17th at Oakmont...

[Evan Fleisher]

...a LITTLE beauty of a brute!!!

All this talk of length, and how far these guys hit the ball, and that hole ate up just about everyone I watched today.  We all hear talk of how technology is killing the game today (which I pretty much still believe)...but you watch these guys struggle with their decision off the tee, and then put themselves into horrible positions where they are scrambling thier butts off just to make par...I love it!

Just wanted to open up the conversation a bit on a short hole such as this one, and thoughts on strategy, hole length, and what it takes to make a short hole GREAT.

[David Stamm]

 and what it takes to make a short hole GREAT.

Make them think and be committed to the decision. Indecision is a killer. For example, on 17 today, do I or don't I?

[Phil Benedict]

Is this the best short par 4 in golf?  What makes it so special is the lay up option is no day at the beach because the tilt of the fairway is so severe - witness Rose and Badds (whose second shot was off the charts).  Then again going for the green can get you in deep do-do because of the bunkers, ridiculous rough and tricky green.  Just a great next-to-last hole.

[Phil McDade]

Evan:

Absolutely agree -- it's become my favorite hole to watch. Choices are really interesting -- and not just the driver vs. iron off the tee choice. Tiger, for one, seem today to figure: I'll just take driver, and if it doesn't hit/be near the green, I can live with whatever up-and-down I'm left with, given where the pin was. Others seem to be OK with dumping a drive into Big Mouth, and taking their chances on an up and down from there. A great (kind-of) half-par hole that includes the real possibility of a bogey or double if you start to get loose with a shot or two.

One question -- I noticed in the behind-the-tee shot today that the trees behind the green sort of frame the skyline green. Can't those be cut down, too?

[David Stamm]

Is this the best short par 4 in golf?  

I would think it's right at the top with the 10th at Riviera. I would love to see more of these types of holes. They hold so much interest.

[Kalen Braley]

Is this the best short par 4 in golf?  

I would think it's right at the top with the 10th at Riviera. I would love to see more of these types of holes. They hold so much interest.

I think its a pretty cool hole...

But for an average 10 handicapper as Tiger keeps referring to, where in the hell is he supposed to hit it?  Especially given the fact that most 10's or higher couldn't drive the green at 250 yards much less at 300 that the pros were playing it at.

[Doug Siebert]

Sorry, that hole is kind of lame.  There's no strategy there, all the guys hitting irons are morons.  The fairway landing area they are aiming at is obviously quite narrow -- these guys are hitting 200 yard iron shots when there's been little wind all week and many are missing it!  It would have more strategy if the fairway was widened out another 10 yards so playing it safe off the tee was actually safe!  It just amazes me how many top players in the world are getting fooled here, but I guess IQ isn't a strong suit for some of them.

There shouldn't be anywhere around that green you might end up that you can't make par, so long as you don't try to force it and get up and down for birdie when you should just play safe and leave a long laggable two putt par.  At least for these guys, who are not having much trouble two putting Oakmont's greens even from 60+ feet.

I'd hit driver there even if I was into a strong breeze and knew I couldn't reach it.  I'd much rather dig it out of that 6" rough with my nice heavy LW from 20-30 yards short of the green than try to do so from 100 after laying up in the rough (or worse, on that sideslope of the bunker where Badds and several others hit it....my Tivo recording ran out before I could see what he did, but he must have played a pretty good shot to end up parring that hole)

[Jim Nugent]

From watching on TV, I don't see why anyone lays up.  Like Doug says, the target looks just about as small, with just as much penalty if you miss.  Saturday seemed like a no-brainer to me.  Go for the green.  Is it different in person, as opposed to just watching on the tube?  

That said, drivable par 4's are often a lot of fun to see, and that's true of this one too.  

[Shane Gurnett]

It looks like a really good hole that is severely compromised by another ridiculous USGA set up. Short par 4 holes ought to be about a variety of options, yet with the stupid thick rough to the right of the layup area and immediately beyond the lhs fairway bunkers, two of the options become "no option at all".

Mow the rough another 15-20 yards out to the right off the tee and again between the lhs fairway bunkers and the lhs greenside bunkers and the hole becomes a lot more interesting. Almost as interesting as number 10 at Royal Melbourne West   .

Oakmont would be a lot more interesting to watch (and play I suspect) if they cut the rough back in the landing areas and around the greens. The internal contouring of the greens looks fantastic! These greens do not need to be surrounded by thick rough.

[Brent Hutto]

The hole as set up this week is playing more like an ultra-long Par 3 than a short 4. It really becomes a one-shot hole when the layup area is hemmed in by nigh-unplayable rough. It's basically the ultimate test of hitting a driver straight and I agree that the guys trying to lay up are engaging in a desperation ploy that only makes sense if you are afraid of hitting your driver way offline.

