Torrey, Torrey, Torrey

The PGA Tour kicks into high gear today, with the first sighting of The Striped One at his beloved Torrey Pines in the Andy Williams San Diego Open Farmers Insurance Something or Other.  Actually I don't know for a fact that Torrey is beloved to Tiger, but with 8 professional wins there it seems a logical assumption.  So, where to start?

From Bob Harig's table-setter at ESPN Golf:

Given his lengthy stretch (more than five years) without a major title and the seemingly favorable major venues (he's won at three of them and finished runner-up at the other) in 2014, it was suggested this is a big year for him.

"I view it as every year's a big year," Woods said. "Every year that I get a chance to compete and play in tournaments and major championships for as long as I decide to do it, every year's a big year, every year counts."

Tiger's unbelievable success at Torrey has put him in an untenable position for a golfer, where it will be an upset if he doesn't win.

Will Gray discusses Torrey architecture with Phil Mickelson, who has been hired to redesign the North Course at Torrey, used in the first two rounds before the field is cut.  Phil is not a fan of the redesign by Rees Jones, the Open Doctor™, in advance of the 2008 U.S. Open.  The gist of Phil's trashing constructive criticism:

“Why so many players love links golf is that you always have the avenue to run a ball up and it’s very easy to make the parameters left and right,” he explained. “There’s no need to block the fronts of greens.”

The changes align with Mickelson’s overall thoughts on golf course design, which he reiterated Wednesday has led to courses becoming overly difficult as players increasingly watch shots carom away from their intended targets.

This gets interesting, in a geeky architectural way (Ed.: You're playing fast and loose with the concept of what's interesting), since the turf at Torrey (Poa liberally over-seeded with Rye) is not especially conducive to the ground game.  The Phil adds the following, which almost makes us excuse his use of the word "Containment,"  pounced on by Shackelford and others:

“You can make any golf course hard by simply making the greens firm and making thick rough,” said Mickelson. “What I want to do though is make a course that is fun to play, that is playable under a variety of conditions.”

Yes, especially as the Torrey courses are, you know, public courses played by the great unwashed masses 51 weeks of the year.

Here's what I think you need to know about Torrey, starting with the South Course, on which the lads will play 3 of their four rounds and on which all rounds in the iconic 2008 U.S. Open were played.  

First and foremost, it is not a particularly interesting golf course and the routing seems specifically designed to ignore the best features of its dramatic location.  I've always said that on a scale of 1 to 10, the course is no more than a 6, though the property is an 11.  What is most curious is that one would expect that a golf course built on spectacular bluffs over the Pacific Ocean would, you know, be routed to use those bluffs to full effect.  In this case, not so much...

The Rees renovation (not quite a Reestrocity, a term I coined about his desecration of Macdonald's iconic 16th hole at Sleepy Hollow) had two major components.  The first, which greatly enhanced the golf experience, was to move fairways and greens closer to the ocean.  This improved a number of holes, most notably the Par 3 third and Par 4 4th, but he was limited by the preexisting routing

His second initiative was to increase the number of available back pin locations, since as he articulated at the time the players' ability to spin the ball left front and middle pins indefensible.  This would be an example of what I believe Phil is referring to as Containment Architecture.  The real world implementation of this was to add nooks and crannies to the back of the greens, resulting in a silhouette that reminds one more of a Mouseketeer than a golf green.

The fourth and third holes on the South Course.  The top picture comes from this weeks issue of the new e-zine from Sports Illustrated Golf+.  Pre-Rees, neither of these holes brought the pacific Ocean much into the frame.

The problem with the North Course, at least from Commissioner Ratched's Finchem's perspective, is the discrepancy in scoring, playing 3-4 shots easier than its brother.  Sal Johns has a good item in the SI Golf+ on this, but it's unlink-able.  Most recent winners have been in the mid-to-low 60's in their one loop on the North.  The outlier here is Tiger, who somehow won in 2006 while shooting a 4-over effective par 71.  

One last Torrey item before I make a beeline to JFK to head West.  Alan Shipnuck has a short piece in the same SI/Golf+ on the importance of Torrey in launching careers, as it's held the Junior World Championships since 1968.  The e-zine's format is un-copy-and-pasteable, at least with my command of technology (Al will correct me if I'm wrong), so I'm unable to provide an excerpt.  But he makes the point that anybody who is or intends to be anybody has competed there.  He cites the 1984 event, when the Striped One won the 9-10 age group, David Toms (Ground Control to.....awww, forget it) won the 15-17 age group, and the 13-14 year old bracket featured a shoot-out between Theodore Ernest Els of Johannesburg, South Africa and Philip Alfred Mickelson, a local boy.  Good stuff....