British Open/Course Setup

[Andy]

Not to diminish Ben Curtis or Paul Lawrie, or a few other interesting winners of major events, but does anyone think that when a golf course is taken so close to the edge as this one was, and certainly Carnoustie was, that that the element of luck plays a bigger part than it should?  To me, it looked like all skill was taken away from keeping a ball in the fairway, and the rough was so inconsistent, that it became pure luck as to who had a shot and who didn't.  It sort of reminded me of Carnoustie, when a shot 2 yards off the fairway was unplayable, but a wild shot 30 yard off line was bare and non-penalizing.  Any takers to this theory, or do we just have those who believe that luck is always a major part or major championships, and that the "unfair" discussions are always off-base.  I happen to believe courses can be set up unfairly, or too close to the edge, to handle weather changes, etc.  Pebble in the early 90's maybe beign an example of "over the top".  Thoughts?

[ForkaB]

Andy

I just recently posted a similar thought on another DG, to wit:

I have been a member for over 20 years at a links course of comparable stature to RSG, and if that course were ever set up as we saw Sandwich this week, the greenkeeper, secretary, match and handicap secretary and even the steward would have all been given their walking papers. We all know the mantra/truism that golf was never meant to be fair, but that is a far, far cry from believing that it should be completely random. If a great tournament such as (the) Open chooses a course and course set up that devalues the depth and/or breadth of skills required by the elite participants, it has failed in its duties to show all of us afficionados and/or hackers how great golf can be, and fully test the greatest golfers in the pursuit of that ideal.

[Philip Gawith]

luck is not a feature of links golf per se, but it is true that the severe contours on some of the fairways at royal st george's introduce a greater lottery element than on any other course on the Open roster. i walked round the course on saturday and what TV cannot convey is the sheer imagination that a course like this requires of competitors - something generally unmatched by more traditional lay-outs.

[Patrick_Mucci]

I see it a little differently.

Before teeing off on the final day, the leader board seemed to represent some of the finest golfers in the world.

I wonder, if Ben Curtis had been in the final group, and was leading the Open, if he could have held on.

I also wonder, if Bjorn had not been leading, if he would have faltered as he did.

Pressure, and the lack of pressure can have a dramatic impact on ones play.

The final standings of the top 10 looked pretty impressive to me.

Are Lee Trevino's and others to be denied their victories because they weren't well known at the time they won ?

Is Oak Hill not a good golf course, or was it set up poorly because Lee Trevino, a virtual unknown won the USOPEN there ?

[Nigel_Walton]

The participants in this tournament are of the highest quality. Some of them will be on the leaderboard even if we picked them at random. The problem many are identifying is that the element of randomness, which is always present in golf, was overly important in this particular event. We do not need to examine the leaderboard or the final score to come to this conclusion.

[Andy]

I am not saying anyone should be denied credit or given proper recognition for a great win.  It was exicting to watch, perhaps a bit like a train wreck, but exciting none the less.  I think the fact that good players were there shows the creativity they have, and the ability to adapt to a different style.  My main issue was simply that hitting the fairway became almost impossible, putting the player in the position of "how lucky" he was with his lie.  If the roughs were uniform, maybe that is just fine, but they were not.  Again, congrats to Ben Curtis, but I was talking more on the concept of course setup.  Finally, if Ben has Trevino's career and not Orville Moody's, your point is well taken.  

[Bob_Huntley]

As much as I enjoyed watching the tournament, I agree with Rich. I've played a fair amount of links golf and I feel that RSG was set up with little thought for equity. All and sundry are congratulating themselves on a wonderful tournament, my colleagues at the R.and A. in particular, but at times I thought we might well see a sign advertising 'Goofy Golf.'  

[Jamie_Duffner]

To continue on this Rich's point, would it have diminished the competition to add some width to the fariways?  RSG would still have shown what a wonderful links course it is, but more importantly, the strategic elements of the course would be more apparent.  With a little width, I think most could stomach the occasional straight drive getting a quirky bounce into the rough, rather than ALL straight drives finding the rough.  When a hole has 10% of the tee balls staying in the short grass, then something is wrong with the setup of the hole.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Jamie Duffner,

Which hole/s had only 10 % hitting the fairway ?

Was wind a factor ?

Was the fairway angled from the tee ?

Shouldn't the greatest players in the world be tested, commensurate with their abilities ?

[Philip Gawith]

a second thought on the Open. what was a bigger lottery than the set-up was the draw (not, admittedly, a point limited to this tournament). of the 17 players who finished +5 or better, only 2 teed off after 12.30 on the first day (when winds gusted at 25mph - nick price said windspeed greater than 20mph is when it ceases to be possible to control the ball - ernie els shot 78 and others did far worse). and of the 72 or so who made the cut, only 20 (roughly) teed off in the pm of thursday. apparently, accordingly to bernhard langer, at one previous Open (also at St Georges, i think) only 6 players from one side of the draw made the cut.

 in this case, interestingly, ben curtis was one of the two players who teed off late on the first day (the other was pierre fulke) which makes his victory especially meritorious as the conditions were brutal.

