British Open/Course Setup

[Dan Kelly]

My point is that by forcing the majority of the field a majority of the time into the semi (or worse, or even the fairway 50-80 yards back), the set up took away the possibility for the boys out there to strut their stuff and show that it is in fact possible to hit a short-medium iron stiff on a proper links green, if you have the balls and the skill.

I ain't buyin' it!

Were we watching the same tournament?

"Forcing" most of the field into the semi (or worse) most of the time? Blether. Luring them into the semi (or worse) is more like it. (I saw some "forcing," as you'd call it, on 1 and a couple of other holes -- but only into iffy lies, not into real trouble ... as one sometimes saw at Carnoustie.)

50 to 80 yards back? Blether. Ben Curtis's driving-distance average was 303.75 yards!

Besides which: I saw plenty of crisply hit short and medium irons that cozied up to the pins -- many of those short- and medium-iron shots struck by Mr. Woods, who missed the putt after virtually every one of those shots.

Was that a course-setup problem, too? (Not being a smart-aleck here; curiously wondering; it's awfully hard to tell from TV which pins are tough and which are goofy.)

On another matter:

I'd think that a fellow could be very well respected in St. Andrews with minimal spelling skills (or the lack thereof). After all, this is a city that can't even figure out that its own name needs an apostophe!

[Jamie_Duffner]

Steve L. - IF Larry Mize doesn't hole a 100 foot chip or Bob Tway doesn't hole a bunker shot, Greg Norman double his major count.  The if argument is ridiculous and you know the old saying, "if my aunt had a dick she'd be my unlce!"

The if argument some are presenting cracks me up.  Someone said if Ernie hadn't got unlucky with the wind on Thursday he would have been up there too!!  Come on, I suppose it had nothing to do with poorly played shots, missed puts or dare I say luck!  Someone even said if Els had not had a marginal round on Thursday,then he'd be up there too.  Isn't it that one marginal round that keeps a player from winning a major?  Isn't that what it's al about?

I can't believe this debate over rough on a links course.  I don't think RSG went over the top in setup, just maybe a few holes where a well played drive simply could not hold the fairway.  Links golf is supposed to be challenging cause of the wind, contours and firmness, not the rough.  The humps and hollows that carrom a golf ball in different directions is supposed to add to the interest and strategy, not detract from it.  This is about setup, not the leader board, Ben Curtis, Bjorn's two stroke penalty on Thursday, Love's "lucky" bounce off the out of bounds stake, or Tiger's triple bogey on the 1st hole.  This is about links golf.  I and most who particpate on this dg love links golf.  How do you defend the narrowing of fairways on a dry, firm, fast and windy links golf course, where balls will carrom off the humps and hollows to god knows where?  Is it the quality of the leader board or that no one drew a bad lie?  Tiger sure has heck did on Saturday.  Hitting out of the semi rough in those conditions is a half stroke penalty.  Not being able to control your ball in those conditions is a big deal.  In the end none of this matters, the fact that everyone had to deal with it doesn't change the fact that narrowing some of those fairways is completely anti links golf and that is ashame.

If everyone has to play the course, then let them play in true links conditions.

[George Pazin]

Jamie -

Lots of different interesting points you made, even slamming my speculation re: Els.

Still, doesn't the quality of the leaderboard imply that the setup was at least fair, if not ideal? Is it possible to get perfectly ideal, even occasionally?

I'd much rather see this than the target golf we see the other 98% of the time.

I saw Tiger spin a short iron back off the front of a green, hitting out of the light rough. Mark Lye even foolishly suggested this was the fault of the course. I don't think this was even remotely in the same ballpark as Carnoustie.

Could it have been better? Sure - what major setup couldn't? Is it realistic to expect perfection?

Rich -

Nice job sidestepping my question - it's still out there. Or don't you get it?

Just because you can hit a well struck high spin iron off a tight lie doesn't mean it's the prudent play. I saw plenty of shots from the fairway that didn't have the kind of spin you seem to desire.

Maybe a couple fairways could have been a bit wider, but, al in all, I thought the setup was quite good.

[Darren_Kilfara]

Andy, your original point included the sentence:

"It sort of reminded me of Carnoustie, when a shot 2 yards off the fairway was unplayable, but a wild shot 30 yard off line was bare and non-penalizing."  

