Golf On TV This Last Weekend

[John Kirk]

I caught the flu last Friday, and have been laying around in bed ever since.  With no energy and nothing better to do, I watched sports on television most of the weekend.

1.  The Bob Hope tournament was such a yawner.  Justin Leonard gained control early and coasted.  It was so easy for him to make routine pars the last few holes.

The Palmer course at PGA West lacks variety.  Holes 15 and 17 are short par 3s with rocks right and a concrete waterway left.  Holes 14 and 16 have nearly identical approach shots over the waterway to greens with the rocks behind.  16 is a short par 4, but nobody attempts to drive the green; virtually zero chance of success.

Number 18 can yield eagles and double bogeys; I don't like it particularly, but drama can be had there.  By then it was long decided.  Really boring.

2.  A kid named Dougherty won the Singapore Open.  The strangest thing happened.  With Colin Montgomerie trailing by only one or two shots, Dougherty hooked his tee shot on #17 into the front of a deep bunker.  Actually, his ball was on grass, beyond the sand, with a steep upslope to navigate.  He had virtually no chance to reach the green from where his ball ended up.  But the bunker was constructed with wooden slats or railroad ties, and the entire grassy slope/slats combination was marked as ground under repair.

Monty, in the middle of the fairway after an accurate tee shot, watched in disbelief as the offical granted Dougherty relief on flat ground beside the bunker (in the rough).  Dougherty hit his approach to 4 feet and birdied.  Monty left his approach about 50 feet short and 3 putted.

Dougherty won by 5.  That's not very good architecture, is it?

Well, the weather in Oregon is beautiful today.  Might have been a play day if I wasn't so sick.  Instead I get to listen to the locals firing their rifles nearby.

[JohnV]

John,

Nick Dougherty's lucky break was actually on 16 not 17.  The tour staff could have declared those sleepers as integral parts of the course from which no relief was granted but they didn't so he got lucky.  He got lucky on 15 also when his ball was in deep rough by the green but he was standing on a sprinkler head and got to drop in on the fringe.  Not all breaks are bad in golf.

On 17, Monty hit his shot into a terrible lie just above the back of a bunker, almost chipped into the water and then chipped in for par or the margin might have been 6.

[JakaB]

This being the lag week between the playoffs and the Super Bowl made it all the more dissapointing...I read somewhere that one of the leading minds in golf is considering proposing an event in Australia during this week to play off of the Tennis Australian Open...if I could just find that article..

[Mike Benham]

2.  A kid named Dougherty won the Singapore Open.  The strangest thing happened.  With Colin Montgomerie trailing by only one or two shots, Dougherty hooked his tee shot on #17 into the front of a deep bunker.  Actually, his ball was on grass, beyond the sand, with a steep upslope to navigate.  He had virtually no chance to reach the green from where his ball ended up.  But the bunker was constructed with wooden slats or railroad ties, and the entire grassy slope/slats combination was marked as ground under repair.

Monty, in the middle of the fairway after an accurate tee shot, watched in disbelief as the offical granted Dougherty relief on flat ground beside the bunker (in the rough).  Dougherty hit his approach to 4 feet and birdied.  Monty left his approach about 50 feet short and 3 putted.

Ahh, so that's what happened, I couldn't figure out why he got the drop, that is a horrible decision by the committee to declare those sleepers as ground under repair.

[JohnV]

Mike, they are not ground under repair, they are immovable obstructions.  There was no need to declare them as such, but the Committee could declare them as integral parts of the course just like the road on #17 at St. Andrews is.

[Philip Gawith]

No doubt Nick Dougherty got lucky - the tournament would have had a much more interesting ending without it. Indeed, you would have to have favoured Monty to win.

The more interesting point, though, is the emergence of Dougherty after a period of squandering his talent. Aside from his lucky break, he played very well. He now joins Luke Donald, Paul Casey, Justin Rose and Ian Poulter in constituting quite a formidable group of young English players who you would fancy are going to win quite a few golf tournaments, contend in major tournaments, and provide a strong spine to Ryder Cup teams for years to come.
I am not sure of their precise ages, but they are certainly all still in their twenties.

Who are the US equivalents? Charles Howell comes to mind, but I am left struggling a bit after that.

[Sean_A]

Philip

The boys you mention are easily better than a similar American counterpart.  These guys are all proven winners.    As Mr. Lehman believes, the US are underdogs for Ireland.  Hopefully Tom can take advantage of his picks rather than using the the Hal Method of selecting mates.

Is Justin going to make a move in the right direction this year?  He is struggling.  At the start of last year I would have bet on him making the Ryder Cup.  He seems to have fallen off the earth.

Ciao

Sean

[Philip Gawith]

Sean you are right that Justin Rose is struggling, though there have also been some good signs. But he has a good swing and he is smart, and he knows what it is to suffer failure and come through the other side - all these things make him, in my mind, a solid bet. If not today, some time!

[Matt_Sullivan]

The Dougherty drop was a joke -- and I say this as a member of the course where the event was played (Laguna National) and as someone who was hoping ND would win.

The grass area in the bunker between the sand and the railway ties was marked by the Euro Tour as GUR. Hence, ND got relief under a local GUR rule in place for the week which allowed him to drop outside the bunker.

When we mere members play the course we are entitled to relief if our stance or swing is interfered with by the fan wall. But the relevant local rule for us (printed on the back of the scorecard) says that the drop must be taken INSIDE THE BUNKER!!

