The Best Demonstration of Ball Striking and Strategy

[Jason Topp]

I really enjoyed watching players attack the course in different fashions.  I think that is pretty rare.

[TEPaul]

"I don't care whether the winning score is -24.  This week's Open has been the best examination of ball striking and strategy I've seen in years."

TomD:

I couldn't agree more. To me it very well may be the greatest example of ball striking and strategizing I've ever seen from a player, and the supreme irony is that Woods appears to have done it in a number of ways at Hoylake that were basically unexpected by all those responsible for the course and the tournament.

It appears to me that Tiger Woods more often than not finds unexpected ways to stay about six steps ahead and around the corner from all those who try to find ways to examine his game and course managements (strategies) and to hold them back somehow (scoring).

If he feels like he needs to "flog" on some courses to win, he flogs and wins. If he feels like he needs to slow things down by never using driver to avoid challenging a course's inherent "risks" (highly penal fairway bunkering) he does that.

The fact that Tiger Woods appears to be almost the only one at Hoylake to use the particular over-all strategy he did just may be something very special for the ages of championship golf.

The one thing he has not really had to cope with in his British Open victories is wind. He was ready for that, they say, in 2000 with what they said was a whole series of interesting and unique shot selections but he never had to unveil them.

Let's hope one of these years it blows like hell for an Open over there and maybe we will see another dimension of this incredible athlete's game and course management expertise.

[Brent Hutto]

Similarly, Hamilton's ball striking may not have been as good as Tigers at RL but his strategy was pretty darn impressive at Royal Troon in 2004 ?

I think given their respective ballstriking abilities, Hamilton played almost exactly the same strategy at Troon as Woods did this week at Hoylake.

One aspect of the modern power game that perhaps gets overlooked is how far back down the fairway the very best players can be and still fire mid-irons. It's one thing to build back tees to force a 300-yard driver shot to contend with fairway bunkers. However, as we saw this week with modern golf balls and modern athletes laying back 210-240 yards from the hole is not as daunting a prospect as it would have been in the heyday Jack Nicklaus. Imagine Jack with a Maxfli wound balata ball deliberately laying up to leave a 230 yard crosswind shot to a rock-hard Par 4 green. I don't think it would be humanly possible for that strategy to be executed well enough for an 18-under-par result.

[ForkaB]

Let's not forget, Brent......

.......Jack 1-ironed Muirfield to death in 1966 (with the 1.62 ball), and Bobby Jones only used a wooden club 10 times in his 90 holes at the 1927 Open at St. Andrews.

[Brent Hutto]

Good examples, Rich. I guess the strategy, like the courses, is timeless. However, my point is that those 1-iron shots have been scaled up to pretty much the same degree as the driver shots we all talk about. Tiger can hit driver 40 yards further than Jack could but Tiger can also hit 4-iron on the approach shots where Jack needed 1-iron. None of which IMO detracts from the awesomeness (is that a word?) of Tiger's display yesterday...or of Jack's at Muirfield.

[Tom Huckaby]

BTW, what about Mickelson and his weeks and weeks of preparation, multiple pre-Open trips to Hoylake, hours of study, etc.?  All of that yielded a strategy that had him hitting drivers on damn near every hole.  Meanwhile Tiger shows up on Sunday prior, never having seen the course in his life, and comes up with this irons-only strategy one and all are so highly lauding now (and rightfully so)?

I guess my question is this:  why was Tiger so smart and Phil so stupid?

Or is it just execution?  That is, execution like Tiger's this week could make any strategy look good... or relatlively poor execution like Phil's can make any strategy look bad???

TH

[BCrosby]

As TD and TEP point out above, none of this happens unless the organization putting on the tournament is willing to accept low winning scores.

That is the predicate to any tournament that wants strategic considerations to play an important role in the outcome.

Bob

[Kevin Pallier]

I guess my question is this:  why was Tiger so smart and Phil so stupid?

The same reason why Tiger has 11 Majors and Phil has until just recently had none.

Tiger knows a conservative game and plays the % to get the job done (just like Jack).

[Rick Shefchik]

Voytek asked the question that was going through my head all weekend: if it had been a rainy English summer, could Hoylake have stood up to the pros? Seems to me that if you bake out any golf course to the point where backspin is almost a non-existent phenomenon, you're going to force a completely different style of play from what the world's best players play in most tournaments.

Thinking about my home course, there are 14 holes where the opening in front of the green is sufficiently wide to accommodate the ground game, if the superintendent would allow the course to get brown enough. This summer, all Minnesota courses would look just like Hoylake if it weren't for the usual practice of excessive irrigation.

Of course, that's just a dream -- most U.S. supers would be fired if they let their course get like Hoylake was this week. Pity, as Peter Aliss might say.

[Tom Huckaby]

Kevin - oh, I can dig that.

But remember, up until mid-day Thursday, most of the golf cognoscenti were still praising Phil for his incredible preparation, while questioning Tiger's relative lack of devotion.

