"[The rough] is five inches long. Why brush it back at us?"

Paul Mahoney reports on Lee Westwood's scathing post round criticism of the Oakland Hills course setup. On site sources say the rough had been trimmed but it also seems the raking we spotted last week was taken to a new extreme. At least according to Westwood.

"The course is 7,500 yards long, the greens are firm, and the pins are tucked away," Westwood said of Oakland Hills (official yardage: 7,395). "They are sucking the fun out of the major championships when you set it up like that. The fairways are narrow, and unfortunately if you miss the semi [rough] by a foot you are worse off than if you miss by 20 yards. I asked my partners [Geoff Ogilvy and Zach Johnson] if I was out of order, and they said 'No, if you are slightly off-line, you are crucified.' It is too thick around the greens as well. It takes the skill away from chipping."

Comparing Thursday's conditions to the practice rounds, Westwood wondered if the PGA had dispatched an army of workers overnight to "brush back" the rough, changing its direction so that the blades point toward the tees, instead of toward the greens.

"I can't think of a reason why they would do it other than to irritate the players," said Westwood, whose round included five bogeys, one double-bogey, and no birdies. "[The rough] is five inches long. Why brush it back at us? It makes no sense. People want to see birdies, and they have not seen me make any. I can't see anything wrong with being 9- or 10-under-par for the week."

Part of me wonders if the setup is really that extreme, or perhaps the players have become so enamored with Mike Davis's layered rough cuts that the old style setup looks that much more ridiculous? Maybe...

Westwood said that the PGA should have followed the USGA's lead at Torrey Pines, which was not the punishing setup often seen in the U.S. Open. "You have to reward the accurate players like they did at the U.S. Open," he said. "[That] was set up perfectly. It rewards accuracy and penalizes you if you are off-line. I didn't see that today."

Update on Thursday, August 7, 2008 at 08:51 PM by Geoff

In John Hopkins' report, he implies the rough ploy was a mowing in only the direction toward the tee, as Augusta National does with its fairways so that its members who also happen to be on the Executive Committee don't have to do anything about distance!.

While mowing fairways back towards the tees to bring balls to a halt sooner has been fashionable since it first appeared at Augusta a few years ago, the practice of doing the same to the rough is surely unnecessary.

Thursday PGA Championship Clippings

If the preview stories are any indication what's in store for this PGA, then we're going to be watching a lot of the Olympics. The scribes seem bored or maybe just distracted by the loud AC's in the Oakland Hills press center. Of course, I also paid no attention to Ryder Cup related stories, which there was no shortage of.

Anyway, there's the usual theme of the golf course and how it's going to be the hardest ever, etc... Bob Harig addresses that tired theme.

We often hear how brutal a golf course is on the eve of a major championship, then see weather conditions change or the expected difficulty turn out not to be as much as first touted. And there has not been a winning score over par at the PGA Championship since 1976, when Dave Stockton won at Congressional Country Club.

But during a stretch in which major championships have been more tough than not -- four majors in the past two years have been won with over-par winning totals -- there have been an array of comments about Oakland Hills, none suggesting this is going to be an easy week.

"I played Augusta this year for the first time and Torrey Pines, and those don't even come close to how hard Oakland Hills will play," said Daniel Chopra, who played Oakland Hills last year in a British Open qualifier.

Randall Mell says the course is the star and offers this from Sergio:

"It's a great golf course, but it's probably the toughest PGA I've ever played," Garcia said.

Doug Ferguson compiles player comments about the difficulty:

Rocco Mediate was playing the 18th early Wednesday — his only nine holes of practice — when one of his tee shots strayed to the right. His caddie went looking for it, and when he finally found it, picked it up and said, “No good over here. Make a note of that.”

Predicting a score is pointless because no one knows how the PGA of America will set it up when scores start counting Thursday. But wherever they put the tees and pins, Oakland Hills has gotten the players’ attention.

John Huggan on the course and the chances of a European winning.

"This course is set up like a US Open of three or four years ago, where missing the fairway by a couple of yards is the same as missing it by 10 yards," asserted Harrington. "So this is a tough and intimidating test, very penal. And if you miss a green in the wrong place it's a struggle to chip it closer than 25 to 30 feet. The constant debate is whether to play aggressively or cautiously."

Rich Lerner delivers "hooks and cuts," including this:

Geoff Ogilvy thinks this may well be the first time that the U.S. Open will have been the easiest of the four majors. “Augusta and Birkdale were impossible,” he said. Oakland Hills won’t be impossible, but it won’t be easy either. “It’s a beast,” said Paul Goydos.

