Interviewed by Peter Kessler on Sirius Radio, Tuesday at 10 a.m.
I’ll be on Peter Kessler’s golf radio show from 10 to 11 a.m. next Tuesday.
Peter is the dean of golf radio broadcasters, so have fun listening to us talk golf and life. See you there on Sirius XM satellite radio.
Mike Small Comes up HUGE, wins PGA Championship Bid at CPC
I know, I know, it’s not the “Club Pro Championship” anymore, but that’s what Mike Small won, along with a berth in this year’s PGA Championship at Hazeltiine. From the press release:
Small, 43, will be competing in his fifth PGA Championship. He captured his second National Championship July 1, with a final-round 3-under-par 68 for a 7- under-par 277 total in the 42nd PGA Professional National Championship in Santa Ana Pueblo, N.M.
The following PGA Professionals will join Small in the 91st PGA Championship:
Steve Schneiter of Sandy, Utah, representing Schneiter’s Pebblebrook Links; Mark Sheftic of Ambler, Pa., representing Merion Golf Club; Craig Thomas of White Plains, N.Y., representing Metropolis Country Club; Ryan Benzel of Bothell Wash., representing Battle Creek Golf Course in Tulalip, Wash.; Eric Lippert of Marina, Calif., representing Del Monte Golf Course, Lee Rinker of Jupiter, Fla., representing Emerald Dunes Golf Club, Robert Gaus of St. Louis, Mo., representing Tower Tee Golf Center, Grant Sturgeon of Pittsburgh, Pa., representing Oakmont Country Club, Tim Weinhart of Alpharetta, Ga., representing St. Marlo Country Club, Keith Dicciani of White Plains, N.Y., representing Metropolis Country Club and Muttontown Golf and Country Club, Todd Lancaster of Aurora, Ohio, representing Westwood Country Club, Sam Arnold of Cincinnati, Ohio, representing The Vineyard Golf Course, Brian Gaffney of Rumson, N.J., representing Rumson Country Club, Greg Bisconti of South Salem, N.Y., Saint Andrews Golf Club, Mike Miles of Huntington Beach, Calif., representing Virginia Country Club, Mitch Lowe of Modesto, Calif., representing Del Rio Country Club, Scott Hebert of Traverse City, Mich., representing Grand Traverse Resort & Spa, Kevin Roman of Roswell, Ga., Cherokee Town and Country Club, and Chris Starkjohann of Encinitas, Calif., representing Torrey Pines Gold Club and Golf Outings.
Future Ryder Cup Venues
Here are the future Ryder Cup venues. America seems intent on grossing out the opposing team as a strategy.
2010 The Twenty-ten course, Celtic Manor Resort, Newport, WALES
2012 Medinah No. 3, Medinah, Ill. (God, not again.)
2014 PGA Centenary Course, Gleneagles Resort, Perthshire, SCOTLAND
2016 Hazeltine National, Chaska, MN
2018 TBA
2020 Whistling Straits, Kohler, WI
What’s Her Name Finishes 10th, Gets More Ink than Winner
What’s Her Name, with the overbearing parents, phalanx of P.R.apologists, and vocal army of I-know-nothing-about-golf-I’m-just-on-a-golf-gender-bender supporters came in 10th in a rural LPGA tournament and, of course, got more press than the winner, (Jiyai Shin, if you hadn’t heard, which you likely didn’t).
Yet still we get What’s Her Name shoved down our throats because she supposedly moves casual eyeballs, (like that is supposed to matter to the golf demographic). Never mind that golf’s life-long, loyal, ardent fans who want to read about winners. Let’s just sell a non-story because it’s got a famous name attached, even though the name is now synonymous with mediocrity. Look here! Michelle Wie! She did something! We’re writing about her, and you must care! Never mind the scoreboard, she’s the real story! Isn’t it so brave and resolute the way she lines up three foot putts? Really, it’s so inspiring! You MUST believe us!
Well that is just pure, weapons-grade bolonium.
Look at this gibbering idiot from the Buffalo Picayune-Tattler, giving us the typical talking points we’ve heard for seven years, despite her career flame out.
Title: “Wie growing into a player the LPGA needs”
Reality: So the LPGA needs 10th place finishers who shoot 38 on the back nine, going bogey-double bogey-bogey in the clutch? And then sell us PR speak in Valley-girl language in her presser? Like totally! She’s like going to like win like next week. Fer shore, like totally awesome!
I’m right about that, that’s your story?
Article: “By the time she was 18, Wie was earning $19 million a year. ”
Reality: Not one dime of that came from winnings on any tour. That was endorsement money, for which she was overpaid. Put your hands in the air NOW if you buy a product because Michelle Wie - or any other golfer - endorses it. While we’re at it, she petered out in every big tournament she played in for the last three years. Last places, DQs, ruffled feathers: So I ask you…was it money well spent?
Article: “Wie is in her first year on tour, and it feels like a comeback.”
Reality: Wie is no longer being invited to play with the men. She hasn’t won an LPGA event. She failed to qualify for the Women’s U. S. Open for the first time in six years. Yes, she QUALIFIED for the LPGA through Q School, a move I highly commend and respect. But let’s not start up the giving it to her for free ride in the press for 10th place…she’s just getting her feet wet, she’s not conquering the tour like everyone predicted.
Article: “But if it were any other rookie, fans would marvel at her raw talent.”
