Game Before The Game: Random Thoughts

John Mutch rolls balls to possible 3rd round hole locations at Riviera's 10th (click to enlarge)I began working on this story for Golf World back in December at the Target World Challenge. The tour kindly granted me access to tournament director Mark Russell who then introduced me to John Mutch, the unlucky chap who would be stuck with me tagging around with him for three days at Sherwood, and then again at Torrey Pines and Riviera. 

The idea was not to do the typical story we see a few times a year where a writer tags along with an official and explains the official's every move, from the cherry Danish he ate to the time his bowels typically move. Instead, I hoped to better understand the big picture approach to tour course setup in the face of technology advances and in light of player frustration boiling over at Firestone. While I'm not sure the story ever settles the direct question of who is advocating an increase in rough, narrowed landing areas and tucked pins (because it doesn't appear to be in response to any specific directive), I hopefully convey the sense that surprised me somewhat: the amount of pressure the field staff faces from host courses.
Mutch charts out hole locations and refers to last year's selections in a constant quest for balance and variety (click to enlarge)

Easily the No. 1 player gripe surrounded the increase in new back tees and the use of all too many, no matter how silly the tee seems to be. The rules officials are clearly expected to embrace those tees (as well as silly other little pressures like having to lock in a tee placement for ventures such as the tour's new Trackman thingy). I saw the pressure (subliminal and up front) both at Sherwood and Riviera, where the host courses were asking whether new tees recently constructed would be in use. At Riviera, there were questions directed at the staff about not using the two new hole locations (and the staffers are too gentlemanly to simply say, they stink!).

Mutch sets a tee at Sherwood. The PVC alignment tool to the left is his own homemade device to ensure the tees are properly aimed. (Click to enlarge)The most surprising player beef, and one I wholeheartedly agree with, revolved around par-3s and the lack of variety in yardages from day to day on specific holes. The players also pointed out that there is often not enough variety within a round. Mutch did his best to vary the numbers, but sometimes they can't use an interesting forward tee because it's too beat up with divots (and we know how the players would react to that!). Other times it would be nice to see some outside-the-box thinking that really throws the player a curve by playing a hole at 210 one day and 150 the next.

Also surprising were the number of players who now connect course setup tactics with the technology revolution. Compared to a few years ago when they would defend the use of setup to offset distance gains, most I talked to seemed to have soured on using rough and tucked pins to offset distance. Even more amazing, every player I spoke to was in favor of regulating grooves. Nearly all brought it up without prompting. Now, the rationale's varied. Some want to see rough take on more meaning. Some buy the USGA's idea that it will make guys throttle back off the tee. Most (thankfully) want to see firm greens and preferred sides of fairways mean something again. They all hope it leads to fewer absurdly tucked hole locations and less injury inducing rough, and as I noted in a sidebar to the story, Russell says eliminating U-grooves would influence his thinking on rough.
Tee Square and Paint: Mutch's two most important tools. (Click to enlarge)

I can't convey enough how devoted the field staff is to equity and running a great event. Few people realize the hours they put in, and while the course setup part of their job is arguably the most interesting aspect, it's disturbing how many babysitting tasks they have which potentially get in the way of doing their course setup work. I never saw it with Mutch, and the guys I spoke to downplay that they would ever get distracted, but you just don't see officials in other sports having to tend to some of the things the field staff handles. Considering how much their thinking influences what we see on television, it's an unusual situation.

It's also difficult to put into words just how good the players and their equipment are these days. I saw some incredibly firm greens at Sherwood and Riviera, yet saw scores I could not have imagined based on what I knew firsthand about that day's setup.

Mutch paints a ball drop for the ages, Sherwood's 18th (click to enlarge)Actually, someone I spoke to for the piece summed it up best.

David Eger, who was widely respected for his setup work during 14 years with the tour and praised by several of the rules officials for his work, offered this line. Due to space constraints it couldn't make it into the final piece:

"I watch on TV and see some of those hole placements on the regular tour and I think I wouldn’t have put it within 5 yards of that thing when I setup the course. And then the next thing you know, not only Tiger, but half-a dozen other guys are hitting it in there 5 feet and I’m thinking, how in the hell did he do that?"

The Game Before The Game

My Golf World story on PGA Tour course setup has been posted.

Tomorrow I'll post some further reflections (because I know you can't wait) on the time I spent with the rules officials and players that I spoke to for this, as well as some photos to supplement the images captured by J.D. Cuban.

"It's getting a bit narrower."

