Golf Club Atlas
GolfClubAtlas.com => Golf Course Architecture => Topic started by: Tom Doak on February 23, 2003, 05:18:45 PM
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This is the first day I've watched golf on TV since last year's Open Championship Sunday. Riviera made me watch.
What I learned ...
1. Those boys really do hit it far. Just a few years ago no one would try for the 17th in two; now even Mike Weir goes for it. And Mike Weir certainly didn't go for it 6-7 years ago ... has he been lifting weights?
2. Why don't they just go straight to the tenth hole for the playoff? (A. The gallery doesn't have to move.) But, really, no one's going to make birdie on 18, and who wants to see it end with a bogey?
3. 80% of the missed putts in the last group were because they misread the greens ... failing to allow enough for the general slope of the property westward down to the 6th green. (Curtis Strange did mention this at #14, but it was also true of those putts coming up short at 16 and even 18.) Scary to think what numbers they would be shooting if they could read the greens properly!
4. I only saw the last six holes ... but there wasn't much difference in the golf course. It was nice to see them hit driver on 15 again. I don't know if the extension of the green on 13 is a "restoration" or not.
5. Since we don't pay for all the cable channels, ABC cut me off right after Charles Howell's phenomenal shot on 10, and I don't know who won. I used to have a pretty good short game, but I wouldn't get that shot as close as he did one time out of 100 tries.
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Howell lost the tournament as much as Weir won it. Nick Price was remarkable in his candor during his interview, basically telling it like it is: Howell played some dumb shots on multiple occasions. The inexperience of youth...
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Weir won.....Howell III missed a 5 footer.
Was Weir on tour 6 years ago?
Jerry
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Between the first day and the second day the 6th hole played like 220 and 170 or whatever...I just know it was 50 yds difference....how is this different than the discussion of the 10th at Friars Head...I typically hate golf on TV but the increased coverage on Th and Fr when I'm at work anyway...is outstanding. What I learned today is that despite whatever architectural butchering may have occurred the ownership of Riveria got themselves one great championship course that holds your interest no matter what hole or player is being shown....and how many people saw the "TommyN Whale Tails" on 7 from the snoopy shot...I love Tommy but nobody can take a pic to show something bad like my man Mr. Nac...you go girl.
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I was wondering about that back left section on #13 too. You could see the light color of the new surface back there. Was it a restoration of original greenspace? Whether it was or not it seemed to take it's toll with the pin back there on a lot of the players in the last few groups getting too aggressive with it. I spent a whole morning walking very slowly through the course about two years ago speaking to the super about every six holes or so but I just can't remember that back section. It was in the middle of some of Fazio's design work but I can't remember what was going on with that green.
What's going on with the pins on the last few pro tournaments anyway? They're closer to the edges than I thought even an intense pin setup got. It looks like a few have been no more than three steps. I always thought it was a minimum of five at the closest.
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What I learned today from watching TV is that Nick Price is the best post round interview in TV, and wish I knew the man personally. And, that great architecture features that force choices for the tee ball and green presentations that really matter for the second shot beats raw length. As for the controversial #8, it was reported today that only one player went up the left fairway all week. That was Steve Elkington, and he made birdie on the hole that played well over par for 4 days.
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It was too bad they switched to ESPN........wonder if change would be made if Woods was in play-off....I doubt it. Nice to a score under -10 win a PGA event.......as much as hate ownership/day to day conditions at Riviera....it is a great tournament course. Too bad they couldn't get the Open over Torrey......grow the rough up there and par may win.....but, to be politically correct we need to give public courses a chance.....no matter how blah the design!
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I did not see a whole lot of Riviera on TV, but just looking at the scores, it shows that a tight, demanding golf course with subtle contours on smallish greens (i.e. Riveria, Colonial, OC Lake, etc.) can still hold its own reasonably well, especially when you get a bit of wind for a few days.
Despite the wailing and gnashing of teeth seen in so many posts on this site regarding (rightly so) the distances players are now hitting the ball, there are clearly golf courses that cannot be overwhelmed solely by length and power.
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Tom
Even the pros tend to under read putts, regardless of the course.
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I learned three things today;
1) That even with the questionable changes to the course in recent years, I find myself consistenly amazed that just when I think I can't find anything more to admire about Riviera, I inevitably do.