Reality: If it were any other rookie, you wouldn’t be wasting ink on 10th place. Reality: No one cares about LPGA players, who shoot 38 on the back and come in 10th. Feels like a comeback? To who? Never forget the rallying cry of many rank-and-file LPGAers who lamented, “we work our butts off, and everything is just handed to her!”
Article: “If not for a 75 on Saturday—which included a 40 on the front—Wie could have done more than grabbing her fourth top 10 in 10 events this season.”
Reality: If not for the Dallas Cowboys, Washington Redskins and NY Giants, the Bills would have won four Super Bowls. If not for a missed 2-1/2 footer, Doug Sanders would have been the 1970 British Open winner. If not for those three second half goals, the U.S. would have won a FIFA event yesterday. You have a lot of nerve trying to pass that BS off as sports commentary. The world is littered with losers who lost “if not for” and who “could have…” That is NOT professional sports analysis.
Article: “There were some tough pin placements Sunday.”
Reality: Oh I get it! It’s the fault of the people who set up the pins. Don’t they know who Michelle Wie is? How dare they make it hard!
Poor Michelle, she’s so persecuted. It’s discrimination, I tell ya! A Valley girl just can’t get a break! News flash: Everybody else had the same pins. Jiyai Shin and the other nine people that beat Michelle had the same pins and they knocked ‘em out of the hole. But hey, I have an idea! We could have special Michelle Wie pins every day! They could be pink with little ribbons! They could have rainbows and teddy bears and gum drops and be set in bowls that filter her ball closer to the hole! We could put flashing neon signs that point at it and read “Hole that-a way” and surround them with her fans who will sing “Silent in the Morning,” and lay rose petals at her feet as she walks on water to the hole! We could even cut the other pins - the one’s for all the people not named Michelle Wie - and those pins would be off the green in gnarly patches of rough, surrounded by quicksand puddles and with armed guards with Uzi who are instructed to shoot to kill any players who get within breathing distance. Is that better?
Article: “Wie had a rough time the last couple of years, partly because of a wrist injury.”
Reality: …and partly because she isn’t as good as everyone was led to believe in the first place.
Article: “It’s silly to compare her with Woods. By age 20, Woods had won six national amateur titles. Wie hasn’t won a thing since she was 13.”
Reality: Now that’s the first thing you’ve said right all day! The scoreboard never lies.
Article: “She’s having a solid rookie season. Entering the Wegmans, Wie was 18th on the money list.”
Reality: Why are we supposed to care about 18th place? Because it got an undeserved $19 million dollar endorsement deal? Or because you ordered us to like her before, ordered us to bow to the Female Tiger, and were proved horribly, horribly wrong and now you have to grasp at straws to save face?
Article: When she learns to avoid those meltdowns, Wie can be a dominant player on the women’s tour.”
Reality: And when the Mets learn to play 9th innings they can win playoff games.
In the apologist’s world, the Bills won those four Super Bowls, the Sabers actually beat the Stars that one year for the Stanley Cup, and the Buffalo Braves are still in the NBA. Now there’s a sports writer with an observant eye and an original voice.
Here’s a reality check.
1. She failed to qualify for this year’s Women’s U.S. Open, so every lugnut talking about “she could be the first woman to play in both the men’s open and women’s open at Pinehurst in 2014″ can have a nice hot cup of shut the hell up.
2. She finished ten shots behind the leader in a small field LPGA tournament.
3. After supposedly “surging into contention” she shot 38 on the back. Which means she choked in the clutch. Good players learn to close. She’s still folds as badly as she always has. 12-13-14, bogey-double bogey-bogey, see ya. Yet she still bee-esses us at pressers. “There were bad bounces,” and “I won’t do that from now on. No more mistakes.”
Yeah, we believe that.
Look, I’m all for a comeback, and it will be a nice story when Michelle finally does win. I want her to win. I’m all for redemption and second chances. But let’s not continue to kid ourselves. She’s not the greatest female player to pick up a club. After Annika disappointed all the gender benders by seeing the writing on the wall - that a woman would have a hard time competing on the PGA Tour week in and week out just to make a cut - the Gender Warriors still didn’t get it, so they tried to force Michelle down our throats…
…and ruined her in the process.
I feel terrible for Michelle that she couldn’t have a normal childhood or college experience.
I feel bad for her that an army of apologists enabled her to make mistakes that alienated so many LPGA players and rank and file golf fans across the country.
I feel awful that she has the worst sports parents on earth. You know when she’ll win? When her parents stay home, and when the press is away covering something else.
But I’m also not going to start the runaway express again. Would Morgan Pressel have gotten the same ink for 10th? Or Ochoa? Or Creamer. When she dominates, then we can revisit the issue. Until then, she’s just 1 of 156.
Michelle is just another excellent, professional female golfer…the same as the rest of the crop with which she competes, until the scorecard and winners circle say differently.
And please Michelle, for the sake of decency, take some lessons in public speaking. Hang out more with Paula Creamer and Morgan Pressel.
As for those who can’t see the train coming until it runs you over, go sell crazy somewhere else, real sports fans have no call for it. If her 10th - 18th place finishes are “growing into a story the LPGA needs,” then I’m Arnold Palmer.
Video of the Week - The Potomac Cup Qualifiers are Next Week!
Steve Czaban of FoxSports has the two Potomac Cup qualifiers ready to go. The annual battle between the best amateurs in Maryland and Virginia. The first is July 7 at Westfields G.C. in Virginia, the second is July 21 at Renditions in Maryland. Players from either state may compete in each in two-man best ball teams, scratch of course.
Here’s some articles on the last four Cups.
