"You just don't even want to pull your normal driver out when you can play like this."

Mike Clayton writes about a Royal Melbourne round with Geoff Ogilvy using hickory shafted clubs

Ogilvy had never hit a wooden shaft but he had a couple of hits and concluded that "my body will tell me how to hit it".

It took him no time to adjust to the feel of the shaft and after a few holes he said "you just don't even want to pull your normal driver out when you can play like this".

Manufacturers have made fortunes mass-producing quality metal drivers and they have unquestionably made the game easier for the average player. Mishits are more than kindly treated by the big heads but off-centre hits with a small-headed wood with a hickory shaft are not pretty.

Ogilvy barely missed the middle of the two wood's clubface and anyone watching would have been astounded how far he drove the ball. Into the strong south wind off the eighth tee he covered 230 metres and down wind off the next he was right at the 270-metre mark. At the long par-four 11th he lost one high and right on the wind and had to hit a three-wood from there but that was about the only bad one he hit. At the par-five 12th and 15th he easily reached the greens with seven-iron second shots and at the final hole ripped the hickory over the corner of the dogleg and hit a wedge onto the green.

There was nothing revolutionary about our conclusions as we walked off the 18th. That RM played so short for a great player using a hickory shaft backed up what MacKenzie said all those years ago. The custodians of the game need to control the ball because RM, like most of our wonderful suburban courses, has no more land.

Whatever Floats Their Boat...

Brent Read talks to Geoff Ogilvy about his year and about the upcoming Australian Open. And it includes this note:

Director Paul McNamee revealed the tournament would have a strong emphasis on fashion, holding parades for female spectators. The golfers will be included, with daily awards to the best dressed player.

Meanwhile Douglas Lowe reports on Ian Poulter getting into women's fashion, with this quote from Pouter:

Poulter believes both men's and women's golf fashion has moved up a notch in the last few years, but not to the level of the 1970s. "When I came out on tour in 2000 there wasn't as much fashion in golf as there was then," he said.

"If you look at pictures of Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer, Doug Sanders & Co, they were wearing tartan trousers and bright colours and it was fun. Why can't we get back to how it was back then?"

Tartan and bright I can see. But Doug Sanders? 

"It May Be Damned Hot, But It's Heartening Too"

Geoff Ogilvy's look at Southern Hills for Sunland In Scotday Scotland On Sunday is notable for several reasons, mostly because it's just so fun to read a modern day player so eloquently stating why the direction of the Masters and U.S. Open is so absurd.

Instead of the silly thick rough and ultra-narrow fairways the USGA come up with in a misguided attempt to 'protect' par, the USPGA officials have clearly decided to let us play a more strategic and interesting form of golf. By not trying to engineer a winning score, they gave themselves the opportunity to set the course up properly. If you do try to manipulate the winning score - level par in the case of a typical US Open - you have no chance to set a course up properly.

And that's from a former U.S. Open champion.

All of which has been doubly nice after last week at Firestone, where we played the WGC Bridgestone Invitational. The course set up there was probably the worst I have seen all year. Not only was the course really narrow, the rough was ridiculously thick - injury thick. Which is no good. Firestone's holes are all basically straight up and down and somewhat boring, so it needs a more imaginative set up to make the course even remotely interesting.

Now, you're probably wondering why, if Firestone is so bad, Tiger Woods seems to win there every year. Well, the reason is simple. Tiger is the best player we are ever going to see from long grass. So when everyone is in it, he is going to win.

Thankfully, the same mistakes have not been made at Southern Hills.

This next part makes me wish Geoff had seen the rough a few weeks ago, when it was closer to the ideal he described. But the rains stopped and the grass took off, so at least Kerry Haigh gets points for seeing that 2 3/4 was going to be plenty tough. 

Apart from the fact that the rough is maybe half an inch too long - that bit shorter would have encouraged more aggression from the players and taken the spin off the ball, which is all rough really needs to do anyway - the course has been presented almost perfectly. I like the design, too. It has lots of doglegs in all the right places. And we are able to hit a variety of clubs from many of the par-4 tees. This week I've hit everything from driver to 4-iron, depending on where I want to be for the approach shot. So it's an interesting test.

