The Perfect Major?
Pondering today's events, I'm trying to think of something about Carnoustie and the 2007 Open Championship that was less than ideal (besides ESPN on ABC's relentless commercial breaks and that poorly timed Van De Velde flashback as Sergio was walking up to 18 green).
I suppose the out-of-bounds left of 18 green could be moved back and the hole would not be negatively impacted, and there appeared to be boundary issues around the 1st and 18th that seem borderline excessive. Otherwise, consider this:
- We saw a course vulnerable to hot rounds and yet overall, forgive me Golf Gods, proved "resistant" to scoring with only 19 players finishing under par for the week and playoff combatants finishing at 7-under. A look at the scoring shows a nice separation of the field.
- The leaderboard featured a variety of players from around the world playing the game with somewhat different styles. Reward for power, accuracy and short game seemed balanced, whereas Augusta and Oakmont seemed to put quite a bit of emphasis on putting, conservative play and chance.
- Wider playing corridors and short grass around the greens did not unduly reward sloppy driving or excessively benefit players with great short games, but instead seemed to highlight Carnoustie's best architectural elements while tempting the field into the occasional risky shot, adding excitement and fun for those of us viewing at home.
- Hole locations seemed surprisingly generous on the weekend and yet, scoring was not adversely impacted for those concerned about the Open being "too easy" (like any round in any major will ever be easy!). It seemed in many instances that the kind hole locations tempted players into bold shots that only caused them more trouble when they miscalculated.
- Pace of play wasn't great, but four hours for the leaders on the weekend in cold and sometimes wet conditions on a course with several long waits wasn't bad either.
- And because I'm an unabashed star%$#@&!, the best players in the world rose to the top and many had a chance to win going into Sunday.
Add it all up and it seemed to me that for the second year in a row, the Open Championship was about as close to perfect as a major can be, defined mostly by the concept of letting the architecture and players decide the event, instead of the committee.
Your thoughts?
Sunday, July 22, 2007 at 05:23 PM
Reader Comments (31)
Now if only they had a special audio mode so I could shut off Tirico but keep Azinger and Faldo. That would make it perfect. But that's just me, I guess.
I think your first point is spot on and deserves comment.
This course (and setup -- assist from the weather) unleashed a psychological war on the players akin to the old Masters (RIP). The leaders couldn't get away with US Open-style "hang on" golf and yet, even though everyone must have figured they needed to step on the gas,they had to know the proper spots to step on the gas. Also, like the old Masters, the tournament threw the players into a cauldron of adrenaline, doubt, fear, and elation. Controlling one's emotions (or understanding the impact of changes to one's "body chemistry" as Azinger put it) is one element that separates majors -- the RIP Masters was so good at this! -- and this Open presented a fantastic test on that front.
Some of this had to do with the circumstances of the tournament, but surely a lot was down to the holes, their order in the round, and the setup!
Mark B
Thinking the same thing as I watched. And don't worry about 18, it is fine as it is. We OBSESS par. Hole 14 was reachable most of the week. Should it have been a par 4? Noooo. Hole 18 is a pretty easy 5, but 4 or even 3 can be had, if you need it. But if you press a bit and miss, well, thanks very much for coming, see you next year.
Fun to watch.
I shall agree that this Open was enjoyable to watch, not to mention dramatic. However, I believe the biggest factor at work was the rain that softened the greens (no one's intent) and allowed the field to play this Open exclusively through the air -- one hop and a quick stick, just like at the US Bank at Brown Deer today.
To me, that's not links golf. I like to see every aspect of a player's skills tested, including the ability to show a bit of creativity and imagination with the bump and run. Sorry, but something is amiss when relative "nobodies" are shooting 63s and 64s and tickling the number 62 on the weekend in a major.
On the weekend, of course the shots were bold -- the greens were as receptive as dartboards,
But hey -- that's just me.
4p
4p
The R&A is no different than the USGA, sometimes they get it right, sometimes they don't.
Carnoustie really has a lot going for it. The routing with never more than two holes running in the exact same direction, even some inland flavor with the trees around 9 and 10, the burns that really do come into play, unlike the burns on most of the other rota courses, and what has to be one of the most exciting finishing holes in golf.
