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.

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

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.

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.  

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?

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.....

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.

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.

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.

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...

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?