Venturi's Hole-By-Hole Guide To Olympic

Ron Kroichick got Ken Venturi out to Olympic Club and it yielded a tremendously good hole-by-hole take on how the course played along with Venturi's perspective on recent changes.

On the first hole, which shifts from a pushover par-5 to a long par-4.

Venturi: "The right-hand half of the teeing area will never be used. The players will set up on the left and blow it right over the top of the trees. ... To me, this was a good par-5 the way we played it - driver and 3-wood. If you could crush it, maybe you get there in two sometimes. It will be a hard par-4, but it will be fair with these players today, given how far they hit the ball.

This surprised me about the seventh hole, which as been rebuilt from a three-tier green to a slightly longer hole with a two-tier green.

Venturi: "I don't think most guys will go for it. I'd like to be short of the bunkers and the green and have a little 58-degree or 60-degree wedge for my second shot. That's much easier than trying to hit a long bunker shot - you can get a short pitch shot much closer. But there will be guys who try to drive it, for sure.

"This will be an interesting hole, because there are multiple choices. It depends on the player, whether he's conservative or aggressive. If the hole is on the lower level of the green, then I would suggest you try to drive the green. If the hole is on the upper level, then you don't want to be in that (front) bunker. To me, it would be a bad choice to try to drive this green if the hole is cut in the back."

And Kenny's not a fan of the 670-yard tee on 16.

Venturi: "If I had my way, I'd do away with this tee (at 670 yards) - it's too close to the No. 15 green and there will be too much confusion with guys waiting (on the 15th green) while others tee off. ... You have to make the tee shot go right to left, for sure. This is a premier dogleg. You still can't see the green on your second shot, and there's nothing to do on the second shot but put it in play and set up your third.

"With the bunker in front and the way this hole plays, you can't run it on the green. It's got to be 'up golf,' with the ball in the air. So that definitely favors the longer hitter, who can get the ball up higher. This hole tells players, 'You will play it the way I tell you to play it. You can't create your own shots.'

Other than that, how do you really feel about it, Mr. V?

Q&A With Dan Jenkins, Vol. 5

In the first email Q&A with a lowly golf blog since his induction into the World Golf Hall of Fame, Dan Jenkins answers a few questions before returning to the scene of some of his most painful moments as a sportswriter.

This will be the 212th major Jenkins has attended and the 211th he has covered. His first U.S. Open was as an 11-year-old in 1941; he covered his first fifty-one years ago and Olympic marks his 58th U.S. Open as an inkslinger.

You can read volumes one, two, three and four.

GS: Excited to return to San Francisco?

DJ: Very excited to return to San Francisco. I want to recapture the cheeseburger a precious waiter refused to serve me last time there because I asked for salt. I look forward to continuing the search for Ambrose Bierce among the fern. 

GS: Care to rank the U.S. Open's at Olympic?

DJ: In order of misery, I recall the Opens in this order:  1955 (worst result in the history of sports), 1966 (worst result in the history of Arnold Palmer), 1987 (biggest letdown in light of who was challenging: Watson, Seve, Crenshaw), 1998 (a sleeper all the way, but if Payne had to lose, Janzen was better than Tway.

GS: After all these years, have you ever developed a working theory as to why Olympic doesn't let the superstar win? Is it the course? Nancy Pelosi's fault?

DJ: I guess I'll finally have to buy into Sandy Tatum's defense of Olympic. Even though the course has brutally punished the superstars---let alone me on deadline---it has given us a great list of runnersup in Opens---Hogan, Palmer, Watson, Payne Stewart.

GS: Putting aside your man Hogan's upset loss and the other rally killer winners, where does Olympic rank as a US Open venue for you?

DJ: Think about it. No "Open course" over time has defended par better than Olympic. Scott Simpson's 277, only three-under, is the best. It has yet to be embarrassed, as all of the other usual suspects have on at least one occasion.

This could be it. Part of the suspense.

GS: You pulled off a superb World Golf Hall of Fame speech, how was that experience?

DJ: Getting into the World Golf Hall of Fame was quite special, very flattering. As my co-inductee and friend Peter Alliss said to me by email, "I'm trying very hard not to be carried away by the adulation of the multitudes." As for my acceptance speech, I lost my place twice, made up a couple of things out of thin air, but somehow survived. All through the weekend's many functions, I kept thinking I should be sitting with my press brethren.

GS: How's the journalism book coming?

