If I were a better ball striker, I would have won the PGA

[Joe Zucker]

2. There is a misunderstanding about the 3 wood vs. driver decision for today's Tour pros.  They ONLY hit 3 wood when they don't want to hit the ball TOO FAR; their 3 woods are NOT necessarily straighter than their drivers. (Please don't tell me about Stenson; the exception proves the rule.)  That wasn't true in the good old days in which we all grew up, but drivers today are different creatures and are often the straightest club in the bag for elite pros.
 

Correct. The driver has by far the biggest head and the biggest sweet spot, so it's the easier club to hit when you are swinging at 100%.

Adam Scott (or maybe Geoff Ogilvy?) knows this is true.  I think I have heard him say that he hits driver when ever he is nervous because it's the easiest club to hit.  If he is nervous on the first tee, he goes with driver (if possible) to give the biggest margin of error.

Pros hit the 3 wood when they want to shape the ball.  That's really the major reason because the drivers are so straight.

[Jon Wiggett]

I watched maybe 1 hour of the USPGA before I lost all interest. The course was awful from the point of creating interesting golf. What idiot thought that firm greens combined with soft surrounds was going to make for a good golfing spectacle? The players were faced with the fact that it was difficult to stop a medium to long approach on the green but no chance of running it either. Result being just blast it off the tee to leave yourself with a shorter approach. I have always been an advocate of the USPGA being a major but if this is the best they can do then maybe it should be reconsidered.


Jon

[George Pazin]

anUnfortunately, the game at the pro level has changed. There are so many guys that can win that pretty much everyone is "forced" to go for it, in almost every instance. The only real exception is on the last few holes, down the stretch, where the leaders might be able to be more cautious in how they play.


Case in point, something like Jason Day's seemingly insane decision late Saturday:


My guess is, he was thinking, if I just chip out, I will probably bogey, with a decent chance of a double, and a smaller chance of a par. I think he probably thought a bogey would leave him a rather large task on Sunday, and a double would probably put him out of the mix, so he simply decided to go for it, and go for the crazy slim chance that he puts the ball somewhere he can get up and down for par. Couple that with the fact that his confidence in his ability to get up and down from anywhere, and you end up someone playing the hole similarly to how I'd play it...


The pro game seems to be 150 guys just going all Tin Cup, all the time, in hopes of being the one guy who can string together enough Tin Cup positive moments to pull off the win.


The rest of the sports world isn't that much different, imho (the NBA is 3 point mania, the NFL is pass crazy, etc, etc). There are too many talented athletes with the chance of a one time lottery win to make it otherwise. Phil said it 15 years ago, paraphrasing - I'm sorry, Mr. Nicklaus, but those days of hanging around to win it in the last few holes are gone, and will never return. Hindsight is always accurate on which decision ends up being the "bad" one, but it isn't every remotely accurate on whether it's the "wrong" one. Brent Hutto is probably the only one of us who could explain the difference, if he still posted. (Maybe he stills does, I don't know, I don't nearly as much myself anymore.)

[Garland Bayley]

I could swear I've seen Mr Nicklaus say numerous times that he rarely swung at over 90%.  (And true enough, 90% for him was more than 100 for a lot of his contemporaries.)  but how many guys today are dialed back that much?

And Hogan seldom hit it 100%. He was one of if not the longest on tour as measured by long drive contests, but seldom out drove his opponents in a round, because he used course management to an extreme compared to his contemporaries. Why didn't his opponents use as much course management? Because they could not control the results of their shots as much.

By contrast Snead was a bomb and gouger. His philosophy was the shorter club he had for the approach, the better chance he had to score.

[Garland Bayley]

...
Many players swung hard in that era-Jack, Arnie,Player and Hogan(as well as many others) all swung hard ...

Certainly Hogan's biography disagrees with this. Also, published reports of his driving distances when playing a round against opponents show him often well back of those opponents. This in spite of him winning long drive contests against his contemporaries when they were held.

