When you come to think of it that is the secret of most of the great holes all over the world. They all have some kind of a twist. C.B. MACDONALD
Steve Elling on Phil Mickelson's comments Tuesday about the lengthened 16th at Olympic (photo).
And I have to agree with this design assessment, something you can see in a video shot earlier today.
“With the tee back, it eliminates any options,” he said.
So much for strategy, he added.
“I would never say it's an unfair hole,” he said. “I just don't think it's a good hole.”
When putting together pools and picks for the 112th U.S. Open I tend to look at past performances on golf courses, yet with so few in this week's field having played at Olympic Club in 1998, I would take a look at how this golf course plays. And more than most courses, Olympic seems to emphasize ball-striking to an extreme, strategic thinking less so.
"You have to curve it more off the tees here than any other golf course that we play," Tiger Woods said Tuesday.
On paper, the tee shots look like a pretty even breakdown between needing to play a right-to-left shot, left-to-right shot and a dead-straight-to-not-hit-overhanging-limbs shot.
"There was no preference on either shot," Billy Casper said today of the course in '66 and today. "Because you had so many holes that had doglegs right, you had so many holes that you had doglegs left and you had so many holes where the fairway sloped from right‑to‑left and holes where you had the fairway slope from left‑to‑right. It required good stroke making to be able to play the golf course."
However, approach shots at Olympic Club tend to favor a left-to-right shot either because of green angles or the combination of fairway slope, green size and green firmness.
"Even to the greens, you've got right‑to‑left slopes of, let's say right‑to‑left slopes of fairways and greens, and you have to cut it, so you're going against the grain."
This is why I continue to feel like Tiger is an overwhelming favorite. Throw in the lack of driver holes, his preference for bent over poa greens, strong fan support in this area, a familiarity with California golf and a continuation of the predominantly left-to-right ball striking on display two weeks ago at the Memorial, and you have a deserving favorite.
And Tiger the little-known historian seems to have done his homework on this front.
"I was reading something a long time ago about Arnold playing this event," he said Tuesday. "He likes to draw the ball. But he learned how to hit a cut just for this event."
Who else works the ball left to right? Phil Mickelson, Tiger's playing partner the first two days, can certainly do so and should Lee Westwood, who once tried to change his swing to hit a draw but has wisely gone back to a fade shot shape, leaps out as someone who should thrive here.
But this is Olympic. And history tells us there's another less famous, supreme ball-striking, cut-shot artist out there who will spoil the affair. But who?
Interesting perspective from Michael Bamberger on why no one seems to care these days whether Casey Martin takes a cart or not: society has changed.
There must still be plenty of people who think it's an affront to the sanctity of the game to have one player play by different rules. But many fewer than there were in the old century.
What changed? Casey Martin didn't change. He's still a golfer who can make the shots, but not the walk, that tournament golf requires. So what actually changed?
We changed.
We've become more tolerant (or so I'd like to think). The Sept. 11 attacks made us reassess the important from the trivial.
We elected a black president for the first time, and today when people are critical of Obama's performance, it has little to do with the color of his skin and more to do with the high price of gasoline.
Nobody cares if the secretary of state is a woman or a man, unless you have the view that women are more likely to keep us out of war.
Rex Hoggard with an update on YouTube sensation/Sectional qualifier Dennis Miller's first practice round and media session (viewable here).
I Tweeted these earlier, so for those of you following me on Twitter, my apologies for the redundancy.
The rough, or lack thereof on No. 2 is fairly typical of the rest of the course. There appears to be no graduated rough and only select areas off the tee where rough is dense. It's thicker around greens.
As usual, the production values are slick.
The challenge of hitting No. 4 fairway is explained here.
The dreaded tree off five tee.
I'm not sure if you can hear it, but this is a Keegan Bradley approach into five indicating the nice firmness already in the greens.
And not for the faint of heart, the view from atop the highest 18th hole grandstand.
Ron Kroichick got Ken Venturi out to Olympic Club and it yielded a tremendously good hole-by-hole take on how the course played along with Venturi's perspective on recent changes.
On the first hole, which shifts from a pushover par-5 to a long par-4.
Venturi: "The right-hand half of the teeing area will never be used. The players will set up on the left and blow it right over the top of the trees. ... To me, this was a good par-5 the way we played it - driver and 3-wood. If you could crush it, maybe you get there in two sometimes. It will be a hard par-4, but it will be fair with these players today, given how far they hit the ball.
This surprised me about the seventh hole, which as been rebuilt from a three-tier green to a slightly longer hole with a two-tier green.
Venturi: "I don't think most guys will go for it. I'd like to be short of the bunkers and the green and have a little 58-degree or 60-degree wedge for my second shot. That's much easier than trying to hit a long bunker shot - you can get a short pitch shot much closer. But there will be guys who try to drive it, for sure.
