"Similar to most"

Steve Elling asks Geoff Ogilvy whether his opening 68 was inspired by playing the pro-am with Rees Jones, fresh off another Reestorization at Cog Hill. Ogilvy asked Twitterers for questions to pass on to Rees but sadly, did not use my contribution (How does he get all of his bunkers to look the same?).

They did talk design, or at least, Rees did.

Apparently, Jones didn't ask for much feedback. If he had, Ogilvy, one of the most glib players in the global game, might have set Jones back on his heels a bit. After his round, Ogilvy was asked by a Chicago scribe about where the course ranked as far as Jones' re-dos.

"Similar to most," Ogilvy said, evasively.

Never knew the talkative Aussie was this coy. Um, can we get a more qualitative assessment? "I don't know how you answer that, without ... I don't want to answer," he said. "Bethpage is obviously his best. From what I hear about what that was like before he got there, it was a horror show. Now it's really, really good. This is somewhere in the middle.

"I don't dislike it. I think there is a lot of stuff that's improved. I don't know if I like this one better than the old one, but it's not like this one looks bad."

I believe that is what's termed "damning with faint praise."