Riviera: bomber's paradise?

[Jim Nugent]

Lots of GCA members who are really good golfers love Riviera.  They talk about what a great shot-making course Riviera is.  These guys know the course like the back of their hand.  I totally believe them. 

At the same time, I've looked at stats from the annual tour event held there.  More than once the winner has hit 50% or less of all fairways.  e.g., IIRC Bubba hit something like 40% of the fairways there last year when he shot 64.  He ended up winning the tournament with a 72-hole score of 269. 

He's not alone.  In three rounds this year DJ has hit 35.7% of all fairways.  He's tied for 7th, 4 under par, definitely in contention.  (And he came in 2nd last year behind Bubba.) 

JB Holmes has hit 55% of all fairways -- and is tied for third.  His 2nd round he hit 21% of the fairways, and shot 2-under 69.  Bubba this year has hit 38% of fairways... and like DJ is 4-under, tied for 7th, in good position to make a run for the championship.

Besides missing lots of fairways, these guys have another thing in common.  They are bombers.  It seems like bombers who are on their game can tear apart Riviera, and it doesn't matter how accurate they are off the tee.  How does this tie in with a great shot-making course? 

Jeff Fortson -- a fantastic golfer who plays (or played) just about at the tour level -- says the rough looks easier to him for the tournament.  Does Riviera need high rough to defend itself against the real long ball hitters?

[Josh Stevens]

Could be done, but I'm thinking it would be tricky.  Firstly it would look odd as the contrast in colour and grain between Kyk and Fescue is much greater than between couch and Fescue.  And second, a bugger to keep the Kyk out.  Its so invasive, it would swallow the Fescue the moment your back was turned.

Also might present some playing challenges with such a fine line.  Hit one shot and it  stops dead.  Hit another than carries 6 inches further over the Fescue line and it scuttles on 50m.  Imagine the pros howling about how unfair that is.

[Brent Hutto]

I've never understood the notion that golf is about "hitting fairways". For me it's about getting the ball in the hole.

It's funny how so many people think getting it in the hole after "missing the green" is a mark of grittiness, determination and talent but getting it in the hole after "missing the fairway" means there must be something wrong with the golf course.

Here's another weird belief. A course like The Old Course is wonderful and amazing in part because you can hit it 50 yards left or right and still be on short grass. But the greens make "angles" important and do cause certain positions preferable within those huge fairways. But now Riviera is being criticized because hitting it 25 yards offline into the rough does not mean automatically making a bad score. I would suggest that angles matter a lot at Riviera, too.

[MClutterbuck]

Is it feasible for Riviera to do something like what they do at Royal Melbourne: fescue approaches to eliminate the above issue?

Why would you use a cold season grass in Los Angeles? Even though i know nothing about fescue growing conditions in Melbourne, it is quite a lot cooler than LA. Is it not easier to use hybrid bermudas?

[John Kavanaugh]

There is a statue of Hogan on the grounds and neither Nicklaus or Tiger ever won there.  Put that in your stat pipe and smoke it.

[Adam Lawrence]

Is it feasible for Riviera to do something like what they do at Royal Melbourne: fescue approaches to eliminate the above issue?

Why would you use a cold season grass in Los Angeles? Even though i know nothing about fescue growing conditions in Melbourne, it is quite a lot cooler than LA. Is it not easier to use hybrid bermudas?

I don't think fescue is the answer either, but you get 40C days a lot during a Melbourne summer. Winters cooler though

[John Connolly]

The complexities of golf are revealed yet again - there continues to be more than one way to skin a cat.

[Mark_Fine]

Not many courses these days don't favor guys who hit the ball a mile.  At Riviera, you do need to drive the ball far but you also need to shape it both ways on tee shots and approach shots.  And then you have those greens to deal with - wow.  Riviera is one of those courses that I call "a great test of golf" but also "a great golf course".  And yes there can be a difference  

[Philip Hensley]

Ball-striking and shot-making aren't the same thing. Hitting lots of fairways indicates a good ball-striker but not necessarily a shot maker.

Bubba is a long bomber for sure, but he's also a shot-maker.

Brent makes a good point about missing fairways. If a long bomber is keeping the ball in play I don't think the course can be considered too easy because guys are scoring after missing a fairway by a few yards. Or Sergio after dumping it in a bunker on a completely different hole.