Even better, there is a lot of risk versus reward decisions to make on almost every tee. The bunkers tend to be on the inside of the doglegs, so you can play short of the sand, go over it, or play away from it altogether. But the greatest thing is that, if I wished, I could hit driver off every tee. It would be risky, of course, but I could do it. John Daly did that on the first day and shot 67, so it can work too.

That's the best aspect of this golf course. There are multiple ways to play every hole and every one of them is correct, depending on what you want to achieve and are comfortable with. To me, that's what makes any golf hole good and what allows almost any type of player to have a chance to contend for the title. So, while the long-hitter has had an advantage here this week, his edge has been in proportion. The guy who hits it straight off the tee has also enjoyed an appropriate advantage, as has the player who can move the ball both ways in the air. No-one attribute has outweighed any other though. Which is as it should be.

And...

As for the greens, they have been terrific, despite the heat. The pin positions have also been sensible. None have looked contrived. And the bunkers have been a revelation, compared with what we typically see at the US Open. There is no rough growing around them, so the ball is allowed to run into the sand unhindered by long grass. They look fantastic, too, like those at Augusta. And because there is sand in the faces of the bunkers, you get to see a lot of the sand from the tees. I like that look.

Still, the best aspect of this week is my hope that the obvious success of this type of course set up will have a positive effect on the other American majors. My feeling is that Augusta National will have been paying attention to what has been going on. They are a proud club and, while I'm sure they will never admit it, they do listen to the world of golf. They won't like the fact that there is currently such a negative impression of their course, so over the next three or four years I can see them moving the Masters back to what it once was.

"Rough misses the point of golf."

Geoff Ogilvy pens a Scotland On Sunday guest column about rough.

Rough is golf's most boring hazard and too much of it on any course can only lead to less interesting play. Rough misses the point of golf.

Fast forward...

It's commonsense really. Golf has to be more interesting if we can stand on tees and decide for ourselves what club to hit and where to hit it.

Take the fourth hole here at Carnoustie. In the first round last Thursday, the pin was tucked away behind the bunker on the left side of the green. So the ideal spot for the drive was actually ten yards or so into the rough on the right. Which was where I chose to hit. I was prepared to accept a less-good lie in order to create a better angle for myself. In the end, I pushed my drive a bit and ended up on the 15th fairway, which gave me an even better line in. But the fun part of the whole process was the standing on the tee and working it out.

Don't get me wrong though. I'm not anti-rough necessarily. Rough like we have here this week gives the talented player a chance to recover.

Which is great and as it should be. The recovery shot might be the most exciting thing to watch at this level. But it disappears completely when the set up is overly penal. When that is the case, there is no point in being good at recovery shots; you'll never get to try one.

And... 

Look also at the 69 Tiger Woods shot in the third round of the US Open at what was almost a rough-covered Oakmont last month. We had the best golfer in the world - one of the two best ever - playing close to his best and he could manage only one under par? All that proves is that there is something wrong with the course.

Happily, none of the above has been the case here at Carnoustie, even if I did miss the cut. Take a close look at the way this great links has been set up this week.

This is the way your own course should be presented for the club championship. The rough is an annoyance but not the end of the world.

You have to hit two good shots on any hole to make a birdie. The greens are running at a speed where you can put the pin in almost any spot on almost every green. It has been a fascinating test.

"Part of the strategy on any links is avoiding the bunkers. But we couldn't see too many of them because of the rough!"

John Huggan reminds us that Carnoustie is a great golf course, we just couldn't see it under all that rough in 1999. He reviews the event in his Sunday column.

First, this memory from Geoff Ogilvy:

"Then I got up there. It was such a disappointment. Breaking 80 was an unbelievable effort. If there is one course on the rota that doesn't need to be touched at all, it is Carnoustie. And they got lucky. It didn't even blow to any great extent. It was the greenness of the rough that was embarrassing. It looked so cultivated and unnatural. It was bizarre."

That it was, the strangeness of the whole situation summed up by the sight of Greg Norman, one of the game's most powerful players, missing the 17th fairway by a foot with his tee-shot, then swinging as hard as he could in a vain effort to move the ball from a lie best described as subterranean. The whole thing was getting silly enough to cause the then 20-year-old Sergio Garcia to burst into tears after an opening round of 89. Less than one month later, it should be noted, the young Spaniard was good enough to finish second in the USPGA Championship.

