The Difference Between Davis and Meeks

As much as I hate seeing the course artificially softened on day three of a major, it's great to see Mike Davis err on the side of common sense by watering the greens prior to play today. Despite David Fay's declarations that the course was right where they wanted it yesterday and today, Davis clearly realized Friday was on the edge of goofy and made the call to throttle things back.

A few years ago such measures would not have been taken to such an extent and that's how we got fiascos like Shinnecock.

Now if Davis could just widen out those landing areas so they don't need to be slowed down, we'd really be making progress.

Phil: "This golf course is a physical hazard to the players. I don't think that that has been very well thought out."

Another excellent edition of Golf Channel's Pre-Game U.S. Open coverage featured the usual gang (Kann, Pepper, Nobilo, Oosterhuis, Lerner) stepping up to the plate with fresh insights into the field and course, with colorful (literally) reports from Marty Hackel and a fun look inside the Pirates' ballpark.

But it was all highlighted by the Steve Sands interview with an obviously perturbed Phil Mickelson.

One comment from Phil was notable for its honesty and accuracy, the other just a sign of these wacky times. 

Sands: You nervous at all...about the wrist?

Mickelson: I'm uncertain whether or not it's going to hold up on some of the shots out of the rough. It's been hurt in this rough before. Yesterday, 5, 6 people got hurt that Jim Weathers had to go work on. I think this golf course is a physical hazard to the players. I don't think that that has been very well thought out. So I think every player should be concerned--not just me--when they hit a shot in the rough.

I know I've shared my bias on this as someone who had a wrist injury and as someone who finds it pitiful that rough is harvested like a crop so grown men can compensate for some mysteriously vacant portion of their golfing soul that believes this torture rewards skill, but isn't there something seriously wrong with the game when antics like rough-on-steroids could impact our national championship and potential damage the well-being of a player and his career?

Anyway, here's the part where the modern player mentality of having consistent greens throughout the course is a bit hard for me to relate to. Continuing on after his comments about the rough...

Mickelson: This has forced me to prepare on the greens. Pelz and I have been out here on the greens this weekend, I feel like I have a good concept of how the putts break but also the speeds. You know the speeds have fluctuated tremendously from green to green. And I know they're doing the best, but they do the same thing to each green. They cut it the same height, roll it the same for every green. Well that's just ridiculous because you have greens that are high that are more exposed and  get more wind and greens that are low that get a lot more moisture, so the fluctuation in the greens have been up to four and half feet from the fastest to the slowest. And so I think guys are going to struggle and I think that on the greens I may have an advantage knowing what the actual green speed is.

I guess this is where I would say to Phil that you knowing the varying speeds of each green is a cool thing and that attempts to make speeds uniform would be more contrived than what's out there now.  

"The ball just keeps rolling and rolling."

Thanks to reader Kevin for this Robert Dvorchak story in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette looking at the history of the Stimpmeter.

This beautifully sums up Oakmont's greens:

On six of the 18 greens, the surfaces aren't flat enough to get a Stimpmeter reading. The ball just keeps rolling and rolling. So the numbers from the 12 flatter greens are used for the course average.

"You can hit great, straight drives in the US Open and still miss the fairway."

John Huggan follows up on his Golf Digest interview with Geoff Ogilvy with a few more questions for the defending champion. Ogilvy touched on a similar notion about driving accuracy in the Q&A we did for Links (not online). I think he's onto something with regard to the effect of the 21-24 yard landing area...

JH: Ironically, the US Open isn't the one of the four your game would seem most suited to.

GO: No. I have thought a lot about that. I would have expected, for someone like me who is a little wayward off the tee even when playing well, that Augusta or the Open would be the best bet. But US Opens are so narrow that straight hitters almost lose their advantage. Everyone is in the rough. And I'm used to that and they are not.

You can hit great, straight drives in the US Open and still miss the fairway. So it almost works against those guys. I mean, I'm quite happy hitting seven shots out of the rough. I do that every day. They don't.

