tournaments

2019 U. S. Open Preview

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Winner: Gary Woodland by three shots over Brooks Koepka.

The 119th United States Open will be played from June 13-16 at the Pebble Beach Golf Links in Pebble Beach, California. Defending champion Brooks Koepka will try to make it three in a row, last done, and only done, by Willie Anderson in 1903, ’04, and ’05.

Many people say that Pebble Beach is the quintessential U.S. Open venue. I am partial to Oakmont, but PB isn’t a bad choice.

It first hosted a national tournament in 1929 when the USGA held the U.S. Amateur there. East Coast opinion was that the USGA had lost touch with reality as the best courses were, naturally, in the metropolitan (New York) area.

Bobby Jones was the co-medalist in the seeding rounds, but lost in the opening round of the championship to Johnny Goodman, who would later become the last amateur to win the U.S. Open, in 1933. Goodman also won the U.S. amateur, in 1937.

Forty-three years later, the first U.S. Open was held there, the first of now six, the debut won by Jack Nicklaus on the wings of a 1-iron that hit the pin the 17th hole the final day for a kick-in birdie.

See the USGA’s hole-by-hole flyover of the course.

Part of my life in golf involves Pebble Beach. During WWII, my mother was in the Navy, stationed in Hawaii. One of her close friends there had a brother who became a physician in the Bay Area later on, a very successful one, and who had an apartment on the Monterey Peninsula a sand wedge away from the 18th green at PB. Maybe I should have said a VERY successful doctor.

It was in one of the white buildings behind the green in this picture, copied from the flyover video at 11:38.

In 1962, my family went to visit my mother’s friend and family, who were living in San Jose. While we were there, we took a trip to that apartment for a few days. I went out on the course and walked the front nine all the way to the eighth fairway. Believe me, you just don’t know how beautiful that little peninsula in the photograph below is until you have been there.

There are no significant upgrades to the course for this tournament. The last time, the USGA used mowing to shift the location of some of the fairways, most notably the 9th and 10 holes, two seaside par 4s. Wouldn’t you guess, they put the fairways closer to the ocean. But as some people say, you have the entire North American continent on the left, so there is no reason for you to go right.


(Click to enlarge)

It is said that Pebble Beach consists of eight memorable holes and ten holes that are, well, not so memorable. The ocean holes are indeed spectacular, especially the stretch from 6 to 8 (above).

Number 6 launches you uphill into what the weather is doing that day, with a splendid ocean view. No pictures or the television show you how big this hole really is. Number 7 is the shortest hole in major championship golf at 109 yards, but it can play anywhere from a flip wedge to a 5-iron, depending on the wind.

Number 8 rises uphill with a tee shot blind to the landing area, and then perhaps the finest second shot in all of golf—over a cove to a tiny green well below the surface you’re standing on.

Watch them putt on 16, a green that slopes noticeably from right to left. Players finding themselves with a long uphill putt seldom reach the pin. They just can’t bring themselves to hit the bill hard enough.

The course is quite short by modern standards at 7,072 yards. That means shorter, straighter hitters, such as Jordan Spieth, who is playing much better now, are in the hunt if the USGA finds a way to neutralize the uber-long game while not being stupid about it.

Traditionally, the U.S. Open has been a survival contest that favors the straight hitter who can keep his mind together for four rounds of golf on a course that punishes every mistake. That’s not what the tournament has been for a while, but it was the reason why the U.S. Open was once my favorite tournament. It can be again, with inspired leadership.

Who is going to win? Phil could. He plays well on this course. He had better play well, because this might be his last serious chance to add a first to his six seconds. One thing for sure, he won’t be wearing these pants.

But if I knew who was going to win, I would keep it a secret and head down to Vegas to put down a TON of money on a sure thing.

Since I don’t know, I’ll retreat to Ben Hogan’s advice to Nick Faldo on how to win the U.S. Open: “You shoot the lowest score.”* That’s who’s going to win.

The final round of the Open is on Father’s Day. If golf is part of his life, what better way to spend the day than watching the Open with him? I always did.

* Vasquez, Jody. Afternoons With Mr. Hogan.

health

Golf and Skin Cancer

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The word is out. Skin cancer is bad for you, and too much sunshine causes it. (Did anyone really not know this?)

Read this article about it, now appearing Golf Digest. Really! Read it!

I’m a redhead, and I keep covered up from head to toe on the course. I wear a hat with a 5″ brim, a sun-protective jacket (both pictured below) from Solumbra, long pants, and gloves on both hands most of the time.

The photo below was taken at the Thunderbird Golf Course at Mt. Carmel Junction in southern Utah in 2011, on the way back from having hiked across the Grand Canyon from the North Rim to Phantom Ranch and back out to the South Rim.

The glove I wear aren’t golf gloves, they are running gloves I get at a sporting goods store. Off the tee and off the fairway, I do not wear them. While walking from tee to fairway, one hand is in my pocket and the other hand pulls the cart behind me so it is in the shade of my body.

Once I have hit into the the green, both gloves go on. All short shots and all putting is done with them on.

