From today's Arizona Daily Star:
Greg Hansen: Scores of 60, 59 need to be taken in context
Once a golfer shoots a 59 on your course, something is wrong. Isn't that right?
It's either too easy or too short or too inelegant for something as stoic as pro golf, even on the ladies tour.
Remember what the Augusta National people did when Tiger Woods started posting Masters scores that came off like a day at an Idaho Falls muni? They added length, planted trees, grew the rough and vowed that no one would ever shoot a 63 again. Or even a 66, if they could help it.
As a profession, golf course architects prefer the pros to struggle with par. It's a tribute to their work if you have to break a sweat to break par.
If you want to ruin an architect's day, give him a call when someone is knocking down birdies, threatening to break 60 on his little piece of heaven - and it's all being played live on national TV.
They'd rather hug a barrel cactus.
On Thursday afternoon, just as The Golf Channel began its coverage of the Welch's/Fry's Championship, Ken Kavanaugh, working on designs of two Tucson courses and one in Phoenix, tuned in.
"My God," he said, "The Golf Channel people are making this The Tucson Story: come here and shoot a 59."
Kavanaugh's beauty of a muni, the Dell Urich Golf Course, coughed up another 60 Thursday the same way it coughed up a 60 last season. This time, it was a relatively unsuccessful LPGA nonwinner with a wrist injury, Jung Yeon Lee. Last year, it was by the accomplished (15 victories) Meg Mallon.
You sense that someone will be shooting a 57 on Kavanaugh's turf by Sunday.
"I'd prefer they wouldn't do it," he said.
On most days, from the back tees, Dell Urich can be semi-sinister. It measures 6,633 yards and it has six par 4s of between 430 and 470 yards. It's not Bethpage Black, but it's a considerable test for all but those in the scratch-handicap division.
If the LPGA played that Dell Urich course this weekend, 67 would be an exceptional score, and Kavanaugh would not be so understandably cranky.
Instead, they're playing 6,176 yards, and every hole is a potential birdie paradise.
"The LPGA is doing this purposely because there's room to make it much harder," Kavanaugh said. "It gets more TV viewers. It gets them more publicity. If they keep playing it from (6,176), someone's probably going to do it."
Shoot 59, that is.
The method to the LPGA's break-60 madness is not much of a mystery. Only one female in tour history, Annika Sorenstam, has broken 60 in tournament play. With due respect to a 73-homer baseball season, 59 might be the most compelling number in pro sports.
And who cares where? Can you name the course that David Duval shot his PGA Tour 59? Or Al Geiberger's? Or Chip Beck? It's the number, not the degree of difficulty involved in shooting it.
Four other LPGA venues are roughly the same length as Dell Urich, but the difference is the timing. In March, the rough hasn't been able to grow long enough in Tucson to penalize wayward shots. It is bombs away.
"When you look at the full field (Thursday), there aren't that many absurd scores," said Kavanaugh. "Mallon shot a 74. I've noticed Se Ri Pak on the leader board - probably the best golfer here this week - and last year, she missed the cut out there. "
The main reason 59 is a legitimate target this week is because Dell Urich is a par 70. Last year, the LPGA played at only one other par-70 course, in Tulsa, Okla. But in the summer, the Oklahoma rough is deep, and the chance to threaten 59 is zip.
The majority of pro events are held on par-72 designs. As difficult as it is to shoot 11 under par, it is scaling-Mount Everest-without-oxygen difficult to shoot 13 under par somewhere. Anywhere.
Thus, this is the one week on the American pro golf calendar that a 59 is more than just a dreamy scenario.
"The LPGA can sell what it wants to sell," Kavanaugh said. "It won't bug me if someone breaks 60, but I like it that there aren't 10 or 12 people coming close."
But one is enough. One golfer shooting a 59 at Dell Urich this weekend will be a front-page headline in every sports section from Tucson to South Korea. One 59 forever changes the perception of Ken Kavanaugh's desert oasis.
"The LPGA has got a lot of smoke and mirrors going out there," he said. "As far as the scores go, I'm rooting against 'em."