Pinehurst Postscripts

The world may have moved on, but the golf blogging community is still bitterly clinging to its guns and religion pine scrub and wire grass plants.

In my conversations with friends and playing partners, I've been surprised by many of the comments I've heard.  To me the back-to-back Opens were a home run, a grand slam even, but many have expressed misgivings over the golf course.  I'll get to those below, but first let's see what those who are paid for their opinions thought.

Geoff Shackelford has been playing his usual role of Aggregator-in-Chief, so we'll let him play tour guide for this morning's spin through the nether reaches of the golf blogosphere.  First up, he links to Michael Bamberger's take on the fortnight from the current edition of SIG+D, but he's put off by the e-mag format:

I'm not sure this will work, but Michael Bamberger files a super postscript in the SI/golf.com

Digital thingy that's a pain to read (aren't they all...we must make it hard for readers to read and

experience ads!). Essentially, Bamberger touches on Kaymer and Wie's fascinating wins and the huge sucess of back-to-back Opens.

The link does work, but am I the only one that gets all wobbly in the knees when he throws around technical jargon (Geoff, you had me at "thingy")?  It is well worth a read for his take on both Kaymer and Wie, but we bloggers hate the digital format from which we can't plagiarize copy-and-paste extensive excerpts legal under the fair use doctrine.  And if you think THAT made Shack cranky, stick around until I finish the positive reviews.

Next up is Bill Field, a Pinehurst-native writing in Golf Digest.  This to me was the gist of Bill's piece, though since Shack highlighted a different graph you might be induced to click through and decide for yourself:

For those who believe that great courses produce great moments, Wie's bomb at the penultimate hole recalled Tom Watson's chip-in at Pebble Beach in 1982 or Nick Price's eagle at Turnberry in 1994. Indeed, Pinehurst No. 2 proved a wonderful stage, if seeming somewhat oversold during the U.S. Open when the gallery was so large it created several uncomfortably congested junctures. Even though the ropes were still much further from the fairways during the Women's Open than in Bermuda-rough tournaments, smaller crowds made it more pleasurable to spectate in Week Two than in Week One. 

As for the restored sand, wire grass and native-vegetation areas artfully put in by Bill Coore, Ben Crenshaw and their team several years ago -- a bold move that returned the mojo to Pinehurst No. 2 -- they not only look right but reintroduced randomness to recovery shots. It's true that most balls settled in very playable lies, the one for Kaymer's remarkable approach to the fifth hole in the third round being the best example. Yet some did end up in nasty places. Two such situations for Stacy Lewis on the 14th in the final round threatened to derail her exciting charge, but she took her medicine on the second one and saved a bogey.

I'll get back to waste areas again below.

Last up for Shack is his buddy Doug Ferguson, with whom he hands out at the 10th hole at Riviera:

Thanks to an amazing restoration project led by Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw, and plenty of cooperation from Mother Nature, two weeks of U.S. Open golf at Pinehurst No. 2 could not have gone much better. It really was double the pleasure. 

The next step for the USGA is to avoid what Hollywood has never understood: Don't bother with a sequel. 

The USGA wanted to provide a similar test for the men and women over consecutive weeks. With few exceptions — the par-5 10th hole for the women, as an example — it got it just right. Perhaps the most telling statistic was the scoring average in the final round. 

For the men it was 72.40. For the women it was 72.39.

All three pieces are worth a read, as each has his own unique focus.  But the events came off without a hitch, the women were treated to increased attention and in both cases a worthy champion was crowned.  So, what could anyone logically complain about?

 That would be Golfweek's James Achenbach, sneaking in Stage Left:

There was one major flaw hanging over the U.S. Open and U.S. Women's Open at Pinehurst No. 2. 

The fairways were too wide. 

U.S. Opens historically have been a test of driving accuracy. More than all other golf tournaments, they carry a well-earned reputation for narrow fairways and diabolical rough.

In U.S. Opens past, players were rewarded for driving the ball in the fairway and penalized for driving it off the fairway. The formula was pretty simple: Accuracy off the tee was a major predictor of success in the championship.

Shack subjects him to an old-style circa-2001 Fisking in this post, one that provokes rose-tinted memories of a more genteel era.  And late in the piece Aschenbach adds this:

Pinehurst No. 2 had mammoth fairways. The rough was replaced by sand and wiregrass and

other native plants. Competitors encountered few obstacles off the tee. With driver or 3-wood in their hands, they must have felt like it was the Indianapolis 500 -- pedal to the metal for all four days.

This is quite obviously quite crazy, as of the 312 golfers that pegged it in the fortnight, exactly four completed their play under par.  And three of those four were at two or one under...

But I'm hearing similar things from folks I speak with about the Opens, so there's maybe a deeper point to be made.  I've previously mentioned my good friend Glenn, who was outraged (OK, maybe an overly-dramatic choice of words)  at how east play was from the waste areas.

Yesterday I played with an old work mate, who admitted that he didn't like the look of the course.  His biggest complaint seemed to be that Mike Davis had the course playing far too short for the ladies, citing the 237-yard Par-4 on No. 13.  When I reminded him that no woman under six feet tall broke par, that didn't seem to change his viewpoint, he just didn't like it.  He even suggested that my frequent trips to the U.K. and Ireland might make me more favorably disposed to brown, which is no doubt true.

The other factor I know is in play, is the appreciation of the severity of the greens.  Unless you've played No. 2, you really can't appreciate how extreme they are and how difficult the shots into and round the green complexes are.  Television, even in high-def, remains a two-dimensional medium that can't quite capture the experience of dealing with those greens.  

As I drill down on Aschenbach's thought process, it seems to be that since the U.S. Opens have always had narrow ribbons of fairway, that's how it should always be.  A little resistant to change, are we?  As for the correlation he craves between driving accuracy and scoring, have you watched any golf in the last decade, Jim?

But I think it's more than just punching bag Jim that's having trouble dealing with change.  It's not what people expect to see, and there's a visceral negative reaction to it that's immune to logic.  All I can say is that playing No. 2 is a magnificent experience, that it appears entirely natural (perhaps not the buried-elephant greens) and looks like it's been there forever.  

Oh, and by the way, Jim, if this wasn't your idea of a U.S. Open, you might want to give Chambers Bay a miss.