More Questions For Fay/Driver

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us open icon.jpgOn top of the questions already posted, I have a few more that would be nice to ask at the USGA press conference while a stenographer is present:

AP reports that you are looking into eliminating the Hawaii sectional qualifier, but is there any consideration to adding flexibility to the European sectional where 24 players withdrew, creating a disproportionate number of spots in this year's field?

And this one was inspired by one of Sean Murphy's recent posts and would make a nice follow up on the inevitable tournament ball question:

The USGA's position has been that bifurcation of the pro and amateur games created via a tournament ball spec would be bad for the the game, but what would you say to those who believe that modern distances along with intricately tiered rough and other extreme course conditions not attainable or desireable in everyday golf, have already bifurcated the professional and amateur games?

Phil's Press Conference

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Sheesh, even Borat might have asked Phil Mickelson about the new penthouse timeshare he purchased overlooking the Old Course. Anyway, some highlights from his gathering with the assembled literary craftsman:

RAND JERRIS: Obviously you had success at Baltusrol last August. Would you compare this Tillinghast course to Baltusrol.

PHIL MICKELSON: Comparing Baltusrol to Winged Foot, they are very similar with bunkering, very similar shot values, the way the holes move, the challenge on the greens, very similar. They're both very difficult golf courses.

He sure knows how to wipe the smiles off the faces of those Winged Foot members.

Q. Does this course skew more to a right to left ball flight on driver holes, and if so, does that enhance your prospects this week?

PHIL MICKELSON: There are a lot of holes where you can move it either way, and right to left shots fit fine on this golf course. Left to right shots fit fine on this golf course. There are two holes where I'll be hitting a draw, the 8th hole and the 17th hole. It doesn't have to be a big draw, it just has to softly turn to the right. But other than those two holes, I'll be fading it off most every tee.

For me what it does is makes it a softer cut, takes out some of the roll and when it hits the fairway it's more inclined to stay.

A couple years ago, the USGA took 25, 30 percent out of the fairways. In '99 the fairways were 32, 34 yards wide. The last couple years they've been 24 yards. I think the widest fairway I saw was 27, 28 paces, but on average 24. So we've lost, what, a quarter of the fairways. So I'm trying to get the ball just to come in a lot softer. I don't want to hit a draw where the balls run.

He's being kind with those 27 and 28 yard figures.

Kind of sad that course setup has come to this: fast and firm would be bad because the fairways are so narrow, the balls would not stay in them.

Q. I'm wondering, there's been a lot of feedback from players about the tiers of rough and that it seems like the punishment now fits the crime a little more appropriately. I'm wondering what your thoughts are on that and whether you think that's a good evolution.

PHIL MICKELSON: Well, for me personally, the larger you hit it off line, I kind of like the way it was trampled down, but that's a personal thing. I actually think this is the way the rough probably should be, and I think it's something the Tour is probably looking at doing in the future because it makes play fair. If you miss the fairway by two yards, you're not penalized nearly as much as if you miss it by ten yards. And in the past, ten yards was a lot better off than barely missing the fairway because you'd get the trampled down effect. The rough would be walked on, you'd get a good lie, whereas two yards off the fairway, no one had been walking there, the rough had grown vertical, and the ball sits to the bottom.

I think this is a much fairer way to approach it, and it should be really good. I think that in the future the Tour may even look to that, at doing that themselves.

Ernie's Press Conference

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The lone highlight:

Q. About the golf course, first question is the way the design is, does it somewhat negate the way technology has grown in regards to how far you can hit the ball? And secondly, are the bunkers much better to be in than the rough?

ERNIE ELS: The second part, yes, definitely. If you can get to a bunker, hit it in there.

I mean, the golf course, since '97, has changed a lot. Even with the old equipment in '97 and with the changes they've made, they've made some really big changes here. I mean, I remember holes like No. 14, I was hitting a 3 wood and a 7 iron. This morning it was a driver, 4 iron. The par 5, No. 12, I was almost getting it there in '97, maybe 30, 40 yards short. And now there's just no chance. You're hitting a good drive and a good 4 iron for the layup and then a 9 iron for your third shot. They've made some major changes here.

