Mid Ocean Club for PGA Grand Slam event today

[Brent Hutto]

Angel Cabrera, with absolutely no pre-shot routine, is great fun to watch.

Oh, Cabrera has a pre-shot routine all right. Most of it consists of pacing around nervously and fretting about his shot while the Jim Furyks of the world take all day diddling around. But his routine is one of the best I've ever seen once it's his turn, involving mostly knocking the shit out of the ball with almost no extraneous nonsense immediately beforehand. I've resolved to put a little Angel in my own game starting immediately.

I wish we could see a couple dozen guys like that every time golf is on TV. It would eventually be absorbed by the numbskulls I play with every week (myself included, unfortunately).

[Eric_Terhorst]

Brent, I was thinking about Angel fretting while he waited for Furyk, on the par 5 11th, to bang it across the green with a skulled sand shot, get a ruling, penalty drop, muff a chip, all with pre-shot routines en route to an 8.  But Angel calmly knocked in his putt for a 3 after witnessing all the nonsense.

Does Furyk have a pre-shot routine for his drops?

Meanwhile, Clampett on the voice-over was extolling the virtues of Harrington's 3 practice swings before every putt  

[George_Bahto]

Doesn't Angle remind you of the hustler at the local muni lurking around the first tee, waiting for a “fish” to show up?

He's very refreshing - too bad most of us can't understand his remarks made during the round.

I'm sure Tom D and his guys have been consulting at MO - perhaps Tom could fill us in a little.

I would just like to see what the bunkers were like originally. Right now there are a lot not-so-typical little ones on a lot of the holes.

I'd like to make a drawing of the original course for the "Raynor book"  ... (hey George, when will it be done - hah)

There is a tiny drawing in Scotland's Gift - not very good! It's sort of like his drawing of Yale (which has a number of mistakes).

[Mike Sweeney]

They did not take the course apart -- winning score was 136.  If the entire field of a top PGA event had played there, would anyone have gone really low?  Might we have seen some 8 to 10 under par scores?  

If not, how did such a short course keep some of the world's best players at bay, relatively speaking?    

I had a caddy recently at National that plays on The Hooters tour. He tied the course record at national with a 62, all birdies, no eagles, had 8 birdies on the front and 1 par which was downwind. I would guess that these guys would eventually rip Mid Ocean when they learn the course. It has been years, but I think Mid Ocean is harder than National as it gets tight in spots as you saw Jim F take an 8 on a short 5, mainly due to shots around the green.

[Mike_Cirba]

George,

Man, I love Mid-Ocean.   Absolutely fabulous golf and you and I have discussed it here before.

I just had a brainstorm.

You know how we've also discussed the fact that Dev Emmett did quite a bit of work in Bermuda during that timeframe?  

Don't those string of pearl bunkers look exactly like what you'd find a a number of Emmett courses?  If I'm recalling correctly I'm thinking there's some over at Riddell's Bay, as well as at Belmont before it went under the knife.

I'm wondering if he might have built MO onsite to Charlie's design?

[Tom_Doak]

We rebuilt the greens at Mid Ocean over a three-year period, and planting Champion bermuda, finishing up three years ago.  We had to lower the back of a couple of greens (#4 and #8) significantly so the ball would stay on them even at a projected speed of 10 on the Stimpmeter.  If the greens were 12-13, and it was windy, balls would have been blowing off the 16th green.  (I didn't see it on TV.)

We've done very little work on the bunkering.  Macdonald's bunkers were much longer strips of sand originally, and RTJ broke them up into smaller sections, though he didn't change the position or the depth much at all.  I haven't come out strongly in favor of redoing them because I don't think it makes much difference, and because the costs of construction labor and of sand in Bermuda are staggeringly high.

Interesting that they used the back tee on #2 for the 18th hole.  I had mentioned that offhandedly as a possibility a few years ago, but didn't think they would ever try it.

[George_Bahto]

Thanks for the info Tom.

Mike, it is well documented that, along with Mac's design input and whatever more he did there, the course was built by Raynor and he had Banks and Barton along.

Emmet is credited with Riddles Bay but I have an article from one of the old mags that talked of Raynor designing and building Riddles ...... however, I do think Dev (wadda guy) Emmet built the course (Riddles).

Those tiny bunkers (instead of the usual huge Raynor bunkers):  Do you think RT Jones did that .... does that look like something he would have done?  I'm not that familiar with his style bunkering - and yes, it looks like something Dev (or Travis) would have done.

This is why I'm trying to get the original design.

[TEPaul]

"This is why I'm trying to get the original design."

George:

The original design of Mid Ocean?

Where do you think that is?

[George_Bahto]

Tom Paul:

"This is why I'm trying to get the original design."

...  what I meant was  -  I'm, trying to find out what the original design was that hit the dirt but also what was proposed (often not the same)