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Luke Donald apologized Sunday for criticizing golf course architect Gil Hanse in a tweet that was meant to be private.
Donald made bogey on the par-5 18th hole at the TPC Boston, where Hanse reconfigured the green to make it smaller and feature severe slopes off the edges. Donald thought he was sending a direct message Saturday, but instead the tweet went public.
First, he published his cell phone number. His next tweet said, “Gil Hanse is a (weenie). Haha.”
OK, so he didn’t type weenie, but you get the idea.
Within minutes, Donald realized his mistake and deleted both tweets. By then, a few bloggers had captured them and posted them on the Internet, leading Donald to issue an apology to Hanse.
Hanse, who was selected to design the Olympic golf course in Rio for the 2016 Games, took no offense.
“No apology was needed,” Hanse said. “I realize it was supposed to be private. Everything’s cool.”
Equally tough on Donald was sending his cell phone number out on Twitter. Asked how many phone calls he received, Donald smiled and said, “I shut my phone off, actually. It was ringing pretty hard. Probably a new number is in store for me. That’s what I deserve.”
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If the Big 12 ever wants to expand to 12 members again, the league’s powerbrokers might want to take a look at poaching a couple schools from the Missouri Valley Conference.
Of course, Kansas and Kansas State might quickly object.
Both of them had to work against schools from the Football Championship Subdivision in their season openers Saturday. They weren’t alone, either: Wisconsin had to make a late defensive stand to beat Northern Iowa, Indiana State took Indiana to the brink, and Pittsburgh was embarrassed by Youngstown State in Paul Chryst’s debut as Panthers coach.
Yes, it was a banner day for the Missouri Valley, a league better known for its hoops but one with 11 football wins against members of BCS conferences since 2000.
“They might not be big-name schools, but you can’t sleep on them,” Kansas State defensive back Nigel Malone said shortly after the No. 22 Wildcats rattled off 35 fourth-quarter points to beat Missouri State 51-9 on Saturday night.