Steve Elling shares this from Paul Azinger:

"Hardest course I've ever seen," he said Wednesday. "The rough has neutralized everybody. There's no shot-making out of that rough. I've never seen greens like this. It's tough."

Azinger faced the scribblers for a Ryder Cup press conference, which yielded this groundbreaking question:

Q. Can anything other than a win be regarded as a success for you?

Brian Hewitt reports exclusively that Kenny Perry scratched his cornea taking out his contacts Wednesday and his play will be impacted by the injury.

In the picks department (I know, too late for your pool...), ESPN.com has some thing called a FOREcaster that lets fantasy geeks hit a bit red button and answer questions. The geeks like Geoff Ogilvy to win.

John Antonini files his pre-PGA report card on the world's top 10

Jason Sobel at ESPN.com ranks his top 25.

Daniel Wexler chimes in with his breakdown of the favorites.

If you want your cornea to feel like Kenny Perry's, just try to read Joe Steranka's longwinded "interview" opening comments today. The scribes managed to get three questions in.

Steve Elling reports that the seemingly comical sight of a cop strangling Jim Weathers with a baton wasn't so funny after all as Weathers faces surgery.

And finally, from the Golfweek blog, I wasn't the only one who took exception to the USGA/R&A announcement coming during PGA week. Jeff Rude writes:

Timing isn't always everything, but I'm thinking the USGA announcement on grooves the week of the PGA Championship isn't all that different from Scott Boras revealing A-Rod's contract intentions the week of the World Series.

I mean, sometimes respect needs to wait a week.

Baltusrol Gets 2016 PGA

Bill Fields reports on the awarding announced by Joe Steranka Wednesday, which is interesting only because the PGA of America is locking up a venue eight (!?) years in advance with the 2014 date still open (somehow I don't think that one's coming back to Riviera!). Perhaps they were locking up the New York area market in case the USGA was thinking about returning there in 2016, even though they are widely believed to be headed back to Oakmont that year.

The Fields post includes lists of all future major venues.

Golfdom Oakland Hills Podcast

Larry Aylward asks me about Oakland Hills, the groove rule change and a possible winner.

Gabcast! On Donald's Design #1

Wednesday PGA Championship Clippings

Jeff Rude fittingly kicks things off with a summary of where the wacky year in golf leaves us on the eve of the PGA and asks:

What will Phil do next to his bag? One can worry himself nauseous trying to guess the configuration. After all, Lefty has played majors with five wedges, two drivers, no driver and a driver that kept going left.

Can a junior set be far off?

On that front, Steve Elling files an interesting piece with insights from other players on Phil's club tinkering, with plenty of assuredness from Dave Pelz about the Team Mickelson thought process.

"He wouldn't be Phil Mickelson if he didn't change clubs and try new theories," said Geoff Ogilvy, a fellow member of the world top 10.

Welcome to golf's version of saying, "That's Manny being Manny."

Bob Harig says Kenny Perry is using criticism of his red-blooded American ways to uh, well, show up at Oakland Hills this week in his final preparations for the Fall Finish. Randall Mell (here) and Craig Dolch (here) also ponder Perry's place in the game.

John Huggan reports that Luke Donald's wrist isn't any better and that he's contemplating surgery.

Titled "Another successful surgery for the Open Doctor" or something silly like that, I feared that Jerry Potter was going to celebrate the Oakland Hills rees-tore before it's even seen one tournament round, but far from it:

Phil Mickelson finished 18th, shooting 6-over-par on a course he had played since he was a junior golfer. During the Bridgestone Invitational last week in Akron, Ohio, Mickelson was asked about Jones' work.

"Not a big fan," he answered.

Asked what he would do if he were Jones, he answered, "I would try to not be so monotonous."

Ohhhh, I think Rees will be hunting a certain Lefty down!

Doug Ferguson offers notes on Tiger telling ESPN radio that he won't be back for at least 5 months (and he's not watching much golf, which makes two of us, only I can get to the bathroom without it being a chore). And Ferguson shares this on the Olympic golf movement, where Phil seems to be reading off a script.

"Having golf an Olympic sport is exponentially more important to the game of golf than the majors," Mickelson said Tuesday from the site of the season's final major, the PGA Championship at Oakland Hills. "The reason for that is it would bring in 168 different countries and their Olympic foundation and all those revenues and that would be going towards the growth of the game."