I'm not alone, though. Take a look at the leader board at Winged Foot.

Phil was up there and he isn't the straightest hitter. Everyone talks about how you have to hit it straight at the US Open. And I thought that too. But in hindsight I'm not so sure. No-one can hit it straight enough to hit every fairway in the US Open. It's so difficult, almost impossible really. You can be a great driver of the ball and still miss six fairways in a day. And you can drive badly and do that.

JH: What do you think of all the rough around the greens?

GO: I think some of the holes at Winged Foot would have been better served if balls were allowed to run away from the greens, rather than get stopped within a few feet.

JH: Which is what happened with your approach to the last green came up short.

GO: Exactly. That created quite an interesting shot.

Winged Foot is a stellar course though. I can't say anything bad about it because I won! I loved the fact that they had trimmed the trees so that you can see a lot of the course under the branches. That has been lost in a lot of places, but Winged Foot had that look about it.

It also has some of the coolest greens I have ever seen.

Furrow Specs

Craig Dolch in the Palm Beach Post offers this on Jack Nicklaus's bunker furrowing plans for this week's Memorial:

This year, though, the tines on the rakes won't be spread as far apart as last year — they'll be 13/4 inches this year as opposed to 21/2 inches in 2006 — but the effect will be the same.

"All I want them to say is, 'That's a place I don't want to be,' " Nicklaus said Friday at his North Palm Beach offices. "I don't care about penalizing the guy. I'm trying to force him to play the strategy of the golf course by not wanting to be in a bunker. Guys aim for bunkers because it's an easy shot."

"It's more lush than I think we'd kind of hoped"

Tim Rosaforte's online column looks at Oakmont and the potential conditions for this year's Open.

"I was just there Sunday-Monday, and it's more lush than I think we'd kind of hoped," said Mike Davis, the course set-up man for the USGA. Davis sent correspondence to Zimmers, telling him to send out the mowers once it stops raining. Last year at Winged Foot, the first step in the graduated rough was 3 ½ to 4 inches. He asked Zimmers to trim that first cut to 2 ¾ inches. The goal is to make it short enough so the players can show their skills. The week of the tournament, "It could be higher, it could be lower," said Davis.

This doesn't sit too well at Oakmont, a club that prides itself on sending its guests home feeling the privilege of being penalized by its brutality. "I've never seen an Open here at Oakmont where it wasn't six-inch rough right off the fairway," said the host pro, Bob Ford. "So if it's playable just off the fairway, I think it will have a great effect on the score. Again, it's all about wet and dry: If it's wet it's going to be one score, if it's dry, it's going to be another score. That's true on all golf courses, but particularly here."

Yes, that 6 inches right off the fairway is such a good test especially when...

Some of the club's members--guys who play in the Swat competitions--are predicting that if the course plays hard and fast, double digits will win The Open. The reason being, Oakmont's fairways were running about 11 on the Stimp after Zimmers put the rollers on them. The average fairway width at Oakmont will be 28 yards, but as one of the club's scratch players pointed out on Thursday, some of the tighter driving holes are only 22 yards wide in spots. But those 22 yards really play 10 yards wide because most of the landing areas tilt and pitch toward the deep stuff.

Sounds fun!

"Some of the fairway are really tight, and to be honest, one of my concerns is that they get too fast," Davis said. "They've got so much roll, that if they get too fast it's not going to be a good Open. We don't want it turning into '87 at [The] Olympic [Club]. We're going to ask John to hand water the drive zones to keep good drives from rolling into the intermediate rough."

On top of this, the participants will be putting on greens that Zimmers gets rolling at 15 for the year-end Swat Party.

That tells you who the best player is! 

"DVD of the 2007 Masters could, and should, be marketed as a 100% guaranteed cure for insomnia."

Sunday on The Scotsman's Scotland on Sunday's John Huggan notices a trend since 1997: majors gone awry. Seven "dodgy" majors to be exact. Which he revisits in detail.

