Irish Times

The second best nine in golf might be the front nine at Pine Valley or the back at Ballybunion or Cypress Point. Or even the back nine at Augusta National. The best, however, is surely the front side at Royal County Down, as exhilarating a stretch of holes as exist in our game. 

THE CONFIDENTIAL GUIDE TO GOLF (Tom Doak)

Day One - We sure didn't see that one coming, did we?  It started poorly and continued spiraling down, as Host/Favored Son Rory McIlroy through up a no-good, gosh-darn awful 80 in the first round of the Irish Open.  Derek Lawrenson surveys the wreckage:

Rory McIlroy hopes he can give disappointed fans who watched his nine-over horror

first round at the Dubai Duty Free Irish Open something to cheer when they return to the course on Friday. 

The world No 1 suffered more than most on a morning punctuated by vicious squalling showers as he carded a round of nine pars and nine bogeys. 

It was his worst round in Europe since the 2010 Open at St Andrews, when he followed up an opening round of 63 with an 80.

Yes, his play yesterday had us all reminiscing about that second round at St. Andrews, but those conditions were far more severe.

McIlroy blamed his poor score on being caught in two minds on his iron shots. 

‘I had a good warm-up on the range hitting knockdown shots with my irons but when I got out on to the course the wind didn’t seem so bad and so I tried to hit normal shots,’ he said. ‘But I didn’t get the ball close and left myself a lot of eight to 10ft putts for par and none of them went in.’ 

McIlroy was out of luck as well. The last place you wanted to be when a squalling shower hit was the forbidding par-three seventh, and McIlroy duly missed the small target by fully 40 yards, finishing in the middle of the sixth fairway.

I was on this yesterday, and his attempt to at least try to play the correct shot is a step in the right direction...that 7th hole belongs on anyone's list of terrifying short Par-3's, along with the Postage Stamp, the 7th at Pebble and the 12th at Augusta.

But you know who I feel most sorry for?  Chloe Hyndman and Alex Kernaghan of course, because their custom-designed shoes will likely not see the light of day...

I'm watching second round play as I hunt and peck, and most of the players are in ski caps, so it's a fine day in Ulster.... and it must be getting to Shane Lowery, because he's putting with his sand wedge (his putter having met his knee on the prior hole).

Larry Bonahan informs us that Vegas bettors don't seem to understand the subtleties of our game:

It can be no surprise that Rory McIlroy, the No. 1 player in the world and a winner of

four majors including a U.S. Open, is the favorite to win the Open at Chambers Bay this month. At the moment – and frankly Las Vegas odds rarely are dramatically different from one sports book to the next – McIlroy is 9-2 to win the championship. That means if you bet $2 on McIlroy to win and he does win, you win $9. 

That's not quite the same kind of low payout as Woods had at the peak of his career, when he was at times 2-1 or close to even money to win a major. But McIlroy is a heavy favorite, even over the other red-hot player of the moment, Jordan Spieth. Spieth is 8-1 and the second choice among the bettors who care to put money on the event.

Rory needs the weather to cooperate at Chambers Bay, and even then I'm not crazy about his chances...Phil Casey focuses his game story on overnight leader Padraig Harrington:

Harrington, whose victory in the Honda Classic in March was his first on a major tour since the 2008 US PGA, was one over par after 10 holes before carding five birdies in the next six to finish one shot ahead of former Ryder Cup team-mate Soren Hansen.

"After nine or 10 holes I thought to myself 'C'mon, we've got to hit a good shot, no need to be afraid,'" said Harrington, who lasted just two holes at Wentworth before pulling out with a shoulder injury, but received intensive treatment and narrowly missed out on qualifying for the US Open four days later.

Early days, Phil.... Alas, Paddy's pact with the devil lapsed on the short walk from the first green to the second tee...he was three under for the day (starting on No. 10) when the devil exercised his opt-out, and played his last eight holes in five over.

The Girls, An Appreciation - Ryan Herrington sums up the ladies NCAA championship from earlier this week:

BRADENTON, FLA. -- Everywhere you turned late Wednesday afternoon at The Concession G.C. you saw the usual emotions on display from coaches and players and family that accompany the conclusion of the NCAA Women's Championship.

Cheers, tears, elation and relief. 

That they used match play to decide the women's team champion for the first time in NCAA history didn't change any of that. On the contrary, it only amplified it. Baylor senior Hayley Davis' missed par putt on the first extra hole of her deciding match with Stanford junior Mariah Stackhouse was all the more gut-wrenching because of the finality of the moment set up uniquely because of the new match-play format.

It was all that and more... Losing coach Jay Goble had this to say. similar to his comments after the equally-gut-wrenching semi-final win:

"I was the first one to be hesitant about it originally," said Goble moments after watching his squad painfully lost the championship. "I didn't originally believe that it was a format that was broken. But you know, again, going through the last two days, it's really exciting. It's really fun. It's an emotional roller coaster out there, but I think that to go out there and to fight it out the way you have to do in match play, it shows a lot of guts.

By all means go back to stroke play...unless you want people to watch.

Ryan had a previous item about the sudden ending:

BRADENTON, FLA. -- For as energizing as the final 40 minutes of the NCAA

Women's Championship played out Wednesday at The Concession G.C., it was the last 10 seconds that were the most stunning. 