Geoff Ogilvy was dragged into the inkslinger's lair at Scottsdale and offered this about the TPC:

Q. What is your impression of this golf course right now?

GEOFF OGILVY: It's pretty good. It's probably tougher than we've seen it for a while. They've narrowed some of the fairways. I've hit a couple of drivers off the tee and I thought they were fine and they've actually cut the fluff on about three or four holes than they used to, so it's getting a bit narrower. The ball goes short when it's cold like this, so it's playing quite long especially after all that rain on Sunday. It's usually quite firm here. It's actually quite soft off the tee which makes it play long, so it's tougher than it has been previously. I think the forecast is going to get a bit warmer on the weekend and it dries out pretty quickly because we're in the desert. Could be back to normal by the weekend, but today it was longer and a little bit tougher than it has been, very easily.

"There is no doubt that getting a good drive away with a modern driver is easier than it was with an older driver. That’s a fact."

Reader GuttaPercha raises a great point on the post parsing Peter Dawson's comments to John Huggan.

I am confused.

"...there is no doubt that getting a good drive away with a modern driver is easier than it was with an older driver. That’s a fact."

If that's so, how come every second sentence I read is saying that pros don't have to be accurate any more (better grooves, lack of strategic challenge in course set up, penal rough anyway, etc)? Just bomb and gouge, etc.

If it's easier to hit a modern driver, but at the same time we're seeing lesser percentages of fairways hit (or whatever the best indicator is), then what is going on?

So far, the various papers and administrator comments on the impact of U-grooves have ignored any significant discussion of fairway widths as possibly impacting driving accuracy. I suppose it does get in the way of the USGA/R&A's argument, but as GuttaPercha notes, the governing bod's might want to resist the temptation to suggest the modern driver is having the most significant impact on skill or distance, and then lamenting the decline in driving accuracy.

“You ought to have to listen to your feet and adjust to the conditions"

Lorne Rubenstein catches up with past USGA president Bill Williams...

“The USGA wishes to test players' course management, nerves and heart, and not just their mechanical skills,” Williams said.

Along those lines, he favours varied conditions within a course. Why not, for instance, have sand of different consistency in some bunkers?

“You ought to have to listen to your feet and adjust to the conditions,” Williams said. “There ought to be some bunkers where the player worries about it.”

"When the ball actually does something when it hits the ground -- when it rolls a bit after it lands -- that's when shotmaking matters."

Geoff Ogilvy's contention in his chat with Jaime Diaz is that shotmaking is dead in large part not because of grooves or architecture or the ball, but because greens are too soft.

"The truth is that hitting it high and straight, with the equipment we have now and on the turf conditions we play, is the simplest option," he says. "It gives you less to think about, and sometimes on the golf course, thinking about less is good.

"But the big thing is that the reward for hitting the proper shot -- on a regular tour course -- is just not as great anymore. Off the tee you just look down the fairway and hit it, because it really doesn't matter where the ball ends up as long as it's in relatively short grass. Coming into the soft green, when the ball stops easily and it doesn't matter what side you miss it on, all of a sudden the perfectly shaped shot loses its relevance and becomes not worth the effort." 

And...

"Especially at Augusta and the British Open, golf courses with really firm greens where it's really bad to miss it on the short side of the pin, that's when the reward for shaping is much greater. When the ball actually does something when it hits the ground -- when it rolls a bit after it lands -- that's when shotmaking matters."

Okay, here's a hypothetical I've been wanting to float for some time.

What if a course, in a quest to present firm greens for a championship, were to cover their greens at night the way a baseball crew covers the infield during a rain delay?

Is this an artificial intrusion, or simply a clumsier method of doing what the Sub-Air systems accomplish at courses with the system installed? 

"Week to week on the PGA Tour, the setup on pristinely conditioned layouts doesn't encourage imaginative shotmaking."

There was one component of Nick Seitz's Golf World story on shotmaking that I would love to have read more about:

Course architects have responded to the different game current equipment has imposed mostly by building longer courses and moving tees back, often against their better judgment. Week to week on the PGA Tour, the setup on pristinely conditioned layouts doesn't encourage imaginative shotmaking. The majors can present a more rigorous test. Some fans find the new-look tour more entertaining, some find it less fulfilling. Long drives impress people, but so do daring trouble shots. The best players always want stronger setups, but the tour operates largely for the benefit of the majority of its membership, with a watchful eye on its TV ratings.

I'm not entirely sure what he means by the last sentence since "stronger setups" usually translates to confining, but it would seem simple to blame PGA Tour course setup for the lack of shotmaking. However, even as much rough harvesting and narrowing of playing corridors that goes on these days, I would lean toward PGA Tour course architecture quite often not allowing for the players to demonstrate their skills.