In the meantime, here’s a video to whet your appetite. See you from Blue Ridge Shadows Golf Club in Front Royal.
Glass Slipper Fits Like a Glover - Lucas Wins Bethpage U.S. Open
BETHPAGE, NY - This is a Cinderella story that reads not only like a fairy tale, but also like one of Clive Cussler’s “Dirk Pitt” spy stories, the espionage novels newly-minted U.S. Open champion Lucas Glover loves so much, that he reads three or four of them in a week. Indeed, Glover not only came out of nowhere as a storybook sectional qualifier who previously had zero success in the U.S. Open, but he also displayed the courage, tenacity, resourcefulness, and fortitude of Cussler’s celebrated fictional hero in winning the 109th U.S. Open at Bethpage Black.
Time will tell whether this Open will be regarded as an afterthought - known for never-ending, torrential rain, and an obscure, unlikely winner - or whether Glover will go on to have a career defined by several major victories, but no matter what, he was as gritty and phlegmatic as any U.S. Open winner in holding off charges of far more celebrated and decorated major champions. His 4-under score was two better than fan favorites Phil Mickelson and David Duval, who each clawed into ties for the lead, before missing short putts in the clutch.
Mickelson’s fate was especially grim. Playing in front of a crowd that supported and adored him as much as their beloved Yankees, he touched off an ecstatic celebration after an eagle at the par-5 13th vaulted him into a tie with Glover. It looked to all the world that the finish everyone wanted, Mickelson celebrating in the gloaming and bringing home the hardware to his cancer-stricken wife, would come true, and the tournament would instantly turn from pedestrian to legendary.
Instead, the final holes had shades of Shinnecock and this year’s Masters, as Phil missed two short putts, putts that proved the difference between a playoff and defeat. “On 15, I played a lot less break than it had,” he remarked about the curling 4-footer on the savagely contoured green. “But on 17, it was slightly uphill and I didn’t hit it at all. It was not a good putt.”
He now owns a dubious record: his five runner-up finishes are the most in U.S. Open history. Three of them have come in New York. People are starting to whisper his name alongside that of Sam Snead, another iconic, Hall of Fame golfer, but one who never won a U.S. Open.
Duval also thrilled the galleries with his gallant charge this week. Ranked number 882 in the World, Duval remembered something we didn’t: they play golf for the U.S. Open trophy, and the silver prize doesn’t care one jot about any records or stats except the score. He endured. Despite taking a triple bogey six at the par-3 third that might have disheartened lesser men, Duval hung tough.
“I never quit,” has become his mantra and rallying cry; he repeated it at post-round interviews Sunday and Monday. The three straight birdies at 14, 15, and 16 to surge into a tie for the lead were a lightning strike to the tournament, and the galleries across Bethpage responded with thunder. The 2001 British Open champion stood on the brink of an all-time great comeback in sports history, a story everyone wanted, but a cruel lip out on 17 – the ball was more than halfway down – and a Glover birdie at 16 ended his comeback.
“I’m certainly happy with how I played, but extremely disappointed with the outcome,” he said with conviction. “I had no question in my mind I was going to win the golf tournament.”
Still, other than Duval, you wouldn’t find a person disappointed with his result. Americans love a comeback, sports fans especially. Having the colorful, brutally frank, and swashbuckling Duval back after years in the doldrums can only be good for the game, and on the day he finally does win a second major, watch the outpouring of affection from the golf world.
Even Tiger Woods got into the act briefly. Birdies at 13 and 14 put him only two back of the faltering leaders. The fist pumps, steely gaze, and steam in his stride gave the impression he was finally going to take the lone career albatross from around his neck and come from behind to win a major. [Author’s Note: That’s a reference to Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s Rime of the Ancient Mariner.]
What a comeback in would have been! At one point in the third round, Woods stood a staggering fifteen shots behind Ricky Barnes. Now he was just two out of the lead and had all the momentum. For once, the Phil-Tiger major championship script - one that’s overplayed so often, and which so rarely occurs - finally it seemed golf’s biggest rivalry might be played out in a major. “I was on the edge of my seat,” said the U.S.G.A.’s Beth Murrison, who was a breakout star this week in her media center interviews with the players.
But the 15th hole had other ideas. Woods not only made an ugly bogey in the final round, air-mailing the green by two clubs, he played the hole 4-over for the week. He finished four shots behind Glover, who played the hole 2-under for the week, despite carding a final round bogey there with his only three-putt of the tournament.
As he did all week, Woods blamed his putter. “I gave myself so many chances, and made nothing.” Woods played terrific from tee to green. Increasing the loft on his Nike Dymo 380 prototype driver to 10 degrees, made him more accurate off the tee – Woods’s old 9-degree loft was one of the lowest launch angles on TOUR, and this week he hit exactly two-thirds of his fairways – and by returning to the forged iron model he used in the past in lieu of Nike’s later model VR TW clubs, he also hit two out of every three greens. But Woods finished with an average of 30 putts per round, T-27th in the field.
Still, Glover didn’t falter in the grueling crucible of the final round of a major. On paper, he had every reason to shatter. He’d missed the cut in the only three previous U.S. Opens in which he played. In eleven previous majors, he had zero top-10 finishes, and his best result was a T-20 at the Masters. His lone career win came in 2005 at the Funai Classic at Disney. His last three starts were a missed cut, T-41, and T-45. He was a sectional qualifier, and only five other men had won the U.S. Open that way: Michael Campbell, Steve Jones, Jerry Pate, Orville Moody, and Ken Venturi. Right on cue, Glover double bogeyed his first hole of the tournament.