DJ: There IS a "journalism memoir" slowly coming to an end at the computer where I sit. It's been damn near impossible to keep myself out of it.

DJ Puts His Name In The U.S. Open Contender Hat; But Will His Length Work At O Club?

With a win Sunday at the Fed-Ex St. Jude Classic, recent major contender Dustin Johnson arrives at Olympic Club with a super shot to win. He adds himself to a nice, long list of contenders playing well (as John Strege writes).

Ryan Lavner notes in Golfweek's 5 Things on the day that Johnson sounds confident heading to the U.S. Open.

“I was confident coming into this week,” Johnson said. “I was hitting some good shots and chipping and putting pretty well. I just needed to get the ball in the fairway, because I was swinging my irons well and knew I’d have a lot of looks at birdie.”

Johnson fascinates me at Olympic because a case could be made that the course will take away the advantage he has with his driver, yet he's so long with his other clubs that even without pulling out the big stick, he may be okay. This is the interesting dilemma I wrote about for Golf World the U.S. Open preview, and Hale Irwin even mentions Johnson when talking about Olympic's 4th hole and his ability to shape a 3-wood or hybrid there compared to the challenge of trying to hit the same shot with driver.

Yet another fun storyline heading into an Open with more than its share. The highlights from Memphis:

When Rossie Routed Ty Cobb

Antonio Gonzalez with a splendid history of Olympic Club's membership through the years, especially the early years, including Mark Twain and later Ty Cobb.

Cobb, a hot-tempered and aggressive slugger who received the most votes on the original Hall of Fame ballot, played 12-year-old Bob Rosburg in the first club championship in 1939. Although Cobb had retired from baseball more than a decade earlier, his competitiveness never cooled.

Cobb lost 7 and 6. Rosburg later won the PGA Championship in 1959. And while popular lore is that Cobb resigned in furor, the club has no record that he gave up his membership. Rosburg told Golf Digest in 2010 that Cobb was gracious in defeat but "guys at the club rode him unmercifully for losing to a child. He disappeared and didn't come back to Olympic for years."

"He was just so embarrassed," Olympic general chairman Stephen Meeker said of Cobb, recalling the story.

GS.com U.S. Open Coverage This Week

Thanks as always to the Art Department for a banner and to reader Octo for some photographic contributions to the banner for what will be my third U.S. Open at the Olympic Club.

I hope to get out on the course Monday afternoon to Tweet (from the media regulation safety of the media center) some observations, images and videos, so make sure to follow me at GeoffShac on Twitter or keep an eye on the right hand column for the latest Tweets.

Also coming up is the annual Dan Jenkins Q&A, to offset the earlier Jack Fleck (evildoer!) coverage that came with the Q&A with Neil Sagebiel.

And of course, constant updates here as news unfolds from the 112th playing of Golf's Toughest Test, also known to some as the United States Open.

Fleck: "It's a shame that I used those very clubs to defeat him."

Just two great bits from Jack Fleck's My Shot with Guy Yocom:

Just before setting out on the drive to San Francisco for the U.S. Open, I packed my Motorola record player and Mario Lanza records. Nothing was more soothing to me than hearing him sing "I'll Walk With God." At the end of each day at Olympic, I would return to my hotel room alone, do my hatha yoga and listen to Mario Lanza. His singing put me in a wonderful frame of mind.

And this about his fellow Hogan staff member, Ben Hogan.

Hogan had arrived before me. When I got there he hand-delivered to me two wedges he had made up in addition to the irons and woods he'd already given me. It was just unbelievable, the kindness he continued to show me. In a sense it's a shame that I used those very clubs to defeat him.

Fleck will be at Olympic and is slated to come to the media center for a visit. I think I'll ask if Mario Lanza's on his ipod!

Handicappers Take Note: Westwood Cruises In Stockholm

An easy win for Lee Westwood heading into the major he seems best suited to win.

Revisiting Olympic Club Slow Play Controversies Through The Years

In this week's Golf World U.S. Open preview issue, I write about the slow play crackdown at the 1966 U.S. Open that led to some dramatic changes in times and also some unhappiness from several in the field, including Jack Nicklaus.

In a real career highlight, I obtained the quotes from Mr. Nicklaus during an interview in the Memorial press center men's room. No one said I was classy. But what are you going to do when the best ever says, "well, go ahead, ask your question!"

If only I had a camera to capture the look on his face when told Johnny Miller said that the USGA policy at Olympic made Nicklaus a faster player from that day forward. It looked something like this.