Lots to cover in the next few days to have us all ready for this break-the-mold U.S. Open... an untested unique venue, a new broadcast outlet as well as a range course set-up issues we've not seen previously. It'll keep us on our toes, but heavens knows what it'll do to those that are pegging it this weekend.
Per Doug Ferguson, even Old Man Par (as Bobby Jones used to call it) is not what it seems:
The par 70, but even that is different. The USGA plans to move the tees and alternate par between 4 and 5 on the first and 18th holes. And there's a par 3 (No. 9) that has two sets of tees — one that makes it play slightly uphill, the other has a 100-foot drop to the green.
Players already are suspicious, especially after USGA executive director Mike Davis said that anyone who plays only two practice rounds and has his caddie walk the course to get the yardage off the tee and to the green is "done."
It's not clear if the USGA is trying to identify the best player or the best student of architecture.
But apparently not sufficiently suspicious to get their butts off the sofa and get out there...
Greg Bell had this to add:
One of the first hole’s two tee boxes for the U.S. Open is in front of the caddy’s shack down the hill from the clubhouse. That’s for when it is a par 4. On days the USGA makes No. 1 a par 5, the tee box in use will be 100 yards back from that.
Davis is curious to see how all the tinkering will play out this week.
“Honestly, there are some things I am still not sure about,” he said. “We put in new tee at 14 after the U.S. Amateur because too many players compromised that corner going down the left, and did not have problem flying over left side. Bob Jones’ bunker in middle did not come in play.”
I give Davis all the credit in the world for shaking up the Open, but to do so entails risk. We knw the players are gonna hate it because it takes them out of their comfort zones, but it's naive to think that it will all work as planned. More from Mike Davis:
The response of the USGA’s course guru to all this: Whatever. Deal with it.
“This flexibility allows us to set the golf course up that if it’s wet out there and the ball’s not running as much we can play it a certain way. If it’s really dry and firm, if it’s real windy, whether we get the southwest wind or maybe a north, northwest wind, it really is intriguing,” Davis said. “And it allows us to really showcase some of the great architectural features of the golf course.”
Again, the options are intriguing, but you can guess what happens if they guess wrong. And it may be far less black and white than that, because conditions can change within a day's play, and set-up decisions can adversely affect a sub-set of the field... always a huge factor in links golf.
And I highly recommend this Todd Miles article on the use of fescue on the course and in general, a much dicier prospect than most would imagine:
The thing about a sensitive, slow-growing grass such as fine fescue is you can’t just pourseed out of a bag and expect it to flourish long term.
To find the best mixture, officials at Pierce County and KemperSports contacted Eric Miltner, a then-associate research agronomist at the Washington State University-Puyallup campus, to conduct sand-based plot testing.
“The grass species they were interested in were fine fescue and colonial bent grass,” Miltner said. “We took the idea (of mixture) from Bandon Dunes, and updated with a new variety that tested best in Puyallup.”
Using Chambers Bay sand, Miltner and his researchers built 33 separate plots —12 for putting greens mixture (chewing fescue, slender creeping fescue), 15 for fairways and tees (chewing fescue, slender creeping fescue), and six for the outlying rough areas (hard fescue, sheep’s fescue, blue fescue, strong creeping red fescue).Starting in May of 2005, their testing ran a full year.
No surprise that they piggybacked on Mike Keiser's learning curve at Bandon, since Kemper also manages that resort. But remember that when Keiser started his resort, no one knew if fine fescue would grow in the pacific Northwest. Lucky for us, it does...
Bill Pennington contributes to the cause of understanding the venue, with many graphs devoted to the grass, the train and again to that tree, first the crime:
Chambers Bay opened to the public in 2007 with the tree, which is not in play, well behind the 15th green and 25 feet from one of the tees on the 16thhole.
Then, during the dark of night on April 29, 2008, an assailant began hacking away at the trunk of the fir with an ax. The police believe that the attacker, who was never apprehended, reached the golf course by jet ski. There was evidence of a fire on the beach below the tree.
The next morning, the tree was still standing, but it had an 8-by-18-inch gash in its trunk. Several cans of beer were scattered at the tree’s base.Matt Allen, the Chambers Bay general manager, was asked how many beer cans were left behind.
“Enough to do something stupid,” he said.
But irony lovers will appreciate this:
Chambers Bay instead turned to Neal Wolbert of Wolbert’s Plant Essentials, a tree-service and landscaping business in Olympia, Wash.
Wolbert said he could save the tree, and he instituted a treatment program that included a handmade epoxy that filled the gap in the damaged trunk. Iron bars were affixed to the bark to strengthen the area, and the tree was fortified with compost and nutrient treatments. Excess soil was removed from the root system, and over the next few years the tree was treated with fertilizers and summer irrigation.
“In three years’ time, it looked like a different tree,” said Wolbert, who donated his time rehabilitating the tree.
The tree has filled out, and new limbs have sprouted with lush growth.
“Even before the attack, it was clear that maybe the tree wasn’t going to last long term,” said Blasi, who now owns a design firm. “The hacking saved the tree, which is kind of poetic.”In 2010, Blasi used the tree as the backdrop to his wedding ceremony near the 15th green.
We've gone way long as it is, so how about we move on with our flyovers and I'll deal with the remainder of my open browser windows in tomorrow's post?
No. 13 - Another long Par-4, this one featuring the widest fairway in U.S, Open history... I pity the fool that misses it, but as Gil Hanse explains it's all about the angle into the green:
No. 14 - If I were in attendance, this might be where I'd spread my blanket, just to watch the tee shots from the highest point on the site. The yardage of 521-546 sounds wacky, so I'd focus instead on hang time:
No. 15 - Maybe I jumped the gun, because this is where you'll find Shack hanging out...but he's got his concerns. The hole can play as short as short as 123 yards but as long as 246 yards, though that longer tee is a recent addition. Hard to imagine a green that's suitable for those widely divergent lengths, and add this to your list of potential issues:
Also there is going to be an interesting and potentially tournament-influencing bunker situation to the right of the green where players walk through the hazard to get to the green. When I get more clarification on how it'll work I will post.
Well, at TPC-Sawgrass they drive carts through some of the bunkers, but they're really hard-packed.
No comments:
Post a Comment