I suppose we'll see the day when the USGA sets up a "short Par 4" hole where the only two "options" are to carry the ball 290 in the air to the front of the green or "lay up" into three inches of rough somewhere from tee to green. Certainly Oakmont's seventeenth isn't quite to that point (this year) but it's more like a long one-shotter than it is like the tenth at Riviera.

[Phil McDade]

Doug:

Baddeley's second at the 17th might have been his best shot of the day, and that includes his play on 18. He basically took a sideswipe with the ball and ran it up the left side of the green, giving him (the best putter in the tourney so far by a good margin) a pretty manageable two-putt for par.

I still think the hole offers a fair amount of strategy, because as Forrest Gump once said, you never know what you're going to get. Some of the rough around 17 appears really thick, and even Tiger ended up with a very uncertain lie on Saturday (according to the roving reporter...). I think for Tiger -- the best scrambler ever in the history of the game -- the strategy is a little less than for others; he seems content with driver and making do with what he ends up with. But I think for others, the driver play still carries some risk.

[JohnV]

It is great.  I don't know how much they showed of #2 yesterday on TV, but with the tees at 326, it probably presents even more options.  Layup to the normal layup, layup short of the center bunker, take it over the bunker for the front of the green, take it to the left of the bunker and hope to get in the greenside bunkers.

[TEPaul]

As good as I think this hole is and as good as it seems to be at "balancing optional strategies" this week, I'm afraid Doug Siebert is absolutely right about what he said about the difficulty of the layup option out to the right on the fairway. We had this discussion playing the hole a year ago and it's true and some of the best architectural thinkers at the club confirmed it.

Balancing various strategic options can be very tricky business, though, and if that layup fairway option was too easy it just may start to kill the high risk option that many US Open competitors are using of trying to drive that green.

But the good news on the hole this week is it's scoring spectrum. One player (Hanson ?) did make an eagle with about a 20 ft putt and there were a lot of birdies and plenty of "others" and that's the overall idea on a hole like that, in my opinion.

There's another potential problem with the setup at Oakmont this week that's refected in the difficulty of the layup option on #17 and that is that due to the topography of some areas on some holes combined with the speed of some of the fairways and particularly some of the approaches balls are collecting from fairly wide areas right back into little pockets that unfortunately have become minefields of pitch marks.

For those who know Merion East this has always been a problem with approach of #12---eg everything collects back into a small area in the right side of the approach.

[Brent Hutto]

It is great.  I don't know how much they showed of #2 yesterday on TV, but with the tees at 326, it probably presents even more options.  Layup to the normal layup, layup short of the center bunker, take it over the bunker for the front of the green, take it to the left of the bunker and hope to get in the greenside bunkers.

They did show a couple people playing the #2 yesterday (or am I remembering Friday?) and that's more of a model short-4 for these players than #17 is working out to be. I think the second and third holes at Oakmont (with the Open setup or any other time) are a heck of a way to get the golfer's mind churning early in the round. I love the third but the second is also awfully good.

The reason I would stop short of saying that #17 is a bogus setup is that Oakmont provides #2 as well as several other half-par options. In keeping with the generally extreme nature of the test provided this week and since #17 is not the only short-4 hole out there, there's not necessarily anything wrong with a 300-odd yard hole that they basically ought to be firing at with a driver.

[JohnV]

Some people have speculated that they might move #14 up today and give the players a go at it if they want.

Also on #13 yesterday they had moved the tees up to the next box forward since the hole location was so tough in the back right of the green.

Mike Davis is showing he is willing to be very flexible in the course setup which I think is great.

[TEPaul]

JV:

It's good of you to mention that the USGA has adjusted tee distance on the short par 4 holes to create different sets of strategic options.

When one talks about Oakmont it's generally about how long and brutal it can be and so most forget to mention just how good its set of short par 4s really are.

For instance, in the 2004 Open Shinnecock struggled to keep any hole under 400 and only managed to do it with one---eg #8 by one yard (399).

Oakmont, on the other hand, has about five of them considerably under 400.

[Jim Johnson]

Evan, it's a great hole, isn't it?! I think it's become my fav at Oakmont over the past 3 days.

I think what it takes is to have the proper length. Without it, there is no decision on the tee. If it's too short, they'll go for it every time, assuming that the reward far outweighs the risk. I mean, have a 260-yard par 4 with an island green, and they might reconsider  

We have a short par-4 on a local course, see below.
The particular hole I'm describing is the lowest one in the picture, above and to the left of the creek, with the tees nearest you, 3 bunkers on the left side of the fairway, and one to the right in front of the green...



