Andy Bean: How Getting My Clubs Stolen Helped My Game And How It Can Help You Too

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That's how I'm envisioning the magazine instruction piece, anyway. He shot 65 Friday and hit all 18 greens in the Administaff (is that a Champions Tour major too?).

Bean's clubs, including TaylorMade irons that were one of only 10 sets of the clubs manufactured, were stolen last month at the Greater Hickory Classic in North Carolina. He turned to a makeshift set that he initially didn't expect to keep long.

"I had those clubs for four years and I wouldn't have taken anything for them," Bean said. "But to tell you the truth, I've just played some very good golf the last month."

With the new clubs the next week, Bean tied for the first-round lead and finished third at the SAS Championship in Cary, N.C.

"I have hit so many good shots with these new clubs, I don't think I will go back," Bean said. "You'd think about changing back to the old clubs, but I have done really well with these."

"Most players aren't complaining. I'm complaining, and maybe some of the fans roaming the property are, too."

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Sal Maiorana nails it with this column on the over-the-top, one-dimensional setup at Oak Hill, though this won't win him any friends at the club or PGA of America.

There is no border. The line has been crossed.

It's too tough, and my fervent wish — wishful thinking is all it is, though — would be that the PGA of America trim the jungle-like rough this morning and give these players a chance to give the large galleries something to cheer about.

Sure, this has been a glorious week for Rochesterians as the hometown hero, Jeff Sluman, has been in contention since the opening bell Thursday and has a very real chance of pulling off a victory for the ages today.

However, let's be perfectly honest. Outside of rooting for Sluman and watching the Great White Shark, Greg Norman, make one of his rare tournament appearances with fiancée Chris Evert in tow, there hasn't been a whole lot of excitement at Oak Hill.

The answer to me is as clear as the rough is deep:

The rough is too deep.

When a ball ends up in the tall, thick, gnarly stuff, there really is no other choice but to hack it back into play somewhere in the fairway — if possible — and then try to save par, or more likely, make bogey.

It was the same thing back in 2003. Miss a fairway, forget birdie and thank your lucky stars if you can make par.

Most players aren't complaining. I'm complaining, and maybe some of the fans roaming the property are, too.

The players understand the course is brutally difficult, they aren't whining that the rough is too long and lush and they are more than willing to swallow their medicine when they drive their ball astray.

They don't have to grind like this every week, especially on the Champions Tour, and believe it not, on the whole they seem to be enjoying the challenge that has been put forth.

That's great. I'm all for challenging the best players and making them work hard to earn this prestigious championship. I'm just not enamored with watching player after player gouge out of the rough after missing the fairway and then wedging onto green after green in search of a par.

It would be nice if, once in a while, someone had the option of making the bold play and trying to hit a risk-reward type of shot out of semi-playable rough in search of a birdie.

It was this kind of golf that I felt plagued the 2003 PGA Championship and turned that tournament into a snooze until Shaun Micheel hit his remarkable game-clinching 7-iron to within two inches at 18.

"The scouting report on Oak Hill might have been a deterrent, too."

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In a pair of blog posts (here and here), John Strege tries to figure out why so many geezers passed on the first of five senior majors at Oak Hill. Looking at the scores and word that the setup is entirely over the top, I think I know why.

Unfortunately, this somber tree-lined mess of rough and bad Fazio redesign work hosts the 2013 PGA. If this week is a preview, it's safe to say they haven't learned from the antics last time they hosted and will inevitably spawn another freak show finish.

Tiger, Denis Watson Prevent Historic Bryant Brother Wins

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tiger64_r1_c1.jpgThat's right, Tiger beats out Bart Bryant and Denis Watson stops Brad Bryant in a playoff on the old geezers tour. Or did Tiger beat Brand Dennis beat Bart?

Anyway, Tiger also happened to match Ben Hogan's all time PGA Tour victory tally while winning his fifth official event in a row, and his sixth or seventh straight worldwide win, depending on whether you count the Target World Challenge.

But really, doesn't that pale when compared to stopping the Bryants?


Toshiba Classic: One Event That Gets It

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toshibagolf.gifThe Valiant Competitor's Champions Tour has reversed it's Southern California stops this year, with the Toshiba Classic kicking things off followed by next week's AT&T something-or-other at Valencia. It's always amazing to witness the contrast between the two.