I do think that Oakmont was also very successful, with different types of players, including a good number of internationals in with a chance on the final day. How many courses do you see with the number of drivable 4s that Oakmont presented? You did have the best player in the world and maybe the 2nd best player right there at the end.
It was a special year this year to me, with the Oakmont-Carnoustie combo being served up for the first time since Hogan's great year. Let's hope we can see them both in another 8 or 9 years.
To me, the set-up couldn't have been better. What would Romero have done at the 17th if it were a US Open? Hack out sideways, of course - and the disaster into which he was tempted wouldn't have been at risk. How many players would have gone for the flag at the 17th if it were the Masters? Nobody, and it would have been reduced to a boring middle-of-the-green, tough-two-putt hole. I for one haven't been this excited watching a golf tournament since the 2004 Masters, and am already longing for the next Open to be played there (likely not until 2016...).
So they got it right this year and it was a fun finish but as the Wolf said in Pulp Fiction, "Lets not start _______ each other's _____ just yet."
I am not a keen supporter of Carnoustie as a daily play course, but its a worthy championship course. I am not sure what people expect when a course is wet. Given the circumstances, the condition of the course couldn't be faulted. I applaud the R&A for letting the weather dictate the event.
I do take issue with some of the setup. Many bunkers had longer than fairway grass around them. This doesn't make sense to me as Carnoustie has one of the best sets of gathering bunkers that I know of. Why negate this? I also didn't understand the need for oob on 1 and 18. Both holes have a burn, why create an extra penalty? Furthermore, if oob is going to be employed, why not cut the fairway to the line? On 18 it would at least offer an opportunity to hit away from the oob near the green. I saw the same situation on #6. Much of the fairway down the Hogan's Alley short of the centreline bunkers was made into rough. Why? Additionally, the 8th had oob hard to the left, why? The road is further back, make that oob and put the spectators on the other side of the road if need be.
Last, and this isn't a Carnoustie problem, when did guys start being able to spin the ball back from the rough and downwind? I realize this is partly a function of wettish greens, but really, this spin negates much of the impact of the bunkering and the need to gain angles of approach. In other words, it makes driving the ball loosely ok. If this trend continues all that will happen is that an argument for harsher rough is ready made. Is more rough what golf needs?
There is some OB pretty tight on the last hole at St. Andrews. Maybe the R&A can get with Trump, buy the real estate across the street, raze it, and turn the 18th into a 495 yard par 4 with no OB. And a waterfall.
Sorry about that last bit.
I've always thought what a crushing shame it was that it picked up such a dreadful reputation in 1999. When I first played it (five years ago) I turned up expecting to have a horrendous, painful round that I would endure just to have been there and seen for myself - despite playing abysmal golf, I was utterly enthralled and entranced by one of the best links courses you'll find anywhere.
It's not grand or beautiful like a Turnberry, it's not atmoshpheric like St Andrews, it's not scrupulously fair-minded like Muirfield, but it's every bit as good as any of those. Better, actually, for an Open because the final three holes regularly throw up aggregate scores of anything from 10 to 16. Where else can you think of that has such huge potential to elicit triumph and disaster - at least without resorting to island greens, tricked-up rough and ludicrous pin locations on unputtably quick greens?
The OB close on 18 is fine. It's not contrived, it's just how the course is. Think of Garcia's play of 18 on the 72nd hole. 2-iron from the tee to get it in play, then another 2-iron carrying a creek and threaded into a gap...well, I guess he didn't exactly thread it. But I was watching it in awe of how good these guys are, that he could strike the ball solid enough to hit a 2 iron from that fairway and expect to get it on that green.
I liked the fact that they just sort of let the rough be. It had been dry in the months leading up to the tournament, so it was thinner and whispier. The rain in the days before and of the tournament softened everything so that scoring was good.
So what, it was fantastic.
I don't know how placing a plastic fence down the left of 18 in front of the grandstand could be considered anything but contrived. There isn't a boundary there, the grandstand isn't too far. Why can't a ball be over there? Jeepers, balls bounce off the grandstands on the other side of the green. What is the difference?