I'm not sure if they played it like that in the 1920s. We don't know. They probably did. But I'm sure they didn't putt it on 13, 14, on the stimp.

 

Golf World Takes A Closer Look at Bivens

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gw20060616_cover.jpgEven with Se Ri Pak's shot for the ages, Golf World chooses to go with the Carolyn Bivens debacle as its cover story. Ron Sirak pens the tough piece on LPGA Commish Carolyn Bivens and the recent resignations of top officials.

First, more warmth and fuzziness from that proud Duke lacrosse mother and LPGA Board member who chose Bivens, Rae Evans:

"Is this going to impact the day-to-day functioning of the LPGA in a substantial way? No," Evans said. "I think the resignations say more about the three individuals than [they do] about the LPGA or the commissioner."

But Sirak also reports on the growing speculation that it's Mr. Bivens who is the real piece of work:

And, in the most curious concern about the new commissioner, many players, caddies and media members feel the constant presence of her husband, retired auto executive Bill Bivens, is a form of intimidation and that he serves as the commissioner's eyes and ears to see who is talking to whom and about what.

"Every time I see him I feel like I want to run a marathon in the other direction," said one major champion with more than a decade on tour, "and it seems like I always see him." Another multiple tournament winner said: "We all know why he hangs out with us. It's to keep an eye on us."

Ultimately, Sirak says this goes back to the Barb Trammel firing after last year's Office Depot event at Trump National:

"The pebble that started the boulder rolling down the hill was the Trammell situation," said one former LPGA official. "The knee-jerk way in which that was done foreshadowed a management style."

Trammell, an enormously popular and respected official who worked closely with local tournaments on course setup and event administration, was fired after she refused to let a Hall of Fame player who had failed to enter a tournament play in the event anyway, according to multiple sources. Trammell was told, sources say, that she needed to show special consideration to certain players and was let go when she refused. Trammell declined to be interviewed, citing the terms of her separation agreement.
 

Winged Foot With Tilly: No. 18

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230136-363334-thumbnail.jpg
(click on image to enlarge)Several views of the famed finishing hole, which was featured in the Tillinghast "Dream 18" that was compiled in this week's Sports Illustrated with the help of Ben Crenshaw, Frank Hannigan, Gil Hanse, Rand Jerris, Daniel Wexler, Rick Wolffe and Phillip Young.

Not only do we get Tilly's take, but an overview of how Jones and Espinosa played it in their 1929 playoff. 230136-363337-thumbnail.jpg
(click on image to enlarge)

Two things to look for.

A drive of about 315 will get a player within reach of the fairway drop off that could leave someone with a flip wedge. Doubtful it will happen, but possible.

And the recently restored front left and back left hole locations are really great additions to this green complex, but likely not going to be used this week because they'd be too severe under U.S. Open conditions. You can see them in the photo to the right. 230136-363341-thumbnail.jpg
(click to see No. 18 green expansion)

Tiger's U.S. Open Press Conference

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Tiger Woods received several spellbinding questions from the packed room of germinalists, including, that' right, a Ben Roethlisberger question.

Thankfully, Brad Klein did get in one golf question:
Q. In terms of course preparation, which holes do you think are likely not to be hitting driver, and what's going to dictate whether hit driver on 6?

TIGER WOODS: Obviously today was dead into the wind, so I can't even come close to getting there dead into the wind. If it's downwind and we get the right pin location, yeah, I'd probably go for it. But there are a lot of holes where I'm hitting 3 wood because of the doglegs. I run out of room hitting a driver and I have to shape it around the corner, which really makes no sense because the fairways get so narrow. So I'll probably hit about four or five 3 woods out there. 6 could be a 4 iron, 3 iron or driver.

U.S. Open Reads: Late Tuesday Edition

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us open icon.jpgA few more Tuesday stories worth your time, starting with Tod Leonard's feature on Billy Casper.

“Here we are in 2006, talking about something that happened in 1959. If it had never happened,” Casper said with a chuckle, “we wouldn't be talking about it. It's pretty neat.”

Take that Yogi! Leonard also talks to Casper at length about how he laid up on No. 3 en route to his 1959 win.