[A.G._Crockett]

I watched maybe 1 hour of the USPGA before I lost all interest. The course was awful from the point of creating interesting golf. What idiot thought that firm greens combined with soft surrounds was going to make for a good golfing spectacle? The players were faced with the fact that it was difficult to stop a medium to long approach on the green but no chance of running it either. Result being just blast it off the tee to leave yourself with a shorter approach. I have always been an advocate of the USPGA being a major but if this is the best they can do then maybe it should be reconsidered.


Jon

Jon,
The "soft surrounds" were a product of three things, all of which are fairly specific to and commonplace in the southeastern US this time of year (see "Climate Types: Humid Subtropical"):

1. LOTS of heavy afternoon thunderstorms in which an inch or two of rain might fall in 30 minutes or so.  This will sometimes go on for a couple of weeks at a time, and we've been in exactly that pattern in NC for the last week, and still are.

2. Soil that simply doesn't drain at the rate that sandbelt courses do.  (The exception to this, of course, was the greens at Quail Hollow because of the subair system.)

3. Bermuda grass fairways and collars that just don't run very fast this time of year; there's just no way to do it.

I know it always dismays people here that they don't see "firm and fast" on a course like Quail Hollow, but it just isn't possible this time of year, UNLESS we are in drought conditions, which we aren't.

As to the greens, I'll say it again: I don't find playing Champion Bermuda greens that are that firm and that fast to be much fun, simply because the grain of the grass becomes too critical and variable for run outs any length approach shot; there is zero commonality between that and what you can do on bent grass or fescue greens.  It's really hard to describe how easy it is for the ball to get away from you on that surface IF it's fast.

I have no idea how much golf Faldo has played on that sort of green, but I absolutely 100% guarantee you that it isn't nearly as much as Patrick Reed has played; Reed has lived his whole life in the southeast.  I don't know if Reed's chip was into the grain or down-grain, or what the slope was behind the pin, but I can promise you that IF the shot, especially the last part around the pin, was down-grain and the green falls off in the back (which Fazio loves to do) the 8 iron that Faldo was advocating could have been a MUCH worse shot.  That Reed didn't play a GOOD shot doesn't mean that he played the WRONG shot.

I usually feel like the PGA is characterized by good course setups, simply because the guys doing the setup are in the business as professionals.  To whatever extent the setup at Quail Hollow was wrong, I really think it's more about Mother Nature and the time of year than anything else.

[Terry Lavin]

I found this championship to be pretty unwatchable.  I wasn't all that fond of the re-torturing of the course either.  Having said that, Justin Thomas is a great young talent and I'm sure we'll be seeing him hoist some more trophies in the future.

[Garland Bayley]

...
Clubface control has always been what matters.
...

What is your experience with scoring with the wound ball vs. the modern ball? How did the difference appear to you? Do you feel you swing harder with the modern ball than you did with the wound ball? Did the wound ball respond differently to changes in clubface control vs. the modern ball?

[Garland Bayley]

Players today for the most part don't know how to manage a golf course like the older players did.  They hit it as far as humanly possible and go hit it again.  As was once said, "They play a game to which I am not familiar!"

The ball spins less than it used to off of the driver or off of a poorly controlled clubface. The ball spins less off of a mid to long iron than it used to. The ball spins as much off of a short iron or wedge. Hasn't the ball taken course management out of the game, and the players are just conforming to the equipment they are given?

[George Pazin]

That Reed didn't play a GOOD shot doesn't mean that he played the WRONG shot.

Wish I had simply posted this sentence... nicely done, AG.

[JESII]

Shot link has some pretty cool data but I've never seen them break out driving accuracy with the various clubs the guys use. I wonder about that statement that feels like its become fact...

[Jim Nugent]

I watched a fair amount of the last two rounds and loved it.  Thought the course worked great as tour course.  Approach shots kept bouncing off those very firm greens.  Players kept misreading micro-breaks (and macro).  Lots of decisions to make, on many holes, where the right choice/execution easily led to birdie or eagle, but the wrong choice/execution brought double or worse into play.  The lead/leaders constantly shifted, as some went on birdie runs and others collapsed (more than one player did that in the same round). 

I doubt the players manage their games as poorly as Ran thinks.  Tim Gavrich and George Pazin give good counter-examples of that. 