Ever since the greatest golfer the world has seen annexed his first major title at Augusta in 1997 - blitzing the field by 12 strokes and wedging seemingly every approach on to what used to be distant greens - those in charge of the four most important events seem to have engaged in an unofficial contest to host the daftest Grand Slam event in history.

Unofficially at least, they call it "Tiger-proofing". I call it golf's so-called administrators attempting to disguise their incompetence over the shameful non-regulation of the modern ball.

You know I've suggested it many times, but Huggan gets the credit for actually coming out and saying it.

And bad news for the "so-called administrators." More and more people are making the connection between extreme setups and faulty equipment regulation. And that's before I they even hear me ramble on!

Most were consciously ruined in order to deflect attention away from the men who were 'asleep at the wheel', when they should have been paying closer attention to the dangerous and unlit technological road that golf was travelling. The rest were merely the playthings of those who take a one-dimensional delight in watching the best players suffer.

And so, golf at the very highest level is today too often a pedestrian and penal game designed to punish even the slightest indiscretion. Forget the spectacular and interesting prospect of watching a skilled practitioner attempt a risky recovery shot. They are long gone. Veer from the increasingly straight and narrow fairways, and the only option available is more than likely the chip back into play: penalty one stroke.

How tedious. Tennis anyone?

"I think this rough might even be a little too juicy for some of the older guys like myself''

Normally I would find the idea of harvesting thick rough for a Champions Tour event to be ridiculous, but somehow hearing Johnny Miller complain about it makes it a bit more tolerable. After all, he celebrates the USGA's mindless approach, so it's nice that Johnny gets to experience it.

Tim Guidera quotes him:

"I think this rough might even be a little too juicy for some of the older guys like myself,'' added Johnny Miller, who is playing his first event on any tour in nearly 10 years this week. The NBC commentator is teaming with longtime friend Mike Reid in the Raphael Division. "It's major championship rough.''

"When I see those guys working hard to make pars and bogeys, well, that's us"

Last week I asked if "relatable golf" would be the future direction the pro game takes to quench our society's unquenchable for all things narcissistic.

Well, Garry Smits found some fans who would agree that it's all about them while exploring the question of whether the year's other three majors (oh and The Players THE PLAYERS The PLAYERS) will be plodding bogeyfests.

When it comes to majors and The Players, fans seem to want to watch the best grind.

"We really enjoyed watching the Masters this year," said Kevin Leonard, a Cincinnati resident visiting the First Coast with his family to play golf at the TPC Sawgrass. "I don't like watching 27 under win a tournament."

His son, James, a college student, showed that feeling crosses generations.

"I know the Masters has been won on birdies and eagles on the back nine in the past," he said. "But I didn't miss that. It was fun knowing that they had to make pars to win."

Dennis James, a Green Cove Springs resident, said watching PGA Tour players fight enables the average golfer to relate.

"When I see those guys working hard to make pars and bogeys, well, that's us," he said. "Besides, majors are supposed to be hard."

It's all about ME!

Consider also that television ratings for the Masters were slightly higher than last year, when Mickelson won at 7 under.

Garry, let's not encourage the Ridley's and Driver's of the world. They're dangerous enough as it is!

Former PGA of America president M.G. Orender, a Jacksonville Beach resident, said competition committees can only go so far. Weather was the main reason for the high scores at Augusta, he said, not back-room suits bent on punishing players.

"I thought Augusta did the same thing the PGA does for our championship. It's a major. It should be tough, but you want the course to be fair, given the things you can control," Orender said. "Par is just a number. At the end of the day, if the course is fair, it doesn't matter what score wins."

Hmmm...and here I thought it was about identifying the best player!

Watering Greens During A Tournament

I know I promised I'd asked my last Masters question, but the debate is just too good to let go of in light of all the great comments that this years Masters is generating.