The Toshiba is played in the heart of Newport Beach at the sporty William F. Bell designed Newport Beach Country Club. The combination of the course's ideal location at the heart of a significant population base, it's ability to be played with relative ease (but it's no pushover) and a strong volunteer base make the event a real delight. It was day one of the pro-am and it would not be a stretch to call it festive.

Hanging out on the range today collecting quotes from select players, not only was most of the field out in force their pro-am rounds, but they were in great spirits. Hale Irwin smiled at me. Really, he smiles! Another highlight was Fuzzy Zoeller (not a surprise) heckling Tuesday qualifier Mac O'Grady about his hair, while Andy Bean (who knew?) strolling by the 10th tee and yelling out to Mac that his pro-am partner's swing was just fine and to leave him alone.

Then there's next week's event at Valencia, a monstrous Robert Trent Jones Sr. design next to the 5 freeway in that massive slice of over-development hell known as Santa Clarita, a solid 25 minute drive from a decent population base and 45 minutes from the heart of LA (mid-morning, with a police escort). The rough is always hideously dense, the course a brutal grind, the crowds tiny and the weather iffy. Players rarely hang around the range and every year I leave the place intensely depressed about what the game has become. Particularly since this same event was a huge success when played at Rancho Park and Wilshire Country Club in the city. You know, fun golf courses. Near where people live.

So just in case you were wondering, I probably won't be going out to Valencia this year.

According to Steve Eubanks, they expect 85,000 this week in Newport Beach, which would probably surpass what the regular tour drew at Riviera a few weeks ago.

Amazing how far a little fun will take you.

Mac Qualifies! Mac Qualifies!

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I've been searching my email box for a PGA Tour press release celebrating Mac O'Grady's first ever Champions Tour appearance (he played in the U.S. Senior Open in '05, but come on, that's not the CHAMPIONS TOUR).  

Thankfully, the good folks at Brener-Zwikel delivered the news on the eve of...two shotgun pro-am starts, with Toshiba Classic play starting Friday at Newport Beach Country Club:

2008 Toshiba Classic Qualifying Tournament
At Goose Creek Golf Club (Par 71, 6,676 yards)
Mira Loma, Calif.
Tuesday, March 4
(Top 7 players qualify to play in the Toshiba Classic Friday-Sunday at Newport Beach CC)

Pos.    Player  Hometown                    Score
1.      Jim Ahern       Phoenix, AZ     64
T2.     Phil Blackmar   Corpus Christi, TX      65
T2.     Boonchu Ruangkit        Bangkok, Thailand       65
T2.     Mitch Adcock    Apopka, FL      65
T5.     Mac O’Grady     Palm Springs, CA        66
T5.     Mike Goodes     Reidsville, NC  66
T7.     Kenny Knox      Monticello, FL  67
(NOTE: Knox won the final qualifying spot with a par on the first playoff hole.)
Alternates
T7.     Jimmy Powell    La Quinta, CA   67
T7.     Mark Morrison   Holualoa, HI    67
T10.    Dick Mast       Forest, VA      68
T10.    Gary Trivisonno Aurora, OH      68

"The fact is, I don't have anything else to do."

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nov5_trevino_299x389.jpgLee Trevino, on golf.com, and brutally honest about his brief retirement:
That's why I'll be back for the 2008 season, my 43rd year in the game. I'll probably play about a dozen events, starting in Florida next winter. I really love seeing the guys, but the fact is, I don't have anything else to do. There's nothing wrong with wanting to retire. I wouldn't miss competing. I don't do that very well these days anyway. But I don't have anything else to fill my time. If I owned a golf course or a driving range in my hometown of Dallas, and I could get up, drop my kid at school and then spend five or six hours a day at work, that would be fine, but I don't have anything like that in my life.

Yet Another Senior Major

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Don Markus writes about yet another Champions Tour major--the Constellation Energy Senior Players Championship--kicking off this week at the venerable Baltimore Country Club, profiling Keith Foster and his work to bring the course up-to-date for today's old geezers. Thanks to reader John for this.

On restoration:

"You're really riding the edge," Foster said of restoring a golf course. "If you do too much, everyone knows, and if you don't do enough, everyone still talks about it."

Club general manager Michael Stott said the principal idea behind the multimillion-dollar restoration, the cost of which was shared by the club and the PGA Tour, was to make the Five Farms course "relevant again" in terms of modern technology. It appears that Foster accomplished that goal.

While most of the players have yet to test their skills on the course, which has a major golf history dating to the 1928 PGA Championship, the early reviews have applauded Foster's work. It has been ranked as highly as the No. 1 course in Maryland by Golfweek, and No. 83 in the country by Golf Magazine.

