"It almost wasn't real golf."

[Garland Bayley]

Well Kalen,

It's good to see you too can learn. 

[George Pazin]

It's funny - for all the talk about wild greens, goofy greens, etc, those blue putting lines - HANDS DOWN THE MOST ANNOYING ADDITION TO SPORTS BROADCASTING SINCE THE GLOWING PUCK - looked pretty darn straight.

Guess it's one of those things you gotta see in person.

[McCloskey]

Don't really agree with the suggestion that ANGC "fit with the land".    I don't think one green could be considered blending with the natural land.   Dove Canyon's greens were quite undulated and that is impossilbe to blend with the flat desert .   JN would have had to build low profile flat greens to blend with that landscape.  I don't  think any in this treehouse would have liked that much.   JN did pretty good from what I could tell on TV.

[Jason McNamara]

Were those that hit good drives given a good opportunity to put the ball in the right part of the green?

From the three days I watched, the answer was yes, absolutely.  And I liked that even some of the shorter approaches to front flags were best landed short of the green.

I have only played a couple Nicklaus courses - one from the early mean phase, one more recent but certainly not new - so I need some help here.  Does this course represent a (continuing?) change in his philosophy from "make them work" (the standard high cut 4-iron) to "make them think," at least for the top players?  (I could see how this course would still punish most high hcps.)

In other words, even if it's not necessarily the execution some might have wanted for this particular site, isn't the theory improved?


ps.  GVS partially blaming the conditions for Tiger's loss is rich.

[jeffwarne]

It's funny - for all the talk about wild greens, goofy greens, etc, those blue putting lines - HANDS DOWN THE MOST ANNOYING ADDITION TO SPORTS BROADCASTING SINCE THE GLOWING PUCK - looked pretty darn straight.

Guess it's one of those things you gotta see in person.

George,
Those blue lines are hideous and distracting.
and most did look pretty straight.
What was the red circled X for?

[Sean Leary]

It's funny - for all the talk about wild greens, goofy greens, etc, those blue putting lines - HANDS DOWN THE MOST ANNOYING ADDITION TO SPORTS BROADCASTING SINCE THE GLOWING PUCK - looked pretty darn straight.

Guess it's one of those things you gotta see in person.

George,
Those blue lines are hideous and distracting.
and most did look pretty straight.
What was the red circled X for?

Jeff,

The red x is the aiming point to start the putt.

Count me as one who hates the putting line.

[jeffwarne]

It's funny - for all the talk about wild greens, goofy greens, etc, those blue putting lines - HANDS DOWN THE MOST ANNOYING ADDITION TO SPORTS BROADCASTING SINCE THE GLOWING PUCK - looked pretty darn straight.

Guess it's one of those things you gotta see in person.

George,
Those blue lines are hideous and distracting.
and most did look pretty straight.
What was the red circled X for?

Jeff,

The red x is the aiming point to start the putt.

Count me as one who hates the putting line.

 I assumed that but many made putts never sniffed the direction of the "aim point"-occasionally it was on the opposite side of the blue line.
I hate it-I'd be OK with it if they'd remove it before they hit the putt

[Bill_McBride]

Gary Van Sickle, senior writer, Sports Illustrated: "No matter how good of a putter you were, you couldn't hole much outside of 10 feet on those rollercoasters."

How did Ogilvy birdie something like 40% of all holes the last four rounds?  Did he hit it stiff every time?   

He hit most of the greens and then made about 90% of putts under 10'.  He poured in putts, was in fact, dare I say it, en fuego!

[Sean Leary]

It's funny - for all the talk about wild greens, goofy greens, etc, those blue putting lines - HANDS DOWN THE MOST ANNOYING ADDITION TO SPORTS BROADCASTING SINCE THE GLOWING PUCK - looked pretty darn straight.

Guess it's one of those things you gotta see in person.

George,
Those blue lines are hideous and distracting.
and most did look pretty straight.
What was the red circled X for?

Jeff,

The red x is the aiming point to start the putt.

Count me as one who hates the putting line.

 I assumed that but many made putts never sniffed the direction of the "aim point"-occasionally it was on the opposite side of the blue line.
I hate it-I'd be OK with it if they'd remove it before they hit the putt

You know what, that is a great idea....

[Charlie Goerges]

Maybe this isn't the right place to say this, but I wonder if today's tour players would even be playing golf if it were the game the Dutch sailors played on their way from the shore into the town of St. Andrews. I don't think so. Way too random and unfair. Not that I want the game to revert to that, but if it did, I'd still play it. I'd suck at it, but I'd play it.

