Medinah- The Emperor With no Clothes

[Tim Gavrich]

  When I was in Chicago last week the guys I golfed with said they play Medinah occasionally to see how well they are playing and the course kicks their butts. So for most golfers Medinah is all the test most golfers need.

I believe that this is where courses like Pinehurst No. 2 are set apart from courses like Medinah.  At P#2, a bogey golfer will have the chance to hit similar shots to the pros.  Sometimes, he/she will get better results due to the nature of the green complexes.  At a place like Medinah, that won't happen, due to the mediocrity-prohibitive rigidity of the greens.

[Dan Moore]

Today was my first time on the grounds of Medinah.  Here are some random impressions.  

--the grounds, the scale of the course, the clubhouse are magnificent.

--early north breeze helping the players as they headed down the course on the front 9.

-- on the back nine as more holes played back to the north the flags were hanging limp.  

-- the greens were super soft due to an inch of rain overnight.  But why so soft Thursday and Friday?  

--cupcake pin placement on #2.  Shots to the middle of the green left a straight uphill putt that many drained.  Seemed to give everyone early confidence.

-- I was amazed by the amount of elevation change throughout the course.  

--I was equally amazed at how little break there was in most of the putts.  Did Rees take away to much contour?  

--the course does not play to its length on the card due to the length of the par 5s.  It plays more like a 7,100 yard par 70.  

--given the lack of wind, soft greens and lack of scary putts the low scores are not surpising.

-- the 3 par 3's over water are repetitive.  I think the fact they have had to change 17 so many times underscores this point.  

--When they changed 18 after the 1975 tournament they should have kept 12 and 13 as 16 and 17 somehow.  I think that would provide a stronger finish.  

--instead of adding a third par three over water they should have added a risk reward par 5 with the green on the far side of the lake.  Aside from the par 3s the lake does not come into play in any meaningful way.  This would have added some variety, made them think a little and brought eagle into play.  

--the new 17 does look great though and Luke Donald hit a tremendous shot there to a scary pin placement.  

--the crowd was really getting behind Luke Donald by the end of the day.  Should be an interesting matchup tommorow.  I'm hoping Luke wears red.

[Tom Zeni]

The PGA doesn' t worry about "Par" the way the USGA does.  They let the player's play. Simple as that.

Length of the course, contour of the greens, yada, yada.  Doesn't matter. The venue is the venue. Everyone plays it.

Don't know about you, but I find it far more entertaining than the US Open.

[Jim Nugent]

"The difficulty of any golf course starts with rock-hard greens, which is a far tougher task in August than it is in June."

I just saw this statement in an article by Doug Ferguson.  Is it true, i.e. is it tougher to make greens rock-hard in August than June?

[Paul Richards]

I just noticed this thread.

Please refer to my thread at the top "Medinah - my report" for a different viewpoint.

[TEPaul]

Having watched quite a bit of the PGA Championship, Medinah looks to me like what I expected it to look like---eg a long, big-scale, brassy, treed, midwestern style golf course and that's cool.

It looks to offer good architectural challenges off the tees and some good challenges with its hazard features at the green-ends.

The only real problem Medinah has this week regarding offering strategic challenge to these tour pros is ultra soft and receptive greens.

This is the area of the maintenance meld, in my opinion. By now golf set-up should understand that it doesn't matter much at all how long or even how architecturally dangerous a golf course is today, if it provides this caliber of golfer with ultra soft and receptive greens a very good number of them will kill the course score-wise and we can all see that's happening. Give those guys total receptiveness and aerial approach shot predictability and they'll kill any golf course.

The most important and central component to most golf courses' ideal maintenance meld, but particularly classic ones, to prevent really low scoring for those guys is firm green surfaces of a remarkably identifiable degree.

The green surfaces must lightly dent, nothing more, and no pitch marks can be made where dirt can be pulled up on any aerial approach shots. This prevents these players from flag hunting because they just can't stick the ball directly at pins, they can't suck the ball back and that forces them to play far more defensive or strategic approaches. For God Sakes, I can see the clump of turf on my TV that they pull up on all their aerial approach shots.