All that excitement replaced with chilling silence. 

No one -- players, spectators, officials, Golf Channel commentators -- knew exactly how to react when Hayley Davis, the senior leader of the Baylor women's golf program and arguably its all-time best player, missed her five-foot par putt on the 19th hole of what turned out to be the deciding match of the championship. When her ball slid right of the hole, it allowed Stanford junior Mariah Stackhouse, already in with a par, to win her third straight hole and complete a comeback from 2 down with two holes to play to give the Cardinal and coach Anne Walker their first NCAA women's golf title.

That's true enough, but I do object to his headline writer's use of the word "buzzkill."  The intensity of the forty minutes is created by the possibility of a mistake by a player, so let's not complain when under that kind of excruciating pressure a player hiccups...

And that Mariah Stackhouse?   She's gonna give me a bushelful of strokes:

Jack's Stuff - The USGA has opened a Jack Nicklaus room at their Far Hills, NJ museum, and Max Adler takes us on a brief tour.  I'm familiar with White Fang, but this one was new to me:

"I bought this putter in North Berwick, Scotland shortly before the 1959 Walker Cup. It helped me to more than a dozen amateur titles, including both my U.S. Amateur wins."

Easy to forget that Jack Nicklaus actually used a hickory shafted putter. With it, he holed what he's said is the most important putt of his career; the final putt in the final match to defeat Charlie Coe in the 1959 U.S. Amateur.

I might need to make a pilgrimage to Far Hills.... But I also liked this from Alex Myers:

Of all Jack Nicklaus' accomplishments -- 18 professional majors, 73 PGA Tour titles,

etc. -- one number might stun golf fans more than any: 37. As in the 37 years Nicklaus used the same MacGregor Tommy Armour 3-wood.

The magical club is on display with other artifacts from Jack's storied career at the USGA's new Jack Nicklaus Room in Far Hills, N.J. Nicklaus used the 3-wood from 1958 through 1995, meaning he won all of those majors (beginning with the 1962 U.S. Open and ending with the 1986 Masters) and PGA Tour titles with it in the bag.

Wow..and to think we live in era when TaylorMade thinks we need a new driver every 37 days.

That'll have to keep you all for now... 

Thursday Thoughts

How great to wake up and have golf from Royal County Down to watch with my morning coffee...Add that to the list of things that don't suck.

Cardinal Rules - The final match between Baylor and Stanford didn't disappoint, with a dramatic comeback needed to seal the deal:

“At the end of the day, I couldn’t envision having anyone else in that anchor spot than

Stackhouse

Mariah,” Walker said of junior Mariah Stackhouse, who fought back from a two-hole deficit on the 17th tee to force an extra hole that she won with par. 

Stanford and Baylor had two points apiece by the time Stackhouse reached the 17th tee in her match against Baylor's Hayley Davis. Even worse, Davis has just completed a miraculous up-and-down, including a shot from a hazard as her feet sank into the mud. Stackhouse won No. 17 with a two-putt birdie, No. 18 with a 15-footer for birdie and the 10th with a routine par.

The shot Davis hit from a muddy lie in the hazard was destined to be the shot that defined the week, until it wasn't... But Stackhouse just continued to hoist her bag onto her strong back and march forward, and ultimately won the match on an unforced error by Davis, who missed a 3-footer that even I could see through blurry eyes was aligned way to far to the right.  Alas, it didn't threaten the cup...

The Standford team

In the middle of watching the event on tape delay Employee No. 2 walked in and asked if I was enjoying my time with the comely young lasses, presumably an effort to tweak her elderly husband as well as indicating that she had read my earlier post.  Fortunately I've no need to disguise my enjoyment of the eye candy, but as i explained it was the golf and especially the format that was so compelling...With 5-person teams, it seems inevitable that each team grabs two points, and one match is for all the marbles, dropping a weight of excruciating magnitude on two young ladies.  Really good stuff, and with the men on tap from the same venue, pull up a comfy chair...

I thought the production values were surprisingly good, given the ratings profile for college golf, not to mentions women's college golf.  It's quite clever to bring the men to the same venue, allowing the network to spread its fixed costs over two weeks of play.  Because of that not only did we get ProTracer (though employing it on the tee shot of an unreachable Par-5 seems somewhat curious), but aerial shots from a fixed-wing plane.

Marty Kauffman has this interview with producer Brandt Packer that you might find of interest:

GW: Having produced the women’s championship, will you make any adjustments for

the men’s championship? 

BP: No. I thought we would, but having seen it, the answer’s no. It’s the same golf

Packer, in the middle.

course, but the setup is going to be dramatically different. It’s going to be so much longer for the men. Our cameras are going to stay in the same spots, and I’m anxious to watch on Friday the sight lines. There are a lot of big doglegs here, so the sight lines will be different. They might go for more of the par 5s in two, so that might be more of an adjustment. 

But other than that, doing match play, whether it’s the Presidents Cup or the Ryder Cup or the Solheim, it’s not so much the drives as the second shots and around the greens. So that’s why it will pretty much stay the same.

Good on them for the coverage, and congrats to the Stanford team for their first national championship.

