Furyk's Shot on 16 Tee

[mike_beene]

Didn't sound like the players had been told based upon McDowell and Furyk comments

[Sam Morrow]

Didn't sound like the players had been told based upon McDowell and Furyk comments

Then that's on the USGA and Mike Davis should be forced to answer why he screwed that one up. If the players were notified that tee could be in play then it's on them.

[noonan]

Davis should be shot for putting that tee box there

Everyone on this board complains when driver is taken out of their hands...and Davis took it out of the players hands many times with this setup

[Tiger_Bernhardt]

It was right there with them. It cost him a playoff shot for sure.

[Sam Morrow]

I really liked the way the hole played the rest of the week. I liked seeing guys having 140+ into a par 5.

[Tim_Cronin]

Furyk said he knew a forward tee could be used but didn't think to check it out. So players were notified. I haven't found stats yet on how many players hit the fairway off the tee.

The hole reminded me of the old 18th hole at Medinah, a par-4, in reverse. It was a dogleg with the turn coming maybe 175 yards off the tee. As Dave Marr said, "You have to hit a dive slice to hit the fairway." In this case, it was a dive hook.

[Mark Pearce]

90% of you have no idea what it is to perform an extremely difficult task under extreme pressure.  Unless you've been in that situation, then you don't know what temporal distortion can do.  The treehouse, in this case, is just ridiculous when it comes to judging someone.  

I haven't seen anyone on this thread judging anybody.  There's a discussion about really bad shots hit whilst in contention down the stretch.  No reason to criticise anyone unless you believe Furyk didn't hit a bad shot.  We know you have been under that sort of pressure, indeed, far, far greater pressure.  We admire you for it.  However, we don't need to be preached to, particularly when no-one, as yet, has done any more than comment on a number of undisputed bad shots.

[Mac Plumart]

I don't know whether to be disappointed that all the guys mentioned in this thread already couldn't handle the pressure or amazed that anybody can. 


Link, I, for one, am amazed when people handle it like it is just another round of golf.  Last night, I could feel the players tension through the t.v.


Also, does anyone recall when Furyk was put on the clock?  I wonder if that corresponds with when his game began to go downhill.  Just curious.

[Mike Hendren]

We can advocate for firm and fast all day long, but the only way to defend par for the world's best players it through turning the fairway from the tee and lining it with trees.  Olympic proved that definitively. 

Bogey

[Jason Thurman]

Guys, I can hit a snap hook at will, and I suck. If you're one of the 150 elite players who made it to a US Open, you should either be able to do the same or be smart enough to lay back.

I was pulling for Furyk and sad to see him lose it, but I don't see how it's Mike Davis' fault that he tried to play a stupid shot and executed it terribly. Is it really so egregious for the national championship to ask a player to work a tee shot ONCE in 72 holes of golf if they want any chance at an eagle? He could've had a birdie chance going 5-5-7.

[Tim Martin]

90% of you have no idea what it is to perform an extremely difficult task under extreme pressure.  Unless you've been in that situation, then you don't know what temporal distortion can do.  The treehouse, in this case, is just ridiculous when it comes to judging someone.  

I haven't seen anyone on this thread judging anybody.  There's a discussion about really bad shots hit whilst in contention down the stretch.  No reason to criticise anyone unless you believe Furyk didn't hit a bad shot.  We know you have been under that sort of pressure, indeed, far, far greater pressure.  We admire you for it.  However, we don't need to be preached to, particularly when no-one, as yet, has done any more than comment on a number of undisputed bad shots.

+1
Ben-What`s it like to live in such rarefied air? Ego check pal.

[Brent Hutto]

Mac,

From memory I believe it was when they were stepping off the 16th tee that their "Second warning" to speed up was given. Or maybe it was even 17th tee. But keep in mind they'd been told one hole earlier to speed up. Then on 16 (or whichever) they were told if they didn't catch up they would then be put on the clock. If I understand correctly, neither of those was the "Warning" you get for a bad time after being put on the clock, which is then followed by some penalty or another if there's yet another bad time.

