Friday, July 8, 2022

Your Friday Frisson

You know that feeling when you can't fully commit to your shot?  That's how I'm viewing this blog post, so here's hoping I don't skull it...

Dateline: North Berwick - To me, the irony of the co-sanctioned Scottish Open is how hard it is to find appropriate venues for the event, hence the long-term residency at The Renaissance Club.  It's not been easy to warm up to the place, although it looks better this week with some earth tones on display.

But a surprising amount of whining about the...well, wait for it, wind:

The amount of wind took center stage during the conclusion of Thursday’s first round at the Genesis Scottish Open, when the prevailing wind at Renaissance Club was stronger than tournament
officials expected. The morning wave saw gusts in the range of 15-20 mph, while afternoon groups dealt with gusts in the range of 30 mph.

Welcome to Scotland, right! That’s the refrain that plays out on social media when fans watch from the calm comforts of their living rooms. But for a few holes on this particular day, that amount of wind bordered on unfair, given the course setup.

Leading the way was the par-5 16th — an absolute monster of a golf hole — set up at 625 yards, directly into the wind. In other words, 625 playing 700. Tournament officials essentially maxed it out, using the furthest back tee box and cutting a back left pin. Playing to an average of 5.1 Thursday, it feels like a proper professional golf hole on paper. But in reality, it sounds like the setup was a touch unfair. Many players in the afternoon wave smashed driver and simply couldn’t reach the fairway.

Yesterday we had a photo of the Prestwick cairn commemorating that 1860 Open Championship, in which the opening hole was 575 yards.   That's 162 years ago, without graphite shafts and ProV1s, so I'm having trouble working up too much sympathy....

Of course, this remind smore of Bethpage 2002 than an Open Championship:

Maybe we should all just feel relief that Sergio isn't here...

Joking aside, this highlights a unique challenge this event faces.  It makes perfect sense for the Scottish Open to offer a week of links golf for acclimation purposes, but at the same time the boys don't want to get beaten up too badly the week prior to a major.  They're at the mercy of the weather gods, for sure, but the bias will have to be towards letting them play.

Not a day for show ponies, it seems:

Fourteen of the world’s top 15 players teed it up Thursday (Rory McIlroy, No. 3, is the missing name, although he did get in a round with Tiger). Sam Burns, No. 9, is the only one inside the top 10 so far.

World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler didn’t take advantage of the easier conditions in the morning and shot one of the worst rounds of the early wave, a 3-over 73.

Jordan Spieth, the No. 12-ranked player in the world, held the early lead at one point but came home with a 2-over 37 and finished at 2 under, T-16. Jon Rahm also shot a 68 and sits with Spieth at T-16.

Zalatoris, Fitzpatrick, and Morikawa all ended the day tied for 53rd after rounds of 1 over.

More on that Rory-Tiger round below, but your humble blogger has a penchant for nursing grievances, so we're about to settle a score from, checking notes, 2015.

As you might recall, Jordan Spieth was beneficiary of DJ's largesse, suddenly finding himself in possession of the first two legs of the calendar Grand Slam.  The Open was to be held at The Old Course, widely considered the most strategic course on the planet.  So, how did Jordan plan his preparation for this historic opportunity?  By playing the week before at...and you'll not believe this, the John F*****g Deere in Quad Cities.  How'd it work out?

Spieth four-putted the par 3 after his first putt, a 100-footer, flew off the green. The first putt was set up by a really bad tee shot. He was unable to get up and down for bogey and suddenly trailed Adam Scott and Zach Johnson by three.

 And finished one shot out of the playoff, which your humble blogger found schadenfreudelicious.

Here's an older and wise Jordan speaking from the 2022 Scottish Open:

Round one of the Genesis Scottish confirmed what we’ve been hearing for weeks: the links are dry, fast and low humidity means turf will be an even greater focus at St Andrews. As Jordan Spieth noted following his first round 68 at Renaissance, “You almost need to get over here and get on this turf.”

Yeah, wish I'd thought of that....What a stubborn idiot!

Obviously one of the undercurrents in East Lothian is the ever present LIV story, not least because four LIVsters were parachuted into the field by a judge.  This on South Africa's Justin Harding is perhaps a bit more nuanced than you'd expect.  First, this bit:

Asked if he had encountered any ill-feeling either on or off the course this week, Harding at first
proceeded with caution.