The Irish, Early Notes - The marque Rory-Rickie-Martin group has just made the turn (tape-delayed, of course) and none of them are setting the world on fire...

The course looks spectacular, though rain overnight has perhaps taken some of the fire out of it.  Rory looks completely clueless, not only spraying the ball but struggling with both speed and line with his putter.  He's missed a series of 5-8-footers badly, the kind that never look on line, though he's far from the only guy struggling on the greens.  I've always believed that links greens are the most difficult to read, as there's a subtlety to the movement difficult for the eye to discern.  That's my explanation for my struggles on links greens, and I'm sticking with that story...

 Though I am pleased to see Rory at least trying to play those linky knockdown shots with the sawed-off finish...we didn't see any of the during his disastrous second round at the Old Course, and continue to express our amazement that an Ulsterman doesn't have that in his DNA.... 

I was also pleased to see old-friend Gary Murphy providing the on-course commentary...Readers with a photographic memory will recall I played a few holes with Gary last September the day we arrived in Ireland...Gary was out having his weekly match with his mates and carrying his own luggage, and you can read about that day here.

That's Gary in red working on his takeaway.

It has started to rain in Newcastle and Rory is 5-over...only one of those data points is unexpected.

Miscelania - A couple of amusing little items for you... First, the only thing that would make this story better is if it happened on their anniversary:

The story of the Blundys comes from the Lansing State Journal, and seems legit thanks to a pair of witnesses who saw what went down on the 16th hole at Ledge Meadows Golf Course in Grand Ledge, Mich. on Sunday. Tony Blundy went first and one-hopped a 7-iron into the hole from 135 yards out. 

It was Tony's first hole-in-one, which matched his wife, Janet's, total. But apparently, Janet had no interest in staying tied with her husband. "You're going to be really mad when I put mine in," she said as she walked to the women's tee box. She then knocked in her pitching wedge from 110 yards. 

In other words, Janet Blundy is the Babe Ruth of calling golf shots.

I've previously related that when I made my one ace that Employee No. 2 holed out from the bunker... so the Blundys only beat us by one.

We've all seen the cute yardage markers on sprinklers 300 yards from the green, featuring "Dreamer", "Just Hit It" and some such, but see it you like this version:

I get and enjoy the humor, but they're actually not helping with pace of play...the point of getting your yardage from such a distance is to decide how to play your lay-up, i.e., from where do you want to play your next shot.

Lastly, we need one of these at our place:

Your match just ended all square after 18 holes. In most cases, your next move of

heading to the 19th hole would mean going to the clubhouse bar. Never a bad plan.

But what if your course actually had a 19th hole? And what if that 19th hole involved a floating green? 

Westchester Magazine has the story on this cool concept recently introduced by GlenArbor Golf Club in Bedford Hills, N.Y. Following their rounds, golfers there can hit a shot from near the clubhouse patio onto a green in the middle of a lake.

"It's the coolest shot in golf," GlenArbor head professional Brian Crowell told Westchester. "It's the perfect way to settle your bets -- or make a few more -- at the end of your round."

And what else are you going to do with all those TopFlites and Pinnacles in your bag?

Mid-Week Musings

The course lies among the sandhills under the shadow of Slieve Donard, the tallest of the Mourne Mountains, and so close to the sea that we may reach the shore with our first tee-shot...trouble lurks at the sides as well as in the centre of the fairway, and for all the boldness and bigness of the hazards it is really a straight rather than a long driver's course. BERNARD DARWIN on Royal County Down

County Down Syndrome - Shack finds this to be the Luck of the Irish, though I'd guess it's more the result of the hand of man, specifically a man with a basic grasp of the dark arts of public relations:

World number one Rory McIlroy will play with Rickie Fowler and Martin Kaymer in the

pick of the draw at the Irish Open. 

Walker Cup rivals turned Major rivals, Fowler and McIlroy, who is largely responsible for the stellar names littering the draw at Royal County Down, will tee off at 8am on Thursday.

I'm shocked...shocked, I say, at such a craven pairing of marketable names.  Are they prepared for the repercussions, i.e., that people might actually tune in?

They'll go off at 8:00 a.m. local time, 3:00 a.m. on the East Coast, which in another who woulda guessed it moment is just when Golf Channel comes on the air.  If you noticed the TV times in yesterday's post, that second window on Thursday was there for a reason...

Now I don't know if Sergio was one of the players lobbied by Rory, but he's the victim of this week's "No Love Lost" pairing:

There is little love lost between three-time Major winner Padraig Harrington and Sergio Garcia and the two will start together from the 10th tee along with 2014 winner Mikko Ilonen at 12.50pm.

I wasn't sure if they'd use split tees, but the tenth is a Par-3.  Always unusual too see them start their rounds on a one-shotter...

Royal County Down is notoriously the stuffiest of the Irish clubs and are one of the few clubs to completely segregate visitors from the facilities utilized by the members.  They're not rude in any way, it's just that they're not as graciously welcoming as most of the Irish clubs are.  Because of that, this sign from the basement of Slieve Donard gave me such a chuckle:

Match Play Madness - Despite a lack of familiarity with any of the players, the Women's NCAA Championship semi-finals provided terrific, gut wrenching drama, as the two dynasties (USC and Duke) were knocked off.  Jay Coffin with the game story:

Stanford is ranked 13th by Golfstat; Baylor is 18th. The Bears collected four victories this season, including their last two starts at both the Big 12 Championship and the NCAA Regional, while the Cardinal only won once. This is the 30th time that Stanford has qualified for the NCAA Championship. It’s only the third time that Baylor has been here. Better put, Duke has won twice as many NCAA titles as the Bears have appearances. 

