...a Final Note on Winged Foot and the reverb of BDC's excellent win.
I start with:
I played WFW the day after the Open, same tees (foolishly at my host's pleasure), same pins (watered, unrolled greens already growing below 10.5)..a day more growth of rough. I did the same after the tournament 06, as well as have 250 loops, tours, plays, and practice on that course... and so have broad samples of comparison.
1. The conditions for normal WFW play were so steroidal, so monstrous... and the elite players (BDC first among them) still so adept at bombing, hitting short irons out of rough, holding greens, .. that it reinforces the notion that we are falling harder than ever for the trap of measuring golf standards and formulating our own opinions (in all things) with play that has nothing to do with the games all of us play here - not just the hackers, as I've realized I've become, but even the best golfers, the former pros, the club champs on our board.
This doesn't signal that I am dismissing the impacts on where golf is led, what governing authority can or cannot, or does or does not do, where architectural synergy is directed; I simply mean that whatever science, genius, perspiration and inspiration BDC or Wolfe or the nearest dozen to them demonstrated has nothing to do with the measurables and new strategies of the game
we play.
2. Again without dismissing the sexy, "moving the needle" debates over BDC's handsome win (and his/the media's desire to express it in unprecedented, self-made genius terms), I also would like to reserve my opinion how novel, or telling, or sea-changing BDC's win/2020 season has been until I see it tested and repeated under the emotional pressure of a gallery, distraction and the now-assumed mantle of "leading golf story" wherein all the greats have had to prosper ... and where the recent "goods" have been unable to give more than a "burst" without capitulating to some factor of being a game changer... McIlroy, DJ, Day, Spieth, perhaps now Koepka... I would like to see the new BDC when he fucks up and the crowd groans, and the usual suspects shout out an indelicate remark.
2a. I am certain that these Tour players (while the economic entourage bubble that surrounds them will never permit them to admit) like it better, and play better when there is no gallery to hoot, holler, root for or against, or distract. From the range to the putting green to the local off hours, it easier to focus, concentrate and relax without the unique public spectacle of golf tournaments... Even if Golf crowds were reverently silent as a rule (think tennis), there's no eye contact, clearing ropes and people to play shots; no distracting movement alongside the ropes, fewer generator noises for concessions and infrastructure, all of it... thsi more mimics the environment of their competitive youth; it is entirely focused, only a handful are there (like even most NCAA and Top Am tournaments) and there is a relaxation that players of normal seasons had to master.
3. In asking those many threads questions that summate to "Where does it go from this performance?" I again return to focusing the question on:
- Our play and our experience of courses, what the Golf world will do with this? - Jones modeled how to preserve a beautiful game and prevail under tournament stress; Hogan led the way toward success by practice, Palmer by the professionalism of public craft, Nicklaus provided a lantern of detail and fundamental understanding of competitive pressure...Woods by fitness and the confidence to expand natural talent with swing refinements... what will Bryson DeCahmbeau's 2020 season and victory light? Let me first see if it has the staying power?
- Architecturally? - I get the disfigurement-to-chase-a-par-number/pro championships thing, but I disagree that Merion was/continues to be spoiled by the 2005-2013 Am to Open era from something better in an earlier day. I disagree that Oakmont is worse for the wear because the USGA returns there and gets a par number most of the time. I disagree not because I'm an expert on those courses, but that I know WFW will still be fun to play next season, in May, after the fairways are widened 3-7 yards on each side, before the rough grows up as it does in every summer, when the greens are not pushed over 11 quite yet for high season play. I will agree it WAS NOT FUN TO PLAY on Monday September 21, except for the company... my ribs hurt, MY wedge could only go 50 yards or so, the 'par" 3s were medium length 4s and every other hole was a Par 7.5, I shot a "loose" Hundred and Eleventy-Two. But WFW is hard in the summer every year; the bestial conditions imported can be removed and leave a course that most will enjoy; it isn't ruined.