The glass slipper didn’t seem likely to fit, and this time Dirk Pitt looked to be too late to save the world from destruction.
Then suddenly, Glover turned into David Graham, and became a fairways and greens machine. The first three days he hit 78.6% of his fairways, and 81.5% of his greens to go to bed Sunday night tied for the lead with Ricky Barnes, who led him by six strokes just ten holes earlier.
He survived an up and down ball striking day – just seven fairways and eight greens in regulation in a final round 73 – by taking just 27 putts. More importantly, he silenced all the nay-sayers who predicted he would join Barnes in collapsing.
“I hit the shots I needed to hit today in the clutch,” he said, as he cradled the U.S. Open trophy. “There were so many great players and the course is hard, and I knew someone was going to make a run, but I hit the right shots when I had to.” Glover not only played the back nine better than anyone in the field, 6-under for the week, but he gutted out a birdie after bogeying the 15th to fall into a tie with Duval.
“He held on when Phil and Duval were trying to run him down,” said his caddie, Dan Cooper. “They both made us nervous by making birdies, but Lucas made a big one on 16 after the three-putt on 15.”
It seems Cooper was just as integral in Glover’s staying patient, a trait he lacked in the past, but channeled at the right time. “I just told him to stay steady, and he did. I knew he could win, he held on just great in the face of those charges by the other guys. He can do a crossword faster than I can brush my teeth.”
On the 18th tee, Cooper told Glover that, “driver was the only club that could go wrong. Let’s go fairway and greens and play for the same spot we’ve played from all week.” Glover took 6-iron, hit the fairway, and hit a simple 9-iron approach safely to the back of the green.
In the end, Bethpage got the excitement it was lacking all week. The vociferous, ardent fans that came got what they hoped for, high drama and dominant golf personalities playing on the game’s grandest stage and a storied public course that also has Woods’s 2002 victory as a part of its heritage. “This is the ideal spot to hold a Ryder Cup,” gushed Mickelson, sincerely thankful for the overwhelming fan support for both he and Amy. “We’d have a big advantage.”
You might just hear Glover echo the same sentiment: that is, if he can put down the spy novel long enough to give his opinion. This wasn’t the storybook finish we all wished for, but it’s a great story nonetheless. A modern Cinderella won in the end; a real-life Dirk Pitt overcame all odds and saved the day by keeping cool under pressure. Clive Cussler would have loved this ending. It’s so good, who knows? With the way Glover keeps cool in the clutch, maybe we’ll get a sequel.
The Worst Night’s Sleep of Ricky Barnes’s Life - 2009 Bethpage U.S. Open
…from Cybergolf last week:
BETHPAGE, NY - As his head hit the pillow last night, his thoughts swirled, and the Cimmerian fog of sleep ebbed and eddied in his mind, Ricky Barnes had to be more than just restless. He had to toss and turn worse than the girl in the old fairy tale, “The Princess and the Pea.”
Yesterday ended dismally for him. After nine holes of the third round of the Bathpage - er, Bathpage - U.S. Open, Barnes was a runaway leader, six shots clear of the field and double-digits under par. His nearest competitor, unheralded Lucas Glover, whose only win came in 2005 at the Funai Classic at the Walt Disney World Resort, looked to be foundering, dropping shots left and right. Phil Mickelson was treading water, hovering around even-par, and Tiger Woods was well behind Barnes’s taffrail, which meant the roughest seas were past, and smooth sailing and clear skies lay ahead.
Barnes’s eagle on the par-5 fourth hole put him at 11-under for the tournament, rarefied air at a U.S. Open. Few have ever been double-digits under par in this tournament. Two former champions did it, Jim Furyk at Olympia Fields in 2003 and Woods at Pebble Beach in 2002. Had Barnes continued to play steadily and prove the eventual winner, that eagle might have been the watershed shot of his career and the signature moment of this otherwise dull U.S. Open, an Open that venerable golf pundit Sal Johnson already calls the Asterisk Open, since it may prove to be decided not by what happens today, but by the weather Thursday which blew away half the field, ruining their tournament chances.
Now, however, just 10 holes later, Barnes looked more like the third man to ever reach double digits in a U.S. Open: Dr. Gil Morgan, who also breezed into a gargantuan lead midway through the 1992 U.S. Open at Pebble Beach, and who, after a ghastly collapse for the ages, is now a cautionary tale, a footnote, and pretty solid bar bet winner if you want to stump your drinking buddies.
Barnes and Glover also look like John Schlee and Jerry Heard. Back in 1973, Schlee and Heard were their generation’s Barnes and Glover, an unlikely tandem leading the final round of the U.S. Open at Oakmont. Schlee turned to Heard shortly after they teed off and asked, “What are we doing leading the U.S. Open?” Right on cue, they fell as though their parachutes failed to open, and Johnny Miller roared past to win with his legendary 63.
Before the final round, Barnes was still tied with Glover, but he looked far less steady. Glover leads the field after three rounds in greens in regulation, (44 of 54, for 81.5%) and is T-6 in driving accuracy, (33 of 42, 78.5%). That’s the formula at a U.S. Open. Hit the fairway, hit the green, have the hottest week of your life with the putter, collect the trophy, and smile for the cameras. In fact, Glover hit 13 of 14 yesterday, and looked far steadier than Barnes as the day closed. Barnes, who had only one bogey in the first 36 holes, had five in his last 10 holes of play yesterday. Worse still, he looked like Rickety Barnes: he lost both his tempo and timing. His arms, legs, body suddenly swooping, jerking, and swaying. “I’ve got to get my arms moving with my legs. We all know that those go together.”