Medinah looks to be a good course but the soft greens alone, nothing more, are allowing these players to kill it.

I don't know if the soft greens were a purposefully and intentional set-up by the PGA or whether it's just weather related but I have little doubt that if those Medinah greens were as firm as I just described the should ideally be the leaders going into the final round would probably be right around par.

Not just that but we would be seeing these guys play that golf course, particularly their approach shots in far more defensive and creative ways.

For whatever reason Medinah is suffering from an unideal maintenance meld in one single component----its green surface receptiveness.

[Mike_Cirba]

I have to wonder if this isn't the precursor to an unbelievably dull future US Open at Torrey Pines (another course "US Open Doctored" at 7700 yards with dullish greens), as well as a scoring bonanza as players will either lay up or drive over the totally predictable lateral fairway bunkers, and then dial-in precision shots to the predictable greens.  Of course, after seeing this, look for the fairways at TP to approach single file width and some effort to bake the course out by the USGA.

Still, they have to be getting nervous that their doctoring philosophy of added length, fast, flatter greens, predictable hazards in the "driving zone", TOTAL visibility for every shot, and "fair", "cleaned up" bunkers, and "progressive discipline" are taking a fearsome battering.  

[Ken Fry]

Amen Mike.

[Tom Zeni]

Length is inevitable. The courses will be assimilated. If for no other reason, than course conditioning and grooming.

Even if the pro's hit it only 280, with the fairways being nipped at 3/8",  a drive in the short stuff will garner 320/330.

Some thoughts on the topic from a noted pro...

http://www.icubed.com/~trz/tc_innerdemons.wav

http://www.icubed.com/~trz/tc_fair_greens.wav

http://www.icubed.com/~trz/tc_GripRip.wav

http://www.icubed.com/~trz/tc_purefeel.wav

http://www.icubed.com/~trz/tc_hitech.wav

[Paul Richards]

All of this goes back to technology and how badly the USGA has dropped the ball in this arena.

Length doesn't matter, or so it seems.

Yet, Medinah #3 is a brutal beast to most any amateur.

So the USGA continues their lame excuse that they don't want to bifurcate the game by having a competition ball - they want everyone to play the same game.

NOTE TO USGA  - we already aren't playing the same game!

These guys can take advantage of the technology to an incredibly larger degree than any amateur can, so they have already bifurcated the game.


USGA - time to pull your heads out of the sand and realize that it's time for that competition ball.

Medinah this week makes a great case for that.

[Michael Moore]

Why is Sign Boy doing the introductions on the first tee?

[Mike_Young]

At least you guys can agree that the sand looks good......

[tlavin]

I was at the championship yesterday and the softness of the fairways and the greens is making the golf course beyond vulnerable.  As has been mentioned ad nauseum, much of the length is in the par fives and the par threes (two of which are bigtime downhill) so the length means zip.  The balls aren't bounding into the rough and they're firing at most of the flagsticks.  The greens are reasonably quick, but they would be two feet quicker if it hadn't rained pretty much every day of the championship.

To me, the issue is a combination of Mother Nature (no wind and wet, soft conditions most of the time) and technology which have rendered a bomber's course into a shotmaker's paradise.  I think this proves something that the USGA has known for some time: it is hard to have a major championship on a golf course with four par fives.  if two of the holes (let's say 5 and 10) were converted to long par four's, the scores would not be as scandalously low as they are. And they are scandalously low.

Final point, there is precious little slope in most of the new Jones greens.  There is no arguing that fact.  These greens wouldn't intimidate the pros if they were running at 14 feet, in my judgment.

[mike_malone]

For as much as I killed WFW for the dullness of its fairways, Medinah's appear to have much more varied movement. Of course, I need this to be confirmed by someone who has actually been there. The softness of the fairways takes away the challenge of these slopes , unfortunately.

[Tom Zeni]

While watching the PGA today, it occured to me that Tiger Woods will never visit CGA, and not because he can't type or use a computer.

The other players on tour might visit, because there is one heck of a tournament going on behind Tiger, and the course is taking it's toll on them as players move up and down the leaderboard like a seismograph.

