Food for thought: Catering confusion might've saved lives
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. -- Cristie Kerr was addressing the importance of making the final eight in the mega-stressful, mega-money ADT Championship on Saturday when she unintentionally framed the whole week in a slightly more important light.
LPGA stars Natalie Gulbis, Morgan Pressel and Kerr might not have been here at all if not for a catering mix-up Tuesday night in Las Vegas.
Here, in this instance, doesn't mean at Trump International Golf Club, either.
The trio represented the LPGA in the annual Wendy's 3-Tour Challenge, a Silly Season event which was taped Tuesday in Nevada, then boarded a rented plane to West Palm Beach to play in the ADT event. After waiting roughly 90 minutes in vain for food to arrive for the cross-country flight, the three elected to deplane and get a bite to eat in the terminal.
"We were inside trying to get food so we could take off," Pressel said Saturday. "We weren't waiting on the catering anymore. My caddie texted me and said, 'There's a problem with the plane and we're all getting off.'"
Good thing, too.
The flight was cancelled when the Gulfstream jet's warning lights indicated that the pressurization system had malfunctioned while it was sitting on the tarmac.
"We actually got pretty lucky because we waited about two hours for catering, and it was the only food we were going to be able to eat all night," Kerr said. "Had the plane taken off, who knows what would have happened, so we were very lucky it didn't take off."
A rapid loss of pressurization on a rented jet is believed to have caused the crash that killed PGA Tour star Payne Stewart in 1999. That thought has since crossed Kerr's mind.
"I was good friends with Payne and that was a terrible loss, and the LPGA certainly didn't need to lose three of its marquee players," she said. "It was just the safest thing to do to get a different airplane."
With no other plane immediately available, the trio didn't arrive until late Wednesday and missed the ADT pro-am, although Gulbis and Kerr both made Sunday's field of eight finalists in the race for the $1 million first prize.