Hunter Mahan (sadly) apologized for his comments about how players perceive the Ryder Cup (too many cash cow parties for the PGA of America!). Seems he was called into the principal's office.

“They took it personally, and I don’t blame them,” Mahan said after meeting with PGA president Brian Whitcomb and CEO Joe Steranka. “I deserve what I get. I take full responsibility for what I said.”

Alan Shipnuck's always fun Hot List features Oakland Hills, Ben Hogan, and this on the "business model of golf":

Ratings for Firestone and the Women's British were microscopic, and sponsors on every tour are pulling back in these lean economic times. Most ominously, neither Van Sickle nor Shipnuck traveled to the British Open.

Don't worry, 72-holes of stroke play in 2016 at some stalwart like Medinah will change it all, Alan.

Okay, to the important stuff. Your pool picks. Golfweek's staff issues their selections, this time actually more than 24 hours prior to the start of play. Ed Sherman weighs in here.

PGA.com's staff offers sleeper picks while PGATour.com's Fantasy Insider shares his thoughts on who might win. And finally, Tod Leonard chimes in with his likely contenders.

2008 PGA Championshp Photo Caption Help

A Mel Evans/AP image from golf.com:

Thoughts On The Grooves Announcement

In announcing Tuesday's U-groove ban, the USGA and R&A accomplished something truly spectacular, unprecedented and frankly, impossible: they had people feeling sorry for the PGA of America.

I'll get to the good stuff about this rule change in another post, because for fans of strategic course architecture there could be some very exciting developments from this news. But momentarily, let's sit back and ponder at the utter lack of respect our fine governing bodies have shown their friends from Palm Beach, who have one week a year to shine and who have suppported the decision to ban U-grooves starting in 2010.

After dragging their feet so long, with R&A lollygaggery largely responsible for missing the initial announced timeline, how could anyone in these organizations say, oh, we must announce this on Tuesday of the PGA Championship?

Let's forget the disrespect shown to the PGA of America and consider this strictly from a practical perspective: you want to announce one of the biggest changes in the history of the rules at a time when people can digest the ramifications and give it full attention. With dwindling space devoted to golf in major media outlets, who in their right mind would want to compete with the year's final major?

Oh that's right, the R&A and USGA. Brilliant.

Question For PGA Of America Press Conference

I'm sure this isn't necessary as I'm sure it will be asked, but for Wednesday's PGA of America press conference it would be nice if someone asked Joe Steranka or whoever is invited to field questions...

How do you feel about the timing of the joint USGA/R&A announcement on grooves?

"Ihe idea of hanging the back right of the famed 16th green out over the water befits a second-tier TPC, not a classic course like this."

While there has been the usual gushing over the Rees-toration of Oakland Hills, Bradley Klein offers cringe-worthy details in his analysis...

Ambitious plans to move several greens were shelved, but the course has been lengthened by 296 yards from its Ryder Cup muster. More significantly, many fairway landing areas have been made harder through additional choke-point bunkering, a steepening of some bunker faces and a narrowing of fairways to 24-26 yards.

The original boldness of the holes and of the putting surfaces remains, even if tee shots and approaches now are played through narrower defiles on this 7,395-yard, par-70 layout.

Too bad some of the work looks misplaced. New back tees on the par-3 ninth and 13th holes are misaligned to the right. The new greenside bunkers on the fourth and 16th holes have absurdly excessive shaping. And the idea of hanging the back right of the famed 16th green out over the water befits a second-tier TPC, not a classic course like this.

Tuesday PGA Championship Clippings: Kenny's Last Shot

Glory's Last Hope, puhllleaze...this is Kenny's (First and) Last Shot at a major.

Steve Elling reminds us that Kenny Perry is actually making his major debut this week in one of his final tune-up's for the Wyndham Championship.

Bob Harig looks at T.C. Chen's Oakland Hills double-hit and talks to Andy North about how he was handed a second U.S. Open as a result.

It was at the Senior British Open two weeks ago at Royal Troon where he bumped into Chen again. North was working the telecast and Chen was playing in his first Champions Tour event, although he missed the cut.

So will the stars of that fateful final round in 1985 meet again in competition? Chen, who has a home in California, would appear to hope so, as he plans to attend the Champions Tour's qualifying school this fall.

At PGA.com they offer first and second round tee times in not particularly user-friendly PDF form.

