Photos: Olympic Golf Course Looking Like A Golf Course

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Nice set of aerials Tweeted by the International Golf Federation account showing the Rio 2016 golf course growing in nicely one year out from the Games.

You can check them out at this link and enlarge each a bit.

Most encouraging here is that the native areas look decent, meaning a year from now they have the chance to have taken on a maturity that will look better.

Green Speeds And Pace Of Play, Gullane Edition

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Out watching Scottish Open opening day play, an odd thing happened: players routinely putted out 3-4 footers. The overall pace seemed brisk, but relaxed.

Case in point: the group of Fowler, Donaldson and Poulter were at the 17th green. Both Donaldson and Fowler hit mediocre first putts, leaving 3-4 footers for par. Both briefly marked their ball, repositioned for alignment, then putted out.

This is hardly unique in the annals of golf, particularly on links. Except that such putting-out rarely happens any more due to professional event green speeds consistently in the Stimpmeter 12-foot range.

The green speeds at Gullane for round one? According to the European Tour course setup "table": 10 feet, 3 inches.

The "time par" for day one threesomes at Gullane was 4:20. That's about what it took the faster twosomes to get around Chambers Bay this year.

According to the European Tour's charts of player pace for round one, groups played in the 4:28 to 4:48 pace, with the final two threesomes of the day taking a very respectable 4:48. And that's with a few long walks between greens and tees, along with enough breeze to make things interesting (and some rough too).

The moral of the story? Green speeds impact pace of play, not to mention what they do for maintenance cost and architectural integrity.

Video: Taking Your Golf Pilgrimage To East Lothian

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Two years ago I filed this piece for Golf Digest about the importance of making East Lothian ("Scotland's Golf Coast") the sight of your golf pilgrimage. Not only does the area afford several of the most important places that shaped the game's history, but the opportunity to set up shop in one general area to enjoy a more centrally located golf vacation beckons.

After playing Glen Golf Club this evening (aka North Berwick East Links), I'm more convinced than ever that this is the planet's most idyllic place to experience the links game at its purest and most diversified. What a perfect, breathtaking and endearingly bizarre set of holes. (More on Glen tomorrow).

In the meantime, here's an UnShackled video to encapsulate my feelings for this special place. Check it out...

State Of The Game Podcast 57: Jay Blasi And Chambers Bay

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Credit is always a fickle topic in golf architecture and in our brand name universe, more often than not the primary creators are generally overlooked. While Robert Trent Jones Jr. II is the architect of record, his staff obviously does most of the vital work while Bobby travels the world wooing clients. In the case of Chambers Bay, host of the 2015 U.S. Open, Jay Blasi was the on-site man who practically lived in University Place and sweated over the construction details. He's now on his own and involved with some exciting projects.

He joins Rod Morri, Mike Clayton and myself to talk about the course, the politics, the strategies and the upcoming U.S. Open. The MP3 link is here. The permanent link here. Or you can listen below, and wherever podcasts are provided.