2) That for the first time after a three and half month circumstances-and-weather-imposed layoff from the game (as well as from this board), I found my golfing spirit fully restored and suddenly, I can't wait to play again.
3) Riviera is the Merion of the west coast. If a golf course can be designed so cleverly as to test the best players in the game 80-90 years after it was built, with all of the accompanying technical changes, I can't think of two better examples of what strategic championship golf is truly all about.
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Thanks, Mike!!
I knew you would come around. :)
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The Faz;
Oh, you must have missed my post last week on the 8th hole, which is an abomination from tee to green.
The "restored" bunker on 7th hole falls somewhere in between unsightly and horrific.
The new tees on the 12th hole are as naturally integrated into the property as a Leroy Neiman painting in a Van Gogh exhibit.
A couple of holes do benefit from increased length, but it's tough to compliment the architect for giving aspirin to a technologically sick patient.
Nice try, Faz.
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I learned it's possible to hit SW into #18 (Howell III).
Didn't Stockton hole a wood-shot to win back when it was the Glen Campbell? :-/
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Bronco,
Not only a Sand Wedge, but a Sand Wedge from 145 yds. Some of the other distances and clubs I remember Howell hitting:
#18 on Sat.- 163 yds, Pitching Wedge
#18 Sun(playoff) 195 yds, 7 iron
#11 on Sat- 245 yds, 4 iron
Even with the jacked up lofts on the Callaway irons these are ridiculous distances.
Also I would 2nd RJ Daley's post concerning Nick Price. He is the best interview in golf...candid, intellegent answers. Thought his comments regarding Charles Howell's play on Sun. were very interesting.
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I felt that two of the three last tour events showed how the old girls can still hold their own. Both Pebble and Riviera put a dent in any argument for longer courses or shorter balls.
Tom Doak is correct about reading the greens but it is even more than that. It's adapting to the speed as the day progresses. Howell, like Lehman gave up the hole late in the day on Poa annua. MISTAKE.
Over my golf life I'd say that I have learned alot from watching the game and hearing guys like Trevino teach me how to hit a five wood out of thick rough or Ray Floyd on how to play the downhill lie shot. Back in the day golf on tv was educational, now it's all fluff.
I haven't learned much from a broadcast save for some historical data and from what I heard these guys say about some of the holes and breaks at Pebble, I will never trust anything Kostis, macatee or tirico ever have to say.
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Clay,
I think you give too much credit to poa annua. Isn't it a possibility that Lehman and Howell just plain missed????????
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80% of the missed putts in the last group were because they misread the greens.... Scary to think what numbers they would be shooting if they could read the greens properly!
I've watched too much professional golf in my lifetime -- and it seems to me that misread greens is the reason the pros miss 80 percent of the "makeable" putts not just this past week, but every week!
Mechanically speaking, most of the pros are just amazing putters.
These guys aren't good. They're ridiculously good! (Unless they're Charles Howell III leading on the back 9 Sunday. He made some horrible strokes yesterday afternoon.)
I remember when I learned how mechanically pure the PGA Tour players are. It was during the '91 Open at Hazeltine, at the 4th green, on the day my wife accompanied me to the tournament.
She was seven months pregnant at the time, and after we'd wandered the property for awhile, she needed to sit and rest.
We chose the par-3 4th, where we sat in the grandstand for a couple of hours and watched several dozen players come through. The pin was back left, tucked behind a bunker; the smart play was to the center of the green, short and right of the hole. Player after player after player left it 10, 15, 20, 25, 30 feet short and right of the hole. And then player after player after player read that putt -- and missed it by an inch to the right. I was just dumbstruck by how consistently they marginally misread the putt -- and then hit it perfectly.
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I find it hard to believe that these guys don't know the breaks to the overall terrain or interior contours. Plus if they don't they probably have a cadie who does. One fact that is true is you do not get to be a pro without the ability to read greens. So, my point is/was that they knew what the putt would do, but they didn't know what it would do late in the day or to win a tourney. Which implies some adrenaline. Coincidence that they both powerhoused it thru the break? No, they knew the break, but they didnt know it late in the day which is to say it is much less than you (they) think, or had two and half hours earlier. Just my O, however well informed on the nature and subtleties of poa.
