Aren't We Over This?
Oakmont is really, really hard! The ladies are going to suffer.
Oh joy?
Reading a few stories, starting with Ron Sirak's preview, it's clear the setup at Oakmont is absurd and barring a last minute rough mowing, green slowing and liberal use of alternating (forward) tees, will once again prove very little except that they make their courses tough in Pennsylvania. Yippee.
Sirak writes:
The betting on the winning score has ranged as high as 14 over par, with one caddie who was part of an Open win saying he likes eight over.
Davis was hard at work well before this week. A new tee was built on No. 2 so its can play at 325-yards and at 265 yards, a tempting try-to-drive-me distance. A new tee was also built on No. 17 so it can play as a 260-yard par 4. Remember how cool it was in 2007 when both Woods and Furyk came to 17 needing a birdie to catch Cabrera, tried to drive the green and made bogeys?
The par-3 eighth hole, which played at more than 280 yards for the men in 2007, will be anywhere from 225 to 252 this week. No. 16 will play as long as 209 yards and as short as 134 yards. The par-5 12th hole will play at 602 yards, the longest hole in the history of women's golf.
Even if the rough is not knee high, it is lush and thick. And the greens, well, it's Oakmont. They are steeply contoured and frighteningly fast. The winner this week likely will be the person who hits fairways and chips and putts the best. That bodes well for Cristie Kerr, who is also the hottest player on the LPGA right now, or accurate drivers like Jiyai Shin, Paula Creamer and Morgan Pressel.
After the 2007 U.S. Open, several players noted how silly the bunkers had become and the thrill and skill of the sideways recovery figures to await players this week. Sean Martin notes that nothing has changed:
“Three times I tried to get it out of the bunker, and I was not hitting it that thin,” she said. “I said, ‘You know what? Being a hero is not going to win this U.S. Open.’ ”
And this from Michelle Wie:
The sloping greens and thick rough usually are the focus when discussing Oakmont’s difficulty. The fairway bunkers can’t be overlooked. “A lot of the bunkers, if you’re in them, you’re going sideways,” Wie said. “You’re not going forward.”
Tuesday, July 6, 2010 at 08:25 PM
Reader Comments (25)
Guess Golf Digest doesn't have a fact checker or Sirak is clueless or both. Tiger parred 17 (along with 16 and 18) during the 4th round at Oakmont in 2007. Had he made bogey on 17 as Sirak misstates he would have been 2 behind going to 18 and needing eagle and not birdie to tie. Perhaps he doen't know how to use Google.
That said the USGA can let Oakmont get out of hand this week quite easily. However I would think (hope) that Mike Davis will set the course up as fair as possible. My biggest concern is the speed of the greens. If they are that hard and fast (14+ on the stimp) there are very few women that can spin the ball enough to hold shots on greens that firm. Wouldn't be surprised to see near 5-6 hour rounds.
As to the distance factor... If the course is dry and playing firm and fast as stated doesn't the distance of any hole become less of an issue and control of the golf ball and course strategy come into play more? After all isn't that want many here want when playing?
Theoretically, the length should play into Michelle Wie's favor, right? I hope she's on form.
There is a serious hang-up with par!
Get over par already
Par doesn't matter.
Oakmont will play to a projected course rating of 80.8 strokes with a slope of 147.
For comparison, a Golf Digest project recently estimated the ratings during the Masters at Augusta National to be 76.2 and 148. So, in other words, Oakmont's got everything but hot coals.
Typical greens at a regular LPGA event, which are rarely overly punitive, run at around 10 or 11 feet on the Stimpmeter. By Tuesday, the greens are Oakmont were nearing a linoleum-like 14, or about 25 percent faster than the norm, and players were accidentally putting balls off the greens.
I remember the first time I stepped on the practice putting green at Oakmont. It was about 4:30 in the afternoon. I aimed for a hole about 30 feet away, and putted my first of 3 balls. It missed my intended target comfortably, but narrowly missed another hole about 80 feet away. I sheepishly looked around to make sure no one on the veranda noticed what I had done. I realized that they did not know my intentions, and then proceeded to hit the other two putts to the hole about 80 feet away. Moral of the story, that is Oakmont, if you don't like it, pack up your stuff and leave. If you are going to play well, you embrace it!!! Purely a personal choice
I'm not sure I'd agree. I think there's a fairly strong correlation between how the leaders are shooting versus par and how 'exciting' the tourney/finish is.
cmoore,
Nothing the matter with a sideways bunker shot from time to time.
But I struggle with an overall course concept like this one ascribed to Oakmont's architect:
'A poor shot should be a shot irrevocably lost'.
NBC blithely quoted this throughout the 07 Mens Open. Like it was a good thing. Seems like some punitive manifesto to me.
I played well, had a lot of fun, great memories. Made lots of birdies, and even more bogeys :)
Re the spin thing mentioned earlier, do greens have to be hard in order to be fast?
Also, 14 on the stimpmeter seems unduly fast, particularly for severely sloped greens, or does the wind not blow at Oakmont?
Soft fast greens are a disaster.
Soft = footprints
Footprints = bumpy
Bumpy fast greens = disaster
Also, soft fast greens spin WAY too much
Still, 14 on the stimpmeter two days before the bleedin' tournament starts smacks of carelessness to me.
I would certainly agree with the sentiment that it doesn't matter what the scoreline is so long as it's an exciting event.
Sorry, I can't keep a straight face...
The women made a favorable impression on me, and I didn't have the highest opinion of their abilities going into the week. Paula is a worthy champion.
Why doesn't anybody ever call out writers when they make glaring mistakes.