I also felt the greens sometimes operated along Doakian principles, where hitting them was often only half the battle or less. 

[Peter Pallotta]

JES - you're right to question this 'fact'. (Personally I chalk it up to the golf ball - long with no spin off the driver, but stops on a dime with a short iron.) But fact or fiction, I wonder how much it matters. Stats seem to suggest that for almost 20 years now you can lead the money list and win tournaments and contend in majors hitting about 60% of fairways off the tee - even using golf balls designed not to curve.
To my eyes, the best driver I've ever actually watched play was Greg Norman. His problem was never driving it in the fairway - even with balata and wood; it was those pesky irons that he flared out to the right when he tensed up and his arms couldn't keep pace with his hip turn.

[A.G._Crockett]

I watched a fair amount of the last two rounds and loved it.  Thought the course worked great as tour course.  Approach shots kept bouncing off those very firm greens.  Players kept misreading micro-breaks (and macro).  Lots of decisions to make, on many holes, where the right choice/execution easily led to birdie or eagle, but the wrong choice/execution brought double or worse into play.  The lead/leaders constantly shifted, as some went on birdie runs and others collapsed (more than one player did that in the same round). 

I doubt the players manage their games as poorly as Ran thinks.  Tim Gavrich and George Pazin give good counter-examples of that. 

I also felt the greens sometimes operated along Doakian principles, where hitting them was often only half the battle or less.

Jim,
I don't think it was a matter of "misreading" putts, at least in the usual sense of the term.  It's more a matter of guesstimating what the grain is going to do to the ball when the putt slows down.  On Champion Bermuda at those speeds, slope trumps grain until the putt slows down, and then some crazy and sort of unpredictable stuff happens.

When you can't hit a putt firmly because of the speed of the greens, and yet the grain does unpredictable, almost random, stuff to a slow moving ball, it can look like a bad putt or a misread, but not really be either of those.  I don't want to be an apologist for Tour pros, but I spend a lot of time on that type of green, and it's a different sort of putting entirely.

Again, I don't find it to be very much fun, and I'm not playing for the mortgage!

[Sean_A]

Case in point, something like Jason Day's seemingly insane decision late Saturday:

I heard this decison described perfectly...his head fell off.

Ciao

[Matthew Petersen]

anUnfortunately, the game at the pro level has changed. There are so many guys that can win that pretty much everyone is "forced" to go for it, in almost every instance. The only real exception is on the last few holes, down the stretch, where the leaders might be able to be more cautious in how they play.


Case in point, something like Jason Day's seemingly insane decision late Saturday:


My guess is, he was thinking, if I just chip out, I will probably bogey, with a decent chance of a double, and a smaller chance of a par. I think he probably thought a bogey would leave him a rather large task on Sunday, and a double would probably put him out of the mix, so he simply decided to go for it, and go for the crazy slim chance that he puts the ball somewhere he can get up and down for par. Couple that with the fact that his confidence in his ability to get up and down from anywhere, and you end up someone playing the hole similarly to how I'd play it...


The pro game seems to be 150 guys just going all Tin Cup, all the time, in hopes of being the one guy who can string together enough Tin Cup positive moments to pull off the win.


The rest of the sports world isn't that much different, imho (the NBA is 3 point mania, the NFL is pass crazy, etc, etc). There are too many talented athletes with the chance of a one time lottery win to make it otherwise. Phil said it 15 years ago, paraphrasing - I'm sorry, Mr. Nicklaus, but those days of hanging around to win it in the last few holes are gone, and will never return. Hindsight is always accurate on which decision ends up being the "bad" one, but it isn't every remotely accurate on whether it's the "wrong" one. Brent Hutto is probably the only one of us who could explain the difference, if he still posted. (Maybe he stills does, I don't know, I don't nearly as much myself anymore.)

I agree overall. I think this is maybe partly a symptom of how much money is in golf these days, but as you point out it's true in all sports so there's clearly something of it throughout society. It's win or nothing. There's little pride in a top 5 finish, or a solid season with a playoff appearance. Heck, you see a lot of guys get killed in social media for the "backdoor top 10" as if it's a bad thing to still be out there grinding and shooting a good morning if your Sunday tee time is an early one.

