Video: Dissecting Olympic Club's 14th Fairway

Olympic Club is an awkward golf course even with wider fairways and no rough. It makes you feel awkward and requires some awkward shotmaking. And I say that in the nicest way possible having played competitive rounds here. We don't have enough courses like Olympic that make players feel uncomfortable.

That said, one of my favorite holes has long been the par-4 fourteenth which has many classic strategic elements. It "fits the eye" of a right handed golfer hitting a draw, but more than that, it was always so fun to turn a drive over to position yourself down the left side for the best angle to attack the green, flirting with trees and junk left. The more you played safe to the right, the tougher the second shot became due to the wind direction (behind and from the right), slope of the fairway (right to left) and tilt of the putting surface (right to left).

So I was a bit shocked to see the fairway contour, which has been moved left virtually under the treeline, leaving nearly two fairways worth of rough down the right. The move is made, in part, because of the advances of equipment since the last time the U.S. Open was there. Drivers turned over would probably get players to a downslope that would leave them with flip sand-wedge.

Nonetheless, Bubba Watson summed up the problem with the setup:

Next hole, 14, they moved the fairway over. I hit it in the middle of the fairway, but had to slice a 9‑iron about 40 yards just to hit the green. It just doesn't make sense.

Those are the two holes that really are in my mind that we don't even know how to play. Me and my caddie were going over them, me and the other golfers were going over them, talking about it on the putting green. Not sure what's going on with those two, but you try to make your pars and get out of there. That's the only two spots that I see that are iffy on the whole golf course. The other parts of the golf course are just tough. Just a hard test of golf.

In the first video, here are some thoughts on the stunning amount of rough, which I recorded as Lee Westwood clipped overhanging trees from a lie on the left side of the fairway. Strange stuff.

I move back toward the tee for video #2.