"If you missed the fairway - any fairway - by even a yard, you were hacking out," remembers Australian Peter O'Malley, one of golf's straightest hitters and the man who hit the opening tee-shot on day one. "We were just lucky the weather wasn't too bad. If it had been really windy no one would have broken 300.

"The set up was really weird. Part of the strategy on any links is avoiding the bunkers. But we couldn't see too many of them because of the rough!"

And on John Philp's contribution to the game...

Most, if not all, of the blame for the craziness was heaped on the head of one John Philp, the head greenkeeper. And it must be said he deserved nearly all of the criticism that rained down on his misguided head. Indeed, the much-maligned Philp did not help himself with a series of public comments seemingly designed to further alienate the world's best golfers.

"Golf is about character and how a player stands up to adversity," he sneered. "But, like a lot of things in life, golf has gone soft.

"Playing this type of course requires imagination and it requires handling frustration.

"I know there is a bit of a lottery in the way this course plays. Top players take badly to bad bounces. But the element of luck is critical.

"Take that away and you don't have a real game of golf. They are too pampered now."

Amidst the fast-accelerating level of complaints, the Royal & Ancient Golf Club claimed that all was well, that the jungle-like rough had been neither fertilised nor excessively watered and that, besides, they had been unable to do anything about it all. The problem, they claimed, was caused solely by the weather immediately preceding the championship.

Except it wasn't of course. Almost three months before the championship, your correspondent had played the Carnoustie course in the annual media gathering hosted by the R&A. After my round I was - funnily enough - standing at the bar in the hotel behind the 18th green waiting to be served. As I did so, the then secretary of the R&A, Sir Michael Bonallack, approached and asked my opinion of the course.

This was fun too...

"There is nothing wrong with having long, wispy rough that introduces doubt in a player," confirms Scotland's Andrew Coltart, who finished in a tie for 18th back in '99. "But long, lush grass only requires us to mindlessly reach for the lob wedge and is just plain daft.

"Eight years ago, the rough was just so thick and looked to me like it had been fertilised. There was no chance to get the ball on the green and no chance even to take a chance, if you see what I mean. I played with Tiger Woods on the last day and even he couldn't hit out of that stuff. So it was boring to play and, I'm sure, to watch. It was drive, chop out, wedge to green."

And Barker Davis, writing for the Sunday Telegraph, offers these remembrances...

Lee Westwood

The first round I was playing with Greg Norman, and he was playing really well, a couple under or something. On 17 he hit it right, not far right, just a couple of feet off the edge of the fairway and you virtually couldn't see it. He ended up making seven or eight and that summed it up. But I like the course, it's up in my top three with Birkdale and Muirfield.

Richard Green

I remember playing the last couple of holes on Friday just praying to get off the golf course. I was just in a lot of mental pain. There was one tee shot on the fourth that I hooked to the right. I ended up slashing about in the rough for ages. But it's still one of my favourite courses, up there with Kingston Heath in Australia and Royal Lytham.

Hank Gola, New York Daily News

It was like watching a slow-motion car wreck. When Jean Van de Velde went into the Barry Burn and rolled up his pants, it was the most amazing thing I've ever seen. The Frenchman goes up in flames. I remember walking in the play-off with Davis Love III, who was smoking a cigar at the time, and he said they got what they deserved for the set-up.

Thomas Levet

On the sixth hole I hit a drive and it bounced 90 degrees right and finished in the rough by two inches. From there I couldn't get the fairway back. So I made a drive, my sand iron five times and a putt - seven, double bogey. It was so deep I didn't know if that ball was going to go one yard or 80. But what I remember most is Jean Van de Velde. I was at the airport with Dean Robertson.

We were sitting in the lounge at Edinburgh watching Jean play the last hole.

It was a great moment of golf, like a great tragedy, but it was not very good to know it was a Frenchman. We couldn't believe it. We were speechless. It was crazy that day.

Michael Campbell

I think I shot 13 over and missed the cut by one. I remember sitting down with a bunch of players and watching the coverage on the Friday afternoon. It was carnage. It was pathetic really. I watched Norman hit it two yards in the rough. I wasn't laughing at the time. I was shaking my head saying: "This is not right, this is not good TV."

