Regarding Romero's Ball on #14th at Kiawah..

[Evan_Green]

which plugged into the 45 degree sand slope of the waste bunker necesitating him to take an unplayable...

Do you like or dislike the idea of 45 degree slopes of sand where a ball can plug as a hazard?

[Jeff_Mingay]

One of the coolest photos I've seen:

James Braid (I'm pretty sure) playing a shot off the rail line adjacent to the 16th green at St. Andrews, many years ago (might have been the 1910 Open).

Where there's a hazard the golfer shouldn't hit the ball. If he does, he must deal with the consequences. What's happened to that logic?

P.S. I didn't see the Romero situation, at Kiawah's 14th.

[Evan_Green]

Jeff-

He basically had a severely plugged downhill lie on a 45 degree slope in a waste bunker. The bottom of the waste bunker to the top of the slope was probably about 6-8 feet. It was very nasty.

[JESII]

how did the ball plug on a downhill lie?

[Jeff_Mingay]

Evan,

That's why he had to take an unplayable  

[Michael Christensen]

easy solution.....don't hit the ball there on a par-3!  I have no sympathy for his shot.

[Don_Mahaffey]

Evan,
I didn't like it...and here is why.
What I saw throughout the tourney was balls that ended up in the bottom of the "waste areas" had little to no sand under them...I was watching on TV and was not there, but it sure seemed like there were a lot of "thin" lies in the bunker bottoms. Yet the faces seemed to have ample sand.
It looked to me like the bunker Romero was plugged in had been worked very hard to be "shaped" and a lot of sand had been moved around. In a more natural setting I doubt that his ball plugs like that more than 1 out of 20 times...and maybe it was just his time. But I don't like needing to use an unplayable when you miss a green by 10 yards in a dune setting. I know it’s the rub of the green, but that “waste area’” looked pretty manufactured to me.

[Matt_Cohn]

Evan,

I didn't like it - same thing with Irwin's shot on 16 in the first round. Somebody (Tony Jacklin maybe?) almost hurt themselves trying to play a similar shot.

Michael,

My reasoning is the whole idea of "play the course as it lies, play the ball where you find it". If you have a spot that is unplayable, you can't do either one, because you have to put your hand on the ball and drop it somewhere else. Why have a part of a golf course that you can't hit a golf ball off of? (OK, other than water hazards. But sand is not water, nor should it be.)

Also, with those areas being played "through the green" it makes for all sorts of weird drops and rulings. Irwin got to drop his on grass just off the green. Romero had to drop his into a flat sandy area. If he were 5 feet shorter, he'd have to drop down in the bottom of the pit.

Finally the fact that those bunker walls are *everywhere* on the course, including on the teeshots, seems to me like an overly severe penalty. In all but the strangest of circumstances, a ball found should be a ball playable.

[Jeff_Mingay]

I didn't watch a second of the championship on tv, unfortunately. I wanted to.

Question: are these situations products of the design or course set-up/maintenance? Just curious.

[Brent Hutto]

I didn't see Romero's trouble on fourteen but I had seen the difficult shots by Jacklin, Stadler and others earlier in the tournment. I like the concept of "waste area" non-bunkers at the Ocean Course and elsewhere and in particular I enjoyed the sandy area at the Ocean Course when I played there.

Nothing about seeing the senior pros struggle with shots from bad lies changes that opinion. I think water is much overused as a hazard and for me extensive water hazards take a lot of the fun out of the game. OTOH, conventional bunkering is barely a hazard at all to elite golfers today. So sand like the Ocean Course is an interesting alternative. It can put some fear back in the players while allowing recovery shots (in some cases very easy ones at that). What's not to like?

[Don_Mahaffey]

Brent,
I, too, like to see the pros struggle with sand hazards when they hit a shot off the mark. But, I don't like to see them drop. I believe Romero's play would have been much more interesting had his ball not plugged in a place where he couldn't even attempt a shot. Had the ball kicked down into the bottom of the bunker into a bad lie, but one he might take a slash at, it would have been a better result, IMO.
Watching the world's best players attempt recoveries from tough spots is entertaining, watching them drop after taking an unplayable is not.

[RJ_Daley]

I just look at it as the concept that Romero had all kinds of area to play safe.  At that point he had a 2 shot lead.  Why didn't he just bat one up there on the right (possibly even short of the green) instead of hit one that was at the back right pin near the potentially disastrous bunker?  