They certainly do, Ricky, they certainly do.
Barnes was sent off at 7:37 p.m. last night, but got in only one hole and one shot to start his final round. He may wish he’d never walked out to start. He drove weakly at the first, low and left, then chunked his approach for an opening bogey. At the second, he swung worse than my ex-girlfriend, reverse-pivoting, flailing his arms manically, and swaying like a Deadhead entranced by some mixolydian jam in “Uncle John’s Band.” He couldn’t get off the golf course fast enough when the horn sounded. He looks beaten and defeated already. Losing a six-shot lead on the game’s biggest stage will do that.
So who will grab the brass ring Barnes seems so intent on releasing? Glover? He is playing steady golf, but he’s untested in the crucible of pressure that is a major golf championship. He could fold just as easily. When players break, they break hard and jagged, and frequently both players in a final pairing can play the same: either spurring each other on to unbelievable heights like Nicklaus and Watson at Turnberry in ‘77, or combining their bad juju, and both plummeting out of the sky and out of sight like Retief Goosen and Jason Gore at Pinehurst in ‘05.
There’s another great example of a huge lead flushed. Goosen went to bed that Saturday night as the defending champion, a two-time U.S. Open winner, and a three-shot leader. He’s a Dockers-wearing robot, the Iron Goose. Others might have folded, but surely not him.
The next thing we knew, there were Goose feathers all over the front nine.
Glover and Barnes slept on a five-shot lead over five players last night: David Duval, Ross Fisher, Hunter Mahan, Phil Mickelson, and Mike Weir. Even so, you and I and everyone else knew this was anything but a two-man race. Two shots back at even par lurked Tiger Woods, who despite being T-27 in putting this week, and who has missed every big putt he needed, is still in this thing, along with Graeme McDowell, Retief Goosen, Bubba Watson and Peter Hansen.
While I feel for both Barnes and Glover, this tournament needs a superstar winner to save it from the scrapheap of history, a short list of Opens we’d rather forget. Their collapse is the tournament’s gain. Woods and Mickelson were supposed to be the story this week, but it seemed unlikely to materialize after Woods opened with 74 and typically mercurial Mickelson traded birdies and bogeys.
But Mickelson endured. “I felt if I could shoot under par, I would give myself an opportunity going into the final round . . . there aren’t many guys in front of me and if I can get a little momentum going, I can make up the difference.” That’s a lot easier when the final pairing looks lost.
Woods also can still charge to victory. “64s and 65s are out there. I hit it, as all week, a lot better than my scoring indicates.” He was 10 back starting the final round, but that’s a much shorter 10 because he’s just two away from the logjam. Sure, he’ll need Barnes and Glover to falter, but they’ve shown us anything but steady golf over the last ten holes. It may only get worse for them.
As this story went to press, Barnes scrambled to put up two all-American pars at two and three, once from a ghastly spinach patch of rough, and the other from a deep bunker, but he can’t keep doing that all day. He got to the big lead with fairways and greens, and only fairways and green will do today, the biggest day of his life. If he keeps making mistakes, he’ll hit the chamber with the bullet in it, and if he keeps fighting his swing - his tempo and timing are just as off in the first two holes as they were at the finish yesterday, he’ll find nothing but trouble.
So try to sleep on that. Try to rest easily knowing you may go down in infamy as having blown a comeback story for the ages. Here was Barnes, the golden boy winner of 2002 U.S. Amateur, on the verge of erasing seven long, terrible years of doldrums and living up to all his potential, now on national television co0llapsing in front of everyone. Try to sleep fitfully knowing you may be the next in a long line of U.S. Open cautionary tales. Try to quiet your mind and body while knowing five different major champions are in a pack nipping at your heels.
It had to be the worst night’s sleep of his life.
Two new U.S. Open pieces for Cybergolf
First, my piece on Ricky Barnes’s awful night’s sleep last night.
Then my second round recap.
As we go to press, Lucas Glover just bogeyed, and David Duval just birdied to give us a 3-way tie for the lead at 3-under.
Video: Jay and Ryan from Waggle Room - Rd 2 Bethpage U.S. Open
Enjoy.
Play suspended at U.S. Open
***update*** at 7:10 play was suspended until tomorrow at 7:30
Weather Report Suite at Major Championships
My latest Cybergolf article. Enjoy.
Closing The Deal - Comparing 18 at Bethpage to other Major Championship Venues
Above, the 18th at Southern Hills in Tulsa is a better finishing hole than 18 at Bethpage.
Closing the Deal
BETHPAGE, NY - Golf writers from across the globe are uniformly falling all over themselves to vilify Bethpage Black’s short, dictatorial 18th hole as one of the worst finishing holes in major championship golf. But what should a truly great 18th hole comprise in order to be great? Should an 18th hole be a summation of the design elements of the 17 that came before? Should it be the prettiest hole on the course? Or is it just a way to get back to the clubhouse and call it a day? Let’s take a look at various finishing holes across the four major golf championships, and compare and contrast their pros and cons.
U.S. Opens/PGA Championships
Bethpage Black – Par-4, 411 yards - A 5-wood to a wasp-waisted fairway, then a short iron uphill to the green. The hole is neither a summation of what came before – big brutish par-4s with strategic cross-hazards – nor is it a risk-reward hole where birdie awaits the player who dares carry a hazard. It’s also the wettest hole on the course. “It’s built on a swamp, and right now it is a swamp,” quipped U.S.G.A. vice president Jim Hyler Wednesday morning…and that was before Michael Phelps started doing laps in the middle of the fairway between golfers.
