TOC/The Open - par-4’s

[Thomas Dai]

Be interesting to know how many times the par-4’s at TOC were driven today (either onto or immediately adjacent to or over the green) and on days 2, 3 and 4 as well.
Are such stats likely to be available and if so where?
Atb

[Anders Rytter]

Can be counted with shot tracker

[David_Tepper]

I would be surprised if data on how many par-4's are driven over the course of the tournament will be available. That is not an especially relevant stat.

However I do expect that data showing the scoring on each hole will be available. It will show how many eagles, birdies, pars, bogies, doubles were made on each hole.

The R&A did this for the British Senior Am at Dornoch last week.

https://www.golfbox.dk/livescoring/tour/default.asp?language=2057#/competition/3269794/coursestats 

[Kalen Braley]

9, 12, and 18 were all being regularly driven (or in just off the green) as I've watched today....

[Dónal Ó Ceallaigh]

This info is available by viewing each player's scorecard on the Open's leaderboard:

https://www.theopen.com/leaderboard


I was interested in knowing this info as well. The 9th, 12th and 18th were all driven today.

I don't think the 10th was reachable today, due to the wind.

DeChambeau drove to the edge of the 7th green; not sure if any other players attempted to go for it.

Can't say for certain, but Schauffele's drive at the 17th may have been the longest today at 405 yards. Rory hit a couple of drives over 380 yards today.

[Jeff Schley]

Wind/weather will be the only defense to these drives. It wasn't even windy today, what 15 mph perhaps?
18 is now about the same as 18 at North Berwick now with just about everyone giving it a crack. I saw quite a few with IRONS off the tee and they made it.

[Kalen Braley]

They claimed Tigers drive on 14 went 412 yards.  It ended up in the first cut at the very end of the fairway and looked like it ran about 150 yards on the ground
.
 

[James Reader]

There were several drives no more than 20 yards short of the 16th green today.  The strategic challenge of the Principal’s Nose isn’t what it used to be!

[Ally Mcintosh]

I think it’s great that drives are going so far. It shows how firm the conditions are. I can hit 350 yard drives in those kind of conditions and I ain’t no big hitter.


It has nothing to do with further development of ball, bat or physical attributes since 2015 or 2010 or probably even 2005.

[jeffwarne]

I'm not sure how I feel about it.
It's interesting golf for sure, so I need to reflect on what I saw today.
Interesting watch 18 being driven with irons today, yet many hit irons off 1 at the same time of day.
Not your daddy's old course for sure, but as I said, it was intereresting.
Haven't seen any of the TV coverage so my evidence is liited to what I saw personally on the course.


What a well run event though.
Sheer perfection for fans.
Sooo many grandstands, so many cool ways to to take the event in.
1/2 price tix for those under age 26.
Easily surpasses Augusta(the gold standard)-starting with not having a mile plus walk into the course a la Augusta(a fairly new thing at ANGC) and ending with the multiple on course screens, cool bars, restaurants etc.
Longest cue I saw was four people-anywhere-and there were many more people there than an major I've been to.

[Peter Pallotta]

What's wonderful is that, at the Old Course when it's so hard and running that players are driving several Par 4 greens, the whole rest of the course, including those greens, are also hard and running too! Which means that, with its deep/severe and 'randomly' placed  bunkers, i) the course retains its challenge and interest throughout, regardless of changing equipment/technology, and ii) is clearly the most strategic golf course on the planet -- with Morikawa saying about the 12th hole that there are 15 different ways to play it, and all of them could be wrong on any given day; and Scheffler noting that on some holes the best place to aim/be off the tee was in the rough, as that posed less risk than hitting and trying to control your ball in the fairway. It's been such a pleasure not only watching the 'championship ' but simply watching golf-as-it-is-played-at-St Andrew's. It's remarkable to think that Old Tom and his early followers *knew* all this about the game -- and about the art and craft of building golf courses -- lo so many decades ago.

[Tom_Doak]

 Scheffler noting that on some holes the best place to aim/be off the tee was in the rough, as that posed less risk than hitting and trying to control your ball in the fairway.

I wonder if anyone at the R & A might think hard enough about this to realize that growing more rough out there is not having the effect they intended.

[Peter Pallotta]

Scheffler noting that on some holes the best place to aim/be off the tee was in the rough, as that posed less risk than hitting and trying to control your ball in the fairway.

I wonder if anyone at the R & A might think hard enough about this to realize that growing more rough out there is not having the effect they intended.

Well, I clearly didn't think it through hard enough -- but those R & A types have gotta be better and deeper thinkers than me on this!

[Cal Carlisle]

Could you imagine a six hour round, though?

[Sean_A]

 Scheffler noting that on some holes the best place to aim/be off the tee was in the rough, as that posed less risk than hitting and trying to control your ball in the fairway.

I wonder if anyone at the R & A might think hard enough about this to realize that growing more rough out there is not having the effect they intended.

Unfortunately, I suspect the powers that be were thinking shots wouldn't be so easily played from rough.