Outside of Kapalua, or at least Kapalua when it's firmer, how many courses on the PGA Tour actually allow for big sweeping run-up shots or imaginative shot shaping plays off of contours to get a ball close to the hole?

Now, Geoff Ogilvy would argue that soft greens play a role in diminishing shotmaking, as he did in this Jaime Diaz piece, but even when firm and fast at least half the courses on the PGA Tour contain virtually no shotmaking interest whatsoever.

In other words, architecture has let the game down as much as course setup or unregulated technology.

Of course, why I obsess over this is pointless when Golf Channel's Adam Barr has the answer. Break out the credit card! In this story of "game improvement" clubs (translation: stuff for hacks), he quotes Scott Rice of Cobra, who has the cure:

“But there is a middle ground for skilled players who want more forgiveness than a traditional forged blade, but still want to be able to work the ball. Cobra’s Carbon CB iron is one example of this middle ground. The head is slightly larger than a traditional blade and more mass is moved out to the perimeter of the head for more forgiveness, but it is still a very workable iron. Cobra’s FP iron is another example of an iron design targeted at the better player; it has a larger head and a wider sole than the Carbon CB for even more forgiveness, but the sole design features a chamfer on the back edge which allows the club to have workability characteristics of a narrower sole.”

Tiger Tops Rory By 19, Setting Up Monty-Sabbatini Dewsweepers Pairing

Since it was 29 degrees in Malibu Canyon this morning and 31 when I pulled into Sherwood, you can imagine how many people will be rushing out to see Rory Sabbatini attempting to repeat his trio of triple bogies while Monty sees if he can run faster than Rory and perhaps even catch the hole cutter during Saturday's round at Sherwood.

Oh, by the way, Tiger fired 62 and said the greens were soft.

Q.  How would you characterize the course setup today, and what do you think of the job the field staff does in general?

TIGER WOODS:  Well, the field staff set it up probably a little bit more difficult today pin wise, but the greens were soft.  I mean, that's the thing that allows us to be aggressive.  I fire at pins that I normally don't fire at here.  One, we had no wind, and we had greens that were backing balls up.  We had to watch out for spinning the ball back too much with 9 irons and wedges.  They did all they can do to hide the pins and make it a little more difficult, but when you've got receptive greens then the guys are going to shoot good scores.

I walked on all 18 of them while touring the course with John Mutch of the PGA Tour field staff and while the greens may not have been brick hard, to call them soft is an exaggeration. Several were frozen until nearly 10 a.m.

Admittedly, Sherwood's greens and today's locations did allow for shots to be funneled to the hole, but soft?

If those are soft and guys are spinning it back, then maybe U-grooves do have to go. I'd hate to think what Tiger considres to be a firm green.
 

"I believe, if you are going to be fair, you need to be consistent in setting up a course"

Newly engaged and already feisty, the Shark lashed out at the different condtions during round two in South Africa.

The 52-year-old Australian carded a 70 to finish in a six-man group on 145 that also included Britain's Darren Clarke.

But Norman was critical of the way the course was set up for the second round.

"It's been two totally different courses, the course was more difficult yesterday," he told reporters.

"They made a few adjustments to the tees and they did 100 percent irrigation last night so the greens, which they also did not cut, were softer and there was not as much release on the fairways.

"I believe, if you are going to be fair, you need to be consistent in setting up a course," added Norman.

Ah, the dreaded fair word.

Tournament director Mike Stewart defended the changes.

"Yesterday was very windy and the course was incredibly difficult as you could tell from the scores," Stewart told Reuters. "Some holes were exceptionally demanding.

"We felt we had to do something based on the weather forecast for today, which had wind speeds 5-mph stronger all day with gusts of up to 30-mph."

Stewart said the changes were made in order to make the course play as it did on Thursday.

"When we brought tees forward it was to make it play like it did on the first day," he said. "Despite the stronger wind players would be able to use the same club off the tee.

"We also had to slow down the greens because the ball was moving around in the afternoon yesterday. The possibility of an even stronger wind today put us in a very difficult position.

"If balls were moving around we may have had to stop play and we would look very silly if we brought the players in glorious sunshine."

Conditions were so difficult on Friday there were only 17 sub-par rounds, leader Kingston calling it a day for grinding out regulation figures.

"I was so solid on the back nine, I only missed two or three greens, but the wind was gusting so hard it was pushing you in all directions," said the South African.

"With the ball oscillating on the greens and the wind pushing you from behind it was so tough making a decent putt. It took a lot of energy just to stand still."