I guess my question is more re this course specifically - why did Tiger get it so right and Phil so relatively wrong?  Or is it just that Tiger has abilities Phil - and on one else - has?  That is, is it that ONLY HE could have pulled off -18 and a win using no drivers?

Or did he find the proper strategy, one that everyone else missed?

It has to be a combination of the two.... I just still do wonder why Phil hit nothing but drivers, Tiger hit nothing but irons.

TH

[D_Malley]

how would tigers strategy playing hoylake be similar to the open at merion in 13?  assuming weather cooporates and merion gets very firm and fast.  i think the irons off almost all tees would be his plays, but the approaches would be alot different, not allowing the type of running approaches.

[Brent Hutto]

Huck,

Not every top-flight player has the same mixture of strengths and weaknesses. In hindsight it does look like Phil's strategy was not as sound as Tiger's but then again who's to say whether Phil could have consistently (very, very consistently) executed those 3-iron, 4-iron and 5-iron approach shots to perfection as Tiger did.

It may be that Tiger considers long-iron play to be the greatest strength of his game. His strategy was certainly built on the assumption that his long-iron play is a relative competitive advantage. I'd bet Phil would tell you that his driving, wedge play and chipping are where his competitive advantage lies (not that I'd necessarily agree but that's my impression of what Phil believes).

Look at it this way. Didn't the guy who finished second hit almost as many drivers as Phil Mickelson? If Phil had putted worth a darn and driven the ball as well as he did at Augusta he'd have been right up there in contention, although I don't think anyone could have gotten more out of their game than Chris DiMarco did this week.

[Tom Huckaby]

Brent - EXTREMELY well said.  That makes great sense to me.  "Strategy" on a golf course is indeed player-specific.  The best really do play to their strengths, and when they are "on" with the ball-striking and putting, they can be really impressive.  As Tiger was this week, Phil was for 71 holes at Winged Foot.

One thing still does impress the hell out of me though - the DISCIPLINE required to keep leaving your ball 50-80 yards back of your playing partners.  That happened with Tiger v. Els and Sergio several times each.  Man that takes discipline - guts - smarts.  I guess most pros do have all of these things - but I can't help relating it to my own meager game and well... Man that is mental toughness.  

I think putting confidence has a lot to do with this as well though.  Tiger also played to the middle of greens or to the safe areas more than most because he did not fear the three-putt, his Saturday performance nothwithstanding.

One more thing though:  I love DiMarco and do not wish to denigrate him in any way - man he's the only one who remotely stood up to Tiger - but strategically, do you think he had any choice but to hit mostly drivers?  He's a LOT shorter off the tee than Tiger and Phil and the big bombers...

TH

[Brent Hutto]

Putting is always a big part of it. If you let Sergio putt for Tiger on Sunday, DiMarco wins it in a walk. If you know that you can get the ball within three feet of the hole from anywhere within 25 yards and you know that you make about 98% of your three-foot putts then your playbook has that middle-of-the-green chapter in it every week. Or like Sergio is you know that you're going to leave the occasional 4-5 footer and that you'll miss one out of three from that range under pressure, the only strategy you need to find is the one designed to knock it close as often as possible.

On your larger point, the best player I know told me once that when you're playing well it's an advantage to be hitting first on every hole. If you can lay back 20, 30, 40 yards and still hit the ball closer than the guy who outdrove you, it puts the weight of the friggin' world on his shoulders to figure out a way to beat you. It's a very powerless, out-of-control feeling to outdrive someone by a mile and still be putting or chipping first on every hole and it will lead your opponent to press and get very, very tight over those approach shots.

[Tom Huckaby]

Brent - more great stuff - right on brother.

Confidence works back from the hole.  If you know you can putt, the rest of the game gets sequentially easier.  Or at least it should if one is thinking.

TH

[Tim Pitner]

Tiger's ball-striking from the fairways was phenomenal, as was his ability to leave every second putt stone dead.  He was never in trouble.  But, it must be said that his main competitors for major titles--Els, Singh, Goosen, Mickelson--just aren't playing very well at the moment.  I suppose Mickelson is, but I rarely regard him as a serious threat in the Open.  I don't know if it's his high ball flight, the slower greens, or what, but he doesn't seem to take to links golf.  I believe his 3rd place finish at Troon took place when the course was reasonably soft and with little wind.  BTW, I'm still not sure that Tiger (relative to his abilities) is a great wind or poor weather player, but that wasn't required this year.  Clearly, he is a great long iron player and his short game is fantastic.

[Philip Gawith]

TEP - to your point about wanting to see Tiger in the wind:

I was at Hoylake over the weekend. The best memory was seeing Tiger/Hank Haney/Steve arrive at the practice range at 7.45pm on Saturday evening when it was deserted. I and about 50 others had the pleasure/privilege of seeing Tiger hit balls for half an hour without another soul on the range.

It was a wonderful scene - a balmy evening, feeling you were enjoying a privileged audience with this fantastic player, and seeing him all alone, without anyone else cluttering the landscape - just this one player, who happened to be Tiger.