"Why is it that tournament organizers insist on reducing every player to the same hack-out when they miss a fairway? I don't get it. I bet the spectators are bored watching everyone do the same thing."

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I know it was like, soooo last week, but remember this is my personal clipping archive and I had to grab these comments from Golf World writer John Huggan's Senior Open Championship game story:

Actually, Watson isn't quite right there. On a Muirfield all but covered in long grass -- "It is worse than Carnoustie in 1999," he had said earlier in the week -- there were plenty of other nasty spots he could have found on that 18th hole. The level and extent of the rough, in fact, had come in for almost unanimous criticism over the four days of an event that will shift to Royal Troon next year under new sponsorship, MasterCard replacing Aberdeen Asset Management.

"It's serious -- six inches of rough under two foot of hay fescue," shuddered senior debutant Nick Faldo before shooting an eight-over-par 292 that left him eight shots adrift of Watson in a tie for 14th place. "Very severe and very narrow."

Others were less circumspect in their opinion of a course set up that some felt was more difficult than that at Carnoustie one week previously. Former Open champion Sandy Lyle, a spectator at Muirfield, was just one calling the length of the rough "ridiculous."

"It misses the point of links golf, which is to create a variety of shots and allow players to hit recovery shots if they are good enough," said the 1985 Open champion, who turns 50 next February. "Why is it that tournament organizers insist on reducing every player to the same hack-out when they miss a fairway? I don't get it. I bet the spectators are bored watching everyone do the same thing."
If there was any doubt the people running the game have no golfing souls, this should do it:
Lyle wasn't alone, either. Many players shared his bemusement at the level of point-missing achieved by tournament organizers who had ignored a request from the Muirfield greenstaff to cut the rough as much as two months before the event. "There was no decision to make," insisted championship committee chairman, and Muirfield member, Alistair Low. "The wet summer produced the rough we have this week, and the course would be this way whether we had a tournament on or not."

But, of course, they did have an event to run, one that sadly lost some of its luster for most of the field.

"I think if you go [in]to the rough, you are dead," said a prescient Eduardo Romero of Argentina, who finished T-4 despite hacking his way to a double bogey at the 71st hole. "Just play sand wedge and lob wedge and put the ball in the fairway and try to make bogey, that's all. It is more severe than Carnoustie because it is so wet and very thick."

 

"Hay-like rough, like that at Muirfield this week, is 'pointless and boring,' by the way."

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John Huggan writes about the worst caddy nightmare of them all: rain, and lots of it. All during his two day stint looping for Mike Clayton at the Senior Open Championship:
The low moment actually came a couple of holes later. By that time the rain had gone from merely torrential to monsoon-like and my man had vindictively decided to hit his tee-shot at the short fourth into the bunker on the left side of the green. After he had splashed out to four feet or so, I had to rake the sand. Standing there, everything already soaked and with 14 holes still to play, it was hard to think back to the time when this caddying thing seemed like a good idea.
He also writes about Clayton's playing companions and this exchange:
Over the course of the two days, Russell and Clayton must have covered most aspects of golf course architecture and course set-up. Hay-like rough, like that at Muirfield this week, is "pointless and boring," by the way.
Meanwhile Clayton had plenty of positive things to say about Muirfield even though on television it looked terribly confining and excessively defined:
In an age when architects like Bill Coore and his partner, Ben Crenshaw, Tom Doak and Gil Hanse are building some of the most beautiful bunkers since the nineteen twenties and thirties, Muirfield has some of the least impressive looking bunkers of any great golf course. Some like the bunker short and left of the 10th green would not be out of place on the most basic of public courses yet every single bunker is perfectly placed to influence both shots and decisions.

The greens are one of the best sets to be found and they are brilliantly tied into the surrounding ground and without being overly severe they demand that you putt from the right side of the hole and approach from the correct side of the fairway.

The holes are routed unusually with the opening nine going clockwise all the way around the outside of the inward nine but unlike Troon it's difficult to determine which half is the more difficult which is a comment on how well the course is balanced so that it favours no particular type of player.

Length is of no great advantage, rather placement and the ability to make the right decision are rewarded at Muirfield and whilst it may not appear so special at first glance it is one of the purest golf courses one can find and its promise is that it will ask fascinating but different questions every day and one never grows tired of the rare and special courses that do that for us.