At 225 yards, is the seventeenth at Pebble horrible - or merely bad?

[Mike McGuire]

around 7  hit the green today..

i go with horrible

[archie_struthers]

 


Raymond would have had a seven wood  in his  bag this week!    lol lol

[John Moore II]

Raymond would have had a seven wood his bag this week!    lol lol

Probably would have looked like a genius when he actually held the green.

I'll just say it again, there would have been nothing wrong with that hole had they made the greens just a fraction softer. What is the percentage for greens in regulation on 17 for the Pro-Am? Somewhere in between that number and 7 is probably a good number. Those greens just got too hard and it really showed on 7, 14 and 17.

[Jeff_Lewis]

The greens got too hard?  No. 

Greens should be firm like these Pebble greens were.  If they can't accept any shots (like 17) then it is the green design, NOT the maintenance that is at fault.

The problem on 17 is a green that is diminished in size from its original form and also just at too strange of an angle for that distance. Even if they are 5 irons instead of 1 irons (or shut down 4 irons - Johnny Miller).

[Garland Bayley]

The maintenance is at fault! They do not have to shave the grass to pool table height. The greens can be hard without being as fast as your garage floor.

[Matt_Ward]

Playing the far left pin position on #17 from tip tees (218 yards) -- akin to landing a 747 on the deck of an aircraft carrier -- not possible.

I guess the best strategy is to hit the bunkers and go from there. No doubt the people playing the hole needed more club than what they were hitting.

The green design needs to be altered on the left so a well-played shot can hit and stay somewhere near the target.

End of story ...

[Brent Hutto]

Bait not taken.

It is neither horrible or bad. It is a brutally hard hole, one that as the 71st hole in a major presents a major problem for anyone who absolutely must make three in order to win the Championship. As someone mentioned, with the Sunday pin and playing at 175 yards it would be a fairly simple matter of good execution to assure a par (unless the wind were especially fierce). As the 71st hole in a major I do prefer the "horrible" setup they actually used.

[George Pazin]

Clever little short par 4.

Wasn't the green once quite a bit larger? Seems like a simple reclaiming of green would suffice.

[Matt_Ward]

Brent:

Love the cop out -- "brutally hard hole" -- WITH NO REAL WAY to play it -- save for hitting the sand and going from there. Geeze, I really never got into gotcha golf.  Play the hole from 180 yards max to a tight left placement then you have a 50/50 shot.

[Brent Hutto]

Brent:

Love the cop out -- "brutally hard hole" -- WITH NO REAL WAY to play it -- save for hitting the sand and going from there. Geeze, I really never got into gotcha golf.  Play the hole from 180 yards max to a tight left placement then you have a 50/50 shot.

So is 50/50 chance of par the hardest hole allowed near the end of a US Open?

[Jeff_Lewis]

BTW, wasn't the play a little "Billy Casper" Just play for short of the front and chip up the green to the pin?

[JR Potts]

When there is 0% chance that one can make a birdie on a hole without holing it out from a bunker or ankle deep rough, I say that's a crap set-up...and even more so when it's the second to last hole of a major.

I think hole set-ups like this made the 2010 US Open one of the most boring in history.

[Brent Hutto]

How about if there were a Par 5 for the 71st hole of an Open and there were zero chance of an eagle without holing out from off the green. Is that crap too?

[JR Potts]

How about if there were a Par 5 for the 71st hole of an Open and there were zero chance of an eagle without holing out from off the green. Is that crap too?

Ugh, Brett, no.  I'm talking about the ability to hit a perfect shot on the green in regulation.  That's really all I'm looking for.  I haven't set the bar too high have I?

[Adam Clayman]

Playing the far left pin position on #17 from tip tees (218 yards) -- akin to landing a 747 on the deck of an aircraft carrier -- not possible.


End of story ...

Matt, You would be right except for the fact that you're wrong.

How were some players able to pull off the shot if it were not possible?

[JR Potts]

Adam:

I haven't read this whole thread but how many guys actually hit the green on Sunday?  5? 6? 7?

How many did so without landing it in the rough and getting a fortutious bounce?  2?

That's just not right to me.  Others may love it....I don't.