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What I learned -- and what I really liked -- was that Riviera defended itself extremely well because of the firmness of its greens. Shots from the rough routinely landed on the front half of greens and rolled off the back -- as they should. When you see a pro tournament where the guys are driving the ball in the rough and then sticking it next to the pin with backspin, you're not watching real golf. At Riviera, it was real golf.
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What I learned -- and what I really liked -- was that Riviera defended itself extremely because of the firmness of its greens. Shots from the rough routinely landed on the front half of greens and rolled off the back -- as they should
Agreed -- but a further observation, based on having watched the last five or six holes:
Those shots from the rough often rolled off the back ... but not into any serious hazards. Wouldn't Riviera (or any other course, similarly maintained) be an even more admirable layout if there were higher prices to be paid for going long?
In other words: In a perfect world, on a course where shots from rough wouldn't stop on greens, shouldn't the design of the course force the players to juggle the risks of missing short versus missing long? Shouldn't the course force the player to think: Well, I hit it into the rough. I'll have to hit the shot of my life to hold this green if I fly it up there. And if I go long, I'm dead. I'd better land it short -- and roll it up there ... even at the risk of not reaching the green.
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Tom Doak,
Just a little perspective on how far they really do hit it now. I just found out that Mike Weir's driving average is 291 and that places him 60th on tour!! That's just crazy to me. I remember when John Daly came onto the scene he hit the ball so much farther than everyone else but his driving average in 1992 was 283.4 according to pgatour.com
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Regarding #8 on Riviera:
I only saw one group play #8 on Sunday, but two players hit to the left fairway and one to the right hand one, perhaps because the pin was set on the extreme right hand edge of the green next to the grassed-in barranca. (In general, the pin positions were extremely close to the fringe on Sunday.) It still looked like going right was the correct play, though -- one guy who went left was in the big cross bunker in the middle of the left hand fairway and the other guy just barely cleared it. Both missed the green. The player who went down the right fairway knocked it stiff on his second shot, even though being three yards short would have put him down the steep slope.
Anyway, the hole looked to me like it almost worked for the pros but that the left hand fairway cross bunker was just too big to make it worth going left. (Perhaps if they keep hitting it farther each year, the left fairway will become the preferred route.) Further, the pros have such distance control on their short irons that they aren't intimidated by pitching over a barranca, especially a grassed-in one like this.
On the other hand, I don't know, but this could be a good hole for short-hitting club members who aren't worried about reaching the cross-bunker off the tee.
Anyway, it could be a good hole with some tweaking.
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Dan Kelly,
Higher prices for going long can also lead to defensive, plodding golf, even if one if hitting from off the fairway.
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The thing this telecast refreshed in my memory is just how good and interesting the greens are at Riviera. None of them have a single bit of the modern Wow factor (except obviously the unusual bunker on #6) but they have more interestingly different shapes, sizes, angles, orientations use of varied slopes and green contours etc than almost any golf course I can think of. A vast array of different presentations to be sure.
A couple of years ago I spent a half day actually measuring all of them so that part was interesting to see again in play.
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Higher prices for going long can also lead to defensive, plodding golf, even if one if hitting from off the fairway.
Gary --
I LIKE defensive golf.
I don't know what you mean by "plodding."
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TEPaul;
Curtis et al. did do a segment during the telecast discussing how many of the hole locations were cut close to the edges of the green, complete with overhead views of each green. He noted that 5 paces in, sometimes 4 was the rule, but now they are going as close as 3 in some instances.
Bruce
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Dan,
There are, of course, many ways to look at it. If I was designing a golf course, I would be inclined to be somewhat more lenient on the aggressive BUT straight golfer, thus encouraging a more spectacular form of shotmaking. (in other words, less trouble directly behind the green)
Have you thought about volunteering for the USGA championship committee? :)
By plodding I mainly meant less inspired and imaginative golf.
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Gary --
Along with Firm & Fast fairways and Firm & Fast greens, here's my formula for MORE inspired and MORE imaginative golf:
Openings in the front.
Hazards to the side and the rear.
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Dan,
I absolutely, positively, agree with every word in your formula except for the "and the rear."!
Just two ways of looking at it, I suppose, but I think aggressive and straight golf should be treated a little more kindly than aggressive and crooked.