The Loop
PGA Tour pro's last-minute Pebble Beach invite goes to waste when he gets stuck overnight in airport
Sam Greenwood
Earlier in the week, we brought you the story of Jonathan Byrd, whose travel troubles actually wound up benefitting the PGA Tour veteran. Byrd planned on playing in Panama on the Web.com Tour this week until he forgot to bring his passport to the airport, and hours after turning around, a spot had opened up for him at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am. But life as a PGA Tour pro—especially one with alternate status—isn't all happy endings. Enter Tommy Gainey.
The golfer best known as "Two Gloves" (Yes, he wears two golf gloves) and for winning Golf Channel's Big Break reality TV show before eventually winning on the PGA Tour also got a late invite this week to Pebble Beach, where there has been a rash of withdrawals. Unfortunately, Tommy never wound up making it there, though, his golf gloves and everything else did.
On Wednesday night, Gainey tweeted that after rushing to the airport and getting to Atlanta, he missed his connecting flight out West.
And on Thursday morning, Gainey confirmed he was unable to make his Thursday 8:44 a.m. local tee time at Pebble and that he wound up spending the night in the Atlanta airport for nothing.
Poor guy. Although, if you're going to be stranded in an airport, you could do a lot worse than Atlanta. That place is huge and has every chain restaurant you can think of.
Anyway, our condolences to Tommy, who seemed to handle his travel ordeal really well, especially for someone who has only gotten into one PGA Tour event thus far this season. Let's just hope he gets his luggage back quickly.
UPDATE: The PGA Tour made Gainey's withdrawal official with this tweet:
We're assuming Rollins isn't in Atlanta, too.