[Matt_Ward]

Adam:

Knock yourself out -- how many guys did hit the green in the last 10 groups or for that matter the last round? Please enlighten me.

I have a few clown mouths and bowling pins -- I'll forward them to PB for the next go round.

Brent:

With all due respect -- If there is no real way to play a hole then why set-up it so no one can succeed ?

The idea is to provide a way for the well-played shot to be rewarded. Played from 218 yards to a tight left placement with little or no green to use is not golf -- it's the expanded version of mini-golf -- save for the clown's mouth and the bowling pins.

Play the hole to THAT pin location from 180 yards and then you have a game where success is attainable.

When perfect doesn't work Brent -- what do you do?

Jeff:

WF/W 3rd hole is far different than the set-up of PB's 17th. Night and day difference.


Ryan:

Could not agree more.

[Brent Hutto]

I do not equate "birdie" with "succeed". I view the reason for each hole as being to provide a range of scoring outcomes among the best players in the world under pressure. So a hole where "success" is a 3 and "failure" is a 5 or worse seems perfectly valid to me. It sounds like this particular hole produced a lot of 4's, somewhat less 3's and plenty of 5's. Once again, that sounds a lot like some of the easier reachable Par 5's than a "Par 3" but so what?

[George Pazin]

Last stat I recall was 7 of 79, and I think that was when Ernie and Phil were on the tee. No one in the last 3 groups hit the green, IIRC.

Actually, several hit, no one held...

[Matt_Ward]

Brent:

"Scoring outcomes." With all due respect -- What lawyer-like jibberish is that ?

There was no way to make a birdie -- save for the fluke bunker or chip shot that goes in. Even making a par was borderline.

Brent -- do yourself a favor -- back pedal a bit more. The set-up for Sunday was laughable. It was poke and hope -- more emphasis on the poke part.

[JR Potts]

I watch golf for enjoyment.  

I don't enjoy watching guys have to play to the exact same spot with the exact same shot (50 feet away from a pin) on a 92 yard par 3 because there is no other place to play it.   I don't enjoy watching guys stand on a tee with almost no chance of hitting the green on 218 yard par 3s.  I don't.  

I don't like watching wars of attrition on TV.  If I did, I would just walk around my local course on any given day....after all, when 100 percent of those crappy golfers have the same chance of hitting a green in regulation as the best 70 players in the world, I'd be essentially watching the same thing....but with a lot less commercials.

I think the golfing public (absent 50 people on this site) feel the exact same way.

[Brent Hutto]

Brent -- do yourself a favor -- back pedal a bit more. The set-up for Sunday was laughable. It was poke and hope -- more emphasis on the poke part.

I won't back pedal at all. I'll submit that any player in the final ten groups could have given himself a 99% chance of a 4 or better on the seventeenth on Sunday. Not by poke and hope but by executing totally doable shots one after another to leave some kind of reasonable putt for a 3.

I'll accept there was no practical way to birdie that hole on Sunday. But that's no more an indictment of the setup than saying there was no reasonable hope of eagle on some Par 5 or another. The golfer is not allowed to look at the card on the first tee and say "Hmmm, I can make a 2 with a good shot on #17 as it's a Par 3". That's ridiculous. The measure of a hole in a major championship is not how many 2's or 3's it produces in the final round...

[JR Potts]

I'll accept there was no practical way to birdie that hole on Sunday. But that's no more an indictment of the setup than saying there was no reasonable hope of eagle on some Par 5 or another.

That analogy is not even close to being relevant.  I think all golf fans want (and I think I made this clear above) is an ability to hit it on the green in regulation.

Nobody is asking for eagles....or even birdies.   Just an occassional birdie putt.

[Terry Lavin]

Just consider this statement:  The US Open winner came from behind and won despite posting a three-over par 74 with only one birdie.  If that's a "new" USGA approach to the Open, I'm not seeing it!  Seems like more of the same to me.

[Brent Hutto]

I think all golf fans want (and I think I made this clear above) is an ability to hit it on the green in regulation.

OK, if that's your definition of the purpose of the hole then it's horrible, terrible and must be utterly cryit doune. I just don't agree that "Green in Regulation" has a damned thing to do with anything.