What's Tiger Studying On Tape?

Not to wear out this Tiger-plays-Oakmont thing, but a reader who would rather not be associated with this wretched site made this point: 

One thing left unsaid in the Woods item is that he obviously studies videotape of past events at a course before seeing it for the first time. That's the only way he would have thought about Oakmont as a tree-lined course and then have been surprised when he arrived.

To the inkslingers out there considering a Tiger question at Wachovia, how about asking about this instead of about the due date or the new dog.

What's he looking for on old tapes of majors? Has he learned stuff from video that has helped him in any of this 12 wins?

"It's not even close. It's this one.''

From Doug Ferguson's lengthier follow up on Tiger's practice rounds at Oakmont:

He also had heard the debate whether Oakmont or Winged Foot was the toughest championship course on any given Sunday morning for the members. "Of all the tournaments I've ever played, no golf course was harder than Winged Foot,'' Woods said late last year.

He was reminded of that comment when he walked off the 18th green Sunday morning after his first trip around at Oakmont.

"It's not even close,'' Woods said. "It's this one.''

And that was with the green bumping along at about 10 1/2 on the Stimpmeter (the course was under snow a week ago). It usually runs in the neighborhood of 13 for some of the members' tournaments.

"Every green is pitched one way or another,'' Woods said. "If you do miss on the high side, it's impossible.''

"From the moment Woods stepped onto the first tee..."

Mike Dudurich filed this Pittsburgh Tribune Review story on Tiger's day at Oakmont:

From the moment Woods stepped onto the first tee and pulled the Sasquatch Sumo Squared driver from his bag and launched his Nike One ball approximately 330 yards to the middle of the fairway...

Now I know it's not for me to offer writing suggestions, but I really think the future of journalism will be more informative for us consumers.  Dudurich could have filed something like this:

From the moment Woods woke up in his NikeFitTherma jammies, slipped on his Seamless S/S Colorplay Mock, adorned his SP-8 TW Tour shoes in the hot new black and Del Monte white (available May 3rd), slipped on his Custom Crested Tech Xtreme Glove, Nike's brand focus stepped onto the first tee and pulled the Sasquatch Sumo Squared driver from his bag and launched his Nike One ball approximately 330 yards to the middle of the fairway...

"It's very open. You can see all the holes from the clubhouse."

Gerry Dulac filed a few more anecdotes and quotes from Tiger's Oakmont round. He managed to focus on--perish the thought--the golf, instead of plugging the "surprise" clinic for some rich AmEx customers.

The greens were running at 10.5 on the Stimpmeter the past two days, not nearly as fast as they will be for the Open. And they were not as smooth as usual because they had recently been aerified.

"They said they're extremely smooth," Woods said. "Granted, they do have a lot of movement to them, a lot of pitch to them, but people seem to hole a lot of putts here. After playing it, it was hard for me to see that because I was seeing balls bouncing all over the place."

Woods did not play in the 1994 U.S. Open at Oakmont because he failed to qualify as amateur. And he had never even been to the course until Sunday -- a strange fact given Woods' love for the game and the way he embraces the history and tradition of the sport. Nonetheless, Woods said he really enjoyed his first visit to Oakmont, though he admitted it was different than what he envisioned.

"I just remember seeing all these trees everywhere and you get down here and all of sudden there's nothing there," he said. "It's very open. You can see all the holes from the clubhouse. It's very different than what I envisioned."

I guess he hasn't been reading the tree removal stories! 

"I can't recall many golf courses where you don't see the fairway and green on the same hole."

Wow, imagine the coincidence of Tiger Woods practicing at Oakmont and just spontaneously deciding to give a clinic to American Express suckers guests on U.S. Open Preview Day. And lo and behold the AP writer is there to cover it.

Praise the Lord!

Woods spent the last two days at Oakmont, the premiere championship golf course in America that had been somewhat of a mystery to him. He didn't qualify for his first U.S. Open until the year after Ernie Els won at Oakmont in 1994, so this had been a course Woods only knew from newspaper clippings and television highlights.

"I like it," he said. "I can't recall many golf courses where you don't see the fairway and green on the same hole. Maybe at St. Andrews, but that's about it."

I guess that's a nice way of saying "it's all NOT right in front of you."

