Firm and fast—tournament edition

[Ben Sims]

I can’t remember a Masters where the ball was bouncing this aggressively. I’m sure there are small delineations between editions of the tournament that were memorably firm and fast. But for all the extraordinary play this week, there was considerable difficulty in scoring. A friend smartly observed that one particularly stretch of play (mostly Friday) included the best exhibition of short game play he had seen. Once the weekend came, the best iron players in the world separated in short order and the very best held serve with a sparkling 68 to end any doubt.

But I’m left wondering, was it *too* firm? I understand you can only over-ride Mother Nature so much. I think there’s a collective urge to embrace firm and fast, but did you ever watch shots into and around the greens this weekend and think it was too much?

(By the by, my personal opinion is that the course played as close to its supposed Old Course ideal as it ever has in the modern age this week.)

[Ben Hollerbach]

Winning score of -11. Had to be Even or better to finish in the top 10. Scoring average of 73.4 over the weekend. 40% of rounds on Saturday and Sunday were par or better. The setup seemed about as perfect as possible.

[Tim Martin]

There was a lot of conversation about the firmness of the greens after Homa hit his shot into 12 on Sunday. I thought the course played beautifully to test the best players in the world. The effect of the wind on Friday made the course play firmer on the weekend.

[Charlie Goerges]

By and large, the firm and fast is a good thing to me.


But I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a little bit frustrated by the inability of anyone to get a good rally going.

[Tim Gavrich]

I like that they upped the firmness and seemed to trade away a tiny bit of speed to compensate. Tiger missed an alarming amount of putts short, but he wasn't the only one who seemed to be remembering the greens being faster in past years.


The fact that the golf ball flies so much differently than it used to - spins less, launches higher, especially with longer clubs - than it used to really showed up this week. Between the setup and the Chairman's official alliance with the USGA/R&A on regulating equipment, it was a great week for the game.

[Wayne_Kozun]

There was a lot of conversation about the firmness of the greens after Homa hit his shot into 12 on Sunday.

But Homa's shot didn't land on the green.  It landed on the downslope beyond the green which kicked it forward.

[Erik J. Barzeski]

I like that they upped the firmness and seemed to trade away a tiny bit of speed to compensate. Tiger missed an alarming amount of putts short, but he wasn't the only one who seemed to be remembering the greens being faster in past years.

He's generally poor at adjusting. He putts from memory a bit too much, perhaps, and yeah…

I also think the greens were a tiny bit slower because of the wind, and balls rolling on them after stopping briefly.

[Tim Martin]

There was a lot of conversation about the firmness of the greens after Homa hit his shot into 12 on Sunday.

But Homa's shot didn't land on the green.  It landed on the downslope beyond the green which kicked it forward.

But Homa's tee shot at No. 12 bounded off the putting surface and into a bush. After a healthy search, Homa found his ball and had to take an unplayable lie. He made double bogey, effectively ending his bid at a maiden major title. Homa tied for third, seven shots back of Scheffler.


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[Mark_Fine]

Scheffler’s shot landed on the green on#12 and immediately hopped backwards.  I didn’t think the conditions were overly firm at all. 

[Jim_Coleman]

   Hard to believe the course was too firm. It rained hard Thursday morning. Well struck balls seemed to hold greens just fine.

[Ben Sims]

By and large, the firm and fast is a good thing to me.


But I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a little bit frustrated by the inability of anyone to get a good rally going.

This is where I fall Charlie. I thought the course played beautifully. I enjoyed almost every part of the tournament profusely. I was having a blast watching the back and forth between golf course and player. But like you said, it was really hard to go out and make a run.


Unless you were the best player in the world of course. Given the conditions, his run starting with the second shot on 8 and ending with his tap in on 14 was about as good as it gets.

[Wayne_Kozun]

But Homa's tee shot at No. 12 bounded off the putting surface and into a bush. After a healthy search, Homa found his ball and had to take an unplayable lie. He made double bogey, effectively ending his bid at a maiden major title. Homa tied for third, seven shots back of Scheffler.

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That's not how it looked to me but it was in the shadows which obscures the green and surroundings.  Here is a screenshot I took from the video of Homa's shot from the Masters website.  I have added white lines to delineate where I believe the green ends.  The vertical white blur is the ball as it landed.  Go back and have a look.


From the trajectory that the ball took I don't think it landed on the green as the ball didn't really bounce up that much - it jumped forward as angle of incidence = angle of inflection.  So it hit on a severe downslope.

[Tim Martin]

But Homa's tee shot at No. 12 bounded off the putting surface and into a bush. After a healthy search, Homa found his ball and had to take an unplayable lie. He made double bogey, effectively ending his bid at a maiden major title. Homa tied for third, seven shots back of Scheffler.

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That's not how it looked to me but it was in the shadows which obscures the green and surroundings.  Here is a screenshot I took from the video of Homa's shot from the Masters website.  I have added white lines to delineate where I believe the green ends.  The vertical white blur is the ball as it landed.  Go back and have a look.


From the trajectory that the ball took I don't think it landed on the green as the ball didn't really bounce up that much - it jumped forward as angle of incidence = angle of inflection.  So it hit on a severe downslope.

I watched it live as well as a bunch of replays and it looked like it hit the back of the green. Homa said he missed his target by no more than three feet as well as every media outlet I saw confirming that he hit the green. Regardless it led to 5 which was a death knell at that point in the round with Scheffler surging.

[Pete_Pittock]

There was a lot of conversation about the firmness of the greens after Homa hit his shot into 12 on Sunday.

But Homa's shot didn't land on the green.  It landed on the downslope beyond the green which kicked it forward.

But Homa's tee shot at No. 12 bounded off the putting surface and into a bush. After a healthy search, Homa found his ball and had to take an unplayable lie. He made double bogey, effectively ending his bid at a maiden major title. Homa tied for third, seven shots back of Scheffler.


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My perception when viewing the shot was that the ball hit on the downslope just beyond the green.

[Tom_Doak]

I watched it live as well as a bunch of replays and it looked like it hit the back of the green. Homa said he missed his target by no more than three feet as well as every media outlet I saw confirming that he hit the green. Regardless it led to 5 which was a death knell at that point in the round with Scheffler surging.

I love how he could tell he had missed his target by no more than three feet, from 150 yards away, looking into the shadows.  Did he fix the pitch mark?  Anyway, if that was his target spot, he should give himself a little more room for that particular error.


The one I saw clearly was that he missed the 6th green a hair to the right and got a big bounce forward to the hole, so it seems that all of the greens surrounds were firm, perhaps even firmer than the greens.  That's kind of a rare thing and I'm not sure it's what they were going for.

[Tommy Williamsen]

There was a lot of conversation about the firmness of the greens after Homa hit his shot into 12 on Sunday.

But Homa's shot didn't land on the green.  It landed on the downslope beyond the green which kicked it forward.

But Homa's tee shot at No. 12 bounded off the putting surface and into a bush. After a healthy search, Homa found his ball and had to take an unplayable lie. He made double bogey, effectively ending his bid at a maiden major title. Homa tied for third, seven shots back of Scheffler.


https://www.nbcsports.com › news

My perception when viewing the shot was that the ball hit on the downslope just beyond the green.

I thought it hit on the downslope as well, especially how it bounded forward. I also thought his ball had a lower trajectory than Shiffler's, which caused it to bounce hard.

[Kalen Braley]

Interesting indeed.

I'm with Wayne here, the replay on the Master site looks pretty clear it went over and it certainly explains why the ball took a turbo boost hop into the bush.

P.S. Given how much ANGC loves its petite bushes and flowers, I'm surprised it wasn't a free drop out of it!