"Mike -
How firm were the greens? Are approach shots bouncing at all? The hardness of the greens matters at least as much as green speed. That's what has been missing for many years. As I heard Linc Rhoden say recently, you want to see skid marks, not ball marks.
If they can get the greens as firm as they were thirty or so years ago, some holes border on unplayable at the new yardages. Which is not an altogether bad thing.
Bob"
Bob:
You're not kidding----eg green surface firmness is much more crucial to scoring for those guys than just green speed. If greens get to a particular firmness when those guys realize they can't be completely confident that even their best aerial shot will be controllable, that is the very point when these golf courses and the tournament really gets interesting.
Is that exact and ideal degree of firmness identifiable? I think so, and I've been trying to analyze this in real tournament conditions for about four years now.
Linc Roden calls that point a "skid mark". Frankly, I disagree with that. I think a consistent "skid mark" for even the best aerial shot may be just a tad too firm even for those guys, but maybe I'm wrong about that. In my opinion, the idenitfable ideal degree of firmness for players of that caliber is when the green just lightly dents (not puncturing of the turf).
Maybe Linc is talking about the same thing but I don't think so. If a really well struck aerial shot from the fairway by those types of players just creates a tiny "skid mark" the greens may be completely uncontrollable to aerial shots, and a slight "skid mark" may also mean they are pretty crusty.
You don't know Linc like I know Linc and it's possible he thinks it's cool when a player can't really hold a green with a well struck aerial shot from the fairway. But maybe I'm wrong about that because you were there when Linc told me he wanted to amend what he'd told me earlier about ideal green surface firmness.
Remember that? He told me he really didn't mean what he said earlier when I asked him what he thought ideal green surface firmness was when he told me "think concrete" and that he wanted to amend that description to a "skid mark".
Whatever the ideal degree of green surface firmness is and however it can be identified when the ball first hits the green we might be about to find out this weekend.
I thought the Sunday that Mickelson won, the firmness of the greens was absolutely ideal. Stopping a ball quickly was virtually impossible and it was definitely impossible to suck one back. But they were checking just a little bit on about the third bounce and with the speed they run at ANGC they were filtering on the slopes and contours beautifully.
The reason I remember that is it seemed like Mickelson was totally dialed in to that fascinating situation on that Sunday. He looked like he and Bones were saying things like; "If I hit it at that slope over there on that green with a lot of spin I should get just enough control and then I can get it filtering over there where the pin is".
I mean how cool is that? Is that not the absolute ideal green surface firmness when a player has to start thinking and strategizing his approaches like that? Or maybe he might think things are at such a point of equilibrium that he might think to actually bring the ball through a part of an approach for the best and safest play.
I'll tell you one thing----we should watch all those players very carefully to see if they are all fixing anything on the greens after their approaches. If most of them aren't fixing anything at all I might have to start adjusting and redefining what the identifiable mark to a really well struck approach shot looks like on ideal green surface firmness for guys of that caliber.
But for now I think it's just a light dent and if it's just a very light "skid mark" as Linc recommends, that might be going a tad too far for any kind of control at all.
In other words, if Hootie and the Boys at ANGC let Linc set-up that course for them with his ideal green surface firmness we just may find good old Linc hanging from one of ANGC's cherry trees on Monday Morning with a sign around his neck that says "Courtesy of the Best Players in the World".