In the Rosaforte and Davis pieces critiquing the setup and architecture, there were a couple of interesting comments about the Saturday night green watering.

Is it the sign of a good setup when you have to water greens during tournament play (with light winds)?

Is it a sound setup when you play three days firm and then soak them for one day?

Consider what Rosaforte wrote: 

 Some players felt the water should have been turned on earlier, but Ridley and the Competition Committee did eventually turn on the hoses. "Yesterday we saw the weather and relocated some of the pins to make it fairer," said David Graham sitting at lunch. The two-time major winner has served on the Cup and Tee Marking Committee for 17 years and stated the goal was to make it as difficult as possible without crossing the line, "but this week was more difficult than a British Open."

And here's what Davis submitted:

In the past, the competition committee has aimed to get the greens here to dry out as the week goes on. On Sunday morning, the greens were wet and receptive even though it didn't rain here on Saturday night. That's what you call a concession, but by then it was too late. Even though Sunday was a relatively wind-free, balmy day, the average score was 74.33, and the lowest score was a 69 (and only three players shot that).

It seems that the ideal setup is one where the greens do not have to be artificially controlled by such a dramatic shift in watering. One could argue that a SubAir draining of moisture is just as contrived, but I would argue that that is done in an attempt to firm up conditions in order to accentuate skill.

The watering this year was, as Davis wrote, a "concession." A move made after Daddy had whipped the boys around, and decided to let the flatbellies have their Sunday fun. I don't get the sense this concession was one made with great pleasure.

So is this what the Masters will be in the future: three days of torture and one day of watering to shut up the critics who dare to dream that we might see another '86-Masters type finish?

I can only recall such dramatic green watering happening to mitigate impending setup fiascos. And not coincidentally, Fred Ridley was the head man during the two most recent examples: 2004 at Shinnecock and the 2007 Masters.

Thoughts? 

"The course was certainly as firm as most (British) Open venues"

I don't know what these guys watched, but the last four days, the fairways at Augusta didn't look that firm and fast to me.

The greens did, but not the fairways.

Anyway, Brian Hewitt at TheGolfChannel seems to be reaching with this one:

It’s my contention Jones and MacKenzie gleefully would have told the second-guessers that this 71st Masters played much more like an Open Championship than a U.S. Open.
 
This notion began incubating in my brain early in the week when defending champion Phil Mickelson came off the course and explained the difficulty of the green complexes and their putting surfaces. It’s not so much reading the break that’s hard, Mickelson said. It’s figuring out exactly where the ball is going to stop rolling.
 
This, of course, is exactly what links golf is all about. And the more of this Masters I watched, the more I became transfixed by the troubles the best players in the world were having getting their golf balls to stop where they wanted them to stop on and around the greens.

"The course was certainly as firm as most (British) Open venues," Doak informed me. "Some people think it's impossible to keep it that firm and have it green, too. But it is possible if you have enough money to hand-water the dry spots. And Augusta certainly has the resources to follow through.

Well, I suppose if you think some British Open venues of late have been way too soft and green, yes! 

Rough Matters?

Now posted is my latest Golfobserver.com column on the "value" of rough in light of the USGA's decision on grooves.

“For a 4-iron, you’d put it five, six or seven paces from the edge.”

Damon Hack goes inside the ropes (and gets out to Riviera early) to file a New York Times piece on PGA Tour course setup.

This caught my attention:

With so many technological advances in golf in the last 20 years, placing a pin near a bunker or by a tier on a green is one way to combat golfers’ hitting tee shots that travel 300 yards. But Mutch said the officials try to balance their pin locations. On Riviera’s back nine, he chose four on the left side of the green, four on the right, and one near the center. Not every pin can be in a treacherous, devilish position.

“For wedges, you’d put it three or four paces from the edge of the green,” said Mickey Bradley, a PGA Tour rules official. “For a 4-iron, you’d put it five, six or seven paces from the edge.”

A bit formulaic, no?