[RJ_Daley]

No one on the leaderboard is a short hitter.  But, an impressive leader board it is. 

[Philip Hensley]

Fairways look very narrow. Another reason I'm not putting much stock into fairways hit

[Matthew Petersen]

Not many courses these days don't favor guys who hit the ball a mile.  At Riviera, you do need to drive the ball far but you also need to shape it both ways on tee shots and approach shots.  And then you have those greens to deal with - wow.  Riviera is one of those courses that I call "a great test of golf" but also "a great golf course".  And yes there can be a difference  

That's kind of what it comes down to. No one on the PGA Tour is anything but very, very long. Obviously there are some guys who are longer than others, but everyone bombs it.

On the other hand, there's no one stat group that corresponds perfectly to the final leaderboard. Of the top 5 in driving distance, only Johnson finished in the tourney top 10. Johnson was also the only guy to finish in the top 10 who was among the five best in GIR. Brendan Steele was fifth in driving distance and T2 in GIR but finished T14. None of the top 5 in fairway accuracy maned to get in the top 10. And only two of the top 5 (really top 6) putters on the week made that translate into a T10 finish.

Hahn., the winner, was;t in the top 5 of any of those categories.

As Mr. Connolly says, there's more than one way to skin a cat.

[Jason Way]

There is one stat group that corresponds perfectly to the final leaderboard: Strokes Gained.

Those other stats are all flawed because they put things in a vacuum (like GIR) that are not actually in a vacuum.  They are in the context of a dynamic round of golf, or tournament in this case.

Check out Mark Broadie's strokes gained recap to understand more about how Hahn won:

http://www.pgatour.com/statsreport/2015/02/23/strokes-gained-at-northern-trust-open.html

Generally speaking, what Broadie's work reveals is that the closer you get the ball to the hole with each stroke (barring hitting it somewhere that incurs a penalty stroke or strokes), the better off you are.  Seems simple enough, but it does fly in the face of conventional wisdom (drive for show, putt for $$$) and conventional stat-keeping.  It is this paradigm that is driving the behavior, and performance, of the guys on tour.  It doesn't matter where they play, they are all going to try and play like this because that is how to maximize your chances of winning.

[mike_beene]

It was interesting that with the cooler weather, wet sea level air and 10 mph of wind, just how much club even these bombers were hitting into holes.Seemed like a two club difference from usual on the down canyon stretch( 12 through 16).

[Pat Burke]

I was fortunate enough to play Riviera a few months ago with a friend.  I played what remembered as the
tournament tees from when I played the tournament in the 90's.
I love Riviera, and the conditions were the best I had ever seen there.  I am not a fan of many of the course changes.
The green on 5 is awful, and just doesn't fit IMO.
I don't like the bunker on 7, but it really doesn't impact the hole for me.
Number 8 gave me a migraine.  I cannot say the old 8 was a great hole, but somehow, it worked.  The new 8 looks like it
was airlifted in from somewhere else.  The wash looks so, I don't know, manufactured, that it is unsettling.  Split fairway, but for
me, zero strategy.  I just hit it right, hit a short iron favoring the middle of the green, and maybe make a putt.  Boring.

Now, the new tees.  With the equipment today, I carry the ball about 255-260.  The tees behind me on this day, were so far back in some cases that I couldn't believe it.  On 12 I actually played the "old" tee as well as the back tee.  Hit good drives and had 2 hybrid and 7 iron!

Is it a bombers course now?  WHat isn't?  If there is little rough, there will be a % of guys who can airmail it, who will drive it well enough to stay out of big trouble, and recover well enough with no rough to just freewheel it.....until crunch time, when all of that gets a little tougher for almost everyone.

[Sean_A]

I've never understood the notion that golf is about "hitting fairways". For me it's about getting the ball in the hole.

It's funny how so many people think getting it in the hole after "missing the green" is a mark of grittiness, determination and talent but getting it in the hole after "missing the fairway" means there must be something wrong with the golf course.

Brent

Absolutely spot on.  On the flip side, it would seem pundits want the guy who hits 13 fairways and 15 greens to win every week.  It is hard to think of a more boring product to put on tv.

Ciao

Ciao