"Fairways are much tighter…and this is further evidenced by the fact that Fred Funk -- who is the benchmark for fairways -- is down in accuracy about 6 percent"

Bob Harig catches up with Hank Haney, who makes a long overdue point about Tiger's driving and the accuracy decline of other top players.

And the easy place to look was at Woods' driving accuracy, which had dropped from over 70 percent in 2000 to under 60 percent this year -- with varying degrees of difficulty in hitting fairways during that time.

"Wouldn't it be more relevant to compare Tiger to the other players?'' said Haney, who pointed out that most players have lost accuracy over the past five years.

Among the reasons Haney cites are the fact that players are hitting the ball farther, fairways are tighter, they are using more drivers off the tee in an attempt to overpower courses and they are using drivers with longer shafts (45 inches now, compared to 43).

"Simple geometry says that even a driver that averages one yard farther will miss more fairways,'' he said. "And Tiger is much longer" -- 293.3 yards in 2002 versus 302.4 yards in 2007 -- "than he was.

"Fairways are much tighter … and this is further evidenced by the fact that Fred Funk -- who is the benchmark for fairways -- is down in accuracy about 6 percent, despite the fact that he has lost distance since 2002.''

Remember, those in favor of grooves regulation suggest these guys thump away at the ball because they have grooves, yet have never mentioned that the decrease in accuracy could also be influenced by narrowing fairway widths.

"Interesting is fun, after all."

John Huggan profiled Mike Clayton's role in aiding Trever Herden in setting up The Australian for the Australian Open.

"Geoff Ogilvy uses the word ‘fun’ to describe what he looks for in championship golf,” says Clayton. "I’m not so sure about that, but it should certainly be interesting. Interesting is fun, after all.

"This is a difficult enough golf course, with the wind and the water and the way it is routed. So all we really tried to do was avoid the mistake of embarrassing the players or orchestrating a winning score by distorting the dimensions of the golf course. For me, that’s what goes on at the US Open; the dimensions of the course get distorted. And that is our role, to avoid that happening.

"So we don’t want fun in the sense that players are making birdies all day. I want guys challenged to make good decisions and hit good shots. I hate to see them hitting a shot a foot off the fairway and having to chip out sideways. All that does is eliminate decision-making."

"Fans want to see big great scores and everything but they want to see people hit the long ball. That's one of the big draws of golf."

Thanks to reader John for The Age's Phil Lutton who quotes J.B. Holmes, who has this to say about about PGA Tour course setup:

Holmes, 25, is ranked third on the US PGA tour in driving distance behind Bubba Watson and notorious ball thug John Daly, averaging 285m every time he unleashes the driver off the tee.

Now his driver is starting to amass cobwebs as tournament bodies and courses shape their layouts to trap up the long hitters, narrowing fairways in strategic areas and carving out bunkers to entangle the heavy swingers.

Holmes says the moves, designed to make courses a more level playing field for the shorter hitters, robs fans of one of the great entertainment factors in the game.

"A lot of fans go out there to watch somebody hit it a long way. You get on some golf courses and it just takes the driver out of your hands. You don't want to disappoint anybody but then again, you're playing a golf tournament and can't just wail away on the driver every time," Holmes said.

"I'd like to see it opened up a little bit. Some courses out there you can do that. You just don't see people hit it 340 yards.

"Fans want to see big great scores and everything but they want to see people hit the long ball. That's one of the big draws of golf."

"That's where the course should be heading, not to provide 15-under."

Thanks to reader Mark for pointing out the tantrum by architect John Darby over a tee move forward and a subsequent course record at the New Zealand Open. Michael Donaldson wrote:

The hole, which is guarded by water and has a green that slopes away from a hill protecting one side of it, delivered some huge scores on Thursday after only 31% of the field hit the green with their tee shot and the average score was 3.6.

It was just as tough on Friday with only a third of the field able to stop the ball on the green, although putting was slightly easier and the field averaged 3.3 shots.

Yesterday, officials reduced the length of the hole from 167m to 152m and moved the tee slightly to the left where the green was more visible rather than being partially obscured.

As a result, more than 70% of the players hit the green and the scoring average came right down to 3.0.

Fowler shot a 10-under par 62, including a par three at the 16th hole.

"It's a great shame it can't be a course record because some of the holes were played off the women's tees, not the championship tees," Darby told the Sunday Star-Times.

"We designed the whole hole to be played, not part of it. That green is entirely appropriate from that [167m] tee."

The PGA disputed that claim, saying the course record would stand as it was common practice to move tees and pin placements throughout a tournament.

