When you come to think of it that is the secret of most of the great holes all over the world. They all have some kind of a twist. C.B. MACDONALD
The R&A must have taken media dining up a notch Saturday, because the coverage was stellar. Or, maybe the wicked weather and the field separating itself a bit helped. Either way, enjoy...
Another strange day at Royal St. George's as the hole locations appeared to prevent anyone from going super low and the weather wasn't bad enough to make anyone go super high, so we have just a seven shot differential from the leaders to the bubble boys. And according to Steve Elling, who tries to make sense of the "biblical" weather forecast, four players are within three shots of the lead.
In pre-tournament stories some mentioned the lack of a driveable short four at Royal St. George's and who could blame them?You may recall back on June 3rd after Forbes released its annual listing of top athlete income at $75 million, I questioned the math based on reports from IMG that the agency income from Tiger Woods endorsement deals had fallen to just over $1 million.
Day one's late afternoon excitement means many of the leaders will be teeing off an hour that I can best describe as several before I awake, but I know you'll already have many shrewd observations by the time I log on.
I'd post the weather forecast, but we know how well that turned out Thursday.
**Tom Watson's 6th hole ace Friday morning:
The predictions of a vicious Royal St. George's didn't pan out due to light winds and surprisingly mellow greens, signaling that the R&A might have learned from last year's St. Andrews play-stoppage fiasco?Well not entirely, but we now know from the former Stanford teammate that Tiger has committed to an August 31 rescheduling of a postponed appearance in the Notah Begay III Foundation Challenge.
Before we get to read today's first round Open Championship stories on co-leaders Tom Lewis and Thomas Bjorn, you can read up on Lewias in an excellent story by James Corrigan that ran yesterday. I found it interesting that he's already signed with IMG, yet still an amateur. What a world!
They'll be starting at 1 a.m. PT, so I'll be joining this one in progress but recording it all. So if anything happens at 1:05...that's 4:05 ET, feel free to make a note of it here.
The weather is shaping up to be the dominant story before a shot is struck, but as Jim McCabe notes, the UK weather forecasts are not only wrong sometimes, but downright fun to analyze.
Doug Ferguson says the current forecast calls for the early/late tee times to get the worst end of the draw.
With the bizarre practice round winds, Jim McCabe notes that No. 14 played unusually short.
The only par 5 back on the homeward holes, No. 14, seems a pushover based on the yardage – 547. But there’s out-of-bounds down the right side and some 300 yards out is the “Suez Canal,” a burn that cuts through the middle of the fairway. With the hole playing dead downwind Tuesday, the sensible tee shot was a 4- or 5-iron to get it out there 250, 260 yards and not bring the water into play.
Dustin Johnson did just that, but then he re-loaded and gave it a go. His first attempt with the driver found the burn, but his second cleared it on the fly, much to the delight of a marshal who stood there in amazement.
Regardless of the wind, expect 14 to once again play a pivotal role in the championship: OB, water, a bumpy landing area and sound strategy make it fascinating. Though I'm not a fan of OB as a hazard, it is a course boundary and ample width is allowed to avoid it on No. 14.
A few photos taken a year ago when I visited Royal St. Georges. Click on the images to enlarge:
The Royal St. George's tee markers and yardage boxes.
Extending the tees means players are driving over the back of No. 13 green.
The player's view with the excessively marked out of bounds down the right.
Mounds in the fairway will deflect drives, unless you can bomb it over them, a huge advantage.
The OB is certainly not a secret!
A burn dissects the fairway.
The view after the burn shows fairway bunkers that add interest for those laying up.
The closer one flirts wit the out of bounds, the better the angle of approach to all hole locations.
Geoff Shackelford is a Senior Writer for Golfweek magazine, a weekly contributor to Golf Channel's Morning
Copyright © 2022, Geoff Shackelford. All rights reserved.