A Solution To The Groove Problem

After watching tee shots to Waialae's ridiculously narrow par-5 18th fairway (and not seeing too many drives finishing in it) I was thinking that maybe it was time for the club to simply abandon the 22 yards of width it already has, and just go with an all rough landing area.

After all, look at the scoring through three rounds (PGATour.com did not add the fourth for some reason):

Stroke Avg:      4.353
Hole Rank:     18th
Avg. Drive:     309.5
Longest Drive:     381 yards (Holmes)

So the 22 yards did not discourage birdies and eagles, nor did it prevent players from hitting long tee shots. And last I heard, preventing long drives and correspondoning low scores was the goal of such a narrow fairway.

But then I got to thinking about Peter Dawson's comments on grooves, rough and scoring, and by golly, I think we have a solution to all of this madness.

Dawson said, "We now see balls spinning more from 2in or 3in rough than they do when hit from the fairway. That cannot go on."

He's right, we can't allow this to keep happening.

So stop narrowing fairways if the grooves are allowing players to spin the ball more than they would from the fairway.

WIDENING fairways will solve this U-grooves from the rough problem!

A return to sane widths will set a wonderful example for the game and allow players to strategically pick the sides of fairways again. True precision via intelligent placement of shots will again be rewarded when all of those balls previous controlled from 2-3 inch rough will be coming from fairway lies!

"The ball got away from everybody."

Yes, add Michael Bonallack to the list of rehabilitating golf executives who wish they'd done more then so we would have the game we have now. It's touching I tell you to hear this kind of remorse, documented by John Huggan in his Sunday column:

"The most fun I've ever had was being secretary of the R&A. I was there when the Open was really starting to take off, in financial terms. We were able to use that money to aid the development of the game."

However, representing the public face of golf's rules-making body outside the United States and Mexico could prove uncomfortable. During Bonallack's tenure, the battle between administrators and equipment companies was joined in earnest, and it rages on to this day.

"The biggest problem was with Ping and the grooves on their irons. That was very unpleasant. I remember sitting at dinner after watching the Walker Cup matches at Peach Tree in 1989 and being tapped on the shoulder. It was a sheriff telling me I was served.

"The writ said they were suing for $100m tripled. They have what they call punitive damages in the United States, and it wasn't only the R&A they were suing, but me personally. That got my attention!

"We had good lawyers, though. They showed that the US courts had no jurisdiction over us. We were making rules for golfers outside America.

"The wider equipment issue was a problem then, and continues to be so today, at the top level of the game anyway. There are a number of things I wish we had done, but obviously we didn't do.

"The ball got away from everybody. The scientists said the ball could go only ten more yards, but they were wrong. New materials kept on coming out, and then along came metal woods. They have taken a lot of the skill out of the game for the leading players. As have the new wedges.

"The shots only Seve used to be able to play with a 50-degree wedge are now routine for everyone who buys a 63-degree wedge. All of that crept into the game without anyone really realising the significance. I wish we could go back, but we can't."

Perhaps sensing that he has already said too much about the one subject that golf administrators tend not to enjoy discussing, Bonallack pre-empts the next question.

"There is no use asking me what I'd do if I was in charge today. When I retired I said I wasn't going to get involved in any of these controversial things. Besides, if I started announcing what I would do, people could quite rightly ask why I didn't do those things when I was in charge. Certainly, we missed some opportunities with the ball and the metal woods, but they crept up on us."

One other sadness for Bonallack is the knock-on effect modern equipment has had on course set-ups. As so many did at last year's Open, he looked on askance at the amount of rough growing on the Old Course at St Andrews.

"It does upset me to see what they have to do to golf courses nowadays. There is no doubt that the modern equipment has caused many good courses to be altered. I hate to see long grass around greens on any course. I like the ball to run off to where players can hit all kinds of recovery shots.

"It is fascinating to watch someone like Tiger working out what shot will work best after he has missed a green. Long grass eliminates all of that, and takes a lot of the skill out of the game."