And the painful takeaway quote from Darby:

"We designed this course in the tradition of great opens and great links courses, to be played to par off the championship tees. That's where the course should be heading, not to provide 15-under."

Meanwhile, if you didn't catch John Huggan's column on Donald Trump, he wrote about Darby's design as precisely what the world needs less of and noted this about the "controversy." 

Just the other day, in fact, a young Australian professional, Michael Sim, called Darby on his design of the par-3 16th hole at the Hills when they played together in the New Zealand Open's pro-am. So perplexed was Sim - coincidentally, he was born in Aberdeen - by the position and angle of the green relative to the tee, that he spent at least ten minutes debating both with an increasingly-harassed Darby. The conversation did not go well, apparently.

All Darby had to offer was that he had tried to create a "defensive hole" between two birdie chances. For "defensive", by the way, read "stupid". Last Thursday, the field averaged 3.6, and at one point in the afternoon only one golfer out of 21 managed to hit the green.

Here's what I find most interesting about this little saga: that Darby takes it personally when someone goes low on his course.

And that is the essential difference between an architect creating something fun and interesting, versus something utterly boring.

The architects interested in strategy do not want to put golfers on the defensive. They want to encourage risk taking with reward for those taking a chance.

The architects interested in protecting par, protecting their ego and in general preventing great players from occasionally making a birdie, can easily accomplish their goal if they so choose. However it sure is boring to watch and most certainly boring to play. 

"I thought hitting the fairway was part and parcel of golf. Silly me."

Lawrence Donegan talks to Andrew Coltart about his struggles with distance and the flogging approach to course setup.

"When I played with Tiger he was a brilliant player but he was also very physically imposing, so I went away and tried to work on hitting the ball further. That was 1999. We're now in 2007 and I'm still trying to get more distance," he said. "If I don't try and hit the ball further, the way technology is going I'm going to be left way behind."

The truth is that Coltart, now 37, whose trip to tour school comes after his failure to make the top 115 in the 2007 European tour order of merit, may already have been left behind. Last year he was 181st in driving distance, hitting the ball 268 yards on average - a full 40 yards behind the longest hitters. In the Italian Open in the summer he had to play a five-wood shot into the green on seven of the first nine holes.

"How the hell can I get a five-wood shot close to the hole consistently? If I'd shot two under par I would have done really well - the winning score was 16 under par," he said sarcastically. "I don't want this to come over as bitterness but I feel technology has allowed guys to prosper who 15 years ago wouldn't have been able to make a penny. But because of technology and the way the courses are set up they are going to do really well.

"A guy might be able to dunt the ball 260 yards down the middle but that guy is constantly being outdone because the bigger hitter - the animal, for the want of a better expression - hits it 330 yards and it doesn't matter if he is in the rough because he has only got a wedge in his hands for his next shot. And the greens are saturated, so whatever he can lob up on to the green is just going to plug and stop somewhere near the flag.

"There is one statistic that is very curious to me - you have guys who are 150th in driving accuracy yet are 10th in greens in regulation. How can that be right? I thought hitting the fairway was part and parcel of golf. Silly me."

Interesting to note that he doesn't seem optimistic that a change in grooves will help him reverse his fortunes. 

"Floyd suggested that the club and the Champions Tour consider 'buffering' the greens so that players won't be penalized so drastically."

Don Markus reviews the Senior Players at Baltimore CC and it seems the players want faster greens.

"It's a great golf course, but if they want to take that extra step, they could probably speed the greens up and firm the greens up just a little bit if they wanted to," Loren Roberts said after shooting a four-round score of 13-under-par 267 to win by six strokes over Tom Watson. "I hope they don't hear me say that, but ..."

Roberts echoed the sentiments of many players who appreciated the old-style layout of the 81-year-old Five Farms course and the original design of legendary golf architect A.W. Tillinghast, but said that modern technology and the severely back-to-front sloping greens are not necessarily a good match.

Hall of Famer Ray Floyd said that when the course was built, "they were only mowing twice a week and it made sense to have that kind of speed and slope in the greens." Floyd suggested that the club and the Champions Tour consider "buffering" the greens so that players won't be penalized so drastically.

"Raymond could be right," two-time Masters champion Ben Crenshaw said. "The slopes are tough, there's no question about that. The first championship here to prepare something like this. I'm sure they're looking at the speeds, the play. They're tough, they're really tough."

I'm sorry. I was in the heat and sun too long today and my brain is fried. What does green "buffering" mean!? I'm assuming he means to flatten out contours.

If that club, with that gem of a course, touches those greens for the fifth of five senior majors...