Pebble The Permanent Host? I Think Not.

Tim Rosaforte and I debate this notion for GolfDigest.com. Spare me the jacket one-liners, I already heard plenty of not-very-clever one-liners from that international house of fashion sense known as the media center.



More Pebble Beach Then And Now: #8

I've got a couple more before-afters that I forgot to post last week once play got underway. So before the 2010 U.S. Open buzz wears off...

Alister MacKenzie renovated the 8th green in 1926 as part of an audition for the greater overhaul that was handled by Chander Egan, Robert Hunter and Roger Lapham. Here is an early view of MacKenzie's green, with the 2010 US Open perspective showing two added bunkers. I'm not sure who added them, but something tells me it was Robert Trent Jones. And I think he made the right choice.

A Sale At The Pebble Beach Company Store!

Driving home today after finally caving and buying a few items at Monday's 50% off sale, it occurred to me just how badly bungled the U.S. Open merchandise selection and pricing was. Though it was delightful to hear from sales reps that numbers were at 50% of the budgeted sales figures through Friday. The public does have limits.

Let's hope that in the USGA contract with the Pebble Beach Company for 2019 that the blue coats take control of the shop to ensure better stuff and pricing that fans have grown accustomed to.

Of course, the 50% off prices still felt like retail prices...in the real world.

"A Conversation With Dan Jenkins"

2010 U.S. Open Final Round Open Thread

Pebble Beach, The U.S. Open, great leaderboard. What more can you ask for?

Update on 2010-06-20 18:47 by Geoff

From the USGA:

Weather Forecast for Sunday (provide by Greg Quinn with Thor Guard Weather) – Sunshine today starting mid-morning and through much of the afternoon. Winds will be light and variable through mid-morning, becoming north-northwest at 8-12 mph between late morning to early afternoon. Winds will increase to 10-15 mph between about 2 p.m. and 5 p.m. coming mainly from the northwest.

Green Speeds – Today’s speeds are very consistent with what they have been for the last seven days – mid-13s in the early morning, which should settle out in the mid- to high- 12s by midday. 

Rough – Given the dry weather and very little growth, the rough has not been mown since Wednesday.   

Water Management – Today’s golf course will be a similar firmness to yesterday. Lighter hand-watering was applied to all greens last night to replenish the moisture lost yesterday. The putting green approaches are still very firm (firmer than the greens), so the bounce-in shot will again be a significant factor in today’s play.     

Hole-by-Hole Information:

Hole 4 – Tee markers moved up 13 paces to measure 318 yards to the center of the green and 325 yards to the back hole location. The hole should play downwind.

Hole 5 – 205 yards to a back-right hole location. Properly played tee shots should “feed” back to this location. This hole should also play downwind

Hole 7 – 92 yards; the front portion of the front teeing ground was used in combination with a back right hole location in the “finger” that juts out. There should be a right-to-left wind. Additionally, we spread the tee markers out 13 paces (normal width is five paces) to allow player to choose their angle of play, e.g., choose the left side of the tee to better play to the flagstick or choose the right side to play away from the ocean.   

Hole 12 –   203 yards to a far-left hole location. This hole should play into a headwind. 

Hole 14 – Tee markers moved up 30 paces and kept on the right side of teeing ground to allow players the possibility of carrying the last drive-zone bunker on the right (roughly 270 yards, but into the prevailing wind).  However, this will require the player to curve his ball rather dramatically from left to right, due to the cypress trees that block this angle of play. The hole location is in the back right of the upper-left quadrant – the most player-friendly location on the green. 

Hole 17 –  219 yards to the approximate final-round hole location from the 1982 U.S. Open. The hole should play with a right-to-left wind.

Hole 18 – Tee markers moved 30 paces forward to play 513 yards to the center of the green.  The hole should play dead into the wind and therefore the tee was shortened to encourage a bit more risk-reward. The drive zone is narrower at and beyond the two fairway trees, which will bring the ocean on the left and rough on the right more into play. The hole location is front left – just two or so paces beyond the false front portion of the green and only several paces from the hazard on the left. 

"Phil Mickelson Reluctantly Uses Golf Club Kids Made For Father's Day Present"

The Onion with a Sunday morning exclusive on Phil Mickelson, currently seven back of leader Dustin Johnson.

2010 U.S. Open Third Round This And That

I haven't been as enthralled watching golf in a long time as I was today seeing Ryo Ishikawa shape a low, cutting driver onto the fourth green, followed a few minutes later by Dustin Johnson driving the green with an iron, prompting the USGA's Mike Davis, who moved the tees up, to quip, "3-iron's not what I had in mind."

And one other observation before we get to a smattering of accounts from Saturday's play at Pebble Beach: Johnson and Graeme McDowell play the game as it should be: fast without hurrying. Or at least they did today. Let's see what happens tomorrow under pressure.

Doug Ferguson's AP lede:

Dustin Johnson plays his best at Pebble Beach no matter what month, no matter what stage.

Larry Dorman for the NY Times:

With echoes of the cheers from Tiger Woods’s back-nine charge still rolling over Pebble Beach Golf Links, Dustin Johnson grabbed the lead, kept his composure and birdied the final two holes at dusk to take a three-stroke lead over the overnight leader Graeme McDowell and a five-stroke lead over Woods into the final round of the 110th United States Open.

About that scene at No. 4, Randell Mell writes:

Johnson makes folks gape in wonder.

 Ask all those spectators along the fourth hole Saturday at the U.S. Open.