If being told to speed up cost Jim Furyk the tournament, that's a good thing. He is unwatchable and gets worse every year. One day, somehow I will be glad to see an idea get established that slow-playing every round of your life does have consequences. And I don't much care if it happens to a nice fellow like Jim Furyk or to some total jerk.

[Wayne_Kozun]

Furyk admitted that he should have hit 2-iron off the tee like his fellow competitor.

Do you really want to watch the best golfers in the world Ironing it off the tee at the US Open ?

Why does this matter?  Didn't Tiger use his driver only once at The Open Championsip at Hoylake.

[Wade Whitehead]

Making a par five play differently isn't just about shortening the distance.  It's also about changing angles, and it doesn't appear that the up tee on 16 changed the angle of the tee shot at all.

I was amazed at how frequently guys hit iron (or less than driver) through the entire course over all four rounds.  Tiger seemed to hit iron more often than any other club.  I always thought of the US Open as being the ultimate driving test; for some reason I remember (perhaps falsely) driver being pretty much the only option years ago.

WW

[Mike Hendren]

Mac,

From memory I believe it was when they were stepping off the 16th tee that their "Second warning" to speed up was given. Or maybe it was even 17th tee. But keep in mind they'd been told one hole earlier to speed up. Then on 16 (or whichever) they were told if they didn't catch up they would then be put on the clock. If I understand correctly, neither of those was the "Warning" you get for a bad time after being put on the clock, which is then followed by some penalty or another if there's yet another bad time.

The only reason to rush the final group was to try to finish by 10:00 p.m. EST.   The USGA doens't do anything about slow-play then steps in just as its national open champship hangs in the balance?  What a bunch of bozo's.

As for Furyk, I was very impressed with his handling of the gallery or media on the course Saturday when he graciously asked someone to move and then kindly thanked them for doing so. 

[Brent Hutto]

I admire everything about Jim Furyk except that damnable backing off thing he started doing about, what, five or six years ago?

If he would just adopt a tour-average, fairly deliberate routine before hitting the ball he would be one of my favorites. As in fact he was earlier in his career. He may not be the worst of the fidgeters but he's gotta be right up there in the running.

[Martin Toal]

Sorry to see Gmac miss out. He lost a bit of ground with some scrappy play early but battled back to come within a whisker. He seems like a nice fella too.

I am sure Webb Simpson is a lovely bloke too, but a tad too bland for my tastes.

The course seemed to have been slightly spoiled by the relentless and somewhat arbitrary desire to defend par. Glad the R&A don't have the same unfortunate obsession.

I think there is a difference between offering a course where a long iron tee shot is necessary, and one where it is a valid conservative option. Tiger at Hoylake was the latter, imo.

[BCrosby]

Gib is right about the severity of the bend of the 16th fw. Having been there this week, there is a fine line between the hard hook needed to hold the fw and a duck hook into the woods.

I assume that the LZ is wider for member play and allows for a semi-stright drive, but for the Open it was brutal.

Bob

[William_G]

Mac,

If being told to speed up cost Jim Furyk the tournament, that's a good thing. He is unwatchable and gets worse every year. One day, somehow I will be glad to see an idea get established that slow-playing every round of your life does have consequences. And I don't much care if it happens to a nice fellow like Jim Furyk or to some total jerk.

+1

[Doug Siebert]

Making a par five play differently isn't just about shortening the distance.  It's also about changing angles, and it doesn't appear that the up tee on 16 changed the angle of the tee shot at all.

I was amazed at how frequently guys hit iron (or less than driver) through the entire course over all four rounds.  Tiger seemed to hit iron more often than any other club.  I always thought of the US Open as being the ultimate driving test; for some reason I remember (perhaps falsely) driver being pretty much the only option years ago.

WW

Didn't Nicklaus use his 1 iron off the tee on certain courses/holes back in the day?  And other guys hit 3 woods?  Sure, its more common to see players hitting less than driver, but that's because the ball goes too damn far and there's only so much lengthening most of these classic courses can do.

