When Adam Schenk woke up Monday morning, he packed his clothes, said goodbye to his dog and walked out the door with his wife as he began his journey to the Bermuda Championship. This travel routine is a near-weekly affair for pro golfers, and Schenk is no rookie. At age 30, he has been traversing the globe since he left college in 2015, and a long day of travel is nothing new.
However, on this day, things were a little different. As Schenk made his final walkthrough of the home, he skipped over one crucial part of the packing process — loading up his clubs in the car.
“We packed our car at 5 a.m. or so and we went inside to say goodbye to our dog, Bunker,” Schenk said. “[I] walked right past the clubs that were packed in the garage. Showed up at the airport and opened the trunk and they weren’t there. My wife and I looked at each other and like, well, I guess we’ve got to go back.”
Pro golfers might be travel pros, but even they have the occasional snafu. This one just happened to involve forgetting the most important tool for a golfer: the clubs.
To make matters worse, Schenk’s destination isn’t exactly the most easily accessible location on the PGA Tour schedule. Each day only sees a few flights come and go from the tiny island, and Schenk (obviously) missed his.
“We were looking for flights, which was a nightmare,” Schenk said. “Obviously it’s tough to get here, not many flights in and out, but found a Jet Blue flight that got me here Wednesday and then one opened up, a direct flight from Boston on Tuesday, so we ended up booking that one.”
Fortunately for Schenk, his string of bad luck ended there. After a delayed arrival, he opened the tournament in bogey-free fashion, posting 63 on Thursday. He followed it with a 66 in Round 2 that has him near the top of the leaderboard.
“Nobody’s ever done that before,” Schenk said of the forgotten-clubs affair. “I mean, it was bad. I guess maybe it happens to everybody, I don’t think so, but it happened to me.”
We can’t say for certain that nobody’s ever forgotten their clubs at home on the way to a golf tournament, but we imagine they didn’t follow it up with rounds of 63 and 66.