[Garland Bayley]

Unfortunately, the game at the pro level has changed. There are so many guys that can win that pretty much everyone is "forced" to go for it, in almost every instance....

As you know, I disagree. Players are not "forced" to go for it, they are enabled by modern equipment to go for it.

It seems to me that with older equipment, going for it was more likely to lead to poverty than prosperity.

[Jeff Fortson]

Just as how the golf swing has evolved from Trackman and measuring devices, so has course management and score metrics.  There are some studies and people out there crunching crazy amounts of data and developing systems of play around that data.  Check out Scott Fawcett and his DECADE platform for example.  There are many pros and top level ams using his system.  And for the most part, the metrics mete out in favor the bomb and gouge philosophy.  It's a very interesting subject in golf right now.  I think most golfers would be shocked to know what the data is really saying.

[Jon Wiggett]

AG,


the difference in firmness between the green and the rest is a maintenance issue not weather as you seem to push. Regardless of this however it led to probably the most boring spectacle golf has ever witnessed.


Jon

[A.G._Crockett]

anUnfortunately, the game at the pro level has changed. There are so many guys that can win that pretty much everyone is "forced" to go for it, in almost every instance. The only real exception is on the last few holes, down the stretch, where the leaders might be able to be more cautious in how they play.


Case in point, something like Jason Day's seemingly insane decision late Saturday:


My guess is, he was thinking, if I just chip out, I will probably bogey, with a decent chance of a double, and a smaller chance of a par. I think he probably thought a bogey would leave him a rather large task on Sunday, and a double would probably put him out of the mix, so he simply decided to go for it, and go for the crazy slim chance that he puts the ball somewhere he can get up and down for par. Couple that with the fact that his confidence in his ability to get up and down from anywhere, and you end up someone playing the hole similarly to how I'd play it...


The pro game seems to be 150 guys just going all Tin Cup, all the time, in hopes of being the one guy who can string together enough Tin Cup positive moments to pull off the win.


The rest of the sports world isn't that much different, imho (the NBA is 3 point mania, the NFL is pass crazy, etc, etc). There are too many talented athletes with the chance of a one time lottery win to make it otherwise. Phil said it 15 years ago, paraphrasing - I'm sorry, Mr. Nicklaus, but those days of hanging around to win it in the last few holes are gone, and will never return. Hindsight is always accurate on which decision ends up being the "bad" one, but it isn't every remotely accurate on whether it's the "wrong" one. Brent Hutto is probably the only one of us who could explain the difference, if he still posted. (Maybe he stills does, I don't know, I don't nearly as much myself anymore.)

I agree overall. I think this is maybe partly a symptom of how much money is in golf these days, but as you point out it's true in all sports so there's clearly something of it throughout society. It's win or nothing. There's little pride in a top 5 finish, or a solid season with a playoff appearance. Heck, you see a lot of guys get killed in social media for the "backdoor top 10" as if it's a bad thing to still be out there grinding and shooting a good morning if your Sunday tee time is an early one.

Remember that when you are watching on TV, you are ONLY seeing the guys who are in contention to win; the calculus for them is very different than for the rest of the field.  In that regard, they make decisions that are unlike what the rest of the field is doing.  The rank and file guys know where they stand on the money list, what a bogey vs. a par means, and so on.  They play Thursday and Friday with their first goal being to make cuts, and they play the weekend to protect their income.  Accordingly, they don't take some of the chances that you see the leaders, who actually have a chance to WIN, take.

As to "win or nothing", I don't think the players necessarily think that way; I think the media tends to, and so does public perception.  The players themselves have a pretty clear understanding of how difficult it is to win on Tour, much less a major, and the fact that they are professional golfers who have to make a check to keep their card. 

Don't mistake guys like Speith, McIlroy, and Day for the rest of the field; they are doing different things, and making different decisions.

[George Pazin]

Unfortunately, the game at the pro level has changed. There are so many guys that can win that pretty much everyone is "forced" to go for it, in almost every instance....

As you know, I disagree. Players are not "forced" to go for it, they are enabled by modern equipment to go for it.