That’s where Johnson reached the short par 4 with his tee shot.

He drove the green with an iron.

An iron.

Johnson crushed a 3-iron 290 yards to 5 feet to set up his eagle there.

Gene Wojciechowski does some California dreaming about Sunday's possibilities.

Bob Harig on the Dustin Johnson/Tiger dynamic.

Woods is still a player to be feared, and as he gets more rounds under his belt, more competition, he will become more of a threat again.

But the days of wilting in his presence, if they're not over, should be. Woods has proved to be fallible too many times, scandal or not.

"He's human, too," Johnson said. "I'm going to do my best not to let it affect me."

Ron Sirak on Saturday's setup:

Oddly, and totally consistent with his playful manner, Davis actually shortened Pebble Beach for the third round. The tee on No. 3 was moved up 34 paces and on No. 4 it was moved forward 40 paces, making both par-4s drivable. No. 7 played at 99 yards -- the shortest hole in modern U.S. Open history. All this did was mess with the heads of the players by giving them more decisions to make.

Cameron Morfit also chimed in:

Different is good, the marketers and politicians say, but when did the staid old USGA become Russell Brand? The organization used to be become Judge Smails. That hasn't been the case under wild-and-crazy guy Mike Davis, the 45-year-old former Pennsylvania junior state golf champion who is in his fifth year as senior director of rules and competitions.

Jim Achenbach is ready to blow up the 14th green:

The way it is, the hole often punishes golfers for no good reason. Balls bounce and roll crazily on the green, and players are left with no viable escape options from just off the putting surface.
For a major championship, that’s crazy.

Dave Kindred on Ryo Ishikawa's bright future despite Saturday's tough round.

Ishikawa came to the first tee Saturday -- pardon the movie stereotype here -- looking like one of those little, lean, lithe terrors who can spring into the air, do a backflip, land behind you, and kick you upside the head before you know he has moved. He wore all black, except for silver sunglasses. Suggestions of acne on his handsome face were the only hints he was still a kid  though no one much past adolescence, save for the occasional aging rock star, cares to match Ishikawa's glorious mess of black hair rising in curls above his visor and falling to his collar.

And in the good karma department, you may recall Russell Henley's sweet gesture back on Monday (seems like a month ago). Well the amateur is not only vying for low am honors, but as Jonathan Heeter of the Macon paper tells us, Henley has a shot at getting an exemption next year.

“It’s surreal,” Henley said. “I don’t know how they know me or why they cheer for me. But it feels really good when people are pulling for you. I just wish I could let every one of them know how much this has meant to me.”

The energy Henley received from the crowds helped propel the 21-year-old amateur to his best round at the U.S. Open.

Henley shot a 1-over-par 72 on Saturday, and he is 6 over for the tournament. The top 15 finishers receive an exemption into next year’s U.S. Open, and he is in contention for that distinction.

And a few more images from the day...soak 'em up, because you won't see anything like this at Congressional next year. Just a lot of fogged up lens shots. Click on the images to enlarge.

Ernie Els on No. 4 Saturday.

Dustin Johnson on No. 8 tee. 

As if it's not hard enough: Charl Schwartzel on No. 14

Fairway bunkers freshly raked on No. 2 after play.

And the men who make it all happen.

Open Observations From Saugerties

Former USGA Executive Director Frank Hannigan shares a few observations after two rounds of the U.S. Open at Pebble Beach.

• The amount of attention paid to the preparation of the Open course is  astonishing   It’s as if the USGA’s Mike Davis, a most capable young man, can control the very essence of the game. He can’t. Setting up a golf course is not onerous work.  Essentially, all the USGA can do is attempt to put a premium on accuracy as opposed to power.  The only way to do that is to penalize the inaccurate by growing heavy rough and establishing very firm greens - which do not accept shots played from rough.

• So the Open favors a Curtis Strange, who won twice, and three-time winner Hale Irwin. It was brutal for Seve Ballesteros,  a bad driver.  You could make an argument that since Seve was a flat out genius the Open courses should have been prepared to accommodate him.

• Tiger Woods overcomes the USGA set-ups. I conclude that he has been so good at every other aspect of the game he can overcome wild driving. Most of all, like Nicklaus, he thinks he is supposed to win.

• I am sick of hearing  analyses of hole locations on the Golf Channel.  There is no data to tell us how hole locations affect outcomes.  Obviously, they influence overall scoring. But just suppose all holes were cut in the centers of greens. Scores would be lower. But would this mean the identities of the winners would vary dramatically. I think not. Jack Nicklaus was going to win four US Opens no matter where the holes were located.  And he was destined to win six Masters in an era where the principles of course set up were opposite to those of the US Open - when Augusta had no rough at all and anybody could put the ball in vast fairways.

• Perhaps I carry on like this as a means of praising my late colleague, PJ Boatwright, who set up most Open courses of my time. He didn’t get a lot of attention, but he knew what he was doing.

• The best Open I ever saw? Easy. 1971 at precious Merion. The two best players in the world, Nicklaus and Trevino, tied for first at level par with Trevino winning the play-off.

• The spreading notion that today’s Opens are more brilliantly conceived and therefore of greater validity is nonsense.

• The Tiger Woods harsh comments about the greens at Pebble Beach were petulant and without  meaning. His disparagement  is  cruel on the workers at Pebble Beach who have gone though hoops in a futile attempt to draw an understanding, if not kind, word from Woods & company. Excuse me, but Tiger Woods has never done a hard day’s work.