Just a slightly pulled shot ends up OB. If you can find your ball and play it safely, why shouldn't you be able to just play it as it lies just off the green?
In most parts of the course, you can hit your shot miles off line, and play it from another hole.
While it wasn't the OB area near the green, I think it would have been neat to see Romero play that shot from accross the OB fence just left of the 18th tee into the 17th green. But no he had to replay it from the rough with a 2 stroke penalty.
Remember Seve making par from the parking lot at Lytham, that is a memorable shot.
If you can find it, you should be able to play it.
One thing about the British Open is that, with the exception of the years when Tiger has blown the field away and also 2001 when Duval won a fairly uninteresting tournament, the last several years have seen some really wild British Opens. I'm not sure if that has to do with setup, or if it's just a statistical oddity (like in baseball in the mid 80's when there were so many world series that went 7 games), but thinking back, there have been some great and wild endings to tournaments. 98 at Birkdale, 99 at Carnoustie, 02 at Muirfield, 03 at Lytham, 04 at Troon and this year. At least recently, I can't think of another major that has consistently produced final 9's with several players in contention and wild swings in scores. Cool stuff.
Also, re: scoring. Each course in the rota has a optimum score, assuming conditions a little moister than last year (and much drier than this) -- St Ands seems to be about -16, Hoylake about the same, George's about -6, Lythan and Berkdale and Troon and Berkdale somewhere in the middle; Carnoustie is the hardest of the bunch, and the score would have been around -3 if it had been dry. The R&A did not set up Hoylake oddly last year, except perhaps the pins being a bit extreme to control scoring. It too is a fairly long course (7100+, surely). It was all down to the weather. If Hoylake was as wet and cool and blustery as Carnoustie this year, TW would have had to hit more than one driver. (And the winning score might have been lower, as there would have been less premium for hitting it out of shortish grass, even as the rough would have been a lot stragglier). Yes, I know there are issues with grooves and all, but clubs are what they are, for good or ill.
I enjoyed Geoff Ogilvy's article, though, on the unsportingness of LONG, Oakmont rough. It brought to mind this quote I found last year in an old Hoylake annual by noted curmudgeon Leslie Edwards (from a 1949 newspaper article):
'By the time the player has holed his last putt he is physically and mentally tired and the heaviest burden in both has been shouldered over the last five holes [ahem] when concentration against golfing disaster is at its lowest ebb.
Royal Liverpool, too, does other strange things. It clothes its rough with the benign appearance of being only just long enough to be considered rough. Having strayed off the straight the temptation is always to try to escape the penalty. Let the ingenious stranger try it and, like the convicted prisoner appealing against an award of punishment, he finds himself the worse off'.
It would have been fascinating to see Carnoustie in that situation, where long but wispy rough hides its true severity (or can be used to a players advantage, as Ogilvy says of his play up the right of Carnoustie 4).
I respect your opinions, and I share your joy that the R&A finally got it pretty close to right even if by accident (after debacles at ANGC and Oakmont) but I'd hardly salute the claim that they let "Nature" set up this course.
Yes, in a wet week you'll have soft, dartboard greens and perhaps a few lesser-knowns flirting with the course record.
But if the R&A truly had let "nature" set up this course as you say, the wet spring you speak of would also have produced thick, gnarly rough instead of the fairly meek, male-pattern-balding stuff we saw. That would have been a good backup defense had rain softened the putting surfaces and made them receptive to everything -- as is what happened.
Maybe this plays into the ad infinitum, ad nauseam discussion on grooves, but "rough" is not a penalty when guys who have missed the fairway or a green by a mile can still one-bounce-stop iron shots from it. Bravo to the rakers -- the bunkers as they should be were truly a penalty (Tiger 1-for-8 in sand saves?) but I didn't think the rough was worthy of a Carnoustie major championship. It fell short of my expectations; while it was a grossly stupid move, that Romero would even pull a 2-iron to use from the "hay" on 17 tells me something.
4p