OT - Talk About Going Low

[David_Tepper]

The Alister MacKenzie Invitational was played at the Meadow Club on Monday & Tuesday. The individual winner was Zubair Ferdaus of San Jose State. Over 3 rounds he shot 23 under par, with rounds of 66-63-61. Yipes!

p.s. The Meadow Club is par-71. It is not a long course. If you changed the three par-5's to par-4's and said par was 68, the young man was still 14-under over 3 rounds. Still very impressive.   

[Matt_Cohn]

I was thinking of posting about this on here with a provocative title like “Is Mackenzie Obsolete?” or something like that just to get eyeballs. 


I’ve heard from several players and coaches that it was not set up very hard. Hole locations and green speeds/firmness were modest. This is probably a combination of needing to get through a 36 hole first day and the extended heat wave we’ve been having.


I did an unscientific poll on my Instagram and the results were:


49% it’s fine, they shoot what they shoot
18% we need a rollback option at least
6% needs course changes and new tees
28% great club, just don’t play tournaments there.


Part of the “controversy,” if I can use that word, is that the club has done significant tree removal over the last 10 years that has made the course better but also easier.


Here are the scores: https://results.golfstat.com/public/leaderboards/gsnav.cfm?pg=player&tid=29229

[David_Tepper]

Matt -

 Do you have any idea how many practice rounds the teams had on the course? I recall some of the greens at the Meadow Club have a fair amount of slope and are not easy to read. It is hard to imagine someone showing up, playing one or two practice rounds and then shooting those scores. And I am guessing they played 3 rounds over no more than 40 hours total.

DT 

[Daryl David]

I love the Meadow Club. This news does not have any effect on that. Still love it!

[Matt_Cohn]

Matt -

 Do you have any idea how many practice rounds the teams had on the course? I recall some of the greens at the Meadow Club have a fair amount of slope and are not easy to read. It is hard to imagine someone showing up, playing one or two practice rounds and then shooting those scores. And I am guessing they played 3 rounds over no more than 40 hours total.

DT

One practice round but many have played the tournament before. Given Strackaline reading books and their overall skill, it’s not hard for them to read putts there, especially with the greens at a modest pace around 10.

[David_Tepper]

Truly a game with which I am not familiar.

[Ben Stephens]

Adam Uttley went round the front nine in 29 (6 under gross) at Elie with me against Doug Wright and Tony Muldoon.


Adam was certainly 'in the zone' everything went right and very rarely you get a birdie and yet still lose the hole (Sorry Tony!)


It can happen once a year or even more