That’s when Bryan got here up with a daring thought: Why not hire a automotive and drive to TPC Twin Cities, which, as Bryan told Golf Channel, is an 18-and-a-half hour drive?
Stevens was recreation.
While it’s simple to think about that lengthy of a road trip shortly changing into a monotonous nightmare, it turned out very in a different way. In truth, Bryan stated the 2 pros had “a blast.”
“I’ll be honest, we had a great time. That was about as much fun as I could have ever imagined,” Bryan told Golf Channel throughout follow on the 3M Open. “It helped not having wife and kids and trying to figure out how to coordinate. So two grown men in a car 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 strong 20 hours? Bryan detailed their actions, too, together with listening to some podcasts and stopping at quick meals eating places and vacationer points of interest alongside the best way.
“There was a lot of phone calls, we listened to a lot of shows, we stopped at a couple major landmarks like the Mitchell Corn Palace and Wall Drug in South Dakota. Those were good ones. Spent a lot of time in Wyoming. I don’t even think we stopped, but maybe for gas one time in Wyoming. And hit a McDonald’s and a Hardy’s, and then had so much fun we forgot to eat dinner. So got here around 1 a.m. this morning and realized I was starved. So I just went to sleep instead.”
Incredibly, there’s one other twist on this story. When Bryan awoke after his lengthy road trip, he realized that his caddie’s spouse had gone into labor three-and-a-half weeks early, in accordance to Golf Channel, and he was compelled to discover a last-minute substitute.
But Bryan and Stevens weren’t the one Tour pros who bumped into points getting to the 3M Open. A bunch of eight pros, Chan Kim amongst them, additionally had their flights cancelled. But as a substitute of renting a automotive and driving to Minnesota, they grouped collectively a chartered a personal jet to the 3M, as Golf Channel’s Brently Romaine reported on X.
With everybody lastly at TPC Twin Cities, the 3M Open is about to get underway Thursday morning, July 25.