Monday also turned into quite a mystery for the 82 people who didn't know they would get to tag along.

They were American Express card members who paid $900 for an event called "2007 U.S. Open Preview Day," not realizing that it would include more than a round of golf and free lunch until Woods entered the room from a back door to stunned silence, followed by high-fives and then a standing ovation.

They were told they would get a seminar on how to prepare for a U.S. Open.

They had no idea their instructor would be the world's No. 1 player, with ABC Sports anchor Mike Tirico as the emcee.

"I hope you guys didn't get slaughtered out there," Woods told them before inviting them along for his third and final practice round.

"I refuse to hit driver. It's against my religion."

About the only highlight of Tiger's first tour around Oakmont was his refusal to use driver on the 8th hole's absurd 288-yard tee. Someone from AP spills the beans on his practice round...

Woods played the back nine early Sunday morning with members and swing coach Hank Haney, then stopped for lunch and played the front nine in the afternoon.

The U.S. Open, to be played June 13-16, returns to Oakmont for the first time since 1994. It is one of the few classic championship courses in the United States that Woods had not played. He first qualified for the U.S. Open in 1995 as an amateur.

Woods said he thought Oakmont as a members' course was far tougher than Winged Foot, where last year he missed the cut for the first time in a major as a pro.

On the par-3 eighth, he played the back tee at 288 yards, and hit 3-wood to the middle of the green.

"I refuse to hit driver," Woods said, smiling. "It's against my religion."

"Mr. Brand commissioned architect Robert Trent Jones to plant more than 3,500 trees..."

Thanks to reader Edward for sending the link to Gerry Dulac's definitive piece on the Oakmont tree removal program, which appeared around Nissan Open time and when I was preoccupied with that.

This is one you'll want to print out, assuming you are a member of a club debating tree removal. I know, a longshot, but just thought I'd put it out there.

The decision to remove trees, sometimes without the consent of the membership, led to one of the most contentious periods in club history, pitting members who liked shaded fairways against those who sought to restore Oakmont to its original design and, by doing so, improve the health of its turf.

But, with the U.S. Open looming four months away, most Oakmont members appear to have embraced the new look. Trees have been replaced with high fescue grasses that sway in the wind, creating a Scottish look.

"If it's not 100 percent, I don't know who is on the other side," said Oakmont golf professional Bob Ford. "There is no grumbling at all. Everybody is very upbeat about it."

And... 

But that look began to change in the 1960s when Mr. Brand took umbrage with a comment made by writer Herbert Warren Wind in The New Yorker magazine. Mr. Wind wrote that the U.S. Open was returning to Oakmont, and referred to the course as "that ugly, old brute."

"Well, I got to thinking, why can't it be a beautiful old brute," Mr. Brand was quoted as saying in "Oakmont 100 Years," a book detailing the club's history.

And so began a makeover in which Mr. Brand commissioned architect Robert Trent Jones to plant more than 3,500 trees -- pin oak, crab apple, flowering cherry, blue spruce -- around the property. It was known as the beautification of Oakmont, a program designed to enhance the appearance of the course but one that would ultimately lead to an unsettling era in the club's rich history.

It changed Oakmont from the links-style course that Mr. Fownes had embraced to a parkland-style course like New York's Winged Foot, site of last year's Open, and Merion, a legendary course near Philadelphia. It was a look that likely would have had Mr. Fownes spinning in his grave.

"They were beautiful trees," said Mr. Smith, who started the tree removals. "It went from a links-type course to a very pretty, shaded Western Pennsylvania-type of course. But it wasn't unique."

Oakmont Wants To Furrow Bunkers

(click to enlarge)Oh the floodgates have opened.

Gerry Dulac reports that Oakmont wants to furrow the bunkers at next year's U.S. Open.

"We're pushing for it," said Oakmont pro Bob Ford, among the contingent of club officials who are attending the 106th U.S. Open that starts today at Winged Foot Golf Club.

Paul "Mickey" Pohl, Oakmont's chairman for the 2007 U.S. Open, met yesterday morning with Pete Bevacqua, the USGA's managing director of U.S. Open Championships, and discussed the possibility of bringing back furrowed bunkers in the greenside sand traps only.

But USGA president Walter Driver said yesterday, "We have not talked about doing that at our championships."