And Yet More Observations From Rainy Lytham...

Longtime readers know I have a simple rule to determine whether a major championship course setup crosses the goofy threshold: if the fairway landing area off the tee and then leading into a green is narrower than the green complex itself, you have a stinker.

Sadly, more than a handful of key holes at Lytham and St. Annes have been vandalized by paint cans, with a few fairways reaching an unprecedented 18 paces wide, which is as narrow as anything I've seen in the modern age of trying to stifle distance advances through setup.

On a positive note, I spent some time with the holes furthest from the clubhouse and the stretch of eight, nine and ten is magnificent. Meanwhile, the splendid weather drawn up by the Blackpool Tourist Board means the course will never be too fast and firm, making the silly fairway widths slightly more palatable. But if the wind blows, that's another story. Look at longshot bets if some wind creeps into the forecast.

On an even more positive note, I've never seen a club with a greater and more sophisticated devotion to its championships than Royal Lytham. As you'll see below, they have some of the simplest and best displays celebrating past championships that I've ever seen. Pity that the golf course here, so clearly loved by its members and treasured by players for generations, will be tainted this week by a combination of Mother Nature and regulatory ineptitude.

Here are just a few photos from a another gorgeous day in this summer beach resort town. Cheers!

Videos: Explaining The Many Dangers Of Olympic's 13th

The 199-yard 13th has the players flummoxed and with good reason. There's one shot to hit and anything else is likely to find some sort of trouble. This has always been an unusual par-3 but never were things like this said about it...

Q.  Compared to other U.S. Open courses how does Olympic‑‑ what kind of special shots does it favor or require?

BUBBA WATSON:  Not that I know this in my head, but 13, what is that, the par‑3, 13, the par‑3 they shaved all the grass on the left side of the hole.  So if you hit it‑‑ you could actually hit the ball on the green and end up in the hazard.  I don't understand why they did that.  But they did it.

And from Phil Mickelson's transcript:

PHIL MICKELSON:  I think that 13 provides the most challenging shot, because it's a long, narrow green with wind blowing right‑to‑left.  It's pushing the ball left.

If you miss it right, you've got a chip that's downhill, downwind, you're not going to get it up and down.  And if you miss it left, it's off to Hartford.  You may as well pack your bags, and we'll see you next week at Hartford (laughter) because that ball is going to go down the creek, in the rough, under the trees, and you may still be there on Monday.

I think that provides the most difficult, penalizing challenge to where a lot of people are going to get knocked right out of the tournament the first two days because of that one hole.

In the first video, I start by looking at the tee shot issues:

A view of the issues facing players who hit their tee shot in the right bunker.

And finally, that tightly mown back area that has been introduced this year and which is creating much of the consternation. How much this comes into play will depend mostly on firmness and wind. Today it was manageable because of the morning fog and tight mow having gone uncut for two days.

"Today's slower turf does have the effect of making the landing areas play 'wider.'"

Geoff Ogilvy's latest Golf World column features more great insights, including this about the fairway mowing at Augusta National and the impact on width and distance.

The fairways do look better without the stripe effect you see so often at other courses. No matter where you are at Augusta National, the grass is the same uniform shade of green.

Still, there's more to it than mere appearances. Mowing the grass like that makes the course play longer because the ball doesn't run as far as it might otherwise. When you look at footage from the Masters of maybe 20 years ago, you see balls bounding down fairways. The players got a lot of run out of their shots back then, far more than we do today. But that's not all bad. Today's slower turf does have the effect of making the landing areas play "wider."

Weir To Have Surgery On Rough-Induced Injury

Steve Elling on Mike Weir undergoing elbow surgery following a new injury likely caused by this year's Canadian Open rough, which was subsequently cut mid-tournament.

Weir, 41, has suffered through a nagging ligament issue in the same arm for months, and came back this season to post the most alarming results of his career. Then the left-hander injured himself in the Canadian Open four weeks ago.

“They had really thick rough there,” IMG spokesman Dave Haggith said.

Haggith made a point of noting that it was unclear exactly how Weir injured the elbow, but several players complained that the rough at Shaughnessy Golf and Country Club was unusually punitive. Weir was forced to quit after six holes in the second round.

"They wanted a drivable par 4. They got it."

That's Davis Love talking about the 260-yard 15th.

While I feel for the players having to play the par-3 15th or any hole that long with a green designed for a shot about 75 yards shorter, I couldn't help but laugh seeing three and four irons as the club of choice for those under the age of 35.  And as Bill Fields explains, the guy who shot 63 sums up the best approach. Or is it?

"I'm not a huge fan of playing a 260-yard par 3 with water and bunkers, but like I said yesterday, we all have to play it, we all have to suck it up and try to hit a good shot there," said Stricker. "You're going to see some big numbers there and you're going to see some birdies there. But it's very difficult."

As Bob Sowards, an Ohio club professional who carded a first-round 69 said after parring No. 15 with a 17-degree hybrid and two putts, "I don't play many holes like that."

The hole played to a 3.4359 scoring average, with 9 birdies, 88 pars, 43 bogies, 14 doubles and two others.

It's a shame there isn't a little more fairway leading up to the green so that someone could lay-up. Though I suspect that might tip folks off that it's not the best design ever. But who says you have to hit a green from a par-3 tee?