Thursday Themes - Open Thursday Edition

If we believe the prognosticators, this week could feature an old-timey 1980's-ish U.S. Open.  Perhaps, but my experience is that pre-tourney predictions of difficulty et buried under a sea of red numbers.

It might be more of an old-timey Open Championship, at least in terms of TV coverage.  Reminiscent of the all-day BBC coverage, USA is on as of 6:30 today, and will go all day.  Tiger tees off in an hour, so should be a fun day of golf

Number Two - They don't get more classic than Pinehurst, although you'll note that the USGA didn't get there until 1999.  Of course, given the pre-restoration dreariness of the place, modern Opens at Pinehurst begin with those 2014 back-to-backers.

So, how tough a test will this be?

This will be an Open of survival. Of finding a way, regardless of convention. Of swallowing pride to ensure no worse than a bogey. An Open at Pinehurst is frequently less about great shots and more

about minimizing the impact of bad swings and poor decisions, even more so since a 2011 restoration by Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw took No. 2 back to its raw, sandy, bouncy roots.

In an era of big swings dominating golf, Pinehurst No. 2 puts a premium on small-ball sensibilities. Of knowing when to pitch out sideways, when to play to the front of a green, when to leave the 60-degree wedge in the bag. Martin Kaymer proved as much in winning the 2014 U.S. Open by eight shots, deftly relying on his putter from off the greens.

The resort caddies at No. 2 don’t talk much about greens hit in regulation. Instead, they laugh about “greens visited in regulation,” so common it is for balls to scatter away from the crowned putting surfaces. Great shots will find favor, as they always should. Mediocre and even seemingly good shots, however, are subject to No. 2’s audacious greenside roll-offs.

My caddie spoke of "Pitch marks in regulation," of which there were quite a few.

Any discussion of this joint begins with the greens:

The term of art is as follows:

U.S. Open 2024: 'Effective green size' is a big buzzword at Pinehurst—here's what it means

 I've been reliably informed that size matters....

On paper, the USGA reports that the average green size here at Pinehurst this week is about 6,500 sq. feet, which is actually pretty big. It's about the same size as an average, low-scoring PGA Tour green.

But as always, the devil is in the details.

The reality is that the "effective size" of the greens—a phrase you'll hear a lot this week—is smaller. A lot smaller.

How much smaller? Scott Fawcett, a mathematician and founder of DECADE Golf, ran the numbers on a few of the greens.

Here's the second green, for instance, as measured by StrackaLine.

Everywhere that appears red, orange or pink denotes a slope of more than four percent.

 

 

The most interesting thing to watch will be how they will play from those surrounds.  In 2014 they used putters almost exclusively, but it seems that these areas are a bit shaggier than in '14.  

So, about that effective size:

“Your ball won’t stay on those slopes,” says Ralph Bauer, a PGA Tour putting coach. “The Masters or USGA may put a pin on a four percent slope, but that’s as much as you can go when the greens get this fast.”

When Fawcett imposed the remaining green-or-blue area on the green, he found players are left with a target just 14 yards wide. The total area is about 2,700 sq. feet—a space that’s almost 1,000 sq. feet smaller than the average green size at the smallest greens on tour at Pebble Beach.

Just watched Matteo Manassero and Rico Hoey putting from around No. 10 green.  Both were putting for par on the Par-5, and the former had his first putt come back to his feet, then naturally blew the next one way by.  

Pete Cowan, who knows a few things, expects some pros to look like ams this week:

Pete Cowen hates lob wedges. Well, hate is a bit strong. He’s just not a fan.

For all the pre-tournament cramming trying to solve Donald Ross’ turtleback greens, Cowen projects many players will fall into a familiar trap once play begins. They will miss a green, pull out their usual wedge, and then they’ll chunk a chip by attempting to dig the leading edge into the turf. If the lie is what should dictate most shot choices in a U.S. Open, Cowen suspects players will underestimate the challenge of chipping into the grain out of Pinehurst’s tightly-mown collection areas.

“Anybody that drives the leading edge into the ground is going to struggle,” he said. “You need to know how to use the bounce, but most people don't know how to use the bounce properly.”

As Cowen said, the only way to use a wedge from off a green here is by opening the face and slide the club along the ground to utilize the bounce. You can see Matt Fitzpatrick do so here, albeit with his unconventional cross-handed chipping method.

What does Pete recommend?

The better option, Cowen says, is something with significantly less loft, whether it’s Tiger Woods’ 4-iron bump-and-run, or the 3-wood Webb Simpson was using in his practice round Wednesday.