Tuesday's U.S. Open Interviews

I was out all day so I only looked at the Ogilvy, Woods and Mickelson press conferences. I found no really good rally killers because that would mean there were rallies to be killed.

So, the few highlights I could find. Geoff Ogilvy said:

It's a great property. It looks fantastic without any trees on it. I can't picture it without any trees on it. That's how good it looks without trees. Collection of the best greens I've seen anywhere.
The bunkers are tough and the rough is really tough. It's a great golf course. It's completely different from Winged Foot, a different type of property, a different type of golf course, but Winged Foot is fantastic, too.

Tiger Woods had this to say:

 Q. Have you played out of the church pews at all during your practice rounds --
TIGER WOODS: No.

Q. Have you dropped a ball there?
TIGER WOODS: No.

Q. Is it like 17 at Sawgrass --
TIGER WOODS: I don't really think that you should be practicing negativity. You're not going to place the golf ball there, and if you are, if you do make a mistake there, you just basically are going to wedge out anyways. Accept your mistake, and move on. I'm practicing where I'm trying to place the golf ball and tendency is I think where the greens, even with good shots, balls with run-off to certain areas, and that's basically what I've been doing so far.

And before the questions about becoming the first father in the history of the world... 

Q. You had mentioned, I think earlier on, that this course had supplanted Shinnecock has the hardest you had played; I wonder if you still subscribe to that? And part two would be the greens here seem to be the thing that everybody talks about, arguably the hardest, anywhere, if you could just touch on those two issues.

TIGER WOODS: Yeah, they are by far the most difficult greens I've ever played. I thought Winged Foot's pretty tough, Augusta's pretty tough. But both golf courses have flat spots. You know, Augusta may have these big, big slopes, but they have these flat shelves that they usually put the pins on. Here, I'm trying to figure out where a flat shelf is.

And most of the greens here are all tilted. Some even run away from you, which is not the norm in modern course design. Overall, these greens -- like I said, depends on how the pins are set; if they give us a chance to play, or if they are going to make it really impossible. We'll see.

And from Phil Mickelson:

PHIL MICKELSON: I had a chance to play nine holes today. It was the first time in a while and it was nice to get out on the course and get to hit some shots.
As you know, I've had a bit of a wrist injury the last two weeks. And since Memorial, I took four or five days off and had two doctors look at it. Fortunately I had the same diagnosis from both doctors; that it was inflammation. I took four or five days off and tried to play last Tuesday and hit balls and just wasn't able to do it

 Q. I didn't get to see all of the holes this morning; did you play any shots out of the rough and if you did, how did it feel?

PHIL MICKELSON: I didn't hit any shots out of the rough. I don't want to aggravate it. Tried not to hit too many drivers yet. I don't want to go at it full speed just yet. I think I hit one or two drivers at the most. Just kind of easing into it.

I've got a really good game plan mapped out for the tournament. I'm just not sure if I'm going to be ready to implement it because I haven't had the normal practice and preparation that I would have going into it a major.

But I'm still looking forward to being able to play and hopefully implement or put together the game plan that I had hoped.

And...

 Q. As a follow, do you have any concern as you go in Thursday that you'll be able to perform this week?

PHIL MICKELSON: Sure I do, I have concerns. But I'm going to do the best I can do it. I'm going to do all that I can to do that.

At least he's honest. And this...

 Q. We all remember Shinnecock a few years ago, and last year No. 1 at Winged Foot had to be looked at and watched very closely. Are there any greens that if they are not careful --

PHIL MICKELSON: Oh, yeah, there's six or seven of them, sure.

Stuck On 63

My Links Magazine cover story is now posted online, and in light of the reports on the rough and predictions of a high winning score, this passage seems fairly relevant:

“The rough’s gotten so healthy in just the last few years,” he says. “You see footage of 1973 and Johnny Miller is hitting 6-irons out of the rough and onto the green from 170 yards. Not to put down Johnny Miller’s 63, because I’ve gotten to hear about it from Miller Barber, who played with him that day and it’s without a doubt the best round of all time, but it’s a lot tougher to recover from the rough on a lot of today’s major venues.”