As for the hardpan sand at the bottom with the soft stuff that could allow a ball to plug as Romero's did on the severe slopes... so what?  They can ground their clubs in that hardpan bottom, so that mitigates it somewhat.  There is plenty of room at TOC to play smart or dumb... IMHO.  As for Jacklin taking a tumble... well it is a softer landing than most contact sport surfaces, and perhaps makes the contest more of a sport than a game.  

[Pete_Pittock]

It isn't the 45 degree angle. More like the sand angle vs ball flight angle. The closer that relationship to ninety degrees, the more likelihood of plugging. Of course all amplified by softness of the sand

[mark chalfant]

Evan,
I loved the scale  of  those sandy areas at Kiawah. If  I was  
Romero's caddy  I would have told  him to miss short on that hole By the way, landing  in a hazard can extract a psychological toll, thats ok:course management is  essential.   Above all, hazards can be create train wrecks. For me,such "randomness" is not seen enough on today's highly groomed carpets of green that some  tour players prefer.


ps   let's furrow  em  at  Oakmont !

[Jerry Kluger]

At Kiawah, much of the course is built on sand dunes where the ball can plug, although I don't know if that was the case where his ball plugged.  It was through the green so he could take an unplayable and he had to for at least two reasons:  he could easily have hurt himself climbing down to the ball and though plugged, he could have caused the ball to move if he slipped when getting to it.  He made the only choice he had when he took the unplayable.

The 14th to me is the best par 3 on the course and perhaps the best hole on the course but the TV guys never really explained how great it is.  You stand on the tee at about a 45 degree angle to the ocean with the horizon as the backdrop - the green is raised to give this wonderful view and the flag stands there naked to the wind which is usually blowing across the hole.  As Romero proved, left is death so taking aim at the pin is a bold and risky play.  
 
Overall, I thought the course was a worthy challenge for the players.  I had recorded the last round and in watching it I again noted how many commercials there are on golf broadcasts.  Essentially they showed the final group's shots and then they would go to commercial and this was really annoying.

[Mike Vegis @ Kiawah]

Over the week, nearly every player found sand a couple of times a round where almost all of their balls did not plug, instead finding the bottom of the bunker.  From what I heard, there were only about 4 or 5 balls that plugged all week.  It was a bit of bad luck that it was the (at the time) leader of the tournament that had one of them.  I've can't count the number of times I've played the course since 1999 and I can count the number of times my ball plugged on one hand.

[tlavin]

Over the week, nearly every player found sand a couple of times a round where almost all of their balls did not plug, instead finding the bottom of the bunker.  From what I heard, there were only about 4 or 5 balls that plugged all week.  It was a bit of bad luck that it was the (at the time) leader of the tournament that had one of them.  I've can't count the number of times I've played the course since 1999 and I can count the number of times my ball plugged on one hand.

I saw a handful of shots that looked like "Muni-Maintenance" bunkers.  Otherwise, the course looked magnificent!  It sure didn't play all that difficult, although I don't know that they played it any longer than 6700 yards...

[Jerry Kluger]

Terry: Only 8 players wound up at even par or better - I would say that it played very difficult.  The leaders did play well but most of the field would probably say they struggled.  Look at the winner on number 18 - pushed his drive and got a fortuitous bounce so he wound up between the bunkers - he then flies it over the green into the grandstand - imagine where his shot was going if the grandstand wasn't there - there were no gimmes on the OC. I hope the wind blows when the big boys get there and let's see how they handle it.

[Mike Vegis @ Kiawah]

I saw a handful of shots that looked like "Muni-Maintenance" bunkers.  Otherwise, the course looked magnificent!  It sure didn't play all that difficult, although I don't know that they played it any longer than 6700 yards...

It played around 7,000 the first three days due to the high winds and 7,201 the last day.

[tlavin]

Terry: Only 8 players wound up at even par or better - I would say that it played very difficult.  The leaders did play well but most of the field would probably say they struggled.  Look at the winner on number 18 - pushed his drive and got a fortuitous bounce so he wound up between the bunkers - he then flies it over the green into the grandstand - imagine where his shot was going if the grandstand wasn't there - there were no gimmes on the OC. I hope the wind blows when the big boys get there and let's see how they handle it.

Thanks, Jerry, I guess I was guilty of just watching the leaderboard on television and focusing on those scores.  I'm sure it can play hard as hell; Tom Meeks once told me that he feels it's the toughest golf course in the USA.