"This will be an interesting hole, because there are multiple choices. It depends on the player, whether he's conservative or aggressive. If the hole is on the lower level of the green, then I would suggest you try to drive the green. If the hole is on the upper level, then you don't want to be in that (front) bunker. To me, it would be a bad choice to try to drive this green if the hole is cut in the back."
And Kenny's not a fan of the 670-yard tee on 16.
Venturi: "If I had my way, I'd do away with this tee (at 670 yards) - it's too close to the No. 15 green and there will be too much confusion with guys waiting (on the 15th green) while others tee off. ... You have to make the tee shot go right to left, for sure. This is a premier dogleg. You still can't see the green on your second shot, and there's nothing to do on the second shot but put it in play and set up your third.
"With the bunker in front and the way this hole plays, you can't run it on the green. It's got to be 'up golf,' with the ball in the air. So that definitely favors the longer hitter, who can get the ball up higher. This hole tells players, 'You will play it the way I tell you to play it. You can't create your own shots.'
Other than that, how do you really feel about it, Mr. V?
In the first email Q&A with a lowly golf blog since his induction into the World Golf Hall of Fame, Dan Jenkins answers a few questions before returning to the scene of some of his most painful moments as a sportswriter.
This will be the 212th major Jenkins has attended and the 211th he has covered. His first U.S. Open was as an 11-year-old in 1941; he covered his first fifty-one years ago and Olympic marks his 58th U.S. Open as an inkslinger.
You can read volumes one, two, three and four.
GS: Excited to return to San Francisco?
DJ: Very excited to return to San Francisco. I want to recapture the cheeseburger a precious waiter refused to serve me last time there because I asked for salt. I look forward to continuing the search for Ambrose Bierce among the fern.
GS: Care to rank the U.S. Open's at Olympic?
DJ: In order of misery, I recall the Opens in this order: 1955 (worst result in the history of sports), 1966 (worst result in the history of Arnold Palmer), 1987 (biggest letdown in light of who was challenging: Watson, Seve, Crenshaw), 1998 (a sleeper all the way, but if Payne had to lose, Janzen was better than Tway.
GS: After all these years, have you ever developed a working theory as to why Olympic doesn't let the superstar win? Is it the course? Nancy Pelosi's fault?
DJ: I guess I'll finally have to buy into Sandy Tatum's defense of Olympic. Even though the course has brutally punished the superstars---let alone me on deadline---it has given us a great list of runnersup in Opens---Hogan, Palmer, Watson, Payne Stewart.
GS: Putting aside your man Hogan's upset loss and the other rally killer winners, where does Olympic rank as a US Open venue for you?
DJ: Think about it. No "Open course" over time has defended par better than Olympic. Scott Simpson's 277, only three-under, is the best. It has yet to be embarrassed, as all of the other usual suspects have on at least one occasion.
This could be it. Part of the suspense.
GS: You pulled off a superb World Golf Hall of Fame speech, how was that experience?
DJ: Getting into the World Golf Hall of Fame was quite special, very flattering. As my co-inductee and friend Peter Alliss said to me by email, "I'm trying very hard not to be carried away by the adulation of the multitudes." As for my acceptance speech, I lost my place twice, made up a couple of things out of thin air, but somehow survived. All through the weekend's many functions, I kept thinking I should be sitting with my press brethren.
GS: How's the journalism book coming?
DJ: There IS a "journalism memoir" slowly coming to an end at the computer where I sit. It's been damn near impossible to keep myself out of it.
With a win Sunday at the Fed-Ex St. Jude Classic, recent major contender Dustin Johnson arrives at Olympic Club with a super shot to win. He adds himself to a nice, long list of contenders playing well (as John Strege writes).
Ryan Lavner notes in Golfweek's 5 Things on the day that Johnson sounds confident heading to the U.S. Open.
“I was confident coming into this week,” Johnson said. “I was hitting some good shots and chipping and putting pretty well. I just needed to get the ball in the fairway, because I was swinging my irons well and knew I’d have a lot of looks at birdie.”
Johnson fascinates me at Olympic because a case could be made that the course will take away the advantage he has with his driver, yet he's so long with his other clubs that even without pulling out the big stick, he may be okay. This is the interesting dilemma I wrote about for Golf World the U.S. Open preview, and Hale Irwin even mentions Johnson when talking about Olympic's 4th hole and his ability to shape a 3-wood or hybrid there compared to the challenge of trying to hit the same shot with driver.
Yet another fun storyline heading into an Open with more than its share. The highlights from Memphis:
Geoff Shackelford is a Senior Writer for Golfweek magazine, a weekly contributor to Golf Channel's Morning
Copyright © 2022, Geoff Shackelford. All rights reserved.