Sure, it’s not Duke vs. USC – perennial heavyweights who have won nine titles in the past 16 years– but Baylor and Stanford both bring their own brand of power and precision.

It's match play, so it's your basic crap shoot...Ryan Lavner covered the most compelling of the matches between two players struggling mightily with their games:

Whyte’s high scores kept piling up at Concession: An opening 81. Followed by an 85.

Lauren Whyte

And then a 94. And an 82. Four days of stroke play, and not once did her score count toward Baylor’s team total. 

Of the 84 players who finished four rounds here, Whyte was dead last, 54 over par, 57 shots behind winner Emma Talley. 

“She was down,” head coach Jay Goble conceded. 

“It’s really been hard for her,” Davis said. 

The closest to Whyte in the individual standings was Duke freshman Lisa Maguire, who has endured her own struggles this season. And incredibly, both Baylor and Duke’s fates came down to those two players Tuesday during the semifinals of the NCAA Women’s Championship.

 So naturally these two go out in the first match, and are the last to finish as their 24-hole match, won with a bogey by Whyte, settles the matter.

And in the days strangest moment, Duke's Leonia Maguire was suspected of improperly communicating with teammates, caused by ...well, let Lavner tell it:

After playing her 10th hole at Concession in the afternoon semifinals, Maguire said she motioned back down the fairway that the hole location was in a different spot on the green than what was shown on the pin sheet. 

The rules staff had marked that the cup was 21 paces deep and 10 from the right. It was actually cut 9 on and 7 from the right. 

“We just screwed that one up,” NCAA director of rules Jerry Lemieux said later. “We just gave players the wrong paperwork.”

They're out there without caddies (although permitted to use distance measuring devices), and the committee gives them a bad pin sheet... Sheesh!

My favorite moment was the post-round interview with Baylor coach Jay Goble, who said (from memory) that he was initially skeptical of team match play (it's the first year of that format for the lasses), but wow is this fun!  Well, Jay, it's certainly been fun from the other side of the flat screen...

English Translation Required - New TaylorMade CEO David Abeles sat for an interview with Golf Digest's Stix E-mag, and the MBA-speak flowed like wine:

What did you learn in your time that away from TaylorMade? (Abeles left in 2014 to become CEO of Competitor Group Inc., an operator of marathon and half-marathon races.) 

I learned that running and golf are different. Running is an inspiring sport to those who run. They run for health and wellness, for charity, for personal records. Golf is a very aspirational sport. When we see Dustin Johnson, Jason Day or Justin Rose hit a shot, we want to hit that shot -- and from time to time we actually do. So we aspire to that level. But the biggest learning for me was the interaction of brands and how it can elevate your business practices. One of the things we'll do at TaylorMade moving forward is build out an experiential platform. To engage golfers on a day-to-day, week-to-week, month-to-month basis so they can experience our brands and products in new ways.

Once you stop laughing about the smack-your-forehead revelation that running and golf are different, perhaps you can help me understand what an "Experiential platform" is and how it differs from people using your products.  And does anyone want to experience TaylorMade drivers in different ways?   Maybe I'm short-sighted, but hitting golf balls with them is the extent off my experiential aspirations...

This is probably the most significant Q and A from the sitdown, though it's all, what's that word, aspirational:

What is the perception of the company right now, both in the industry and with consumers? 

When you're a company that bases its product strategy on innovation -- which is design and development to optimize performance -- there are things you do very well to excite consumers and there are times you do things quicker than most would appreciate or understand. And that's fair, that's definitely fair. But we're in a good place. We move forward and bring exciting products to market so consumers will get off the couch and buy them. We also have an obligation to work with our retail partners in managing some of the inventory challenges they face as a result of us bringing the products to market. We're cognizant of that. It's not a simple fix, but we have good ideas as to how we want to work with our customers. When you pursue innovation as a strategy -- and that is our strategy -- great things happen. But you take a lot of risk. We're very creative, we use technology to optimize performance and we use the world's best players to validate it. We're not perfect, I'm the first to admit that, but no company is.

That veiled reference to "Inventory challenges" is rich, as they buried Dick's in inventory by releasing three new drivers in a single year.  Since I've always heard that the first step in solving a problem is admitting its existence, we've at least got that going for us...

This And That

Let's catch up on some stuff, shall we?

Emma Talley

Who Doesn't Like College Girls? - Those starved for televised golf or those that just like to ogle college chicks should check out Golf Channel's coverage of the Women's NCAA Championship from The Concession Club in Bradenton, FL.

Yesterday was the individual competition, won by Alabama's Emma Talley (winner of the 2013 U.S.

Women's Amateur), as well as qualifying eight teams for the team match play championship.  I very much enjoy the atmospherics (above and beyond the sweet young things), such as the girls carrying their bags and tending the pin for each other.