I like the idea of a par 5 where hitting a driver is a risky play, but has the reward of getting you a crack at the green in two, or you can play it safe with a shorter club but pretty much assume you're playing it as a three shotter.

I didn't like 16's setup yesterday, the "risk" part of the equation was far too high, maybe Bubba would be the only guy who could curve a driver that much while having a chance at keeping it under control.  That said, I think this setup had some merits in exposing poor thinking in these guys under pressure.  If they played the hole from 670 on Saturday and 570 Sunday, surely if you were thinking you could hit a shot 100 yards shorter and be pretty damn likely to hit the fairway in the same place you were aiming for on Saturday, then play it the same way (whether that's a long iron, hybrid or 3W second shot) as you did Saturday.

What Furyk was trying to do made no sense.  If he hit that shot successfully he still couldn't have gone for the green in two, so what's the point?  All that additional risk trying to hit a big hook with a hybrid just so he could have a half wedge into the green rather than a full wedge for his third?  The setup was stupid, but the way these guys were not thinking about what they were doing was also stupid.  I guess that's what pressure does to you, but if nothing else Davis' setup would be a reward for those guys who thought things through and realized that hitting it any further than the corner was rather pointless.

At least now we know how to design a 570 yard hole that even pros can't reach in two!

[Carl Nichols]

 All that additional risk trying to hit a big hook with a hybrid just so he could have a half wedge into the green rather than a full wedge for his third?  

Why are folks assuming he had to hit a big hook (and was trying to hit a big hook)  with a hybrid?  McDowell's tee shot -- which he hit with a FW or hybrid -- found the fairway and didn't seem to hook much.  I think Furyk was trying to hit a baby draw and just snapped it under the pressure. 

[Ben Sims]

Mark and Tim,

I was making no reference to myself.  I was commenting on the affects of stress, pressure, the choke, whatever you want to call it.  It seemed from my standpoint that no one up until I had posted considered that, worlds best players or not, there is an element in play that is more than just executing the shot.  What Furyk did was not surprising giving the circumstances.  He was put into a position that he did not expect (had not prepared for in his words) in a time of extreme pressure.  That's a recipe for disaster no matter if you're a pro or not.

So in effect, the comments made on the thread until that moment led me to believe that not one of the posters had really experienced pressure on that brutal of a scale before.  I am sorry if you were offended. 

[Matt MacIver]

Sorry this formatting didn't come out very well.  This is a table of the T10 (14 golfers) scores for #16 this week. 

Of these 14 leading scores there was one 4, two 6 and and a 7.  10 pars.  While maybe not a GREAT tee box, it was fair and proved to get in a few people's heads.  So be it. 

#16 played as hard Friday at 609 yards as it did Sunday at 569.  Tension, weather? 

Furyk bogeyed it Sat. and Sunday, I wonder if that had a bearing? 

Els posted an 8 on Thursday and 6 on Sunday; those 3-4 dropped shots added up.  Look out British Open? 


Finish   Player   R1   R2   R3   R4   Avg.
1   Simpson (281)   5   5   5   5   5.00
T2   Thompson (282)   5   5   6   4   5.00
T2   McDowell   5   4   5   5   4.75
T4   Toms (283)   5   5   6   5   5.25
T4   Harrington   7   4   5   5   5.25
T4   Peterson   5   5   5   7   5.50
T4   Duffner   6   6   5   5   5.50
T4   Furyk   5   5   6   6   5.50
9   Els (284)   8   5   5   6   6.00
T10   Wittenburg (285)   5   6   5   5   5.25
T10   Goosen   5   6   5   5   5.25
T10   Senden   5   5   5   5   5.00
T10   Chappell   6   5   5   5   5.25
T10   Westwood   5   5   5   5   5.00
14      5.50   5.07   5.21   5.21   
                  
   Total Yards   660   609   671   569   
   Avg. Full Field Score   5.56   5.28   5.35   5.25