The main reason for sharing this anecdote was that he also hit quite a few drivers during this session. If the wind had really got up yesterday, I think he would have hit the club - he was prepared!

Incidentally, Hank Haney was quoted in the UK press over the weekend saying the thing that struck him most about Tiger was that of all the 200 pro's he had worked with, Tiger unquestionably had the strongest desire to improve, never mind being the best already.

I suspect this is not particularly a new insight, but interesting to be reminded of it, and my experience on Saturday evening would seem to bear it out.

[Adam Clayman]

Philip, That is some wonderful sharing, thanx.

Just wondering how Nike would react to this snubb of their Sasquatch driver?
 Inorder to sell shirts, the reps will show every outfit Tiger will wear each day at the Masters, months into the future.

Did Tiger have to hit his driver at least once, contractually?

Those who have opined that the lack of big sticks hit, by one competitor, swayed their view of how successful The Open Championship was, should understand just how much they need to learn.

[Kyle Henderson]

I'm surprised that Peter Aliss didn't refer to "Royal O.B.s" critics as "Royal S.O.B.s" after the shot-making display it engendered.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Tom Huckaby, et. al.,

If someone else would have won, everyone, you, the Media, and GCA.com would have called his failure to use his driver into question.

Remember, one has to feel comfortable with their decisions or they don't execute well.

When was the last time you were about to hit a club and said to yourself, "this isn't the right club", and then proceeded to hit a perfect shot.

Perhaps others didn't feel comfortable with the strategy Tiger employed.

Remember, here in the U.S. he declared that he hit his 2-iron
280 yards, and that was in 1996.  Perhaps now that the ball is improved and he's more physically fit, that he hits it even farther, and as such, decided that a 2-iron was all that was necessary for him.

Irrespective of his great play, he did score -18, I still can't believe that all of those within 4 strokes didn't produce better Sunday rounds.

[Tom Huckaby]

Patrick:

If ifs and buts were candy and nuts, oh what a fine Christmas this would be.

Fact is, Tiger's strategy worked.  Thus I am wondering why only he employed it - because it really did seem like everyone else was hitting primarily drivers.

So yes, it could be that only Tiger has the unique combination of abilities that would make this strategy work.  But is he THAT different in physical ability than all the rest of the pros?  I'm ready to believe it... But other answers do remain possible.

TH

[Brent Hutto]

Irrespective of his great play, he did score -18, I still can't believe that all of those within 4 strokes didn't produce better Sunday rounds.

I wouldn't say "all of those within 4 strokes" but would rather add "except for Chris DiMarco" who after all shot 68 on Sunday. Given the conditions on Sunday, nobody was going to post another 65 and Tiger's 67 was pretty close to the best score possible (although I think if he had really, really needed birdie on 18 he would have found a way).

I think the knock on Els, Mickelson, Garcia and their ilk for folding in final rounds is generally justified. But this time around it wouldn't have made any difference. Every single player on the first page of the leaderboard could have played the round of his life and Tiger still wins by a couple shots.

But for my part I consider Chris DiMarco to be an exemplary Tiger-facer-downer. If you look at the athletic ability, golf swings and talent of DiMarco and Woods then taking Tiger to the wire in two majors in two years is far from a choke-job by Chris DiMarco.

[Voytek Wilczak]

.... I still can't believe that all of those within 4 strokes didn't produce better Sunday rounds.

Perhaps the course was actually playing tough on Sunday, and only Woods (and - correction - DiMarco) tamed it...

[Glenn Spencer]

With those hacks chasing him, he could have hit all the drivers that he wanted. Until real men like Bob May and Ed Fiori are playing against Tiger, the 2-iron is all he needs. Why risk it, let them shoot 73, while he birdies the par 5's.

[Glenn Spencer]

Irrespective of his great play, he did score -18, I still can't believe that all of those within 4 strokes didn't produce better Sunday rounds.

I wouldn't say "all of those within 4 strokes" but would rather add "except for Chris DiMarco" who after all shot 68 on Sunday. Given the conditions on Sunday, nobody was going to post another 65 and Tiger's 67 was pretty close to the best score possible (although I think if he had really, really needed birdie on 18 he would have found a way).

I think the knock on Els, Mickelson, Garcia and their ilk for folding in final rounds is generally justified. But this time around it wouldn't have made any difference. Every single player on the first page of the leaderboard could have played the round of his life and Tiger still wins by a couple shots.

But for my part I consider Chris DiMarco to be an exemplary Tiger-facer-downer. If you look at the athletic ability, golf swings and talent of DiMarco and Woods then taking Tiger to the wire in two majors in two years is far from a choke-job by Chris DiMarco.

Brent,

Yes, it is far from a choke-job by DiMarco, but you wouldn't put a dime on him to beat Woods. Even at Augusta, Woods birdie 16 when he sort of needed to and then when he screwed up in regulation, he slammed the door with birdie on 18 in the playoff. Never in doubt!!! DiMarco looks great and he tries and all, but he is no threat to Tiger, just like the rest of the Tour.