Those who played in or attended the 2010 US Amateur at Chambers Bay know all too well what "too firm" is. I just remember hitting an 80 yard wedge into the 500-yard first hole and then watching as the ball bounced once on the front right corner of the green, eventually rolling all the way off the left and back down the slope some 60 yards.
Brian, I've never seen CB in person and don't play golf at your level. With that, here are my questions. Is there any kind of an approach shot that could have been hit from your approach location on the first so that it would have ended up in a reasonable postion on the green? Or even better, so that you could have gotten it close to the hole?
Carl, I thought I hit the shot perfectly. Perhaps it is just that I read the situation incorrectly but I was certainly not the only one who hit the right side of the green and rolled all the way off to the left. There were apparently enough players who did it that the USGA felt it necessary for the green to be changed, since that is one of the main alterations the course made in anticipation of the 2015 Open. The only way I could have kept it on the green would be to hit a cut shot with a wedge that had an inordinate amount of spin (off a hook lie). Really nothing I would have done differently. Maybe I just got a bad bounce, but to me this was something that never should have happened.