But, for Tiger it's not. Therefore, it's my considered opinion that Tiger doesn't care about the architecture of this course, or any other course on the planet. He sees architecture as a minor annoyance. And if achitecture should cause him a problem, he just moves around it, and one putts for a par, which doesn't exclude birdie, as he did after being in a fairway bunker. Such simple annoyances.

In short, David Fehrety said to turn out the lights on this tournament. So I did.

[peter_p]

Tiger is 3 under on par 3s, none is shorter than 180.
Tiger is 7 under on par 4s, only one is less than 400.

If you can't defend the green, everything else is useless.

[Tim Bert]

David Feherty just said "this is fun to watch."  

Is it?  I suspect there is a nearly even split of us out there that think it is not.  I've got the TV on because I like to watch history in the making, but I'm multi-tasking and I'd certainly rather see someone staring Tiger down and making a game of the afternoon.

I loved watching Jordan and I'm one of the few remaining Bonda fans (pardon me if you will) so I really enjoy a dominant athlete.  I think what just dawned on me this afternoon is that with those other guys they were playing a team game.  While they were dominant at their sport like no one else in our time, there could still be an interesting game played while they took over as an individual.

When Tiger takes over, the thrill of the outcome is gone becasue he's got no one else on his team.

Just my opinion.

[Wayne_Kozun]

Are the scores really that low?  The lowest score by a mortal will be -13 by Micheel.  If this were a US Open with a par of 70 then he would have been -5.  

The only one tearing up the course is Tiger and he is absolutely on top of his game - you could argue that in the past month he is playing as well as he did in 2000 which is arguably as good as anyone has ever played the game.

[tlavin]

Are the scores really that low?  The lowest score by a mortal will be -13 by Micheel.  If this were a US Open with a par of 70 then he would have been -5.  

The only one tearing up the course is Tiger and he is absolutely on top of his game - you could argue that in the past month he is playing as well as he did in 2000 which is arguably as good as anyone has ever played the game.

This can serve as installment #1 on the "Medinah did fine" talking points.

[Chris Moore]

Was it just me, or were there no putts on Medinah's greens that broke more than 6 inches?  

[mikes1160]

TEPaul and Ryan Potts deserve to be caned by a hundred Chicagoland superintendents.........check that: superintendents everywhere

[Greg Beaulieu]

My unqualified layman's view is that it is a typical major-style parkland course that was done in this week by incredibly soft conditions and 2 par 5s that should have been redone as par 4s. I find it somewhat dark and clautrophobic to watch on TV, the par 3s exhibit great sameness, the plethora of power lines around the perimeter is unsightly, and the lake is poorly incorporated into the design. It is middle-of-the-road in the major venue category IMO. Better than places like Valhalla and Kemper Lakes (which I had forgotten about until it was mentioned today) but not in the top tier.

[JR Potts]

TEPaul and Ryan Potts deserve to be caned by a hundred Chicagoland superintendents.........check that: superintendents everywhere

Why?

Please notice that I haven't blamed the super.  I don't know whether the PGA required his staff to unmercilessly water the greens.  I will not place blame until the appropriate questions are asked.

I will state that the course looked great on TV but was ill-prepared to host a Major due to the softness of the course.

Mike: what is your "super" excuse for the course playing as soft as it did without rain for 10 days?

[Craig Sweet]

Two things that I read recently....yesterday ESPN said the reason for the third round "darts" was some rain over night that softened greens that were already soft from a summer of rain.....and lastly,on the GCM blog the Super was quoted as saying the greens were stimping at 12-12.5 and he hoped to have them running 13 for Sunday....it was also noted that a couple of greens were mowed...checked for speed, and then mowed again to get them rolling 12....

[JR Potts]

Craig:

This is all BS.  The summer has been perfect for growing conditions.  Every other course that I have played this summer has been in awesome shape - both in the fairways and on the greens.

As far as the stimps go, I had a beer with Toms' caddy (who is a Medinah member) after the tourney ended tonight and he said the fairways were thin and that the greens were SLOW and SOFT.  He was shocked by the conditions.  Again, the rain was not to blame.  

I for one thought the fairways were in wonderful shape though - but they've always been thin.