Sometimes the conditions are too tough, and the prime examples are the 2004 U.S. Open at Shinnecock Hills and the 1999 British Open at Carnoustie. At Shinnecock the USGA set up the course too firm and fast for the final round; putts on the 7th hole were rolling off the green, which the grounds crew eventually had to water between groups.

Carnoustie’s fairways were so narrow that even Ben Hogan, who had won at the same course with a masterful display of driving accuracy, might have had trouble hitting them.

“It’s unfortunate that they set up courses to try and keep you from shooting a low score,” says Love. “The U.S. Open to me is getting over the top. Augusta is getting over the top. The Open Championship, other than Carnoustie in ’99, is by far the most fair and the one you look forward to playing the most.”

"You can hit great, straight drives in the US Open and still miss the fairway."

John Huggan follows up on his Golf Digest interview with Geoff Ogilvy with a few more questions for the defending champion. Ogilvy touched on a similar notion about driving accuracy in the Q&A we did for Links (not online). I think he's onto something with regard to the effect of the 21-24 yard landing area...

JH: Ironically, the US Open isn't the one of the four your game would seem most suited to.

GO: No. I have thought a lot about that. I would have expected, for someone like me who is a little wayward off the tee even when playing well, that Augusta or the Open would be the best bet. But US Opens are so narrow that straight hitters almost lose their advantage. Everyone is in the rough. And I'm used to that and they are not.

You can hit great, straight drives in the US Open and still miss the fairway. So it almost works against those guys. I mean, I'm quite happy hitting seven shots out of the rough. I do that every day. They don't.

I'm not alone, though. Take a look at the leader board at Winged Foot.

Phil was up there and he isn't the straightest hitter. Everyone talks about how you have to hit it straight at the US Open. And I thought that too. But in hindsight I'm not so sure. No-one can hit it straight enough to hit every fairway in the US Open. It's so difficult, almost impossible really. You can be a great driver of the ball and still miss six fairways in a day. And you can drive badly and do that.

JH: What do you think of all the rough around the greens?

GO: I think some of the holes at Winged Foot would have been better served if balls were allowed to run away from the greens, rather than get stopped within a few feet.

JH: Which is what happened with your approach to the last green came up short.

GO: Exactly. That created quite an interesting shot.

Winged Foot is a stellar course though. I can't say anything bad about it because I won! I loved the fact that they had trimmed the trees so that you can see a lot of the course under the branches. That has been lost in a lot of places, but Winged Foot had that look about it.

It also has some of the coolest greens I have ever seen.

Ogilvy Golf Digest Interview, Vol 3: "It’s just different."

Geoff Ogilvy's nuanced take on changes in the game as detailed in his Golf Digest interview with John Huggan:

You’ve criticized what has happened to the modern game. Is it that bad?

It’s just different. There’s a very large percentage of golfers who enjoy the game more with the large clubheads and the balls and all the rest of it. Playing with the old clubs was like driving an old car: They have a bit of charm about them. But it’s still nice to drive a new car with all the bells and whistles.

Is the modern game better or worse as a spectator sport? A lot of people think it’s less interesting to watch than even 10 years ago.

That’s true. But it has more to do with the way golf courses on tour play today rather than the equipment. The equipment is just the catalyst. The trouble is that 99.9 percent of golfers don’t hit the ball like a professional. They don’t want to look for their balls in the rough all day. They play to enjoy the company of friends and watch the ball fly through the air.

Still, I would counter that unregulated changes in the ball have driven the two things Ogilvy hates most: soft conditions (to help hold the harder, less spinnable ball) and high rough/narrow fairways (to try and take driver out of the player's hands).
 

Ogilvy's Golf Digest Interview, Vol. 2

Moving on to the last hole at Winged Foot, I thought this bit from Geoff Ogilvy's Golf Digest Interview with John Huggan was interesting because he downplays the severity of he divot lie in the 18th fairway and emphasizes (as we suspected here last year) that the chip shot on 18 was rather incredible. I also like the sound practical advice about wedge play around the greens from Dale Lynch...

So you posed the finish?

Oh, yes. [Laughs.] I looked at it for a long time. It hit up on the green, and even then I thought it was going to be all right. But then you hear the groans. And it starts trickling back. All week long shots had been taking big bounces up that green. I’m still surprised, given how hard the greens get at the end of a U.S. Open.