“I haven't had too many issues,” he said. “There are times when it's a little uncomfortable. The European Tour guys have been fine, but the PGA Tour guys are in a different boat. I don’t want to get into the specifics of all of that. I am trying my best just to play golf. I’m not confrontational at the best of times. But it’s an awkward situation to be in.”

But isn't that to be expected, given that full-time Euro Tour guys (and Mr. Pelley will cringe at his failure to conform to the DP World Tour style book)  are those who can only aspire to the PGA or LIV tours.  

But the bigger issue is that, while he's been in LIV, it's not clear that he's of LIV:

What is for sure is that Harding has played in both LIV events so far. A T-10 finish in the first at the Centurion Club earned him $516,666. And when he pulled up T-8 at Pumpkin Ridge last week he made another $602,500. Not bad for 108 holes of relatively stress-free, no-cut competitive golf, but money that has inevitably provoked a storm of bad feeling on both the PGA and DP World tours. Few are willing to say so publicly, but not many players gathered in East Lothian this week are happy to see Harding playing.

Harding went on to claim that he hasn’t “gone to LIV” and hasn’t “signed any contracts or deals.” All he has done is participate in a couple of events. But in the absence of a contractual relationship with LIV, how did he actually get into their events?

“I have no idea,” he said. “I have had two successful weeks at Portland and Centurion. But I wouldn’t be able to answer that question. I have no idea at this moment in time if I am in the field at Bedminster [for the third LIV event] or not. If I am, I’ll have something to think about. At the end of the day, I have played all over the world in just about every event possible and to be honest the LIV ones didn’t feel too different.”

Even more curiously, he doesn't know how he got into the Scottish, which seems a bit of a stretch....

This guy took one for the team and followed all of Ian Poulter's 78 shots, the takeaway being indifference:

The Englishman’s much-anticipated round got under way at 12.25pm. Paired with fellow LIV rebel Branden Grace, he started at the tenth where the tee is inaccessible to spectators. A cynic
might argue that it was a convenient place from which to set them off. Far from the madding crowd and so on. Not that such a mob had gathered.

“Should we boo them?” one elderly gentleman asked of his pal as Poulter and Grace headed down the fairway.

“Ach no,” came the reply. “I can’t be bothered.”

Quite.

Which leads to this startling conclusion:

Whilst large crowds congregated around three-time major champion Jordan Spieth, world No.2 Jon Rahm and reigning Open champ Collin Morikawa, Poulter and Grace were largely ignored. Considering the compelling context with which both players came into the week – both having been granted injunctions against sanctions imposed by the tour and that were supposed to keep them out, not to mention the small matter of Grace having won $4million in a LIV Golf event only six days ago – it was jarring to note the sparse crowd following them.

Who would have guessed? People, for the most part, just want to see the best players. Not the noisiest, not the most ubiquitous, not the most controversial.

The best.

Yes, and this tees up the next stage in this battle, as LIV has bought a bit of depth, at best, but still hasn't landed any whales.

But I'll beg to differ here:

“There’s Ian Poulter,” she said, adopting hushed tones. “We’re not allowed to like him anymore because he’s in favour with the Saudis.”

A peculiar reason to take a dislike to somebody but that’s precisely where we are right now.

It's an interesting time to be Ian Poulter. It just sure seems like a lot of people couldn’t care less.

That's because it's a dreary time to be Ian Poulter, mitigated by an unexpected opportunity to cash a big check.  But it also allowed us to see what's important to Poulter, and that's not something we'll soon forget.

Care for a palate cleanser?

Boys Being Boys -  We've seen a couple of these stories now, and it's always a welcome respite from the dreariness of the current news cycle.  This was the first:

Jordan Spieth, Justin Thomas and Rickie Fowler are living the dream this weekend in Ireland.

Ahead of competing Monday and Tuesday in the J.P. McManus Pro-Am at Adare Manor in Limerick, Ireland, they did what any golf-loving guys would do: they enjoyed a buddies trip to some of Ireland’s fabled links gems.