Winged Foot – Par-4, 450 yards – No major championship venue has more of a devastating synergy of history and misery as Winged Foot, and few holes at Winged Foot can match the hole called “Revelations” as a stage worthy of Shakespearean drama. A hard-curving dog-leg left to a pedestal green with heaving undulations and a wicked false front, it makes for a nerve-wracking finish. Most recently, Phil Mickelson, Padraig Harrington, Jim Furyk, and Colin Montgomerie all fell to pieces leaving Geoff Ogilvy the winner in 2006.
Garden City Golf Club – Par-3, 190 yards – Tom Doak called it the greatest Eden Hole he’d ever seen. The host of the 1902 U.S. Open has two deep front bunkers, a pond, and a strip bunker behind, while sitting below the outstretched arms of the clubhouse while the grand Garden City Hotel towers over the whole scene. Imagine…a hole-in-one to end a U.S. Open…
Pebble Beach – Par-5, 543 yards – More journalists named this America’s Iconic major championship finishing hole by a wide margin than any other hole. Hard by the Pacific, some say this hole is more photographed than the 7th. 18 at Pebble has seen four decades of golf history: from Nicklaus to Watson, from Crosby to Woods. Now that you can finally hit it in two, it should be even more dramatic.
Riviera C.C. – Par-4, 472 yards – Both beautiful and difficult, Tom Watson picked it as the finish to his dream 18. Framed by canyons and eucalyptus trees, it’s one of the most identifiable holes in golf and has seen grand theatre for many decades, including the 1983 PGA Championship battle where Jack Nicklaus and Peter Jacobsen provided epic Sunday charges with 65 and 66 respectively, but fell short of gritty Hal Sutton, who won his only major.
Torrey Pines Golf Club – Par-5 – This hole can’t make up its mind whether it’s a par-4 or par-5, but either way - Tiger Woods aside - a finishing hole with a fake pond and fountain on a cliffside and canyons golf course is just discordant. Some say the chance to finish with eagle, makes up for being incongruous to the rest of the course. Woods would agree.
Baltusrol (Lower) – This is a much better example of a challenging par-5 closer than Torrey. The second of back-to-back par-5s to close the round, you can’t deny this hole has seen exciting finish after exciting finish. Ed Furgol – the man whose left arm was withered by polio as a child made a gritty par after hitting in to the 18th fairway of the Upper course, than hitting back over the trees onto the Lower Course’s green to win by one. In 1980 Jack Nicklaus held off Aoki, and won his second Open at Baltusrol to rousing choruses of “Jack is back!” that still echo in eternity.
Oakland Hills C.C. (South Course) – Some people hate, it, but I love it. A true par-4-1/2 that I like as a 4 because it demands your best drive of the day, and your best approach to close with a par, this dog-leg right with a green as curvaceous as Beyonce is one of the crown jewels in this Ross masterpiece. She’d be even better if they’d shave the rough and let all the fairway undulations come alive. Fast and firm conditions would insure balls would spill every which way.
Southern Hills – Dan Jenkins called this course the dog-leg capital of the world, but there is still a great deal of strategy to the course and excellent greens. 18 is truly a summation of all that came before. A long, precise drive must find the correct slot in the dog-leg, and avoid the cross bunkers and burn to offer a good angle uphill to a fiercely contoured green precariously perched atop a plateau. How many missed putts were there on Championship Sunday 2001? Plus, the front and right bunkers are monsters, up and down out of either is brilliant. In 1958 Tommy Bolt hit an amazing blind shot from the next county to close with a par and win one of many “Blast Furnace Opens” there. Hubert Green must have loved the sight of 18 after playing the last four holes at the ’77 Open under a death threat. He later joked the incident must have been spawned by some ex-girlfriend.
PGA National – Another candidate for prettiest fountain in major championship history and little else, unless you count the girl in the lime green bikini doing the scoreboard at the 1987 PGA Championship (her name was Danielle Crombe, for those of you scoring at home).
Others:
Most pundits like the finishers at Oak Hill and The Country Club, and dislike the closers at Valhalla and Medinah. Oak Hill and TCC have strong par-4s to close, Valhalla has that ugly par-5 with the winged green – ***rolls eyes*** - and as for Medinah, can some please go take this course out back and shoot it in the head? That’s the Chicago way of getting rid of things. Either that, or let Tom Fazio have a crack at it “re-perfecting” it. Either way, the quicker we kick this big, ugly dog no one likes to the curb, the better. If Medinah is so great, why is bland old Cog Hill suddenly nominated to replace it in the informal American major rotas?
British Opens/Open Championships
Interestingly, Open Championship courses are better known for their 17th holes rather than their finishers. “Many of them seem to look the same,” observed sports writer Art Spander. He may be right, as the formula – certain notable exceptions aside – seems to be long, amidst hip-high fescue, and peppered with a grillion bunkers. “We beat you up for 17 holes, then we just want to get you to the clubhouse for a drink,” quipped Irish writer Karl MacGinty.
