Is Whistling Straits too easy?

[Sven Nilsen]

Discuss.

[Andrew Simpson]

I see it as fair but the elite professionals playing at the top of the leaderboard this week are making it look easy, just like every course on tour in decent weather. Not so easy for the guys who never made the cut never mind mere mortals like us!

[Dean Stokes]

It is for the best of the best. I would suspect a decent 10 hcp would struggle to break 90 however. Two completely different games!

[cary lichtenstein]

I played it a number of times...very fair, generous fairways, a pleasure to play but for the higher handicaps, probably tough

[Joe Hancock]

The golfers are doing a fine job of using their talent to identify the best player. Why would the course have to be or do anything else to contribute?

[RJ_Daley]

My belief is no, it is not too easy for a major to be played upon at Major course distances.  These guys are just that good on a well conditioned near perfect maintenance meld course.  It is not too soft, nor too firm from what I could see both Fri and Sat on site.  Not that many ball marks made on greens.  Ball running down fairways a fair amount.  With the slopes and speed slots like 11 that takes about 290 to clear the aggressive line up the right and narrowing FWs to as little as 13 yards in the bombers 300-320 distance, this is not an easy course.  Put the kind of wind we have had most of the tournament and if is a very tough course.  Put the penal steep slopes, punishing lies and angles that await a slightly miss-hit shot, and I can't imagine how anyone can say it is easy. 

The talent out there on this leaderboard is stunning.  I am not a good player.  But, I totally believe this is not an easy course in designor normally what we would think is some concept of resistance to scoring. 

And, many say it wasn't that tough, when played at the distance designed for YOU and I.  That means, around 6400-6500 yards if you are really good, around a 0-7 handi, ~ 6200 if 7-12, and ~6000 over 12 handi,  IMHO.   But. as theother thread says,  you still may have at least one or more X on your card if there is any wind, or raw conditions.

[Adam Clayman]

Watching it, it reminds of the old demands of the stadium course at PGA West. Playing as soft as it is for this tournament, they sure made it look easy.

[RJ_Daley]

Adam, I really didn't feel like it was all that soft, even with the deluge on FRI. 

Good on ya Mate.... here is to Jason Day.  He only "made it look easy".

[Keith OHalloran]

Interesting that two consecutive threads on the first page  are "Is WS too easy?" and "Why the hell would I play it"!

[J_ Crisham]

Interesting that two consecutive threads on the first page  are "Is WS too easy?" and "Why the hell would I play it"!

Pat Mucci would do just fine  at WS- he hits the ball pretty far and has no glaring weakness that I saw when I played with him- in fact he flirted with shooting his age which was par at that time.

[Sven Nilsen]

Seems that the consensus is that it isn't too tough for the pros (lowest 72 hole score in a major and 16 guys at -10 or better), but is plenty hard for the average player (so much so that even the Great Mucci doesn't want to go there). 


If the course's dual purpose is to be a resort option for the vacationing golfer while presenting a championship test every few years, does it come close to fulfilling those purposes?

[RJ_Daley]

Let's not forget that there have been many design changes since WS was designed and first built to continue to meet the challenges of the on-slought B&I technology, and the ever more well conditioned and trained professional golf athlete. 

In 96-98 the distances were nearly impossible to reach to those speed slot slopes such as 11th tee ball, or6th. 8th and 13th.  And, they reverted acres of deep FW approaches to 8 and 13 as the used to sweep into the green from far deeper to offer a bounding shot to the green from far off the right side line of play.  Also, with an even more scary back mini-golf size green on 12, and several reworks of 18 LZ and approaches.  It may have been too easy in first iterations.  But, I don't know what kind of freak show can be constructed to hold these guys back and still even think about hosting public players as a resort.   

[Terry Lavin]

It's a good golf course that rewards good shots while punishing mistakes. Us chops make a lot of mistakes so it might be a tad too hard for the 15 plus hcp crowd. But for the pro tour it's a great venue in just about every way.

[Brent Carlson]

They simply need to make two par 5s par 4s and everything will be in line.  The winner would have been 12 under.

[Ben Sims]

Conceptually, Whistling Straits is everything I dislike about over-the-top architecture. It's pretty tame for the floggers and drop dead brutal for golfers.

[Ronald Montesano]

It's not too easy. It's perfect for a major championship. It offers opportunity to make 8 or 7 or 6, as it does with 1, 2 and 3. Those par fours that you saw driven by Watson? If you had put every contestant on the tee and said "hit that shot," they would have missed far more than made the green.


