Tour Pros and Architecture

[Steve Kline]

Zac Blair looooooooooves architecture. Ask him if he chooses what events he plays in based on the design.

I'm specifically referring to the top players. Not the every-man tour player that needs a paycheck each week to put food on the table and pay bills. The top 60 pick and choose their events each golf calendar year and typically play no more than 20 events total. Heck, Jack rarely played more than 16 tournaments a year. Outside of the majors, he tended only to play events with high cache on courses he enjoyed. Tiger's the same way. There are certain tournaments the top players avoid either because they don't care for the format, the prize money, the course, the weather, the sponsors or a combination of factors. That's been going on for decades and is nothing new.

From what I saw in round 1 of WGC-Mexico, the top players are about the cache of the tournament not the golf course. They are basically playing a 6,500 yard course with numerous drivable par 4s and trees everywhere that wouldn't even be the third best course in quite a few American cities (I love how the Golf Channel kept telling me how wonderful this course is). They all showed because of the cache, the ranking points, and the prize money.

[Pat Burke]

Pat:  Which events did you avoid because they didn’t suit you?

Off top of my head
Phoenix.  Played three times, before putting an X on that one.  Made one cut, finished about 70th.  I just did not play it well, and I was happily married.  For Phoenix, you either like the course or are single (or unhappily married)


Buick in Flint was an interesting one.  I actually liked the course, and loved the conditioning, the greens were beautiful.  The entire failed shot zero there, and I was a steady stream of 70/71 to miss cuts.  It as strange for me not to be competitive on a course I was comfortable on, but Warwick Hills was one of them.


I didn’t play Castle Pines very well, but I loved the place, and my family would always come that week, so I played that one ever year even though I could never get through the second cut.  Great place, but pretty one dimensional course in a dimension that wasn’t my strong suit, which was hitting it high and carrying the ball a long way


I hated the old English Turn course in New Orleans.  It felt like I was hitting the same shot into every green, and again, anybody that could launch it straight up had a huge advantage IMO


I played Torrey every year, simply due to it being close to home.  When I played it was in terrible condition, and the south was jusT a long slog.  It was basically a week off on my schedule that I was able to play because it was close to home.  I did sneak a top ten in once, but that was an anomaly due to weather....crazy weather winds, which was good for me!


My automatics on my schedule
Wailea, pebble, riviera, hope (a great week to find momentum),Doral, honda(I like wind), Bay Hill (Palmer fan and I always played it well),Atlanta cc, Memphis tpc, westchester, castle pines, BC Open, Milwaukee,
Vegas and Disney  (I actually liked and played well in pro ams)


The automatics (good and bad) would go on the calendar and I would plan my schedule from there.
US Open and British ( yeah I know), qualifiers were usually planned on as well

[Kalen Braley]

Thanks for the perspective Pat, very interesting.

In your experience did you or other guys on Tour discuss much among yourselves:

"The event isn't high profile, close to home, or fit all that well on my schedule, but I figured I'd come cause the golf course(s) are interesting?"

[Pat Burke]

Thanks for the perspective Pat, very interesting.

In your experience did you or other guys on Tour discuss much among yourselves:

"The event isn't high profile, close to home, or fit all that well on my schedule, but I figured I'd come cause the golf course(s) are interesting?"

There would certainly be talk about courses at times.  Usually much like golf on negatives.  But there were things we would talk about.
Hawaii for instance....lot of talk about how the course didn’t favor a certain style.  If you could hit fairways there you were doing something right.  Different shapes and different winds made hitting fairways a big deal.  Thenrough was not punishing, but most times the ball sat down in it and made it tough to control spin. 


A lot of talk back then at Riviera.  Seemed everyone liked the quality.  I think if it were in the presentation back then that it is now agronomy wise, it would have been a must for most everyone....it was really not good back then


In a lot of ways, Hilton Head didn’t fit in the schedule well.  Not many wanted to play after majors, but it seemed a prefect event after Augusta, but the atmosphere was part of that, it was a pretty relaxing week.


The switch to TPC showed a bit back then what players thought IMO.  Way too often the move to a TPC replaced a pretty well regarded course.  Atlanta, Memphis for example.  But course fees were getting pretty high and we controlled that cost at TPCs so sadly we lost some pretty cool stuff.  Westchester was a pretty demanding week financially and otherwise as I understood it too.  I’m not a huge congressional fan, but compared to the old TPC Avenal, we moved back there as well.


I was blessed to play in Australia before I qualified for the US tour.  I got in trouble a few time for commenting that Aus played better courses and conditions than we did.
I played Kingston Heath, The Lakes, Royal Melbourne composite, Joondalup, Titirangi,
Royal Adelaide among others, and came to our tour and played......


TPC starpass, poppy hills,Torrey,Scottsdale TPC, Eagle TRace TPC, English turn, etc....


It wasn’t close,especially the firm and fast imo......did like the money however!


So, yes, there was talk about it, but much like Tigers comments last week.  Right in front of you, good test, etc......
If Carnoustie were the host of the Microsoft Challenge in Seattle with a normal purse, I’m not so sure they’d get much of a field.  It fits The Open, but not the normal day to day.  Very much IMO

[Thomas Dai]

I know a chap who was a top ethelon U.K. amateur. While an amateur he played tournaments on all sorts of big name and classics era courses. When he turned pro he said the quality of the courses he was playing went down dramatically.
Atb

[jeffwarne]

Zac Blair looooooooooves architecture. Ask him if he chooses what events he plays in based on the design.

From what I saw in round 1 of WGC-Mexico, the top players are about the cache of the tournament not the golf course. They are basically playing a 6,500 yard course with numerous drivable par 4s and trees everywhere that wouldn't even be the third best course in quite a few American cities (I love how the Golf Channel kept telling me how wonderful this course is). They all showed because of the cache, the ranking points, and the prize money.

While the golf course may not be the "third best golf course in quite a few American cities", many PGA Tour sites wouldn't be the 10th best in those same cities. Third best in a major city is a pretty high standard in NY, Boston, Philly, Chicago, San Fran, LA etc.
I find it very compelling to watch-actual slope and tilt on the greens, doglegs, and yes trees to test accuracy, placement, trajectory and curvature control-rather than deep rough and the obligatory PGA Tour finish -especially with the watery homogonized Florida swing about to unfold. Given that technology has absolutely outpaced course lengthening on the PGA Tour, it's interesting to see a golf course test the players without length-which is a test all players pass with flying colors these days.
Compelling leaderboard as well.

[John Kavanaugh]

Compelling leaderboard as well.

It's like a modern day Marx Brothers movie. Psycho, Cheapo and Hungo all fighting for the title. Tiger Soup.