If there is a bit more grass under the ball, that does make the the flopper easier.   

The other issue is what happens when you miss a fairway.  I love the unkempt look of the post-restoration No. 2, but are you familiar with wire plants?

I was there in the Fall of 2013, and we were given an obscene number of wire plants to be added before the 2014 events, and now we hear that they've added another huge number for this installment.  

Golf Magazine convened its Tour Confidential panel to muse over relative levels of brutality:

The difficulty of Pinehurst No. 2 has been a major talking point at this week’s U.S. Open, but as we ready for the first round, do you think that storyline has been overblown? Or do you think we’ll see scores much higher than expected on Thursday?

Jessica Marksbury: No matter how hard a golf course is supposed to be, it seems like there is always someone who manages to shoot an outlier low score. But that said, I do think Pinehurst will show some teeth this week, and I expect even par will be considered a great round.

Dylan Dethier: I’m very, very concerned by the amount of green-watering that seems to be going on. But if you believe the players, this thing is gonna be brutal — in a good way. Tiger Woods talking about guys playing ping-pong. Wyndham Clark called the greens borderline on Monday. Martin Kaymer, who won here last time, talking about how much tougher it looks this time around. Those of us who love watching the pros tackle a terrifying U.S. Open test are often disappointed to get to tournament time and see the course play easier than advertised, but I don’t think that’ll happen this week. I hope not. Winning score is three under.

Jack Hirsh: I really like the six- to 10-under-par that has been winning U.S. Opens of late. Yes, the greens are challenging and while they are watering the course now, as Dylan reports, it’s going to take a lot more than hosing to soften this course with the high temperatures coming Thursday through Sunday. After the greens, the next defense of this golf course is the length because you can get away with some big misses off the tee. These guys will still have lots of wedges into greens. There will be plenty of birdies to keep the winning score in that sweet spot scoring zone, but also lots of train wrecks to keep most of the field on the other side of par. Sounds like a U.S. Open to me.

Sean Zak: It’s been accurately portrayed. It’s all the players can seem to talk about, a breath of fresh air from Valhalla last month, which one caddie told me today, “Didn’t feel like a major.” That’s because the ball sat exactly where it landed on the ground. There was no thinking, no hard work for caddies. Players are talking about the difficulty of the course because their brains are switched ON. They should be. It’s exhausting. It’s the U.S. Open. I don’t see scores ballooning, necessarily, but there is definitely room for some chaos, which is great. A wicked fun weekend awaits. Six under wins.

Zephyr Melton: I’m sure the test will be stern, but I don’t see scores being as high as they have been in the previous Opens here, with just four players total finishing under par. Since the Saturday massacre at Shinnecock in 2018 (giving us Zach Johnson’s infamous “They’ve lost the golf course” speech) the USGA has been very cautious about pushing things to the edge. The winning U.S. Open scores since then have been 13 under, 10 under, and three times at six under. I’d guess that the winning score this year will be something in that six under range. Carnage isn’t as much in the DNA for the current USGA regime.

Josh Sens: The good news about this week is that the course won’t need to be tricked up to be toughened up. The greens alone at No. 2 are enough of a defense to keep scores from running into deep-red Valhalla numbers, without having to cut pins on goofy nobs or bake the putting surfaces to asphalt consistency. And because they’re now bermuda (a change since the last U.S. Open here in 2014) the course setup peeps should be able to get the putting surfaces super-tight without worrying about burnout. Should be fierce but fair. By the end of the week, I suspect you’ll be able to count the total number of players under par on one hand. Scottie Scheffler will probably be the lowest of them, at seven under.

As Dylan hints at, I expect that the USGA will soften things for Thursday-Friday, not least because they need to get 156 players around each day.  

I'm hoping for some carnage, but these guys are so good I expect we'll see better scoring than expected.

The Summer of His Discontent - What a long, strange trip it's been for this guy: 

It turns out that Jon Rahm’s toe infection is worse than he said during his pre-U.S. Open press

conference on Tuesday. The Spaniard withdrew from the 124th U.S. Open just hours later.

The infected sore is located between the little toe and the next toe on his left foot. Rahm posted on his social media in both English and Spanish that “after consulting with numerous doctors and my team, I have decided it is best for my long term health to withdraw,” he wrote. “To say I’m disappointed is a massive understatement!”

Rahm, the 2021 U.S. Open champion, was scheduled to make his ninth appearance in the U.S. Open. He was replaced in the field by alternate Jackson Suber, 24, of Tampa, Florida.

Rahm withdrew from LIV Golf’s Houston on Saturday due to the infection to his left foot.