Vartan Kupelian offers the hometown preview for the Detroit News.

Doug Ferguson reminds us that the Europeans have fond memories of Hal Sutton's hatwear  the Phil and Tiger pairing disaster the 2004 Ryder Cup rout.

Ferguson also reports that national club pro champ Scott Hebert is a Michigan native playing Oakland Hills for the first time.

Thomas Bonk previews the PGA and offers a long list of interesting golf world notes as well as the weekend ratings recap. Yikes:

Saturday's third round of the WGC Bridgestone Invitational had a 1.5 overnight rating for CBS and Sunday's fourth round had a 2.1. The women fared worse on ABC, with a 0.7 on Saturday and a 0.6 on Sunday at the Ricoh Women's British Open.

Sean Martin reminds us what fun Woody Austin was last year.

Adam Schupak reports on the auto industry gradually pulling back its investment in golf tournaments and in Detroit area clubs.

Rich Lerner shares some Oakland Hills horror stories.

Carloz Monarrez pens an obituary for the 16th hole willows and talks to Ron Whitten and Brad Klein about the infamous trees and their significance (or lack of).

Speaking of Whitten, he takes a crack at predicting the winning score at Oakland Hills and says it'll be +5.

Golf World's course map with text by Brett Avery, including an interesting breakdown of the epic 1996 U.S. Open overnight bunker salvation project, can be opened here

PGA.com breaks down the changes to each hole and also offers a hole-by-hole tour with Director of Golf Pat Croswell. Many of the photos reminded me what an exquisite property this is for golf and how...oh I won't say it. It's only Tuesday.

Brand Lady: Can You Spare $4 Million?

Jon Show reports that the LPGA is seeking a $4 million sponsor to oversee an 8-event run in the vein of the FedEx deal the PGA Tour inked, but as he buries in the last sentence:

Also complicating matters is the roughly $20 million in event sponsorships the LPGA already has on the market.

Another complication that also puts the, gulp, value of the LPGA sponsorships in perspective comes in this story (also by Show) on the PGA of America's attempts to lock up two more partners at a pretty hefty figure.

The PGA of America, one year after announcing American Express and RBS as its first official patron-level sponsors, is still trying to complete the final two remaining deals. The first two companies were signed to four-year agreements at an average of $7 million to $9 million annually,

Fourth Of Four Majors Watch

John Huggan weighs in on the PGA's current standing in the major rotation.

"There really is nothing unique about the US PGA," sighs former Ryder Cup player and now BBC commentator, Ken Brown. "Maybe if it had a permanent rota of three or four courses, it would have more cache.

"Then again, just being the fourth biggest championship in the game makes it a pretty big deal. Compared with every other tournament played around the world, fourth is still pretty impressive. But it is definitely number four if you have to choose."

Let's face it; the US PGA is lucky to be a major in the 21st century. Were the four quarters of what was once called the "Impregnable Quadrilateral" chosen again tomorrow, surely only two of today's constituent parts would make the cut. Joining the two Opens, the PGA Tour's flagship Players Championship and a travelling World Match Play Championship would better reflect the modern golfing world. A brace of majors in the United States, one in Great Britain and the fourth moving between the likes of Australia, South Africa and, the way things are going, China, is at least less biased than the status quo, three of the four majors played in the same country.

Larry Dorman says that Oakland Hills will be the year's toughest major and talks to several players about it.

“I played Augusta this year for the first time and Torrey Pines and the U.S. Open, but those don’t even come close to how hard Oakland Hills will play,” said Daniel Chopra, the winner of the 2008 Mercedes-Benz Championship. “I played it last year for the British Open qualifier and, in my mind, it was the toughest golf course I had ever played, and I still believe that."

Peter Lonard also played Oakland Hills in the British Open qualifier last year.

“I thought it was the hardest golf course on earth,” he said, acknowledging that he arrived at the qualifier on a low, feeling burned out by too much golf. “But I’ve matured since then,” he added, laughing. “I think it’ll be very good. I’m looking forward to it. I’m sure the rough is going to be thick, the course is really long, a lot of undulations, cantered fairways. It’s going to be a hard track.”

Of particular concern to Chopra are the fairway bunkers, some of them new, all of them deep and penal. “The rough is a nonissue because they’ve got bunkers on both sides of the fairways and they’re deep,” he said. “These bunkers are all designed small so you roll in, you literally just have to trickle into the bunker and get down to the bottom of the flat to have a chance to reach the green.”