It seems to me that with older equipment, going for it was more likely to lead to poverty than prosperity.

One man's forced is another's enabled. I don't care much why, I care about what is chosen. Seems both groups choose to maximize their own returns, it's just the one choice leads to conservative play, the other aggressive. In neither case do I blame those who are making the choice.


-----


Another nice post, AG, particularly the concluding sentence.

[A.G._Crockett]

AG,


the difference in firmness between the green and the rest is a maintenance issue not weather as you seem to push. Regardless of this however it led to probably the most boring spectacle golf has ever witnessed.


Jon

Jon,
Those greens have a subair system; the maintenance staff can make them virtually any speed and firmness they want, within reason.  For all intents and purposes, the greens are on a different planet than the rest of the golf course.

It rained in Charlotte five of the 7 days of the tournament week, for a total of nearly two inches of rain just last week!  I'm sure you remember there being a weather delay due to storms on Friday, which is why they played in threesomes in the third round, and there was nearly a half inch of rain early Sunday morning.  Quail Hollow isn't in the Sandhills, and it just doesn't drain particularly quickly.  That there was a large difference between the fairways and the greens isn't surprising; without the subair system, the greens would have been entirely different, I assure you.

(In fact, I played in a Carolinas Golf Association tournament at Tobacco Road, which IS in the Sandhills, on Wednesday; we were given relief from washed out areas in the waste areas that are all around the course, and I'd estimate that we had a half dozen or more casual water drops within my group during the round.  It rained a LOT in NC last week...)

I'm certain that the PGA and the staff would have liked for the course to be firmer and play faster; that often just isn't possible in this part of the world this time of the year.

[Garland Bayley]

...
I'm certain that the PGA and the staff would have liked for the course to be firmer and play faster; that often just isn't possible in this part of the world this time of the year.

When they move the tournament to May would it be possible? Or, is this course just a bad selection for a major championship?

[A.G._Crockett]

...
I'm certain that the PGA and the staff would have liked for the course to be firmer and play faster; that often just isn't possible in this part of the world this time of the year.

When they move the tournament to May would it be possible? Or, is this course just a bad selection for a major championship?

That's a great question.  The average rainfall amounts in the spring aren't very different than July and August, but the rains tend to be slower and more soaking rains than the torrential downpours we get from summer thunderstorms.  So maybe??  Certainly we see Augusta in early April all over the spectrum from year to year.

But for the most part, bermuda grass courses on clay soils just don't play firm and fast under AVERAGE weather conditions, at least compared to what we see in sand belt or coastal areas.  So if firm and fast is a box that MUST be checked for a major championship, then Quail Hollow, or any other course with similar climate and soil situations is going to be a problem.

You could make the case, though, that the course performed admirably in identifying the best player.  Thomas has had as good or better of a season as anybody in the world; three wins coming into the PGA, T22 at The Masters, T9 US Open.  And the other guys in contention weren't surprises, really; Matsuyama came in as the #3 player in the world, and so on.  I don't think I'd have much interest in playing Quail Hollow as a member four times a week, but as a site for a major, it didn't do badly, EXCEPT in some aesthetics that matter a LOT more to us on GCA.com than to the rest of the world.

[jeffwarne]

Exactly.  Jack has said repeatedly that he never went all out and rarely pressed for distance.  Today's pros are all swinging at much closer to their max speeds, especially with their irons.  They are just all around better athletes and have not had to win much with guile or finesse, especially around the greens.

Looking at videos of Jack in his younger days-he absolutely lashed at it-complete with a recoil.Pretty athletic looking.
he might call that 90% and he may well have had an extra gear (he used to say when he was REALLY going to crush it he went even slower-to be sure really coiled fully)
amazing footwork


One thing's for sure-Jack definitely did not go after his irons-his listed yardage for his 4 iron was 185(granted it was about the loft of today's 5.5 iron)


As far as Jack hitting a one iron, today's 3 iron is the same length and loft so that I'm confident today's players could hit them also.(many of these guys hit blades anyway-though generally not in their 3 irons)


Jack's balls were terrible and he regularly used to break inserts in his twenties.