Carnoustie Golf Links – Par-4, 490 yards – Some call it frightening, some call it overkill, but I call it dramatic. Barry Burn intersects the hole in three dangerous places. Deep bunkers and out-of-bounds guard the green as well. The last two major championships there have seen epic meltdowns by the leaders. A true par 4-1/2, if a designer gave your club that hole for a closer, there’d be a warrant out for his arrest faster than you could say triple-bogey, but for giving out the Claret Jug, there may be no stronger finishing hole on the Rota.
St. Andrews – Par-4, 350 yards – What needs to be said? The entire town forms part of the gallery come Open Championship week. This hole is essentially a par-3-1/2 with a birdie awaiting the bold well-struck drive and the Valley of Sin waiting to create more agony for a player without Costantino Rocca’s short game.
After that, Muirfield looks like Royal Lytham, which looks like Troon, which looks like Turnberry. Herbert Warren Wind praised Muirfield’s frankness and honesty” writing that there were no hidden bunkers, recondite burns, misleading shot requirements or capricious terrain, but was it possible he was describing Birkdale with that?
Nevertheless, Muirfield Golf Links probably offers the next best closing hol, despite one famous broadcaster confided to me that he saw three Opens championships there and still couldn’t remember details of the hole. Long and straight at 472 yards, bunkers flank the driving zone and the green.
It’s a toss-up between St. George’s and Troon next. Ian Fleming lovingly described the 18th at St. George’s in Goldfinger, so I’ll do you the literary favor of referring to that three-chapter masterpiece review of the course, but the 18th has a hump in the middle of the fairway which sheds balls. A complex of three cross-bunkers must be carried to the narrow entrance of the green.
Royal Liverpool is undoubtedly the worst of the bunch. I guess it took forty years to forget how lousy it was as an Open Championship host to begin with. Internal out-of bounds is a terrible hazard any time, but especially when a major championship is in the balance. [Author's Note: Yes, I know, that hole played as number 2 in the 2006 British Open.]
The Masters
Augusta National G.C. - Par-4, 465 yards – There are two camps. Some say 18 is so overshadowed by Amen Corner and the dramatic par-5s, others say that recent Masters have shown the hole to be fraught with peril. It’s an awkward tee shot, fade through trees that must curve away from bunker through the fairway. Then it’s an uphill second.
The PLAYERS
TPC Sawgrass – Par-4, 447 yards – What? Sawgrass doesn’t host a major! Well it should. The course deserves it, Dye deserves it and public golf fans deserve it. It’s nice to occasionally see a major championship venue they can play, but how much better would it be to have a major championship venue every year – that they could play. Year in and year out this is one of the hardest holes on tour, if not the hardest. The edge of the hazard is curved and the backdrop is clean, so that the doctrine of deception is on full display here – players must be smart and pick the proper line. Play away from the water on the second, and shaggy mounds await.
The 18th at Oakland Hills is also a great finishing hole.
Interview with Waggle Room on first round of 2009 U.S. Open posted
Thanks to Ryan Ballengee of Waggle Room - an important resource for you during this U.S. Open - for today’s excellent interview:
Weir’s 64 Leads U.S. Open after first round
BETHPAGE, NY - Mike Weir only hit 7 fairways, but shot a 6-under 64, needing a mere 25 putts to lead the first round of the U.S. Open. Swede Peter Hanson fired a 66 to trail by two.
David Duval thrilled his fans with a 69, recalling the glory days of his 2001 British Open win, but then bogeyed 2 of his first 3 holes to drop back to 1-under as we went to press. 2004 British Open champ Todd Hamilton shot a 67, along with Ricky Barnes.
Article on Cybergolf to follow.
The U.S. Open at Bethpage: Fireworks in the Rain
BETHPAGE, NY - Had I been sitting down, I surely would have fallen out of my chair at the question: “So, Rees, is this going be the easiest U.S. Open in years?”
It was a moment that woke you up with a thunderclap. It was why I love covering sports: you’re right there at the firing line in the heat of battle thinking and reacting to what’s happening around you. The two writers sensed a story line was simmering right before their eyes, and now they had a few precious seconds with the man who could offer critical analysis on the key issue – if they could get an answer out of him.
The two journalists had cornered the golf course designer, but they didn’t have him cornered, if you understand the distinction. Rees Jones is a bright and careful man. You know the architect who rescued Bethpage Black from the scrapheap of golf history can adroitly handle even shockingly direct questions from one, venerable old salty dog sports writer and his young, eager beagle buddy.
Nevertheless, the old salty dog had only asked out loud what everyone else was wondering. Six weeks of steady rain had softened up Bethpage’s Black course so that players could play lawn darts with their hybrids and long clubs. Additionally, the course features some of the flattest greens of any U.S. open venue ever. Finally, kinder, gentler U.S. Open rough, has shifted the focus away from driving accuracy so that long bombers are encouraged to hit driver and not worry about the cloak and dagger claustrophobia that had them walking on eggshells for decades prior. After all, the top ten players at last year’s U.S. Open had driving accuracy stats that looked more like the also-rans when compared to previous years, and Angel Cabrera shot 69 at Oakmonster on Sunday in 2007, despite hitting only 5 of 14 fairways. That’s the stat of a man who shoots 79 on U.S. Open Championship Sunday, not 69.
All that resulted in two jocks and a kiddie-pop singer breaking 90 over a reputed knuckle-dragging behemoth of a golf course that wasn’t supposed to surrender 100 during last Friday’s sugar-coated, made-for-TV fantasy golf challenge.
Still, Jones didn’t miss a beat in responding. “I think they’ll go low the first few days, but then the leaders will come back to the field,” he said evenly.