RSG was nothing at all like Carnoustie in this regard. And the point, whoever it was that made it, that finding the semi-rough was equivalent to a half-shot penalty sounds pretty bogus to me, unless you think half of the (many) birdies made out of the semi should have been counted as eagles. First of all, we're talking about maybe three or four fairways that had questionable rolls and ridges to them, not 14 of them. (What's the excuse for missing the other 10 or 11 fairways?) Second of all, if the best golfers in the world can't cope with semi-rough that is as dry and flaky as the stuff at RSG, then they really are a mollycoddled bunch. (Hell, I can control my ball out of semi-rough as well as I can out of the fairway, and I play off three.) Third of all, what the setup at RSG did most of all, for me, was bring the short game to the fore - and what's wrong with the occasional golf tournament that can be won by the best chipper and lag putter instead of it always being about ball-striking and putting from 20 feet and in?

And Rich, please dial down the rhetoric, will ya'? You sound like Alan Dershowitz, for crying out loud, looking to score points and confuse the jury with your fancy talk. There was no "constant diet of flyers" on display, nor did my imagination feel stifled by what I saw. Indeed, quite the contrary - maybe the problem is with your imagination?

Cheers,
Darren

[Darren_Kilfara]

George,0

Still, doesn't the quality of the leaderboard imply that the setup was at least fair, if not ideal? Is it possible to get perfectly ideal, even occasionally?

Really, the points you make are good enough without invoking this bogus line of thinking. If Tiger had played poorly and missed the cut, and/or if Brian Davis had made three more putts on Sunday to tie Curtis atop the leaderboard, would that have made any difference to our evaluation of RSG's setup? I jolly well hope not.

Cheers,
Darren

[Jamie_Duffner]

George - I thought this was a great open with a great leaderboard, but that doesn't mean the setup was great.  In fact, I thought the setup was decent.  I have a problem with the use of rough on a firm, fast, and windy course.  To me, those three elements are enough!   Didn't mean to be so harsh on the Els comment.

For a group that loves and defends links golf, it perplexes me that we use the "look at the leader board" issue to justify what to me was removing the links elements from a handful of holes.  Let's look at that in isolation.  I don't think you narrow a hole like the 1st or 17th, given the contours and playing conditions.  Someone started a thread about how Americans don't understand English golf.  This is one American who undersatnds links golf and rough should not flank those humps and hollows, it's simply not what links golf is about.

My beloved Bethpage Black got a lot or criticsim for the set up for the 02 open.  I agreed with a fair amount of the criticism, but I did not justify the set up by saying look at the leader board.  The fact that it was Tiger, Mickelson, Garcia as the top three, which at the time was their world rankings, didn't change my opinion that a few holes went over the top in setup and stripped out some of the strategic elements.  I don't think one has anything to do with the other.

[Andy]

Darren, my comparison of RSG and Carnoustie wasn't that the conditions were the same, only that certain things happened at both that MIGHT have been perhaps over the top a bit.  Simply put, I think the R&A has pretty much admitted behind the scenes that Carnoustie wasn't set up properly, and we might end up hearing this about RSG at some point.  I am not saying anything about the quality of the leaderboard, who won, or anything along those lines.  I would have sent this post if Tiger or Ernie had won, as it just seemed that perhaps that a number of fairways, maybe as little as 3 or as many or 6, were maybe over the top.  Again, if the rough is whispy and thin everywhere, really doesn't matter if the fairways are hittable, but with clumpy rough that is very inconsistent, the fairways, I think, should maybe be a little more accessible.  

[Jamie_Duffner]

What would we all say if St. Andrews were setup this way?  If holes were narrowed by the use of rough, where carromed balls found the rough, leaving you with a flier lie to a firm green, what would we say? The tall, whispy grass has its place on a links course, just not with a 25 yard strip of fairway running through it.  

[Rick Shefchik]

Most of us probably saw the dramatic demonstration by Ian Baker-Finch Saturday morning, wherein he stood at the apex of a ridge in the center of one of the fairways (I don't recall which) and dropped a ball from his left hand, which rolled into the (light) rough on his left; then he dropped a ball from his right hand and it rolled into the (light) rough on his right.

No doubt Finchy (sorry) picked the most dramatic spot on the course to present this demonstration, but it certainly got the point across to me: Some parts of some fairways were unhittable.

The question I had, and still have, is whether this is anything new for RSG? Did they, in fact, narrow the fairways for this Open? I'm sure they didn't change the contours of any of the fairways, so the effect Baker-Finch was demonstrating had to have been a part of the course for a century. Narrowing the fairways would certainly exacerbate this effect, but it didn't create it. The driving stats that Dan Kelly produced are illuminating, I think: Those who tried to bomb the ball the farthest found the least receptive parts of the fairways.