I wish I had the yardages for you, but their website to their golf operations is supplying a dead link at the moment. Suffice it to say that the yardage, assuming you're playing from the correct tee (!), is one that always makes you ponder for a moment when arriving at the teebox. If that yardage was far too long for a decision, it would be a boring drive & pitch hole. The way it is, one can have a go at it, or decide how far back to lay up. Good hole.

JJ

[David Miller]

The 17th is my favorite hole in recent U.S. Open memory.  There's stategy--as Cabrera showed with his lay-up--and you can make anything from 2-6.  And it's not just friendly to the long hitters, which Toms showed by reaching the green.  Just a brilliant hole.

[Phil McDade]

Cabrera showed you could lay up effectively at 17 (granted, he boffed his approach shot from 65 yards). Should Tiger and Furyk taken the winner's approach and laid up there? Furyk, who said he didn't know he was tied for the lead at the time, said with the wind (behind) and the pin (back), it made sense to hit driver; he said he just hit it too far. Tiger absolutely knew he was down one, and looked like he was OK with dumping it into Big Mouth. Both Furyk and Tiger both arguably lost the tournament on 17 with their play there.

[Doug Siebert]

After watching another day of play at the 17th I had a few additional thoughts.

At some point the announcers mentioned that the fairway has a spine running down the middle and shots on the left side bounce left and on the right bounce right.  You need to drive past the fairway bunkers (about 230-240) to get to an area where this is less of a problem.  But that's up the hill a bit so you are driving to a blind fairway which is always a bit more uncomfortable.  Plus if you are hitting that far to a blind fairway you might as well just hit further and go for the blind green.  My home course has a hole with a fairway spine and it is indeed a frustrating architectural feature that isn't used often enough.

I hadn't noticed quite how blind the tee shot was until I paid close attention to the shots from behind the players today, though with the towers and small cluster of trees on the horizon to the right they had plenty of aiming points.  So I don't feel that's really the issue Tom Doak suggested it was on another thread.

While TEPaul is right that there was a wide scoring spectrum on 17 (hmmm, were there any holes at Oakmont where this was NOT true? ), my issue with it is that one's scoring result is only weakly dependant on skill.  The only smart play is to take driver there, and hitting driver to essentially a 10 yard wide target means you're highly likely to miss, and then it is just random where you end up and what you have to work with.  I still think that if a player was only trying to make par there that getting up and in in three from just about anywhere around that green should be pretty easily doable, the bogies I saw there today seemed to be a combination of nerves and players trying to do too much because they saw a 306 yard par 4 as a birdie hole that they'd give up a stroke to the field by getting a 4 on so they had to try for a 3 even when they had an unlucky outcome on their tee shot that dictated playing for a 4.

[Steve_ Shaffer]

How would this hole play without the 6"+ rough to the left of the green and there was 3" inch rough instead? Would that make a significant difference in scoring?

[Matthew Hunt]

Such a Hole, but it does it hold up member play a lot?

[TEPaul]

"How would this hole play without the 6"+ rough to the left of the green and there was 3" inch rough instead? Would that make a significant difference in scoring?"

Steve:

That's what I've been thinking.

I realize it would be an odd application on the part of the USGA but I would love to see that hole with a lot of short grass surrounding it instead of that ultra heavy rough.

The fact is there is a ton of very cool architecture up there on top of that hill with that ultra shallow green (to the safe option off the tee) and long and narrow (to the aggressive option off the tee).

The point is the angles involved combined with the bunkering around that green, the topography around the green and the fact that green is really firm and fast could've produced more reward for real risk.

How would an Open player like to have Furyk's second shot if he was in short grass to that pin from that angle? That would require a pretty dicey but tempting shot that could've made him a hero or a goat. The point is that shot to a pin like that from that position just takes raw skill. I think it would've been more interesting than the hit and hope shot Furyk had in that ultra thick rough.

[Steve_ Shaffer]

Tom

I agree and think that the long rough detracted from the inherent architecture of Oakmont.

"Now would Oakmont and the U.S. Open be better served the next time this major rolls around if the rough that chokes the strategic genius of the property were significantly thinned as well?

"I don't think there would be any doubts," said 2006 U.S. Open champion Geoff Ogilvy when asked if Oakmont and the tournament would be an even better test without the trademark thick rough that greeted players this week. "There should be rough, but more like the kind they have at Royal Melbourne where you can make a shot out of it. I don't like the automatic one-shot penalty."

That was from Scott Michaux's article:

http://savannahnow.com/node/307183

[TEPaul]

Steve:

I don't know about that but I would love to see the USGA just try it the next time at Oakmont for an Open just to see what happens differently. It's their tournament and within reason (the club) they should be able to do what they want with the tournament. But with Oakmont if they wanted to go with very little rough they might need to channel both H.C. and W.C Fowne's first and ask them about that.

If they had little to no rough at Oakmont, ideally I'd like to see those greens a little firmer than they were yesterday.