Back To County Down - An item that slipped my mind is that RCD has as much gorse on the property as any links I can remember.  Now gorse, technically Ulex, is really nasty stuff, prickly and imparts a noxious slime to anything that comes in contact with it.  If your golf ball ends up within a gorse bush, you may let your caddie take a shot at retrieval (though that should affect the gratuity), it takes only one experience to learn to leave it be.

Now, gorse has only two redeeming features:

1. The planting and spread off gorse, and the resulting fire hazard (it's highly flammable, who knew?) led to the building of Bandon Dunes;
2. The gorse bushes bloom with yellow flowers, typically in May.

Shack brings us news that the gorse is, in fact, in bloom....so the place will look stunning.  here's an example from Kevin Markham:

It's quite a place...

Fox Shanks - No, we've moved on from their dreadfull coverage of the USGA Fourball events, but it turns out that the President of Fox Sports goes by the name of Eric Shanks and, well, you can't make this stuff up, folks...  

We had recently noted their obvious interest in bidding on the Open Championship package currently out for bid, which seems consistent with this comment:

Eric Shanks

“It wasn’t necessarily the start of a large golf strategy but we are big believers in broadcasting big event sports on broadcast TV,” Shanks said. “This is a big event that captures the attention for at least a week if not more. It’s a major sports championship where you get to crown a champion at the end of it, and that was the appeal. It fits well with our big-event strategy. It’s not about us getting us into 23 weeks of golf.”

Last time I inquired, you don't get to braodcast the Super Bowl without "getting into" sixteen  weeks of regular season games...  But of greater importance, when do you get around to figuring out how to do the job?

 Men At Work - Shack links us to some photos of the new 17th green at Pebble, including this promising one:

What I like is that the contours provide some depth perception, sorely missing previously.  Oh, that and the fact that there might actually be enough room to set a golf ball down...  Now, any news on the 14th green?

Bigfoot?  Nessie? - There is news about a similarly mythical creature, implying an actual public appearance:

Anthony Kim's mysterious disappearance from pro golf continues, but it appears he'll

pay for play at some point in the near future. Sort of 

According to NewsOK, a round with Kim was auctioned off at the 12th annual Toby Keith & Friends Golf Classic. There aren't any details on when the round will take place, but someone paid $24,500 to play with the three-time PGA Tour winner. Of course, that money will go to Keith's charity.

Kim, who hasn't played in a tour event in more than three years and who is reported to be sitting on an eight-figure disability settlement, was spotted at a Las Vegas nightclub in April. He turns 30 next month.

He always did like to party, and eight-figures will fund a lot of those...

First World Problems - Brandt Snedeker attempted to start some playful fun with Billy Horschel at the U.S. Open, but business got in the way:

Brandt Snedeker 

✔@BrandtSnedeker

@BillyHo_Golf @@usopengolf U Scared??

 Follow

Billy Horschel 

✔@BillyHo_Golf

@BrandtSnedeker @usopengolf.... Never! Just not able to do that week. Clothes have been picked for 6 months now.

11:22 AM - 24 May 2015

•  
 
•  22 Retweets
 
•  1313 favorites

 Yanno, scripted clothing and all...

He Gets A Pass - If you follow my advice and check out the Irish Open, you may notice Rory in some non-conforming footwear:

Sunday's shoe.

By now we all expect Rory McIlroy to add a bit of flavor to his outfits, whether it's by wearing a loud belt, blocks of color or bold patterns. But he generally stays away from making fashion statements with his shoes—until now.

At the Irish Open this week McIlroy will wear four colorful, eye-catching Nike Lunar Control 3 shoes that were each designed by a kid whose life has been impacted by cancer. McIlroy, the Rory Foundation and Nike worked together with the Cancer Fund for Children, a charity in Northern Ireland that provides support to kids whose lives have been affected by cancer, to raise awareness through these NIKEiD designs.

I'm anxious to see what he thinks matches that Sunday show, but it's a nice gesture by the young man. 

Royal County Down

But for all that I found there I might as well be

Where the Mountains of Mourne sweep down to the sea.

- "The Mountains of Mourne"

by Percy French (1896)

It's Royal County Down week here at Unplayable Lies, so we'll be spending Thursday-Sunday where, as the man felicitously put it,  the Mountains of Mourne sweep down to the sea.

We're here for the Dubai Duty Free Irish Open, benefiting Rory McIlroy's Foundation, entirely fitting given that Rory grew up just up the two-lane road in Holywood.  Because of this involvement Rory put the squeeze on his friends, in the best sense of course, so we're treated to a far stronger than usual field, including Rickie Fowler.  That'ssignificant in that it allows us to run what Shackelford calls "Charmingly unflattering" photos of Rickie and Rory from the 2007 Walker Cup.

 We really can't get enough of this one, can we?

Rory was kind of jowly and Rickie had the sourpuss thing going, but they've moved on so perhaps we should as well...

I don't know that County Down is the greatest golf course in the world or the most beautiful, but I don't know that it isn't.  It looks like no other golf course in the world, at least none that I've seen, and no less an authority than Ran Morrissett calls it "The finest combination of beauty and challenge in golf."  Golf course ratings are what they are, but if Golf Digest rates it as the best golf course outside the U.S. we can assume that it doesn't suck... And while television cameras have been there (three Senior Open Championships at the turn of the century and that 2007 Walker Cup), this will be the first time we get to see it in full 1080p high definition.