[Doug Siebert]

Had Tiger won, the same guy would have claim that it's a great course that showed who the best player in the field was... and it was due to Tiger proper ball striking and great short game that the course made him (Tiger) stand apart...

Maybe as I wrote before, Tiger should learn to play golf...

This is exactly what I was going to say.  Those SI writers, and sportwriters in general, are just a bunch of Tiger apologists who were itching to write the great comeback from injury story and predict a grand slam for Tiger, and he messed it up for them by being unable to control his ball and losing in the second round as a result.

Its inconceivable to them that Tiger should ever lose, so whenever he does its due to other factors that caused it to not be a fair fight.  And some people wonder why some of us aren't excited to see Tiger win.  Its not that we don't like Tiger or appreciate his tremendous talent, we just don't like the effect it has on all his hangers-on and ass kissers.

[John Handley]

Hold on a second here fellas....

I personally know Mr. Van Sickle and I can say for certainty, he is a hell of a writer and knows his stuff when it comes to golf.  Maybe his words we not the best choices in this instance or the whole piece should have been posted.  But I watched the tourney on tv and the greens did look a bit overdone.  And I do know that you can't see all the undulation on tv.  Now I don't think GVS was making any excuses for Tiger.  I didn't hear Tiger making excuses for Tiger.  And realistically, I did not think he'd win his first tourney after a 9-month layoff.  He's Tiger Woods not Superman (although sometimes they look alike). After all, anyone who watched could have clearly seen that Tiger was not sharp on Thursday and he ran into a good player in Tim Clark who made 6 birdies and 9 pars in 15 holes.  That will win matches most of the time against ANYONE!  GVS was on-site and I am sure talked to most of the players in the field.  There seemed to be a consensus that the pros did not particularly like the greens.  Now it is a whole other story if they are whiners and be that as it may, 99% of you here would kill to be able to play golf at their level.  So let's take a deep breath and do a little digging before we pile on GVS.  If you want some good golf coverage on a weekly basis, you should read Sports Illustrated's Golf Plus.  It is quite good not to mention they have some of the best writers covering golf.

[Joe Hancock]

So, I guess the lesson here is that only the winner of the tournament may be critical of the golf course. Otherwise, apparently, it's lack of talent, whining and sour grapes.

Joe

[JESII]

Yes...but clearly it's poor form for the winner to bitch...

[Garland Bayley]

Hold on a second here fellas....

I personally know Mr. Van Sickle and I can say for certainty, he is a hell of a writer and knows his stuff when it comes to golf.  Maybe his words we not the best choices in this instance or the whole piece should have been posted.  But I watched the tourney on tv and the greens did look a bit overdone.  ...

The piece was from the roundtable they do on the website at the end of the week. His full blurb on the topic was replicated here. His words were not the best choice, because they promote making everything vanilla like pampered pros want. However, as the Macan quote points out that is degrading golf and taking it away from its traditional nature.

He may have writing talent, but his thinking and golf history talent in this case was lacking. If you know him so well, ask him to issue a clarifiaction/retraction.

You know there is a putt-putt golf tour that he could cover if he wants to match this kind of writing appropriately to the game he is covering.

[jeffwarne]

It's funny - for all the talk about wild greens, goofy greens, etc, those blue putting lines - HANDS DOWN THE MOST ANNOYING ADDITION TO SPORTS BROADCASTING SINCE THE GLOWING PUCK - looked pretty darn straight.

Guess it's one of those things you gotta see in person.

George,
Those blue lines are hideous and distracting.
and most did look pretty straight.
What was the red circled X for?

Jeff,

The red x is the aiming point to start the putt.

Count me as one who hates the putting line.

 I assumed that but many made putts never sniffed the direction of the "aim point"-occasionally it was on the opposite side of the blue line.
I hate it-I'd be OK with it if they'd remove it before they hit the putt

You know what, that is a great idea....

I actually kind of like it, provided it is continued to be used as it is presently. That is, not on every putt.

One thing that the AimPoint did provide this past weekend was a look into the absence of brain matter or modesty that belongs to Paul Azinger. While corporate sponsorship of professional golf is dwindling, "Zinger" managed to insult Mutual of Omaha's sponsorship of AimPoint on a couple of different occasions. The first by calling it "That Mutual of Omaha aiming thing or whatever it's supposed to be" and secondly, "I think it jinks the player. I mean, whenever that thing is on, the player never makes a putt."

And the red "X" gave a pretty good indication as to how much the greens were breaking. On some mid-range putts of say 10-15 feet, the "X" was a good 2-3 feet outside the hole.

David,
 Regarding Azinger.
You forgot him mentioning how far away from the hotel(and anything else) the golf course was.