SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — A man wearing a swimsuit and body paint managed to get onto the field of play Friday at 2023 WM Phoenix Open.
With the words “Mac Savage” on his chest and “19th hole” on his back, he ran onto the 16th green, grabbed the flagstick and pointed to the sky while posing. A security guard gave chase and he ran off the green.
From there, he escaped the 16th hole coliseum through an auxiliary tunnel – separate from the main tunnel golfer and caddies use to get from 16 green to 17 tee box. From there, he ran down the 17th before jumping in the lake left of the green.
BELLY FLOP AT THE WASTE MANAGEMENT (via xerxesnabong IG) pic.twitter.com/Q3nLxZGM9z
— Fore Play (@ForePlayPod) February 10, 2023
The man then managed to swim to the giant floating WM sign behind the 17th green and 18th tee box before climbing on.
Never know what you’ll see at the WMPO – including people swimming illegally on the 18th! pic.twitter.com/UU15Bcmi77
— Eric Cohen (@CohensCornerAZ) February 10, 2023
As for the guy who interrupted play on 16, Stewart Cink had just teed up his ball on 16 when he had to stop and wait.
“I was teeing my ball up and I think I was still kind of talking through what I was going to do with my caddie and so I was kind of focused on the ball,” he said. “Then I heard the crowd kind of getting loud and I was like, ‘I didn’t think they were getting super excited for Stewart Cink’. And for a second I thought, is this jersey related?”
Cink, a self-described die-hard Atlanta Hawks fan, wore a Kevin Durant No. 35 jersey on the 16th hole during his first round Thursday, a clear effort to win over some fans. But he quickly discovered that wasn’t why everyone started getting riled up.
“I feel like describing it is kind of condoning it, or giving life in some ways,” Cink said.
“I saw an idiot, is what I saw, running around on the green. I think, for the 10 or 15 minutes he got in the spotlight is probably going to result in several hours of whatever the opposite of the spotlight is.”