RCD is located withing walking distance of the Northern Ireland vacation village of Newcastle, some two hours north of Dublin.  From the club's website:

Royal County Down is located in one of the world’s most naturally beautiful links settings in the Murlough Nature Reserve. Against the magnificent backdrop of the Mountains of Mourne, the links stretches along the shores of Dundrum Bay, zigzagging back and forth to provide a different vista from virtually every hole.

It is all that and they perhaps undersell it, as the properties natural elevation changes and the spectacular backdrop are quite unmatched.  Here's a long excerpt from the Morrissett review linked above:

Yet, sadly, like The Old Course at St. Andrews, Royal County Down would never be re-created today. Even fans of Coore & Crenshaw and Tom Doak’s Renaissance Golf Design will admit their near steadfast aversion to blind tee balls. Holes like the 2nd, 5th, 6th, 9th, and 11th at County Down would likely not come into existence. More is the pity, especially as many of these are among the best holes on the course. A modern architect would either modify the dunescape or end up with a largely different routing, claiming that some of the features at County Down are anachronistic.

However, what for instance would be gained if the blind tee balls on the aforementioned holes were altered? What exactly is gained by ‘better’ visuals as defined by modern golf – anything of genuine substance? The author doubts it but certainly some of the uncertainty presented by County Down’s diversity of challenge would be undermined.

Also, some of its uniqueness would no doubt vanish. As with Oakmont Country Club and Pine Valley Golf Club, County Down stands apart as reminding one of no other course in the world in part because it was designed not by a professional architect but rather by strong willed people with a genuine love and feel for the game.

So, who is responsible for this masterpiece?  You'll hear credit assigned to Old Tom Morris and the great Harry S. Colt most frequently, but we'll let Shack sum up the complicated lineage from a post at The Loop:

A Scottish schoolteacher named George Baillie was the first to design nine holes here in 1889 or so. Then Old Tom Morris was paid “a sum not to exceed £4” to turn the Newcastle course into 18 holes. A series of major changes were made by a club captain, George Combe that resulted in the core of today’s world-renowned layout. This was followed by suggestions from legends James Braid, J.H. Taylor, Harry Vardon and Ben Sayers before the great H.S. Colt created the famed fourth and ninth holes in 1925. More recently, Donald Steel strengthened the finishing holes, including the entirely new 16th that gives the finishing stretch a risk-reward short par-4.

How's that list for a Who's Who of U.K. golf?   The other feature of the course that will readily capture your attention are the bunkers, or more accurately their surrounds.  Back to the club's website:

The ‘bearded’ bunkers are world famous and feature overhanging lips of marram, red fescue and heather.

Here's a good example of the intimidating bunker guarding the front of the second green:

The most famous hole on the course is the ninth, a dreadfully difficult Par-4 that affords spectacular vistas back towards town and the Slieve Donard Hotel (named for the highest peak in the Mourne range, it's the red brick building you'll see lots of on the TV coverage) from an significantly-elevated tee box, with a nasty, evil, no-good pot bunker guarding access to the green between two lines of dunes.

A couple of other personal observations about the event and the golf course:

• As most of you are likely aware, links greens are typically on the slow side, as a precaution against the wind moving golf balls.  Not only were County Down's greens the fastest I've ever experienced in the U.K. or Ireland by a significant degree, but they are also severely crowned.  Here's an example:

• Unusual for a links, the ninth hole at RCD returns to the clubhouse, but it's the front nine that has the more interesting terrain along Dundrum Bay.  That means that the more interesting viewing, assuming your interest is in seeing the course, may well be on Thursday and Friday.
• There's lots of the aforesaid coverage, as Shack explains:

-- Golf Channel is offering no shortage of chances to see Rickie and Rory re-uniting at Royal County Down. Thursday the network is live from 3-8 am ET, with a second live window from 11-1 p.m ET. Friday is one window from 7 a.m. ET to 1 p.m. The weekend is live too, with Saturday coverage starting at 8:30 a.m. and Sunday commencing at 8 a.m.

Kudos to Golf Channel for recognizing the unique opportunity.  If I haven't induced you to watch, perhaps this short video from the club's site will:

Weekend Wrap

Better late than never for our weekend wrap, as there was golf to be played this morning.... admittedly sleepwalking golf, but a letdown is inevitable right after winning the first major of the season.

Colonial Rain - I only had time to watch the conclusion of one of the golf tourneys, though I was intrigued to see whether Kevin Na or Ian Poulter would cough up the event.  Little did I realize the answer was all of the above...

Chris Kirk is the PGA Tour’s most cool, calm and collected player. His pulse is flatter

than the brim of Rickie Fowler’s cap. When he took the lead at the Crowne Plaza Invitational with a 5-foot birdie at the 15th hole, he wore the expression of a guy who just saw his dog run over. 

Yet to hear Kirk tell it, looks can be deceiving. 

“That was the most nervous I’ve ever been on a golf course,” he said.

Kirk later explained that he didn’t have his ‘A game’ but he showed some grit after making an eagle at the first and played his final 11 holes without a bogey en route to a 4-under 66 and a one-stroke victory over Jason Bohn, Brandt Snedeker and Jordan Spieth.