On Saturday, they played at Lahinch Golf Club on the northwest coast of County Clare. Lahinch, which has the fingerprints of Old Tom Morris and Alister MacKenzie on it, ranks No. 12 in Golfweek’s Best Classic Courses in Great Britain and Ireland. The boys appeared to catch it on a beautiful sunny day and as Spieth teed off, a goat grazed behind him.

I hope Phil and Greg are taking notes, because this is the kind of story that might actually grow the game, or at least cast in an attractive light.  It's their day job and will be a grind much of the time, but it's always fun to see them actually enjoying the game...

These guys as well:

First, Tiger and Rory were in Adare, Ireland competing in golf’s biggest pro-am: the J.P. McManus. With crowds flocking and excitement mounting, the two golfers hit-and-giggled their way through the perfectly manicured greens and fairways of the 2027 Ryder Cup host. Tiger played in a cart, saving his legs for The Open, while McIlroy played (briefly) with Woods’ driver. But then the 36 holes at Adare Manor were over, and it was time for the real fun to begin.

On Thursday, Woods and McIlroy surfaced on social media again, this time at a different location, and under a significantly lower profile. The two men were at Ballybunion (ranked 9th in GOLF’s Top 100 Courses in the UK and Ireland), reliving McIlroy’s glory days as an ascendant junior golfer in the Irish countryside.

Quickly, videos surfaced from all corners of the Internet of Rory and Tiger trading tee shots on the brilliant seaside links.

“Back in the day,” Rory can be heard telling Tiger in one video, seconds before piping a center-cut drive. “I used to aim down the middle of the fairway, it would start down the right edge and then draw back to the middle of the fairway.”

That would be on the 11th tee, a magnificent Par-4 with, as the caddie will invariably tell you, all of Ireland to your left:

Quite a great golf hole, without a single bunker, as per my photo from 2007:

And this of the wonderful green complex:

Notwithstanding that I'll be in Scotland soon, these boys are rendering your humble blogger just a wee bit jealous....

Keeper Of The Green - That was Old Tom's title, though they don't seem to use it any more.  Geoff has just posted this interesting interview:

In the latest State of the Game podcast we discuss how the stewards of St Andrews face a near-impossible set of ingredients: heavy play, high expectations and producing major conditions that
also accentuate the Old Course. The greenkeepers also get to hear from traditionalists who don’t want to see a too-perfect presentation or the bunkers too manicured. As you’ll learn from Gordon Moir in a Q&A discussing his new book, the St Andrews team must balance all of this while answering to several interested parties besides the R&A.

In The Greenkeeper’s Tale, first-time author Moir opens by discussing a life-changing decision to move from fantastic Fraserburgh to St Andrews and, eventually, to become the Links Trust Director of Greenkeeping.

Moir offers his forthright assessments throughout this delightful read. His style proves accessible to anyone with an interest in St Andrews or the Old Course, but educational enough for those in the industry or considering a career in agronomy.

He charges headfirst into all of the high-profile issues from his time overseeing St Andrews: getting the courses back after some lean years, keeping the Old Course relevant, changes that went viral internationally in 2012 and most recently, the 2015 Open’s play stoppage.

Fraserburgh is a place I need to get to, but lots to enjoy in this chat:

GS: After many years of learning the Old Course and its various maintenance related idiosyncrasies, what piece of local knowledge do you share with those unfamiliar trying to learn the course?

GM: I think whenever you get out of position then you have to bite the bullet and be patient. It’s very difficult to get back into position and you just have to suck it up, find as good a place as you can get the ball to and either accept dropping a shot or getting lucky and maybe holing a decent putt to save par. Once out of position it’s very easy to run up a double bogey or worse. Sometimes in a bunker it’s a case of getting out, in whatever direction you can. If it’s a fairway bunker then and you have to go backwards it’s a double whammy as you’ve probably already lost some distance on your drive and you’re then going further away from the pin.

Jack used to speak of chain reaction holes, and no place on the planet will create them quite like the Old Course.  

Care for a deep dive on those bunkers:

GS: Perhaps on a similar line, but what in your time did you learn about the Old Course or all of the courses that you did not know when you started the job?