The beagle was next with a fast follow-up: “Is it possible that the graded rough has taken some of the emphasis off of driving accuracy so longer hitters have an advantage and shoot some really low scores?”
To his credit, the harder the question, the more direct and analytical an answer you get from Jones. He loves to discuss the nuances of his craft. “The rough is lush, but it is wider than last year and also the last time they were here,” replied Jones. “Long hitters won’t have to worry about hitting it off line as much, so they’ll hit driver more.” He paused momentarily, and then added, “But yes, the long hitters will have an advantage in this set-up. After all, Zach Johnson won the Masters because they narrowed Augusta.”
And so the conversation went, back and forth. The impromptu tag-team duo queried the softness of the course, and the milder Mike Davis set-up parameters, and the golf architect provided keen observations from a man who has become a legend at sharpening world-class golf courses into challenging major championship tournament venues for over a decade, and who had overseen two sets of renovation to the Black Course for a pair of U.S. Opens.
“The ideal conditions here are firm and fast, but we may not see the course the way we want it to be played, he explained thoughtfully. “Rain changes the whole complexion of this championship.”
It’s clear the weather has been on the minds of U.S. Open officials as well. It’s been raining bricks and bats in New York City for three months. The weather has proved British satire author Douglas Adams correct when he quipped, “there are 40,000 other places you’d rather spend spring than New York City, and that’s just on the same latitude.”
“Obviously, the weather has not been our friend,” admitted U.S.G.A. vice president Jim Hyler. “Right now it’s extremely soft. It’s rained in this area 30 out of 45 days. Dave Catelano [Author’s Note: the Black Course superintendent] who has been here for 40 years says he’s not seen weather like this….we were hoping to get the greens around 14 – 14.5. This morning we were at 13.5.”
With another ½ inch to inch of rain expected overnight and thunderstorms predicted for tomorrow, the adverse weather conditions have definitely affected the options available to the U.S.G.A. “We will not put any hole locations in the low areas of the greens. Teeing grounds will be decided in the morning based on what is happening in the morning and the forecast for the rest of the day.” They even have dry wells, green rollers, and big sponges called “water hogs” to soak up excess moisture.
The softness of the course and the easiest rough in recent U.S. Open memory has the long hitters chomping at the bit, and shorter hitters wringing their hands as the eve of the tournament fades to dusk. “It’s a big advantage to the long hitters,” said Kenny Perry. “These are seriously soft conditions. It’s been ugly weather here for days. The greens are not very fast now. They are soft and receptive, and will hold anything you throw at them. I think they will stay soft all week.”
Three-time major winner Padraig Harrington and 2006 U.S. Open Champion Geoff Ogilvy agreed. “The gradient rough makes it easier than 2002, Harrington stated. “Also the course is a softer. I’d prefer to play a longer, softer golf course. With softer greens it’s easier to play than a shorter course with very firm, tricky greens.”
“Long and high is an advantage here, for sure,” agreed Ogilvy. “The fairway rough is thick, but pretty doable….you’ll see guys hitting 5-woods and rescues.”
Even short hitting Stephen Ames was optimistic. “It’s 1 or 2 clubs longer than 2002, but it’s the same soggy golf course as last time, so it’s easier to stop the ball and easier on your short game. If it stays like this, we can attack it all day long.”
Finally, Mike Davis made a surprising, but tell-tale observation that may ultimately hold the key to winning this year’s Open in a recent Golf Digest interview. “There should not be as much wind as at Torrey, and the greens will be easier to putt.”
That has Tiger Woods wide-eyed with the possibilities. Woods, who once said, “I hate greens with elephants buried under them,” loves to hit to flat portions of greens even if he has a longer putt. His 63 at Southern Hills in the 2007 PGA was the textbook example as he rolled in straight 20-footer after straight 20-footer. “Obviously the greens are a bit flatter than normal,” he said. “So just getting the ball on the green, you’ll have a pretty good look at a putt.”
So as we wait for sunrise to reveal just another leaden-slate sky from horizon to horizon and prepare for another day out of an Edgar Allan Poe take, where dull, dark and soundless clouds hang oppressively low in the heavens, the pros know that they can go low, but can they balance out the advantage of the long bombers? Look for two things in these conditions. First, a short hitter is going to have to play the best golf of his life to win. “It’ll have to be fairways and greens and hope,” said Rocco Mediate, who nearly stole last year’s U.S. Open with that mantra. That’s the only way to keep up with the long hitters: you’ll have to match their birdies.
Second, someone may shoot 63, or at least get close. The only defense to this course right now is length and a couple goofy pin placements. Yes, the course is longer, but players can charge their putts, attack pins, hit driver a little off line but without fear of six-inch rough, and get longer approach clubs to bite. We’ll see fireworks in the rain, but they’ll sparkle just as well against a grey backdrop as they would a night sky filled with stars.
Nevertheless, none of the conditions can be held against Jones or the U.S.G.A. Of all the courses Jones has renovated, Bethpage Black is best work in a portfolio full of successes. “Well, I just gave them the palette,” Jones said, “the USGA does the painting.”
That ordinarily would have been a great ending to the interview, but, the old salty dog of a sportswriter wasn’t done with the “Open Doctor.”
“Rees,” he asked pointedly, “is this still a Tillinghast course?”
Time froze again. If this were a Western the old tumbleweed music would have hit a crescendo.
Jones didn’t miss a beat. “If the U.S. Open hadn’t come here, it would still be a Tillie course.”
And that, young eager beagles, is how you conduct the interview. Anybody have any questions? Class dismissed.