Third Open Championship Question: Could The R&A Get More Out Of The Old Course?

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Okay the Open coverage will be winding down, but another question that's been on my mind involves the topic of course setup.

In my piece for Golf World summing up the Old Course's week, I get into the unnecessary rough throughout the course that eliminates key areas needed to attack certain hole locations. It appears to be a product of three things:

-Someone intentionally narrowing the place down

-Overall overwatering, leading to overspray unintentionally hitting native roughs

-Subtle mowing pattern changes over time

Because of space considerations, I also just mention but not detail the combination of some really edgy hole locations with redundancy of placements over the four days on some holes. The R&A theory on keeping holes bunched in small areas is due to the double greens and the desire to keep players moving. However, even with this situation carried out as planned, players still wait for their peers on the neighboring green.

The 7th (left) and (11th). Imagine swapping the hole locations one day to give players a fresh look? (Click to enlarge)So with that in mind, I'm wondering if the R&A is really getting the most out of the Old Course with their setup? This year things were not helped by a consistent wind direction over four days, but why not throw so major twists into the setup? Say, play the seventh hole to the eleventh green area and move eleven down nearer the seventh (this would require moving the scoreboard).

Or perhaps play the second hole to the sixteenth green one day and the sixteenth to the second? In other words, maximize the looks that players get over four days? After all, if there's any place you should be doing varied day-to-day setup, isn't the Old Course the one?

I did see one stellar mixing up move, when the 5th was played up front all three days, usually 12 to 15 paces from the front. Sunday, the hole was cut 85 paces deep into the green!

So should the R&A do more of that or would players and media howl when they fail to use the "traditional" hole locations?

Gigapan And Time Elapse-Video Of The Home Hole

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Darren Carroll's Gigapan shot of the Home hole is up and while it's spectacular, I can't help but wonder how fun it would be to put one of these cameras up on a crane and shoot down on the Old Course's key holes so that we could zoom in and study the features.

Golf.com offers an alternative in the form of time-elapsed video. As great as it is, I think it'd be more fun to have one of these in the media lunch room to watch us scribes work the free buffet provided by the R&A (and it was quite good too).

"Is this the Road Hole?"

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It's a week after the Open contestants were arriving in St. Andrews, but it's fun to read Steve Elling's extensive account of first timer Jeff Overton's adventure to get there and his efforts to figure the place out.

The highlight of the day was when Overton walked along the gravel path and a rock wall situated down the right side of the 14th hole and blurted out, "Is this the Road Hole?"

Yep, he's truly an impressionable, wide-eyed first-timer. The most famous par-4 in the world, the Road Hole is actually the 17th. Before we arrive, some of the oddly named bunkers along the way were pointed out, like the Hell Bunker on the 14th and Principal's Nose, a cluster of three pot bunkers on the 16th.

After a T-11, sounds like Overton got to know the place pretty well. And the $20,000 in plane tickets was worth it!

Monty Assembles His Brain Trust; Ollie Not Included

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After all the will he or won't he talk, Monty didn't include Jose Maria Olazabal in his assistant captain's club but does have Darren Clarke on board, even though Clarke could be a candidate for the team if he continues his excellent play.

Either way, they are the reddest group I've ever seen.

Neither was there a place for Jose Maria Olazabal, the single vice-captain to Sir Nick Faldo during the defeat two years ago at Valhalla, Kentucky and the likely European captain for the 2012 match at Medinah, Illinois. The Spaniard suffers from a rheumatic ailment and as a result his schedule has been limited this year.

That does not fit with captain Montgomerie’s policy of appointing current players who play week-in, week-out and are known well to the ones likely to make the team that will be finalised on August 29 at the end of the Johnnie Walker Championship at Gleneagles.

"As far as I can tell NOBODY is writing off Tiger Woods. And, frankly, by all the available evidence, we SHOULD be writing off Tiger Woods."

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Joe Posnanski files a different take on the state of Tiger's game.

And frankly… there’s good reason to write him off. This may sound cruel but I actually mean it as the opposite of cruel: More people SHOULD be writing off Tiger Woods.

First, he will turn 35 at the end of the year. There has been talk that this means Woods will still be in his golfing prime for the next few years, but history tells a different story. Since 1970, the average age of major championship winners is 32, and things tumble off for golfers after age 35. Fewer than a quarter of the major championship winners have been 36 or older. The only players since 1970 to win multiple majors after 35 are: Jack Nicklaus (4), Gary Player (4), Ray Floyd (2), Nick Price (2), Vijay Singh (2), Mark O’Meara (2), Angel Cabrera (2), Padraig Harrington (2).

More to the point, Woods has been dominant for a dozen years — which is a long time to dominate in golf. The greatest golfers have had a fairly short window of time when they dominate, and when that window closes, they stop winning major championships.