GM: The bunker sand is from the beach, it’s a very fine particle size and is so prone to wind
blow. In fact it’s a pain as it either blows out of the bunkers or blows to one end leaving the base really bare and firm. It also packs down a lot which I think is the reason the course gets so firm. More so the fairways as well as the greens as we don’t top dress them with beach sand these days.

On the greens, I’ve never been anywhere else where the wind affects the ball so much. Not even on the other St Andrews courses is it a severe. It’s not unusual to have to allow 6” on a ten foot putt just because of the wind. It doesn’t have to be exceptionally strong and it’s not just the holes around the loop although they are the worst. I think it just be due to their size and how the wind can pick up going across the surface.

The sand is the consistency of talcum powder, which would lead you to logically conclude that it would be easy to get a club through, but you would be misinformed.  But this does perhaps explain the turf, which is just different than anywhere else.  If the greens stimp around ten feet, I've always been convinced that the fairways would stimp at twelve.

The greens are indeed unnaturally exposed, even in comparison to other links.  But the double greens are so massive in size, that you're factoring the wind on ninety-foot putts, which is not something one can readily practice at home.

I'm not the only one that is fascinated by this special turf:

GS: The turf is magical. It seems like it can withstand anything—from heavy play to the public making it a park on Sundays. It seems like the fescues are just different and superior when you take a divot. Am I imagining things? Has it ever been studied?

GM: I’d put that down to age and maturity. It has a high tolerance to the salty air and salt water in general. It’s been studied many times, they say there are 57 varieties like Heinz beans!

They are certainly not all fescues, there’s ryegrass, bent, poa (which is very old and doesn’t seem to seed nearly as bad as most poa does) the seed heads are generally smaller. There’s also crested hair grass which is a nightmare in the spring as it sets out a runner which is very waxy and impossible to cut as it creeps along the surface. It’s worst in May and June depending on the weather. Then it sets its seed, the stalk goes soft and it disappears. You can scarify it to an extent but can’t be too severe as that hurts the fescues.

Poa?   Perhaps that's too much information, as whatever the mix, it's just perfect turf for golf.

But who knew about the heather crisis?

GS: You refer several times in the book to the loss of Heather and the prominence of gorse that Old Tom so loathed. Would you like to see more gorse removed? Perhaps sand areas or heather restored similar to what happened on the New Course? What are the difficulties of such work?

GM: In a word, Yes. Heather is just so difficult to grow in that environment as it’s so fragile. I had a small bit of success on the 6th of the Eden but it took years and we had to fence it off for a number of years. You just couldn’t do that on the Old, plus it gets so much more traffic. When you add the caddies feet as well as the golfers then you’re looking at 80k rounds per year as opposed to 40k on the Eden. Sand scrape areas would be easier but again there isn’t much room. We did some very small ones on 5 and 6 back in 2017? I guess there’s some room in places, behind 2 green, behind 3 green, right of 6 or between 6 and 12. I’m not sure what people might make of that. How about left of 17? Would the top players be happy with that? I’ll let you light the blue touch paper!

Well, is there anyone that doesn't loathe gorse?

If we get on via the daily ballot, I'll be on the lookout for heather.  There seemed no shortage of it in 2019:



 More on those bunkers, which allows Geoff to trot out an old photo:

GS: You explain the difficulty in rebuilding the bunkers for The Open while trying to have them look too perfect, and yet we see old photos where they look so magical in their more rustic state. Is this an unrealistic fantasy of purists to see the bunkers take on a less manmade appearance given the amount of play over the Old?

GM: Yes, I think it is. Between the amount of play and also trying to be clear where the bunker begins from a ruling issue. I’d imagine there would be a lot of complaints when a player finishes in a bunker where part of it has collapsed during the day from golfers playing earlier. I think the greenkeepers would be spending a lot of time repairing some of these problems and it would be difficult to make it look natural and as if it hadn’t been repaired. I think the modern golfer expects things to be a bit more manicured, too manicured on many occasions.

Thus this rather dramatic evolution of the Road bunker, probably the most famous bunker in the world (unless, of course, Hell Bunker picture above, deserves that honorific):


 

Not all progress is actually, yanno, progress.

That's a prefect tease for next week's Open, as well as for our forthcoming trip, should the daily ballot gods smile upon us.  

Have a great weekend and we'll pick up the thread on Monday.
Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)