[George Pazin]

Darren -

I don't generally buy the great courses have great champions line of thinking either, but when someone states that luck is the primary determinant of outcome, I think it is valid to look at the leaderboard.

----

Just out of curiosity, what does everyone think what would have happened if 1, 17 or 18 were not bordered by light rough?

When would that ball have stopped rolling? Would competitors be better off in light rough or 25 yards further right or left?

Re: Finchy's demonstration - what would have happened if one hit the right side of 17 with a draw? Would it have held? Dropping a ball straight down would be different than this, wouldn't it?

[Steve_L.]

Jamie,

My point wasn't that any of the "if's" should've come true - only that many of the great players of the world were in contention and had their opportunities.  Ultimately, the winner hit the best shots (or least bad one's!) at the right times.  I thought it was a great tournament.  

By the way - I'm sure your Uncle is very thankful your Aunt is equipped exactly as she is...  The tone of your reply was less gracious than I would've expected.

Re: the Setup.  

I would've loved to see wider fairways - REALLY have the ball bounce all over the place.  Seemed that with a few exceptions, only the really bad ones ended up in the hay.  Most of the balls which hit fairways and kicked crooked ended up in playable rough.  The real ugly drives (see Sergio) ended up in some really ugly places.  Interesting too, I don't know that I saw anyone in a fairway bunker advance the ball to the green - a real hazard.  

I'm glad the British is set up different than the other 3 majors.

[ForkaB]

George

Was your question (that I did not answer) the one about the quality of the leaderboard?  If so, I agree with others that this is an interesting but mostly irrelevant fact.

Dan

"Blether" is a very affectionate term, and it is also a collective verb (is there such a thing?).  Only mad dogs and Englishmen "blether" with themselves.  Most of the thredas on this site represent a good blether, even when some of us revert to excessive rhetoric.  Such as.........

Darren

.....who uses excessive rhetoric in his paragraph accusing me of the same.  I'm sure the Greeks had a name for this device.  Something like polydisynchromoschenecdaty, or even irony.....

[Tom]

Not to diminish Ben Curtis or Paul Lawrie, or a few other interesting winners of major events, but does anyone think that when a golf course is taken so close to the edge as this one was, and certainly Carnoustie was, that that the element of luck plays a bigger part than it should?  To me, it looked like all skill was taken away from keeping a ball in the fairway, and the rough was so inconsistent, that it became pure luck as to who had a shot and who didn't.  It sort of reminded me of Carnoustie, when a shot 2 yards off the fairway was unplayable, but a wild shot 30 yard off line was bare and non-penalizing.  Any takers to this theory, or do we just have those who believe that luck is always a major part or major championships, and that the "unfair" discussions are always off-base.  I happen to believe courses can be set up unfairly, or too close to the edge, to handle weather changes, etc.  Pebble in the early 90's maybe beign an example of "over the top".  Thoughts?

Andy

I think it is difficult to compare Carnoustie and RSG.  The problem with the course set up at Carnoustie, besides the obvious lunacy of the greenkeeper in the weeks leading up to the Open is that the routing of the course involves a lot of parallel fairways.  I vividly remember watching Van De Velde on a number of occasions in the final round whipping his drives 60-70 yards off line and ending up on an adjoining fairway.  A less bad shot by one of his playing partners was therefore more harshly punished.

At RSG which is probably the Open course I know best anything way offline in the Van De Velde mode is punished very severely.  Yes there are areas of rough where a slightly errant drive might find a good or a bad lie depending on luck.  But this will even itself out over the week or a round normally.

I thought one of the best things about the championship was that players were hitting driver - particularly at 2 and 10 which I normally would only consider a 2 iron.  In that respect I think the course was set up very well in that they didn't take the driver out of the players hands !!!

[MikeJones]

I think its ridiculous to suggest that simply because an unknown player won that it means the course was poorly set up. If Tiger hadn't missed all those putts or misclubbed (through the air not running through the back) on those finishing holes would we have been here saying that look how this great course brought the cream to the top.

Every now and then a young man sees his chance and takes it. Other higher ranked players faltered. How that makes the course any worse or poorly set up is beyond me. If we hadn't has all those other great players in the final groups and if they had been litered with unknowns well then there may have been something to it.

The only thing that perhaps was surprising was the amount of sand in the bunkers. I'm not sure whether they had recently added sand but players were stepping into some of the bunkers and going over their shoe tops which is definately not normal even for links bunkers.
It made the bunkers a very harsh penalty indeed as we saw. I haven't seen the sand save stats for the tournament but I'm sure they would show far fewer players saving their par from the greenside traps than is normal.