How wet was it in Fort Worth?  This wet...

It was the first time in recent memory that a competitive round was played under preferred lies (lift, clean and place) through the green.

Really not much of an event if the lads can put their hands on the ball in the rough.  'Tis a shame...

Hail Monty -  I would say that I made the correct viewing choice:

By successfully defending his Senior PGA Championship title Sunday at the Pete Dye Course at French Lick Resort, Montgomerie joined one iconic name, Jack Nicklaus, as the only players to claim their first three Champions Tour victories at majors. Each of Nicklaus’ first six wins as a senior came in majors. 

“It was a difficult position to start the day, having a three-stroke margin,” said Montgomerie, “because there’s nowhere to go but down. 

“I made a mess of 1 again, then I really started to relax. When I holed the (birdie) putt at 12, I felt safe, and 1 over from the 13th tee is not bad here.”

He really played extraordinarily well, seemingly not missing a shot during the TV window.  He's found something that I wish he'd share with me, as he's playing very relaxed golf.  And when Monty is on his feed, he's a ball-striking machine.

I've long proposed Monty for a TV commentary gig, and this round-belly tour roll can't hurt those chances...

BMW PGA - A snore-fest at Wentworth, enlivened only by Miggy's ace:

Byeong Hun An shot a 7-under 65 to win the BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth

on Sunday with a tournament record total of 21 under. 

The South Korean made five birdies and an eagle in a bogey-free round to finish six strokes clear of Thongchai Jaidee of Thailand (69) and Miguel Angel Jimenez of Spain (67). 

The 23-year-old An captured his first European Tour victory after Francesco Molinari, who had at least a share of the lead for the first three rounds, only managed a 74. He finished fifth, nine shots back.

For a tour looking to reclaim past glories, this had to be a disappointing week for its flagship event.  Lots of grousing about the greens and weak play by the marquee names....not how you would dial it up.

Though if you're in the market for a longshot pick for Chambers Bay, Scott Hanson provides an interesting factoid:

Anything seemed possible when An was one of the big stories entering the U.S. Amateur in 2010. The year earlier, he had won the event, becoming its youngest champion at age 17.

He proved his title was no fluke at Chambers Bay, making it all the way to the semifinals before losing to David Chung. He played six competitive rounds at Chambers Bay, which will give him an experience edge at the U.S. Open.

But it has not been a straight line of success.

I'll need a ruling from Mike Davis as to how many practice rounds he needs, but he's one of the few that has seen the joint.

TV/DVR Alert -  Lots of interesting golf to be found on TV in the next two weeks, it's just not the usual suspects.

Golf Channel is covering both the men's and women's NCAA Championships, and the ladies have the stage beginning later today.  At 4:00 they'll show the women's individual championship, but then tomorrow and Wednesday will be team match play.

The men take the stage next week under a similar format.

Now in the unforced error category comes this from Ryan Lavner:

BRADENTON, Fla. – The numbers are jarring. 

The 54-hole cut at this women’s NCAA Championship will fall somewhere around 65 over par. No player is in red numbers. The scoring average for the 24-team field is 78.47. 

There has been one round in the 60s – and seven in the 90s. 

No wonder this place is nicknamed Concussion.

 I don't understand the logic there, especially with match-play coming...

The place is actually called Concession, and here's Lavner with the explanation of how it got out of hand:

Concession is a relative newcomer, having opened in 2006, and there have been no significant women’s events held here. Officials at host sites the past three years relied on ample data for how the course played for a women’s event. Not so here. All Lemieux had to work with were discussions with the club, chats with a few LPGA players who are members here, and then visits to the course last September and then again a week ago. 

Another factor: Players and coaches always had two practice rounds in the lead-up to the championship. But with the women’s move to match play, visiting teams weren’t allowed to see the course until Thursday morning, the lone practice round. To adequately prepare for this championship – and specifically the severity of these green complexes, which are 9,000 square feet but with only about 500 square feet of usable targets – they needed more than a six-hour tour with their teammates.

Still doesn't quite explain it, but hopefully they'll learn from this.  And it's worth watching, especially the team portion of the competition. 

This and That - Mid-Weekend Edition

The holiday schedule at Willow Ridge places the Mixed tournament (a/k/a the season's first major) on Sunday afternoons, allowing for, nay requiring, some rare Sunday morning blogging...

Colonial Times - You really can't beat Fort Worth in late May, and it's setting up for a....errr, well it's setting up to finish today, the Good Lord Willin' and the Creek don't rise:

Kevin Na regained sole possession of the lead with a late birdie Saturday at Colonial,

taking a one-stroke lead over Ian Poulter into the final round. 

Na's 1-under 69 in the third round included a couple of bogeys. He is at 11-under 199 at a very damp Hogan's Alley. 

Poulter, who shot 68, had dropped out of a share of the lead after starting the back nine with a four-putt double bogey. But he was again tied with Na after making a 32-foot birdie at No. 15, the same hole where his playing partner two-putted from 6 feet after his approach missed the green.

Sheesh, Na and Poults...kinda reminds me of Henry Kissinger's pithy comment about the Iran-Iraq war...but that Poulter 4-jack should have carried a viewer warning.