When I get to the ball, I realize it’s in a pretty filthy little spot. But then I see that Colin had made 6.

I was thinking if I got up and down for par I wasn’t going to be any worse than second. At that point, all Phil has to do is par the last to win, unless I chip in. But that wasn’t realistic. The reality was that I was 30 yards from the hole, 10 feet below the level of the cup and chipping off a really tight lie. And he’s one shot in front. It still didn’t look great.

I hit a pretty good chip shot, probably the best of my life. It was way better than the one I holed on the previous green.

Did your upbringing in Melbourne help you there? Some people would have putted from where you were.

Two things helped me there.

One, growing up in the Sandbelt, all you have there is tight-lie chips up hills when you miss a green. And that was a very Sandbelt-type shot off a tight lie. So I’m sure there was a level of comfort somewhere at the back of my head, knowing I had done that a thousand times at home.

Two, about three years ago Lynchy [instructor Dale Lynch] decided that my chipping action was poor for that particular type of shot. I did what most people do: I was trying to spin the ball a lot. I was hitting sand wedge and lob wedge from anywhere, taking more and more loft off the club. Before I knew it, I was hitting the shot I should hit, but with the wrong club.

It sounds obvious, but if the shot calls for an 8-iron, you hit an 8-iron; if you need a wedge, you hit a wedge. That helps your technique. For the first 18 months I just couldn’t do it. I was terrible. But I improved. And the reason I worked on it so hard was because of shots like I had at 18. Two and a half years ago I would have hit it a lot lower. So I would have had to really open the face and cut across the ball. Which is risky.

And the club?

I played it with my lob wedge.

You made it look straightforward.

Maybe, but it was a shot I’ve spent maybe five minutes on every day for the last three years. Sixty degrees is a lot of loft. But I played the shot properly with the right height. It came off just like I wanted. Even better, if you can imagine. At that point I was, for want of a better phrase, s----ing myself a bit. There are 10,000 people ’round the green, and it’s the culmination of 72 holes. 

Ogilvy's Golf Digest Interview Vol. 1

Geoff Ogilvy's "Golf Digest Interview" seems shorter than some of the past incarnations of these always enjoyable chats, especially since just as it ended it felt like things were really rolling. Still, there's still plenty of good stuff to consider.

John Huggan asks the questions and as usual, Ogilvy has a fresh take on the still interesting subject of American golf and the dreaded state of our under-30 set:

There is a contrast right now between Europe and the U.S. when it comes to developing young players.

That's true. I know the U.S. press is looking for the next great American under 30.

Is it just cyclical?

It's an expensive sport in the U.S. It's cheaper in Australia, or the U.K. or South Africa. Anyone can play.

I do think that the American college system is really good at producing guys who can get the ball in the hole, but it neglects the technical aspects of golf. They're looking for the wrong things. I'm not saying the American guys aren't talented; all I'm saying is that some talent is getting missed.

If the Americans sorted their system out, we'd have only five on the PGA Tour [a dozen Aussies are among the top 100 of the World Golf Ranking]. We get more out of our talent than they get out of theirs. Their way of doing things can't be better than ours, because we have 20 million people and they have 300 million. It just doesn't add up.

Given the enormous influx of Australians on the PGA Tour, why hasn't a college coach wondered why and gotten himself down to the VIS [Victorian Institute of Sport] to have a look?

What is that, exactly?

If you go way back to the early 1980s, the Australian government realized we weren't winning any gold medals in anything. Or hardly any. For such a proud sporting nation, that was unacceptable. So the Australian Institute of Sport was started, mainly for Olympic sports. We did well in Atlanta [nine gold medals in the 1996 Olympics], and Sydney [16 golds in 2000] was amazing. And we did even better in Athens [17 golds in 2004]. It's crazy how well we do for such a small nation.

How did golf become a part of that?

The Victorian government decided to supplement it with an institute. Golf kind of came along for the ride. The deal was that you got a scholarship for a year. You got access to the top coaches. You got physical training and nutritional advice. Anything that was going to help make you better.

If I had to sum it up, I'd say that they basically took the best boy and girl players in Victoria and gave them access to all the experts in Victoria--for free. It was brilliant, really. And the bonus was funding for travel.