[Paul_Turner]

The set up was fine; I don't see much similarity to 1999 at Carnoustie-plenty of drivers were hit.  The set up lookes similar to '85 and '93 to me.  I don't agree that the green complexes needed a perfect or fluky shot, good shots were generally rewarded.

The argument that since Curtis won, Sandwich is a fluky course is a poor one.

At last we've had a screaming fast, old fashioned links, for an Open, and people are complaining on GCA?

[Bruceski]

To my eye, this course favored the long hitters, just like most American setups.

Love, Woods, Singh.

"If any of the big-power boys Woods, Love and Singh (23, 23 and 22, respectively) had cared to throttle it back enough to get up into the low-30s in fairways, we might well have had a different victor, eh?"

Throttle back? Please. The longballers knew best: bomb away on this layout and leave yourself a high likelihood of a short recovery shot to the green. The modern Pro Tour game puts an incredible amount of pressure on the shorter hitter to play a perfect game. Faldo and Leonard only have a chance if they are firing on all cylinders. I don't think it's about them being master "tacticians". When they contend they're merely executing perfectly.

BTW, if one of the above three won, we wouldn't be having this "fairness" and "luck" conversation.

[Darren_Kilfara]

Redanman makes a good point about Curtis arriving super-early and preparing for a few extra days on the actual golf course. Why don't more of the guys for whom majors mean everything - and yes, I'm talking to you, Tiger - do exactly the same thing? Isn't that the sort of advantage which can make all the difference on an unfamiliar, semi-quirky golf course such as you often get in the majors (and particularly for the British Open)?

Cheers,
Darren

[Jamie_Duffner]

Steve L. - I'm sorry if my response was not gracious enough.  I meant it purely as tongue and cheek.

I can reiterate the one point I made above and that is rough should not encroach fairways of the speed and contour of RSG.  It goes against everything espoused in links golf.  I think a few holes were deliberately narrowed.  I take this view irrespective of the Open and that everyone had to play the same course sort of response.  To me it's a philsophical issue.  If we do look at it in the context of the competition, then widen the fairways, really play the course in the traditional links style.  Are the powers that be just concerned with scoring?  I'd rather see -7 win, with creative shot making that is only possible when the world's best are hitting from the short grass, only after executing the proper tee shot.  And, if the proper tee shot on occasion gets a quirky bounce and finds the rough, so be it.  The really errant drives as we've stated, would still find the tall whispy grass.

I love the majors for the challenges they present.  I don't mind rough at the US Open, I dislike shortening par 5's to long par 4's.  Much different courses played in different conditions, with Shinnecock and Pebble having the potential for severe wind conditions.  That said, the contours of the Britich Open are just not seen in the US majors.  ANGC has some severe slopes and extremely difficult greens, which is why I think the direction the Masters has gone is the wrong direction.  The British and Masters have crept towards the US Open setup and that is not a good thing.

[Andy]

Just to clarify, again, for a few comments from some, this post was not started because Ben Curtis won the event.  I am really just getting comments from everyone on whether they thought the setup went over the top.  It appears to be roughly a split on those who agree and those who don't.  One thing I DO think is unfortunate about the set up is that is someone, say Faldo, had posted 2 under 2 hours before the event, and everyone else was 1 under from 15 forward, you could just turn off the TV as the event was over.  No legitimate chances to make birdie coming in based upon fairway set up and pin locations.  Maybe that is okay as well, but an occasional birdie is not so bad, is it?

[George Pazin]

Jamie -

I agree with much of your last post & definitely understand the tone as well - I laughed when you cited my Els speculation, so no big deal.

Do you really think that light rough bordering 17 & 18 hurt things that much? I still wonder how much further off line an errant drive would roll without it & whether the approach would be even more difficult from there.

[Jamie_Duffner]

George - I really don't think the semi-rough hurt things at all.  But that is in the context of the competition and there everyone plays the same course.  In the context of what links golf should be, then I think mow the stuff down, add some width.  Admittedly, it's hard to separate one from the other.

[Steve_L.]

Jamie...

I agree with most of your last post - although let em struggle around even par or above if the course is baked, firm, and the wind is howling.  

If they had widened the fairways a bit do you think the scores would've been much different?  I'm not so sure.  The struggles on 15-18 were more about wind, length, bunkers and putting than they were about the fairway widths...

The GHO will be a real come down this week won't it?