Do Saudis appreciate irony?  Rahm was a shot across the bow from Yasir,  but has looked s miserable at LIV that he's likely more of a cautionary tale at this juncture.

There's news in the golf media world.  You might have noticed it's been an eternity since we had an Ask Alan, and it's been pretty clear that the Fire Pit Collective was, cute name aside, failing to generate any heat.  Now Alan pops up with a new mailbag, but the news is that he's now hanging his hat at MyGolfSpy.com, an interesting gear-focused website but a curious landing spot for Alan.

More on that in the future, but he had this on the Spaniard:

Will Jon Rahm ever wake up and smell the roses, or will he persist in his apparent delusion that a) he is still a member in good standing of the PGA Tour, and b) he will one day be welcomed back to his favorite PGA Tour events with open arms? @WillotheGlen

He may yet get to play Torrey Pines and Riviera and the Phoenix Open and a few more of his favorites, but for sure this has been a jarring change in workplaces for Rahm. He has immense pride and a deep desire to become a player for the ages, so it is far too early to give up on him. Rahm has learned a hard lesson that more money hardly guarantees more happiness. He will find his equilibrium eventually but it better be soon, because the sport is quickly moving on without him.

Even before Rahm guys like Brooksie seemed a bit unhappy once he got healthy.  Combined with Rahm's pining for PGA Tour events, it seems quite the flashing red light for others considering such a move.

Say What? - If it's Rahm's summer of discontent, how to explain the ebb and flow of this guy's life?

Rory McIlroy began the PGA Championship last month with news that he had filed for divorce from his wife, Erica Stoll. Now, a couple of days away from the start of the U.S. Open at Pinehurst No. 2, the World No. 3 golfer says the couple has reversed course.

“Over the past weeks, Erica and I have realized that our best future was as a family together. Thankfully, we have resolved our differences and look forward to a new beginning,” McIlroy told the Guardian news outlet.

McIlroy, 35, and his wife have been married for seven years and have a daughter, 3-year-old Poppy. He filed for divorce on May 13 in Florida, the day after winning the Wells Fargo Championship.

The Guardian reported that McIlroy downplayed internet reports about his dating life in the aftermath of the original divorce announcement. “There have been rumors about my personal life recently, which is unfortunate. Responding to each rumor is a fool’s game," he said.

 Amanda Balionis hardest hit?

Life is hard, you just wonder at the inability to keep their difficulties out of the headlines.

Wither Golf - Eamon Lynch sees these Mike Whan comments as a shot across the bow:

Whan’s second broadside was ostensibly about LIV Golf, but was aimed squarely at players

competing on all tours, and at the executives charged with resolving the grubby, divided state of men’s professional golf.

Twelve LIV members are in the 156-man field at Pinehurst No. 2, all of whom earned a berth through final qualifying or long-established exemption criteria. Whan was at pains to point out that every LIV player had an opportunity to be here.

“We had 35 players from LIV that were exempted right into final qualifying. So if they really wanted to be here, they could go play 36 holes and qualify, and some did, to their credit,” he explained. “There is no out-of-bounds stakes on our field criteria … it’s not a closed field. It doesn’t require a committee or an invitation. If you want to play in this field you’ve got an opportunity to play in this field, and we’re proud of that.”

But, Mike, what about that asterisk, because Talor doesn't do 36?

This is the actual warning shot:

But avenues exist directly from other professional tours into the championship, so the USGA’s head admitted that he and chief championships officer John Bodenhamer will discuss a potential pathway for LIV golfers deemed worthy but otherwise ineligible by other established criteria. “We’re going to talk about it this off-season, whether or not there needs to be a path to somebody or somebodies that are performing really well on LIV that can get a chance to play in that way. I think we are serious about that,” he said.

Translated from Whan’s positivity patter, that was a candid warning to the PGA Tour to get its house in order, that the USGA isn’t prepared to see its premier event diminished in the future because relevant golfers are absent. Whan isn’t quite drinking the ‘Gooch hooch’ favored by PGA of America CEO Seth Waugh, whose outfit contorted itself to invite LIV’s Talor Gooch to last month’s PGA Championship, despite his having made no effort to qualify on merit. But Whan is at least suggesting he might pour himself a shot for the 125th U.S. Open if there is no more clarity on the future of the men’s game.

It's not what Jay wants to hear right now, but the PGA of America might have made the more significant concessions.   Especially as it seems a deal is more likely in the current moment...