Ciao

[Thomas Dai]

6 hr rounds should not be allowed to be the norm or the future.
Not exactly an advertisement for growing - or even sustaining - the game. Quite the opposite I suggest.
Atb

[Ally Mcintosh]

Unfortunately it is raining this morning. It might take the fire out and stop a few par-4’s being driven…. But it will lower scores considerably (well as long as it actually stops raining to allow clean contact)

[Adrian_Stiff]

St Andrews is so condensed and with double greens, walk back tees, driveable par 4s, strategic options that can mean using other fairways it means lots of waiting. At any time other than first out for the first nine there could be someone delaying your go.


The choice is don't play the open there or a 6 hour round? 


Cast your votes!

[Dónal Ó Ceallaigh]

As Adrian wrote, it's so compact. By moving tees as far back as they can, they now have to play over or close to the previous green. Add in the shared fairways and greens, it's no surprise it's taking so long. But now they are driving more par 4s, so players are standing about on the 9th, 10th, 12th and 18th tees waiting for the players ahead to step aside for 5 minutes. This is not confined to the drivable holes. With longers drives allround, you inevitably end up with increased delays at each tee, since you need to wait for the players ahead to play their approach shots.

[Tom_Doak]

As Adrian wrote, it's so compact. By moving tees as far back as they can, they now have to play over or close to the previous green. Add in the shared fairways and greens, it's no surprise it's taking so long. But now they are driving more par 4s, so players are standing about on the 9th, 10th, 12th and 18th tees waiting for the players ahead to step aside for 5 minutes. This is not confined to the drivable holes.

Ben Crenshaw had to wait for John Daly to tee off on all those same holes when they played together the first two rounds in 1995.  Once Ben lost the tee to Daly, he couldn't play at his normal pace on the tee shots, he had to wait for Big John.  Threw him off completely, and he had been playing so well in the run-up to that event.

[Thomas Dai]

An observation. Seems like many players are hitting Driver on the 16th on both Day 1 and Day 2, two days with very different hole locations. Not seen this much if ever before on the 16th with traditionally a lot of respect being given not only to the central bunkers but also to the out-of-bounds on the right hand side. Not sure the newish rough to the left is being considered a factor either.
And the players don’t seem to be bouncing or rolling the ball through the narrow gap between the central bunkers and the OOB, their flying it over the central bunkers into the wider area beyond and doing so by seemingly quite a wide margin too so the ground conditions cannot be blamed for the distance outcome, nor the wind, which changed for a while during Day 2’s afternoon yet players were still choosing the fly-it-over route.
Something to do with balls and equipment and player physique perhaps?
Atb

[Kalen Braley]

Nothing surprising here, given the R&A's persistence with looking to ineffective half measures and continuing to ignore the actual solution.

[Ally Mcintosh]

An observation. Seems like many players are hitting Driver on the 16th on both Day 1 and Day 2, two days with very different hole locations. Not seen this much if ever before on the 16th with traditionally a lot of respect being given not only to the central bunkers but also to the out-of-bounds on the right hand side. Not sure the newish rough to the left is being considered a factor either.
And the players don’t seem to be bouncing or rolling the ball through the narrow gap between the central bunkers and the OOB, their flying it over the central bunkers into the wider area beyond and doing so by seemingly quite a wide margin too so the ground conditions cannot be blamed for the distance outcome, nor the wind, which changed for a while during Day 2’s afternoon yet players were still choosing the fly-it-over route.
Something to do with balls and equipment and player physique perhaps?
Atb

Average driving distance across the major tours has flatlined since the early 2000’s, increasing only about 5 yards. Not sure if there are other nuances but the headline figures indicate things haven’t changed that much since the Pro-V1.

[Sean_A]

An observation. Seems like many players are hitting Driver on the 16th on both Day 1 and Day 2, two days with very different hole locations. Not seen this much if ever before on the 16th with traditionally a lot of respect being given not only to the central bunkers but also to the out-of-bounds on the right hand side. Not sure the newish rough to the left is being considered a factor either.
And the players don’t seem to be bouncing or rolling the ball through the narrow gap between the central bunkers and the OOB, their flying it over the central bunkers into the wider area beyond and doing so by seemingly quite a wide margin too so the ground conditions cannot be blamed for the distance outcome, nor the wind, which changed for a while during Day 2’s afternoon yet players were still choosing the fly-it-over route.
Something to do with balls and equipment and player physique perhaps?
Atb

Average driving distance across the major tours has flatlined since the early 2000’s, increasing only about 5 yards. Not sure if there are other nuances but the headline figures indicate things haven’t changed that much since the Pro-V1.

Really? I think a ton more guys carry the ball 300+ and 325+ compared to 15-20 years ago. It's a huge change from a few guys who could do that. 300 and 325+ happens so often it's become meaningless. I remember Daly being the first guy to reach a 600 yard hole with driver - iron. Rory did this week with driver - wedge.

Ciao

[Ally Mcintosh]

I’m just going by the USGA driving distance report commissioned in 2019, Sean… maybe 5-8 yard increase in average since 2002.


Also, the average distance of the longest driver has stayed about the same in the last 20 years (at around 315 to 322 yards).