I worked the 8th hole as a marshal on Wednesday and Friday--got some ESPN air time on 8 tee Friday during "The Annika Show." Caught the final round on TV today. A few thoughts:
--The routing of Cherry Hills is really excellent. The front nine is a clockwise inside loop and the back nine a counterclockwise outside loop, similar to Muirfield (where the front nine is an outside loop and the back 9 is an inside loop). The use of the stream on holes like 5, 13 and 16 is well done. It was good to see the tree removal on 16, which really opened up the hole nicely. The course builds to a great conclusion starting with the superb 14th hole. I totally agree that 17 is ridiculously overtreed. Architecturally, the back nine is far superior to the front, which has several average holes (1,4, eight) and weak holes (3--though it gave the ladies fits as something like the 4th hardest hole at 330 yards--and 7). The bunkering is quite good too.
--The 18th is WAAAY uphill. You have to see it to appreciate it. And the R-L slope in the fairway is really severe, taking the ball sideways and nearly backwards in spots. I think the 2d shot into 18 intimidated the ladies, and they didn't handle the sidehill lies there very well either.
--Morgan Pressel is a very impressive young lady (see my original post on Wednesday). She showed a lot of guts, making more par saving putts than the rest of the final groups combined. Her caddy was clueless (telling her to "get up and down" after her second shot on 18 when Morgan and everyone else on the planet knew what she needed to do). If she had had a professional caddy on her bag (or even one of the Cherry Hills regular loopers) she wins by a couple strokes. She needed someone to help her pull clubs --several of the club selections were way off (eg 6, 11, 15, 18)--and to tell her how slow some of the uphill putts were (eg 16).
--The course/ pressure clearly got into the leaders' heads just like the USGA likes it. The greens and fairways firmed up nicely on the weekend especially today. Otherwise I thought the course was nicely set up--plenty of width off the tee, the greens were never over the top but plenty challenging. Cherry Hills may not ever hold a men's tourney again, but it's just fine for the women.
--Mark Fine--wished I knew you were coming, would have liked to have met you!
--Wayne M/Mark F, I'd very much like to see what you have on Flynn Cherry Hills and to compare notes re Flynn's Denver CC design. I'd have to agree with the comments that the Cherry Hills CC site is better than Denver CC's (it was even more true when Flynn did his work than it is now because as Wayne knows Denver CC added some land post-Flynn that is more interesting architecturally than what Flynn had to work with). I look forward to your visit.
--BillV/Redanman, sorry you think what I've been doing out here the past 24 years isn't golf.
I still enjoy it, and it's funny how one appreciates a little help from the altitude with advancing age.
--And what a shot by Young Kim--I mean "Birdie" Kim!