Shipnuck had a few bits on this subject:

Since many of the LIV contracts allegedly were only three-year deals, is the PGA Tour worried that that LIV will poach more players next winter? @IIIWoodD

Of course! The Jon Rahm signing was the ultimate warning to the Tour: come back to the bargaining table or we will raid your top players. It’s wild that anyone would still question Al-Rumayyan’s resolve. He plays to win, and if the framework agreement falls apart and LIV and the Tour go back to being bitter rivals, Yasir will not be shy about wielding the checkbook.

LIV deals expiring is an interesting side note, but are there many guys still interested in jumping?  Color me skeptical, but who knows?

#AskAlan: I’ve been thinking of the best way to have a tour that’ll satisfy sponsors, top-tier players, rank-and-file players, spectators and fans at home. Now my head hurts. Is this an impossible task that “Hockey Jay” has before him? @david_troyan

I think there is a solution that will satisfy all of these constituents with the possible exception of the rank-and-file, but, frankly, they are the least important folks in all of this. It starts with the PGA Tour and the Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF) consummating a deal, which has to happen to reunify the game. The Tour should use this inflection point to finally admit that its schedule is far too bloated; a little contraction will help the product. If we eliminate the weakest 10 or so Tour events, that opens up weeks on the calendar that can be filled by the LIV tournaments. Now we build bridges between the tours: two four-man teams at every LIV event will be filled by Tour players, adding some needed frisson (and giving the Tour guys a chance to feed at the trough). And LIV regulars get to accept up to seven non-member sponsor’s exemptions at Tour events, which will greatly increase the box office and give them pathways back; if the LIV players win a tournament, they automatically become full-blown Tour members and can come home without penalty.

Now that the walls are coming down, we can finally build a unified global schedule. The national opens of Ireland, Scotland, Australia, South African, Japan, Korea and Argentina become signature events, drawing the best players and restoring the lost luster of those proud old events. To help make all of this work, the PGA Tour has to reduce the number of exempt players to 100, or maybe 90. But PIF and Strategic Sports Group (SSG) investment means the Korn Ferry can double or triple its purses, so the displaced journeyman can still fly private occasionally. And they can be given preferred opportunities on a better-capitalized European Tour and an Asian Tour flush with LIV investment.

As for the beleaguered fans, a big chunk of the private equity and PIF money has to be used to used to improve the TV and streaming products: drastically fewer ads; ability to watch every shot of every player at every tournament; all the caddies and players wearing mics; various other improvements to win back the many folks who have been disenchanted by the lousy product and endless bitchiness.

Maybe I’m a dreamer, but I think most of this is actually doable. It just takes some imagination and leadership. Alas, that’s been in short supply lately among the game’s stewards.

Maybe you are a dreamer, but you're not the only one...

I just don't think this actually provides much of a roadmap, though we can certainly agree that the one constituency that will get effed is the Tour rank and file.  Alan seems to think that LIV will survive relatively intact, whereas I think Yasir needs an exit strategy from LIV, as there's no obvious path to viability.

And this amusing throwaway:

Alan, is it true you are actually Yasir Al-Rumayyan? You look so much alike. @dokktordogo

About the only thing we have in common is that we both love golf and have beards. Oh, and that Greg Norman is often an irritant to us. It’s not an accident that Al-Rumayyan has chosen golf as a vehicle for further ingratiating himself into the upper echelons of sport and business. He has Western appetites. In the MBS biography Blood and Oil, Yasir is described as having “a taste for fine cigars and after-hours bars in Dubai frequented by long-legged, short-skirted Russian women.” This is definitely a point of departure for us, as I prefer cheap cigars.

 Have the two ever been seen together?

Malbon Follies - has there been a funnier recurring bit in golf lately than Jason Day's outfits?  You no doubt remember that the green jackets asked him to remove an overly-busy jumper, leaving Mike Whan to make the call on this scripting:

Ahead of its launch, @JDayGolf previews Malbon Golf's upcoming Golf & Cycle Collection this week at the US Open. pic.twitter.com/tBkEJJDM5T

— Malbon Golf (@MalbonGolf) June 11, 2024

But it's the marketing hype that truly amuses:

Day and Malbon Golf previewed the upcoming Golf & Cycle Collection the golfer is going to model this week at the US Open, and it really runs the gamut. Thursday, Saturday and Sunday scripting all seem like reasonable, no-nonsense looks from the brown tee with embroidered chest art to the light blue vest that we’ll (hopefully) see in contention on Sunday. But when it comes to drama, Friday is the easy standout.

And what does golf and cycling have in common?  That would be nothing, but whatev...  Day's outfits are the gift that keeps on giving.

Enjoy the Open and your weekend, and we'll wrap it all on Monday.