So if Nick was playing in our monthly medal he would have had to drop in the bunker if he wanted relief!

Strange move by the Euro Tour ...

... And just think of all the trouble its going to cause next comp day when every second member is going to try and take a "Dougherty drop" out of the bunker

[JohnV]

Matt, if your local rule requires you to drop in the bunker, it is not a valid local rule under the Rules of Golf.  If you are on grass, you are  "through the green" not in the hazard.  Rule 24 says that if you are through the green you must take relief through the green, not in a hazard.  The Rules of Golf do not allow a Committee to waive a rule in this manner.  It is too bad your Committee believes that it can do that.  Does this mean that if I'm at the top of the sleeper, 5-10 yards beyond the bunker and my swing is interferred with by the sleeper, I have to go back into the bunker?

As for the European Tour marking it GUR, I didn't know they had whitelined the hole area, but the probably did it to tie all the sleepers together to make finding the nearest point of relief easier.  Otherwise each of them would be considered individual obstructions, as they didn't appear to be connected in any way, and a player would have been there a long time getting relief from each one in turn.

[Michael Wharton-Palmer]

I think Justin will be okay, his stats for last year were very impressive, especially those stats regarding his irons into the greens..his putting needs work though..there lies the achilles heel.
As a group the young lions mentioned have tremendous promise, and could well spearhead the next few Ryder Cups..I am just not sure about the killer instinct they possess as a group, only time will tell on that front.
Unfortunately, Poulter is an Arsenal fan..but I cannot hold that against him forever!!!
On this side of the pond there are a few on the horizon such as Bill Haas and Ryan Moore but they are a few years away at this point.
As for now, Howell is the obviuos name, but there a bunch in the late twenties..the likes of Chad Campbell, Aaron Obelhouser{spelt wrong}Jonathon Byrd, Zach Johnson, all of whom will probably break through on a largere scale in the next couple of years.

But overall, I think it is an exciting time to be an Englishman.

[Matt_Sullivan]

Sorry, in trying to explain things in a shorthand way I used loose terminology and needlessly confused things.

What I meant to say was that proceeding under our local rule ND would probably have been required to drop the ball in the grass surrounding the bunker. That is, on the grass in the "pit" (ie, down at the level of the bunker, not up adjacent to the fairway).

Our local rule makes the fan walls immovable obstructions. In the position where ND was, (on the grass, presumably hindered by the fan wall) he could proceed under 24-2 (ie, there is enough "through the green" space down there to take the free drop). Your point about the potential difficulty of determining the nearest point of relief is well made, but I know it is possible because I have been able to take relief this way before when I have snap hooked my drive on this hole!!

The shot from the "pit" is of course more difficult, mainly because of the worse lie you can get in the thicker rough down there, which can make it difficult to get the ball over the wall and on to the green.


My apologies for the confusion -- the fault is mine in the explanation of the local rule, not the committee's in the establishment of it!!

[JohnV]

Matt,

No problem, that is why us rules guys can be so picky about terminolgy at times.   I do have a bit of problem with your need to have a local rule for this.  It sounds like some people at your club are opposed to players getting good luck at times while the European Tour seems to want to guarantee that their players always get good luck.

Sometimes I think the tours try to make things too easy for the players in the way they mark things.  Take the lake that Alan Doyle hit into on #18 on Saturday on the Champions Tour.  That should have been marked as a water hazard, not a lateral water hazard and then there wouldn't have been the big discussion about whether his ball bounced on the far side or not.  But, the Champions Tour supposedly marks all hazards as lateral.

[Matt_Sullivan]

John

In the vein of the tours making it too easy...

At Laguna the concrete retaining walls around the lakes are an integral part of the course for the members. There is no entitlement to a free lift. This results in the occasional dose of bad luck, leading to a back handed flick or an unplayable drop every so often. It's happened maybe three or so times to me in perhaps 150 rounds, so it is not a common occurrence, and is almost always the result of a misjudged shot that may well have gone in the water but for the wall! So I believe it is not unfair.

However, for the Euro Tour event players are entitled to a free lift from the retaining wall, under at least some circumstances. I have seen relief given in the tournament but I don't know on what grounds, presumably a local rule for the tournament making the retaining walls immovable obstructions.

When you say you have a problem with our need to have a local rule for the fan wall, are you implying the ball should be played as it lies, ie fan wall treated as part of the course? Just curious

[JohnV]

Matt,

I'm very surprised that they gave relief for the walls around water hazards as they are declared integral parts of the course on  the hard card of all the tours I've seen.  Did they have a water hazard line outside the walls or did they do something like say the hazard was defined by the inside (water) side of the walls?  If the former, I'm surprised, if the latter, I can see why they got relief under the rules but still surprised they would mark  it that way.

As for your local rule, if you are playing them as obstructions, I don't see the need for any local rule, just find your nearest point of relief no nearer the hole and drop it.  It sounded like your rule was designed to prevent a player from ever getting out of the hole for free even if his NPR was on top of the hill.   That I didn't like.  I'd rather see them defined as an integral part of the course than to have a local rule like that.

If you do have a local rule, I'd think it should be something like, "The entire collection of sleepers in the fan wall on hole #16 should be considered as a single obstruction and relief should be taken under Rule 24-2 at the nearest point on the golf course which gives complete relief from all of them and is no nearer the hole."  It would be possible to get out of the hole at times and at others you'd have to stay in there.  Thems the breaks.