Wednesday
Jul302008
"I don't know why we keep going back there."
From SI's anonymous PGA Tour pro on returning to Oakland Hills for next week's PGA:
I know this much about Oakland Hills. It's brutal, and it's pretty high up there in the course rankings [18th by Golf Magazine], but I don't know any players who say, "God, I love Oakland Hills." It's a ballbuster.
The greens are over the top. They're straight from Putt-Putt, minus the swinging logs and clowns' mouths. Plus, you're hitting three-irons into most of them. I have no idea why Oakland Hills is rated so high. What's the mystique? Because Ben Hogan won the U.S. Open there a million years ago and bragged that he finally tamed the Monster? That's prehistoric. The last Open there, in 1996, was uneventful. On the 72nd hole Davis Love III three-putted and Tom Lehman hooked his drive into a fairway bunker to allow Steve Jones, a qualifier who scrambled his tail off, to win. I don't know why we keep going back there.Considering the state of the U.S. auto industry and the likelihood of tepid corporate sales, I'm guess the PGA is wondering the same thing.
Wednesday, July 30, 2008 at 06:49 AM
Reader Comments (21)
It's the TV ratings that get the asterisk, not the game. And I, for one, don't think golf="NBC's ratings". I'm real sorry the casual fans don't tune in for majors without Tiger, because he's the only player they know. Whose fault is that, exactly?
Somebody posted above; some very good things have been done at OHCC, including a lot of tree removal.
At the same time, I think some remarkably bad things have been done. 15 is probably the best example to me. They could not move the tee back any farther, since it is up against a boundary fence already, and so to combat current driver lengths, they added a second bunker in the fairway. It is hard to imagine how anyone is supposed to play the hole now, other than that it is just harder. It would be sort of like taking the old Mackenzie center-fairway bunker on Number 10 at Augusta, and adding two more of them, closer to the tee, in the landing area, just to say, "Hah! Now try to make par!"
The fairways at OHCC have been severely tightened. It looks like a US Open course, with the old flanking fairway bunkers now lost out somwehere in the rough (except for those that were surgically pulled in, probably in response to observations like the ones that Geoff has been making for years).
The grass has done so well at Oakland this summer, that I am convinced that they are in "Oakmont country;" they will have to deliberately make a decision to not make them as fast as they could easily be, even for a club Invitational, because they would be unplayable.
Maybe this is the only classic course about which he'd make statements like this...maybe he IS a traditionalist, maybe most tour pros are. But at least from this statement, you'd wonder how many tour pros would be marching on the lawn at Far Hills, asking for an equipment rollback, to preserve the "classic courses."
The wild undulations on the greens are the one feature that remains true to the original Ross design. They are the part of the golf course that is the most fun. Of course, they weren't meant for 13-foot Stimpmeter rolls.
I think all the pros would find Oakland Hills would be more fun with golf balls that didn't go so far, with much wider fairways and much more reasonable rough.
Would it be better with its original bunkering scheme and width? Absolutely.
And any asterisk talk is little pussy girlie men pros masquerading as men. I guess we'll see another Euro take the PGA.
Rees' father did most of the tinkering when Rees was still a little boy.
Maybe they are due, but who? Harrington wins 2 straight majors? I doubt it.
4p
We can agree to disagree, but the bunkering pattern now is strongly Rees, not RTJ, Sr. sadly, I've played enough Rees-torations to know. :-((((
RTJ had always pinched whilst Rees tends to flank which is what is there now - bunkers left and right 220 -330 off the tee on virtually all the play holes (not #12 because there's a bit of a forest right and Rees thought bunkers would be redundant methinks). All that notwithstanding, the greens were so good neither had a clue what to do with them (thankfully) and OHS is fully restorable.
A good example is what RTJ Sr. did to Aronimink in suburban Philly, every fairway was pinched in with bunkers left and right about 280 out. They were removed and a sympathetic bunkering pattern accommodating modern lengths was put in by Pritchard. It now, considering hosting El Tigre's tournament is contemplating only two longer tees - and that's it, because the greens are good and they were not changed (as with OHS). OHS has better greens all-round, but the Sr PGA was played at only 6400-6500 due to rains and no one tore it up at all (The proffered length was 6900 but they never sniffed it. Currently A-mink is 7250 par 70 from the backs and another 150 may be added.
One needs not mindlessly bunker. Rees just exchanged his model for his Dadd-io's....
Cheers
I couldn't agree more. The syntax is riddled with 'journalese'. It just doesn't read legit.
(Proves I'm not a tour pro) since Hogan is a God.