[Andy]

Patrick, I think I heard that three fairways, among them #1 and #18, were both less than 15% hit, and 4 others were less than 25%.  However, I am not 100% sure if this is accurate.

[Darren_Kilfara]

Some of the fairways at RSG are very severe. Questions to follow from that observation:

--Would they had seemed as severe if the course had had its fair share of rain over the past several weeks? If not, do you want to blame the R&A for the "course setup", or Mother Nature?

--Were the severest fairways uniformly severe, e.g. in a zone 200-350 yards from the tee? Or did some of them not get more and more severe as you went farther from the tee? (It seems to me that the latter might have been the case, in which case it was the pros' decision to hit drivers and three-woods and take their chances with bad bounces instead of laying up with long irons - even four-irons or five-irons, maybe - to leave themselves longer shots into the greens from the fairways. Isn't that a part of strategy?)

--Was the golf "completely random", or did good drives not find either the fairway or the short semi-rough at least 90% of the time? (I can't recall seeing a single good drive take a wicked bounce into a bunker or a thick patch of rough; signifcantly, I can't remember seeing a single bad drive ricochet back to the fairway or even the semi-rough.) The randomness involved that I saw had to do mostly with lies in the semi-rough and the wispy stuff just outside of it; most of those lies could be ascertained as flier or non-flier lies and played by the pros accordingly. If it was so tough judging distances out of the semi-rough, which itself barely deserves the appelation "rough" (I've played out of thicker fairway grass in my day), then why did I see a pretty normal-looking dispersal pattern of shots finishing long, short of and on the greens? (I also watched a lot of golf without ever hearing a player complain to his caddie immediately after a shot that he'd caught a flier when he wasn't expecting one, or vice versa.)

C'mon, guys...all I hear for 51 weeks of the year is that you need to bring the ground game into professional golf to keep it interesting, then we get an ideally set-up golf course for that, and now you're complaining? Methinks too many people have been brainwashed by American television commentators.

Cheers,
Darren

(PS - Nigel, your post beginning "The participants in this tournament are of the highest quality" is a model of clear thinking. The final leaderboard's composition should have nothing to do with this discussion.)

[Andy]

Darren, I think the American TV people are not upset at all with the course.  I think they enjoy accidents/disasters, so this was very much in line with that.  Again, the focus I was looking for in the post was simply did the element of luck play TOO much a part of this, as perhaps it did as Carnoustie, and did the R&A, or the local greenskeeping staff, push the envelope a bit.  

[Jamie_Duffner]

Pat - I think #1 and 17 to start with had less than 10% of the balls staying in the fairway.  Baker-Finch reminded us a few times (only person worth listening too).  How many drives landed in the center of the fairway or even on one side of the fariway only to roll off the other side of the fairway?  Several.  I don't think wind was the culprit.  Wind may push a drive off or into the intended line, it's after the ball lands and starts to roll that is the issue.  If you had a right to left hole and hit a nice draw running with the fairway, it lands on the left side of the fairway and rolls and rolls and rolls (this is a good thing, its called links golf), then takes a hard right turn and rolls into the rough where 80% of the tee balls end up, then I think you have a setup issue with that hole.

[Jamie_Duffner]

Darren on point #3 - the semi rough in those conditions makes it extremely difficult to control your ball.  Then you have a very random result where the ball is most likely going to roll through the green.  Again, if far too many good drives simply can't hold the fairway, then I think there is a setup problem.  There are things that can be done if mother nature doesn't cooperate.

[Dan Kelly]

I thought that the whole purpose of playing 72 holes was to distribute the elements of "randomness" (of course setup and weather) as evenly as possible through the field.

It looked to me as though the worse one hit one's ball, the worse one's lie got. I didn't see any balls that leaked off the fairways into unplayable lies. Did I miss something?

And at the end of the four days, it looked to me as though the guy who controlled his ball flight best and putted best won the Championship.

Big surprise that that guy was Ben Curtis -- but aren't such big surprises another of the pleasures of this game?

[Darren_Kilfara]

I thought that the whole purpose of playing 72 holes was to distribute the elements of "randomness" (of course setup and weather) as evenly as possible through the field.

It looked to me as though the worse one hit one's ball, the worse one's lie got. I didn't see any balls that leaked off the fairways into unplayable lies. Did I miss something?

And at the end of the four days, it looked to me as though the guy who controlled his ball flight best and putted best won the Championship.

Big surprise that that guy was Ben Curtis -- but aren't such big surprises another of the pleasures of this game?