The best part of it was that they never dictated where you went or how you went about things. They would simply make everyone and everything available to you and let you get on with it. You had to make your own way. And you got time to ride out any bad periods of play.

“I think that would be a fantastic eighth hole, but not as the 71st hole of a tournament, or 17th hole of your round.’’

Thanks for all of the memory-jogging nominations for great greens in the game. The chapter got a whole lot easier to write.

Though I noticed no one really got too excited about my 17th at TPC Sawgrass nomination, and now I read in Doug Ferguson's piece that Tiger the architect thinks the 17th is poorly placed in the sequence of the course. Kinda spooky I know, but when you are going with the whole Fazio thing in your design business, the overriding theme is bound to be dull design.

“I’ve always thought that hole is too gimmicky for the 17th hole of a championship,’’ Woods said. “I think that would be a fantastic eighth hole, but not as the 71st hole of a tournament, or 17th hole of your round.’’

Thankfully Geoff Ogilvy was around to lend some more rational and thoughful perspective:

“If that was just a bunker around it and not water, you’d probably find more people would hit it on the grass,’’ Geoff Ogilvy said. “There’s something about water that does it to people. It’s a fun hole. I’m glad it’s here. You wouldn’t design an island hole on every course in the world, but it seems to work here. It’s cool.’’  

And because this is my clipping archive, here's the lowdown on Tiger's Dubai design partner associate, again from Doug Ferguson's notes:

Among those watching Tiger Woods at the Wachovia Championship last week was Beau Welling, who used to be the top designer for Tom Fazio and played a big role in the redesign of Quail Hollow.

But his presence had more to do with the future.

Woods has hired Welling to do the work on Al Ruwaya in Dubai, the first golf course for Tiger Woods Design. The golf course is supposed to be done by September 2009.

Woods said Bryon Bell, whom he hired as president of Tiger Woods Design, found Welling after looking at the philosophies of various design companies.

"Beau fit what we wanted to have happen," Woods said.

Dubai is the only course in which Woods is involved, and he did not say whether he would continue to use Welling for other projects.

Welling now has his own company, and golf course design is not his only interest. He recently was appointed president of the U.S. Curling Association.

Fifh of Four Majors Watch, Vol. 2

It's Monday of fifth major week, which means no one has much to write about. So Jason Sobel and Bob Harig try their best to be like Brittle and Gorse over at GolfDigest.com by doing their alternate shot shtick. Let the fifth major debate begin!

Sobel: Well, I've always disliked the notion of The Players Championship as the "fifth major" and I hated those snarky comments we heard throughout the week about the Wachovia Championship becoming the "sixth major," according to some of the pundits.

Oh I don't think Andrew Magee was being snarky! You did mean Andrew, right?  Lord knows, the word snarky has never been uttered in the same sentence as moi!

That said, it was an enjoyable, memorable weekend of golf from Quail Hollow, culminating in Tiger Woods' 57th career victory.

It's one they'll talk about for weeks. I know I enjoyed thinking about not watching it at while I lounged at the beach.

Of course, it's the same old story: Did Tiger outplay the field in Sunday's final round or did his fellow contenders simply wave the white towel and get out of his way?

Harig: First things first. The idea of a fifth major is ridiculous, no matter how good The Players Championship was, is, or might be. So a sixth is even sillier. A Grand Slam in baseball does not consist of five runs scoring on a home run, and one in golf does not include five (or six) tournaments. And it never will. Too much history would have to be rewritten. And then there is this: When was the last time you saw 19 of the top 20 in the world play the week prior to a major? Probably never.

So cynical Bob!

Meanwhile Doug Ferguson spent Monday trying not to get lost in the new clubhouse, unlike Geoff Ogilvy.

“I’m a little lost,’’ U.S. Open champion Geoff Ogilvy said. “It’s such a big building.’’

And Doug did the fifth major thing, and he comes out firmly that The Players remains the fifth of golf's four majors.

“I think enough fun has been made of their place in the golf kingdom,’’ Sluman said over the weekend. “There are still only four majors, but it is an unbelievable golf course with bar-none the best field in golf.’’

Shouldn’t that be enough?

PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem has said that he only wants The Players Championship to be the best it can be, and he has stopped at nothing to accomplish that. The Tour wants the tournament to be known as “The Players,’’ similar to “The Masters.’’ Television coverage will include only four minutes of commercials every hour, just like the Masters.

The winner of The Players gets as many FedEx Cup points as the winner of a major. In the World Golf Hall of Fame ballots, The Players is listed in bold print alongside the four majors.

“Nobody likes being force-fed,’’ Sluman said. “I think everybody associated with the tournament needs to let it take its course. It will find its spot wherever that ends up in five, 10, 15 or 50 years. But just let it happen.’’

Ogilvy called it the fifth-best tournament in the world, which probably is what The Players Championship is. But what inevitably followed were more examples of what it’s not.

“It’s not a career-defining win,’’ he said.

Can't you get fined for saying things like that? 

"Somewhere it has all gone wrong.”

Paul Forsyth talked to Geoff Ogilvy for a Sunday Times profile.  Thanks to reader John for reminding about this.

“I’m not against the course being lengthened, but the fairways were never meant to be narrow. The point was that you had a paddock to hit into, but you had to make a decision as to what side of the fairway was good. Now you don’t have a choice.” Ogilvy regrets that technology has drastically changed many of the world’s great courses, rendered some of them redundant, and diminished the game’s entertainment value. By responding to Tiger Woods’s every achievement with more rough and more yards, they have made the spectacle more boring.

“You don’t need an array of shots any more, and that’s not good for spectators. Who wants to watch us drive into the rough, chip out to 80 yards, and try to get up and down? There is no excitement in that, no imagination or strategy. One day, somebody will realise that the score relative to par does not reflect the quality of a golf tournament.”

I like this...

By now, Ogilvy is getting everything off his chest, suggesting a think tank of the 100 smartest minds in golf to address the game's problems. “It is in everybody’s interests because it appears, in America anyway, that fewer and fewer people are playing the game. In the old days, you went out in a Saturday threeball, and in under three hours, you would be back in the clubhouse having a beer. Now, it costs you £150 and it takes five hours. At some courses, you’re driving a cart, so you don’t talk to anyone, and you’ve lost eight balls in the rough. Somewhere it has all gone wrong.”

And on the state of world golf... 

There ought to be more, however. Henrik Stenson, the Swede who last month denied Ogilvy a successful defence of his WGC-Accenture Match Play title, is still having to justify his rise to fifth in the world. “It’s incredible,” says the Australian. “Henrik plays well, and they all start questioning the validity of the world ranking system, but he has won four times in the past year. In the Match Play, they were talking as though this guy had never played golf before, and yet he had beaten Tiger in Dubai two weeks earlier. Some people here have a hard time looking past the borders of their own country.”

Ogilvy could do with another big win to cement his reputation. His US Open triumph would not have been possible without the dramatic collapse of Phil Mickelson, Colin Montgomerie and Padraig Harrington. “Another major would make the first one more credible, but I’m not in this to influence what people think of me,” he says. “I just like doing it. Standing on the 18th tee at Winged Foot was the most fun I have ever had in my life. We don’t know how lucky we are.”

Golf's Best Interview

Jaime Diaz in this week's Golf World says Geoff Ogilvy is the best interview in golf:

Ogilvy's figuratively old head, perhaps made wiser by growing up next to Royal Melbourne, startled me the first time I asked him a question. "Golf was better before," he said in October 2005. "There was more art. It doesn't create a really rounded golfer." At a time when the shortcomings of the emerging twentysomethings were still well below the radar, Ogilvy captured the issue in three quick sentences.

"The complicated thing is making it simple, if that makes any sense," he said, offering as good a definition of a first-class mind as any. Indeed, in quotes over the last year including an upcoming interview with John Huggan in Golf Digest, Ogilvy produces one pearl after another.

Of Woods: "I mean, Tiger is the angriest player on tour. He's also the best at controlling it."

Of Sergio Garcia: "When he starts making putts again -- which he is going to do -- he's going to win 10 times in a year. He is the best ball-striker in the world, probably. … But he is so analytical about his putting and not about anything else. … He's like Seve, only in reverse."

On golf architecture: "I like there to be a relationship between the quality of your drive and ease of your second shot."