Jason Day gave us the type of transcendent performance that stands the test of time. I hope that it is remembered as such.

[Daniel Jones]

We made a father-son trip to WS two summers ago. My brother and I, 8 and 6 handicaps respectively, shot 92 and 87. Our dad...a solid 12 on a good day...came home in 106 and was a walking zombie when it was all said and done. What Ben said seems about right... It can be easy for some (at times) and drop dead brutal for others.

[Mark Pavy]

Conceptually, Whistling Straits is everything I dislike about over-the-top architecture. It's pretty tame for the floggers and drop dead brutal for golfers.

Perhaps you'd care to elaborate on the difference between a "flogger" and a "golfer"?

[RJ_Daley]

We made a father-son trip to WS two summers ago. My brother and I, 8 and 6 handicaps respectively, shot 92 and 87. Our dad...a solid 12 on a good day...came home in 106 and was a walking zombie when it was all said and done. What Ben said seems about right... It can be easy for some (at times) and drop dead brutal for others.

Dan, what distance did you play the course, and what distance did your Dad play?  Also, do you think the walk was more taxing on your Dad's performance?  If you go astray, those mounds and slopes can get quite tiring.  Even if you walk right up the sprinkler line, and add in green to tee walks in some areas, can be tiring.

[MCirba]

I had the great pleasure of playing WS about 15 or so years ago with RJ Daley and for either of us to imagine that day that someone would ever decimate the course in the way Jason and others did this week we never would have believed it.

Frankly, the combined display of technology and athleticism has led to bifurcation in the game that never existed in the hundreds of years the game has been played prior.

Now, unless conditions are such in terms of wind and rain and such, it is impossible for a modern architect to design a course that is both challenging for the world's top players while remaining fun and playable for the rest of us.

It saddens me to come to that realization.

[jeffwarne]

Conceptually, Whistling Straits is everything I dislike about over-the-top architecture. It's pretty tame for the floggers and drop dead brutal for golfers.

+1

Thats what sux about the concept of "fair"

[Bill Seitz]

its not that hard if you hit the ball straight. It's really hard if you hit it crooked.  I can play the 11th hole 70 yards further up than these guys, and with a good drive, I can hit a hybrid over that big bunker. Day hit driver-wedge yesterday.

[Tim Gavrich]

Pretty much every Tour course with huge greens gets eaten up by the pros, no matter what. Whistling Straits is perhaps the best example of that phenomenon. Even if they hit some poor tee shots and draw some iffy lies, the best golfers in the world can generally get the ball within 18-25 yards of the hole in regulation, at worst, especially when there's nary a tree on site to stymie them. And since most every major championship hole location is close to one edge of the green or another, shots like that end up on the green or fringe at WS. Piece of cake for those guys, by and large.

Or if they just have to pitch out to leave a wedge between them and an up-and-down par, they can be more aggressive on enormous greens. When the Ryder Cup comes to the course in 2020, I think we'll see, more than usual, halved holes where one player is in the fairway off the tee and makes a routine two-putt par while the other misses, lays up to 75-120 yards and fashions a one-putt par.

More than the distance the modern golf ball travels, it's abundantly clear that the better the players, the more they must be tested closer to the hole if you want a higher winning score. Barring crazy weather or a setup that is more like old-school US Open setups, Whistling Straits will pretty much always bend to the will of the field.

[Paul Gray]

Good job that wasn't the winnign score at TOC. Peter Dawson would be putting his retirement on hold to 'improve' it. 
 
But seriously, save for the course being too soft, and I'm not going to blame anyone but Mother Nature for that, it was a fine test of golf. So the best players in the world, playing at their best, can shoot 67 a few times. So what?

[Ronald Montesano]

Remember these two things about golf course architecture bending to a great player. These are extraordinarily fit human beings, more fit than golfers have ever been. Hunter Mahan wasn't in the mix and he looked great swinging the club, as an example. They also have the ability to hit the ball on the center of the clubface 95 times out of 100, and those 5 misses are slight ones.


Whistling Straits has many ridges on its putting surfaces. These fellows were able to bump the ball over them, fly and spin the ball over them, putt the ball over them. They have more shots than you and I even know exist. If the equipment hadn't evolved the way it did, something else would have and we would complain about that.


For goodness' sake, Matt Jones hit a shot out of a tent pin high. Said the only thing he didn't have was the proper line. Awe-evoking players.