Very well said, Mr. Kelly.

[ForkaB]

Dan

You (and Darren) are almost right, but this forum ain't Horseshoes Club Atlas........

Jamie D gets it.  If you have greens that are designed (and set up) so that only a great or lucky shot gets close, taking away the upside possibility of the great shot, i.e. a crisp iron off tight links turf--by consigning most drives, no matter how good or bad, into the semi or worse--you have failed in your duty.  As Hillare Belloc once said:  "The first duty of a wine is to be red.  The second is that it be a Burgundy."  Likewise, the first duty of a golf course is to be a links.  The second is that it be set up to excite, rather than stifle, the imagination."

[Bob_Huntley]

Rich.

Wonderful stuff. Are you angling to become an English don at St. Andrews U?

[peter_p]

How much did having three extra practice days on the course help Ben Curtis? He arrived on a Thursday, experienced a southwest wind, and had a caddy who apparently knew the course, from nearby Maidstone. If you know you are going to have extreme conditions on a course that is know for its undulations how much preparation should you do?
   It's been five years since I played RSG and my recollection
is that its rough and lies was no more spotty than other links courses - multiple native grasses of varied consistency. The fairways were narrow, and yes balls ended up in the short rough, but it was manageable for the most part.  

[George Pazin]

Rich -

If luck were the primary component, how do you explain the strength of the leaderboard, with the singular exception of Curtis?

Curtis
Bjorn
Singh
Woods
Love
Perry

If Els hadn't gotten unlucky with the wind on Thursday, he probably would've been there, too. You even saw guys who were hot going in come through (Jacobsen), as well as guys who are tacticians like Faldo doing better than his recent results would likely indicate.

I thought it was one of the more entertaining majors in recent years, markedly better than any Masters or US Open since 99.

I didn't see nearly the luck or "hack it out & hope" that was on display at Carnoustie or most US Opens.

As Dan Kelly said, not that many shots that trickled off ended up in horrible lies - a few jumpers, certainly, but that's about it.

Aren't you generally one of the ones who disdains the use of the expression "get it"?

Or do I not "get it" when it comes to your logic?  

[Dan Kelly]

... taking away the upside possibility of the great shot, i.e. a crisp iron off tight links turf--by consigning most drives, no matter how good or bad, into the semi or worse--you have failed in your duty.

No matter how good or bad?

Isn't that what the Scots call "blether"?

It was certainly POSSIBLE to hit most of the fairways.

Curtis hit 32 of 56. Nick Price: 35 of 56. Faldo: 33 of 56. Gary Evans: 33 of 56.

If any of the big-power boys Woods, Love and Singh (23, 23 and 22, respectively) had cared to throttle it back enough to get up into the low-30s in fairways, we might well have had a different victor, eh?

[Steve_L.]

We have spent much of the morning in our office discussing how great the tournament was and how much fun it was seeing the players competing against the golf course and elements.

The US Open has delivered Andy North, and Lee Janzen (twice each) and Steve Jones, with neither being a dominant player (although Janzen has been a consistantly nice player).  More power to a Paul Lawrie, Ben Curtis, or Jean Van de Velde (oops) with the British Open.  Not much to do with course set up.  

Fact is, if not for a penalty stroke brain fart Thursday - Bjorn wins.  If Woods doesn't lose his ball on #1 Thursday - Tiger wins.  If Els plays a marginal first round, he's in contention.  

Great leaderboard, great tournament, great venue.

[ForkaB]

Danny Boy!

Give me me trusty 8-iron and I could hit 32 out of the 56 fairways at RSG last week.  Big deal.  My point is that by forcing the majority of the field a majority of the time into the semi (or worse, or even the fairway 50-80 yards back), the set up took away the possibility for the boys out there to strut their stuff and show that it is in fact possible to hit a short-medium iron stiff on a proper links green, if you have the balls and the skill.  It's fun watching the odd flyer, but not much fun watching a constant diet of flyers.  Maybe it's different for you--if so, different strokes for different folks!

George

Rather than wallowing in disdain, I am in fact one of the most venerable and consistent proponents of "getting it."  You don't--at least on this thread.

Bob

I would of course take up that position at St. Andrews, if nominated.  Do they require perfcet spellling?

[Andy]

I am not saying the USGA or others(PGA) don't produce similar "odd" champions.  As a matter of fact, generally, I think the R&A have done the best job of preparing the courses.  However, I happen to think Carnoustie and St. Georges are two examples of where they did things they didn't used to do, that is, take a course to close to the edge when weather conditions/wind/rain are so volatile.  That was the premise of my point, again, not to belittle Ben Curtis, the tournament, or anthing else.  I just think that the R&A has proven at Carnoustie and here that they are human and screw up occasionally.