Vartan Kupelian says Phil Mickelson will be employing the same strategy for No. 3 when it plays from the 243 yardage.

Ed Sherman feels that everyone needs to remember that the US Open and that a Woods-Mickelson showdown is just as like as a Stewart Cink-Ian Poulter slugfest. He, like Alan Shipnuck in the most recent SI, review the history between Woods and Mickelson in entertaing fashion.

James Corrigan in the Independent features 15-year-old, 5 ft. 1 in. amateur qualifier Tadd Fujikawa.

Hopkins On Whitten's "Astonishing Attack" On Hoylake

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John Hopkins considers Ron Whitten's Golf Digest criticism of Hoylake as a modern day major venue, and offers a rebuttal from the R&A's own in-house designer, Peter Dawson.

It is safe to predict that a few eyebrows would have been raised at Royal Liverpool Golf Club on The Wirral yesterday when word reached it of an astonishing attack in the present issue of Golf Digest, the world’s biggest and best-selling golf magazine. The course that will stage the Open next month is fiercely criticised by Ron Whitten, the architecture editor of the magazine, who calls it “Royal Out of Bounds” and says it is no place for a major championship in the 21st century.

Hoylake is regarded as one of the sternest of all links, and the club has a wonderful history in golf. It slipped from the rota of Open courses after 1967 because the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews, organisers of the Open, felt that there were too many problems meeting the requirements of an Open.
And...
Some of Whitten’s displeasure is based on his belief that the course does not have a par five that cannot be reached in two with an iron and many of its par fours are not as long as they look on paper. He also does not like the rerouting of the course. It was done because the R & A wanted a more gentle start than the old 1st, which had out of bounds on both sides, and a stronger finish than the old 18th. The 17th has now become the 1st, the old 1st is the 3rd and the par-five 16th is the 18th.

“I simply don’t agree [with the criticism],” Peter Dawson, the chief executive of the R & A, said. “Those who have played Hoylake have been very complimentary about it.”

The only thing astonishing about the "attack" is that Whitten didn't even focus on the most egregious change of all: Donald Steel's mangling of the old H.S. Colt designed road-perched green on the par-4 17th (No. 2 in the Open).  

It's also a bit disconcerting to read about a 7,200+ course being outdated and questioned as a venue for failing to "keep up with the times," with no mention why this happened or whether this is a reasonable occurrence. The message seems to be: modernize your design at all costs. 

Book Award Renamed

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A nice move by the USGA...

USGA BOOK AWARD TO BE RENAMED IN HONOR OF HERBERT WARREN WIND

Far Hills, N.J. – The United States Golf Association has announced that its top literary prize, previously known as the USGA International Book Award, will be renamed in honor of famed writer Herbert Warren Wind.

The Award, which will henceforth be known as the Herbert Warren Wind Book Award, was established in 1987 to recognize and honor outstanding contributions to golf literature while attempting to broaden the public’s interest and knowledge of the game of golf. The Award is presented annually by the USGA Museum and Library Committee.

Wind, who passed away in May of 2005, is the only writer to win the USGA’s highest honor, the Bob Jones Award. He received the honor in 1995, during the Association’s centennial celebration. For nearly 30 years he was a volunteer on two USGA committees dedicated to celebrating the best values of the game: the Bob Jones Award Committee and the Museum and Library Committee. His portrait hangs in the UGSA Library, where one can also find his 14 books, countless essays and articles, and numerous introductions to reproductions of the classic literature of the game. He was a long-time essayist for both The New Yorker and Sports Illustrated. Among his many contributions to golf, he is credited with naming “Amen Corner” at Augusta National Golf Club, site of The Masters Tournament.
 
The first winner of the USGA Book Award was Al Barkow’s Gettin’ to the Dance Floor in 1987, and the most recent recipient was John Strege, for When War Played Through: Golf During World War II.

"We see a major as a brand moment"

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Richard Sandomir in the New York Times writes about a new Nike ad remembering Earl Woods that will debut this week:

Nike naturally looks to create interest around Woods, especially around the time of golf's four major tournaments. "We see a major as a brand moment," said Adam Roth, Nike's United States advertising director.