Course management

[Tommy Williamsen]

Tiger's round, reminiscent of his play at Hoylake, was a masterful example of managing your game.  He knew when to be aggressive, when to back off, where to hit it, where to miss it, and his execution was something to behold.  Bubba on the other hand was totally mystified.  Unless he, and others who bomb and gauge, learn to manage their game better they will never win on golf's toughest's tests.

[Sam Morrow]

Tiger's round, reminiscent of his play at Hoylake, was a masterful example of managing your game.  He knew when to be aggressive, when to back off, where to hit it, where to miss it, and his execution was something to behold.  Bubba on the other hand was totally mystified.  Unless he, and others who bomb and gauge, learn to manage their game better they will never win on golf's toughest's tests.

I wouldn't go that far on Bubba. I think it just shows that on a course like that a bomb and gouge guy needs to be swinging well to contend.

[David_Tepper]

In light of some people criticizing Olympic as being "one dimensional," it is interesting that the are clearly some choices (for better or worse) that are being made by the players. Distance vs. accuracy off the tee is probably the biggest decision the players face.

[Jud_T]

Tommy,

Good point.  With his length, there's probably only a couple holes out there where Bubba really needs to hit his driver.  The obvious poster child for his mismanagement was the driver off the deck for his second on 16 when he had no chance of reaching and ended up making bogey as a result.  These guys are good but they're not all smart.

[Howard Riefs]

These guys are good but they're not all smart.

Correct:

When a reporter asked Bubba about the seventh hole, he replied, "What hole is 7? Short par 4?"


http://www.cybergolf.com/golf_news/phil_bubba_struggle_in_opening_round_of_us_open

[Brent Hutto]

Well the simplest form of "strategy", perhaps I should same simplistic, is to simply narrow the course sufficiently and make being out of position punitive enough that you force a preference for straightness over distance onto the players. I don't think Olympic actually falls into that category, at least not to an egregious degree, but it is somewhat toward that end of the spectrum.

Still not a return to the Bad Old Days when the USGA treated placing the ball in a ridiculously small "fairway" as the ne plus ultra of golfing skill and tried to make it the sole criterion (other than putting) for a US Open champion. But a bomber at Olympic had better be having a mighty good week with his "towards" if he's going to hit driver 10+ times per round. Mighty good.

[Tommy Williamsen]

After watching the coverage Friday it occurred to me that part of good course management consists of knowing
What you can and can't do. Fruryk's shot out of the fairway bunker was brilliant. Tiger's shot from the right of 17 green
was superb. The announcers didn't even see that shot as possible.

[David Harshbarger]

After watching the coverage Friday it occurred to me that part of good course management consists of knowing
What you can and can't do. Fruryk's shot out of the fairway bunker was brilliant. Tiger's shot from the right of 17 green
was superb. The announcers didn't even see that shot as possible.

The announcers were all whiny about whether the close cropped surrounds were "fair".  Would anybody have cared if he'd had yet another chip from the tall rough 6" off the collar? That he was asked to make, then made, that recovery shot was a thing of beauty.

[Jordan Caron]

Bubba is stubborn and seems like he doesn't feel like switching his game plan to win this tournament. He'd rather have more fun and play 'Bubba Golf'. The guy has too much ADD and not enough patience to be a plotter.

I have enjoyed watching Tiger play these last couple of weeks. He has proved that golf is a form of art as Fred Shoemaker talks about in Extraordinary Golf.