Dateline: French Lick - I don't even need an item here, it's just fun to say French Lick... but in a seeming replay of last year's event:

While others all around him found a land mine at one point or another in Saturday’s third round of the 76th Senior PGA Championship, Montgomerie, the defending champion, kept his stumbles to a minimum. With an opening-hole bogey the lone blemish on a 2-under-par 70, Montgomerie finished the day at 5-under 211, good enough for a three-shot edge over Bernhard Langer, whose 69 was highlighted by an eagle at the par-4 eighth. 

“I was delighted with the day’s performance,” said Montgomerie. “I’m very proud of what I achieved today because you had to play chess with the course. ... You’ve got to think about things. You’ve got to course manage your way around.

"But I came here to be in contention on Saturday evening and I am."

It's an amusing pairing, as Monty likes to get on with things and Bernhard, well our Bernhard likes to take time to smell the flowers.. that typically works to the advantage of the slower player, but our Monty seems to have found something and won last year despite being paired with Langer all four days.

Wentworth Woes - Presumably somebody is leading that event, you can Google it if you care... Rory missed the cut, hopefully allowing him to get some rest and gather himself for his home game at Royal County Down next week.

The event has given us some good moments, as another week, ho hum, another Miggy ace:

And Mick Tommy Fleetwood treated us to a rare albatross as well:



And from the first round, Englishman Andrew Johnston has an advanced case of Phil Mickelson disease in his inability to get airborne during the requisite caddie chest bump:

And in dog-bites-man news, the players are talking up another mulligan for the former Harry S. Colt classic:

Two-time winner Luke Donald carded a second successive 70 to finish four under par, but suggested that the greens needed replacing for the second time in six years. 

"I guess the only way to fix them is to redo them again," said Donald. "If there's one tournament you should expect them to be perfect, it's this one.

Shack uses his wayback machine to provide ready links to this annual discussion:

If you must, the opportunity a sampling of past redesign controversies involving Wentworth can be viewed here, here and for giggles involving Ernie pouting, here.

Ernie is a man that has absorbed the disappointments and humiliations of the game of golf with uncommon grace, and is one of the best-liked men in the game.  But the abuse of his redesign of this treasure, that proved to be more than he could bear...

My God, We Could Lose Monty In There - A few weeks ago we saw the round-bellies play their Bass Pro Shops event at the Top Of The Rock Par-3 course.  Now comes news that the earth moved for them, and not in a good way, with a large sinkhole geological event:

“We discovered at about 6:30 this morning a geological event at the Top of the Rock,” Sapp said. “We reported it to the Missouri Department of Natural Resources. Our team and their geologic survey team were doing a geologic assessment of the area. 

“Safety measures were immediately initiated. Sinkholes in this area of the Missouri Ozarks are not uncommon. They can occur because of the type of rock we have. But it did not affect any of the buildings and we’re draining the entrance pond,

We do love our euphemisms... here's what it looked like:

A Fescue Primer - There are few words as consistently misused in our game as fescue, typically taken to mean long, stringy grasses sometimes used on golf courses.  But fescue is actually the name  used for a variety of grasses utilized on links courses, including fairways and greens.

Craig Smith provides a timely public service in the Seattle Times on this subject:

USGA executive director Mike Davis can sound like the president of the Fescue Fan

Club. 

“It’s a great grass to play golf on because it doesn’t have any tackiness to it,” Davis said at the tournament’s media day in April. “It’s a thin blade of grass, round, and when the ball hits it — while a lot of other grasses will kind of grab it — on fescue it skids.

“And what that means is, when you’re playing golf you’ve got to think about what happens when your ball hits, where it’s going to bounce and roll to. So it’s a fascinating grass on which to play.” 

Larry Gilhuly of Gig Harbor, the West Region agronomist for the USGA, said fescue thrives best in three locations — the British Isles, New Zealand and the marine zone of the Pacific Northwest.

And that, my friends, is why there are precious few links in the U.S. (and also why Mike Keiser was so attracted to the Oregon coast).  

Because fescue doesn’t grow fast, it doesn’t require frequent mowing. That’s one reason British courses, particularly those on tight budgets, like it.

However, the No. 1 concern with fescue is that “it is susceptible to traffic stress,” Bevard said. 

In other words, too many feet beat it up.

Too many feet and especially too many tires.... But the other issue with fescue is that it can't survive in heat.  That's why tracks like Shinnecock and Kiawah are definitively not links, and in fact sometimes these hybrid courses play a bit strangely.... 

One last note of what to expect:

One trait of fescue is that it doesn’t stay green in hot months. It can turn brown but still be playable. Chambers Bay was brown in 2010 when the U.S. Amateur was played in August. June is a transitional month, so it should be more green than brown. Still, don’t expect fans to say, “I want my lawn to look like that.” 

Gilhuly noted that fescue isn’t as dense as other grasses and said, “You can’t mow this grass low.”

It doesn't need to be mowed low, and I assure you that "Hot month" is very much a relative concept.  But the beauty of it is that it provides for greens that are not particularly fast yet are quite firm.  As I always note, in my opinion links golf is the greatest form of the golf on the planet.

So, Dear Reader, you've been educated....please use the term fescue accurately from now on.