Second Masters Question: Where Does The Year Go From Here?
When you have a Masters like 2015’s, the rest of the year is all downhill from here. Right?
After all, how do you top that leaderboard, winner, ratings, viewing experience and such overall positive impression for the professional game?
Here are three reasons I’m not giving up on the rest of the year potentially superseding what we’ve seen to date. The next few months should be fascinating.
—No gray May. With the WGC Match Play’s one-off move to May and sporting a new and improved format, we have a fun two-week run featuring future PGA Championship venue Harding Park and a Players Championship with so many top players either on their game or experiencing a renaissance. And then May gets better. The European Tour’s flagship event, the BMW Championship, always entertains in late May. But this year it’s followed by the Irish Open brought to us by Rory and Dubai Duty Free at…Royal County Down. It’s not often you get a top 10 in the world course seldom seen by most of the planet and the field could even be better than the previous week’s BMW.
—Chambers Bay Could Be Brilliant Or A Fiasco. I can’t recall a venue that so few players know—except Jordan Spieth and caddie Michael Greller—with so many questions about how the place function. Will it be a masterful, daily puzzle of course setup twists, shotmaking and stunning vistas? Or six-hour rounds, cranky players, goofy shots and a fluke winner? Will players skip the Memorial or St. Jude to get in extra practice rounds? Throw in the Fox Sports debut (though potentially not on AT&T U-Verse), and the intrigue level figures to be high on many levels.
—Gullane And The Old Course. July only gets more interesting with the one-two punch of Gullane No. 1.5 and The Old Course hosting The Open Championship. As thrilling as it is to see the game return to the course that started it all—and remain relevant with help from the neighboring courses—the debut of Gullane on the world stage will introduce many to another course instrumental in early Scottish golf. Two weeks of tournaments starting in golf-friendly towns and returning to backdrops of virtual movie sets could manage to top the Masters.
And what do you think?
Tuesday, April 14, 2015 at 11:10 PM 77 Comments | in 2015 Masters, 2015 Open Champ., 2015 PGA Tour, 2015 US Open 
Reader Comments (77)
Add cranky media members to the list. I heard that the USGA has actually told writers to limit their time on the golf course. WUWT? ( I know, many don't step on the golf course anyway)
Headed to Scotland for some golf and both the Scottish Open at Gullane (playing the week following) and the Open in St. Andrews (which has come a ritual when it is in St. Andrews). It will be an exciting time for East Lothian and Kingdom of Fife. Can't wait to get there!
ditto Chambers - we'll see on how the pros do on it
Tiger, bring your Ping Chip-O.
(For the record, I've always found that watching a television broadcast of the British Open at St. Andrews is a dull and lifeless use of my time. Flat and without any definition, the only interest is in who's on the leaderboard since the golf course (which I'm sure is great in person) simply doesn't lend itself to lively and visually interesting television.
Agreed re the British Open at St. Andrews. Was it Snead who said it reminded him of a goat track? Yes, home of golf, etc....It's still boring and plays too short for today's pros if the elements aren't a factor.
I missed that course on my last trip through East Lothian. Must be their composite layout.
RCD has the best front nine on planet Earth.
If all of the great designers of the last 100 years came together to design a course, I seriously doubt if one would suggest hitting a tee shot over a building.
This is not to take anything away from playing the course or actually attending the Open- it is just bad TV.
Of course being a Yank, I enjoy playing them when it's calm and the grass is greenish.
Same with the Open.
How were the greens at Chambers when you played? Every time, I've been there (6 in total from when it first opened) they've been total crap. Also, number 4 has never been fully in play when I've gone up there over the years.
Abu Dhabi - I'm playing RCD and Royal Dornoch next week. Haven't played Dornoch, can't wait..
However, my interest in the Open at Chambers Bay is what I'm really focusing on. There are so many good reasons to have the open here as the site is simply beautiful; romantically beautiful. Hopefully FOX will be able to capture it from above, looking down on the course with the Pugent Sound in the backdrop as the sun sets. the best place to be at that time is on the small patio of the restaurant where they managed to design about the least attractive clubhouse since Carnoustie, but like it, it just fits the place perfectly! (With he exception to no windows inside the restaurant, bar area that give you that unbelievable view!)
As far as the course. I've told this to the course's designer, Jay Blasi, that there are going to be problems with the 8th hole. Its character doesn't belong with the other really great holes on the course. This has everything to do with fairway and landing areas on the side of a hill. Of course, I had a lot of the same thoughts about Torrey Pines as US Open site, and it worked out to be one of the best US Opens of all time. (On what is about the least interesting golf course design ever)
As far as "designing" a hole that plays over a hut, no one designed that. It evolved over a few hundred years.
I happen to think that modern golf courses are over-designed, and in fact, way over the top. The best players still manage to come to the top at the historic courses in Scotland. I happen to appreciate courses such as St Andrews and Carnoustie where the only water that comes into play is a creek meandering through a couple holes. I have not played Gullane, so that will also be a treat.
Back to May, my brother played Royal County Down and thought it was just as good as any he has played, which includes ANGC and Pine Valley. I'll take his word on that!
Like golf equipment, the Masters course is today so player friendly that its killing the game - it has become so Americanised that it holds little of the challenges or goals that once was the reason for the game to be exported to America in the first place.
How many here think that The Masters course required a roll back like the golf ball? Is it not just too over engineered, too over watered and manicured that the Fairways resemble the Greens of old. Offer billiard board surfaces and players will find it hard not to succeed, perhaps that's it, its to make the golfers look good in the eyes of the public who I believe will hardly ever get the opportunity of playing this course.
As for TOC, its now verging on being redundant thanks of course to the lack of understanding within the Halls of The R&A. Modern equipment now outperforms the course unless the weather and wind sets in to help.
Then 'The Open' is not St Andrews, its more Prestwick and its not played there anymore, but if The R&A remove St Andrews from the list, perhaps they may find themselves removed from Scotland - looking forward to seeing the outcome of that one.
The Open wherever it is THE CHAMPIONSHIP to win - its way more than the first of its kind - its about real golf, Links Golf - it is the Tournament that actually defines the game of golf and presents the winner as 'The Champion Golfer of The World For A Year'.
Should the 2015 Open at St Andrews fail to entertain I wonder if The Harpies of Greek mythology will descend into the R&A Halls and feast upon the divine brains of our governing body - I fear the Harpies may go hungry.
Indeed "Where does the year go from here"?
As for Tommy's critique of the 18th I'm not sure what he's getting at. It can be played as a par 4 or a par 5 and the USGA has vowed to offer both. There's a diabolically deep bunker in the middle of the fairway about 3800 yards out so if you see someone disappear into an 11 foot hole you'll know that Mike Davis is giggling someplace; he insisted on it to the consternation of designer Robert T. Jones, Jr. I'm wondering about the weather as well. It's never really rainy here but in June you can get clouds and some drizzle or it could be bright, sunny and 72 all four days. It's s going to be like golf on the moon, you just watch!
Thanks - I was going to ask Steve's question early this morning but the site didn't let me post. I've played it several times and always have wondered about the greens. Nice to see that they are in better shape than the times I've played it.
I think Tommy's post was about the 8th hole, not the 18th; IIRC, a par 5 along the hill before you come down on the 9th hole. Last time I played it I did get the pleasure of hitting out of the bunker in the middle of 18. Not fun.
Its overcooked, its over friendly, but its a beautiful park, but not for golf - its been Americanised. That's not an insult, that just the truth, its moved away from golf courses as a challenge to the golfer.
Its not my mind that's closed far from it I am trying to get modern players to play golf and leave their toys behind - my mind is totally open.
Back to Chambers Bay. The late sunset of Washington state in June, coupled with the fact it is on the West coast means primetime golf for much of the country. Coupled with the spectacular views of Puget Sound and a compelling and somewhat mysterious course, Fox has a chance to have quite the US Open broadcast. We may get a surprise winner, but isn't this the unique charm to the US Open? The USGA under Mike Davis has expanded and diversified the repertoire of its golf courses; distinguishing it from the Masters (obviously), the British which insists on going back to the same courses (and same course-type) in a set rotation year after year, and even the PGA which with the exception of Kiawah tends to go conservative on the type and set up of the courses it plays.
Take your minimalist fanaticism and sit on it. There's a time and place for both, but if you really can't appreciate what AGNC brings to the table then you're living in a fantasy land.
Where is St. Copious?
Didn't you have any friends around to talk you out of it?