I ain’t kidding, folks, and the article ain’t kidding, either. Stay covered up. I have spent a lot of time in the Southwest. You know what the Navajo wear outside? Enough to cover their arms and legs and face.

If you wear light, loose-fitting clothing made of cotton that covers your arms and legs, you will actually stay cooler in hot weather, so don’t let the heat prevent you from keeping out of the sun.

Sunscreen? O.K., but you have to remember to apply it every few hours, and apply it correctly. I don’t recommend relying on it.

Stay covered is the best option.

playing the game

4 Cornerstones of the Game

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There’s a golf blog I recommend you give a look to, called 3Jack Golf Blog. It concentrates on professional tournament golf, but occasionally has instructional relevance for us. Find it at https://3jack.blogspot.com/.

One post that struck me presented Richie’s analysis of the telling skills for professional golfers. He called them the 4 Cornerstones of the Professional Game.

They are,

1. Driving Effectiveness
2. Red Zone Play (175-225 yards)
3. Short Game shots from 10-20 yards
4. Putting from 3-15 feet

Players that rank average or better in all four these areas do well on the Tour. Recreational golfers who do well in these area will do well overall, too.

Driving Effectiveness is a combination of length and accuracy. For us, accuracy would be more important than length, but don’t discount distance. My par rate is clearly related to being the fairway. I don’t think about distance, because the ones I hit straight are my longest drives.

I would reduce the yardage of Red Zone Play to 125-175 yards for recreational golfers. This is about hitting greens from distances we can realistically have a chance. I once wrote about the yardage gap for recreational golfers, the distance from 175-200 yards that we don’t have a realistic chance of hitting the green with any consistency. Take a look at that post.

By the way, I have this rule of thumb for hitting greens. It is just my guess, with no data to back it up at all, but it makes sense to me. Add a zero to the number of the club you are using. That is the percentage of greens you should hit with that club.

The standard for a 9-iron then is to hit 90% of greens, and with a 5-iron, 50% is a reasonable expectation. Thinking along these lines can help you plan you approach to the green, as in what are my chances of missing, and if I miss, where is the best place to do that?

Numbers 3 and 4 are obviously just as important for us, without modification, as they are for the pros. The short game metric is measured in yards from the green, not from the hole. Putting? How many putts from 3-15 feet do you sink? Just two more per round would help, don’t you think?

I know these cornerstones sound obvious, because when you take them out, there isn’t that much of the game left. Long-range pitching, bunker play, and approach putting is about it.

But you might want consider concentrating on these four areas in your practice sessions and see how it works out. I’m focusing on #3, because those are great places from which to steal a par, and there’s no reason I can’t get good with those shots. Or you, for that matter.

today's round

Last Week’s Round

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Last week I posted my thoughts on a rather disappointing round. I played that badly because I had drifted away from the things that I know work. So I have spent the week going back to my principles and being very strict about them.

This is my report.

For the umpteenth time, the two most important swing principles for any golfer, in my opinion, are rhythm and tempo, and the hands leading the clubhead through impact.

Rhythm I have down pretty well. The hands leading I have down pretty well. It’s tempo that will always be a problem, and poor tempo was the source of my bad shots last week.

I have said this in several ways. Swing only so fast that you hit the ball on the center of the clubface consistently. Don’t swing so fast that you outswing your technique.

A few months ago I posted a reference to an instructional article by Daniel Berger about slowing down your swing to find the center of the clubface. It would pay you to read that post before you go on.

The big problem with tempo is that we get to swinging too fast. This is a mental problem, not a physical one. We have to find a way to keep our mind from asking more from our body than it can deliver.

I hit two outstanding shots that round, only two, so I thought about them and asked myself how I had done that. Let me describe them to you and see if you can figure out what they had in common.

The first one was with a 6-iron from 152 yards. The tee shot had finished on a bare patch of dirt, an old divot, but not a deep one. Getting the club on the ball presented no problem, but the bare lie meant I had to contact the ball just right or I would end up with an 80-yard dribbler.

I didn’t care how far away the green was now, all I wanted was clean contact and I would take what distance that gave me. In fact, I expected to come up twenty yards short.

I slowed down my swing, but not to the point of being delicately careful. I got great contact, and beautiful ball flight, the best I can do. The ball ended up on the green twelve feet from the pin. Missed the birdie putt, though (darn).

The second shot was from a fairway bunker. I’m pretty good at these shots. You have to keep the lower body quiet and swing so you just nip the ball off the surface of the sand. To do that, you have to slow down your swing somewhat.

All I wanted was to get the ball out and maybe 100 yards down the fairway. Again, I made perfect contact and the ball sailed out perfectly, about 100 yards down the fairway.

What did those two shots have in common? I interpret them this way. In neither case was I trying to hit the ball 6,000 yards. I was not trying to hit an heroic shot or a perfect shot. All I wanted to do was get the ball in the air and have it go straight for a reasonable distance. That’s a pretty low bar, but believe me, that’s all you need to achieve to play good golf.

By dialing back my expectations, I dialed back my swing and as a result advanced my shot-making. That sentence needs to make sense to you, because every brilliant shot you have ever hit had that frame of mind attached to it.

You don’t have to hit brilliant shots to shoot a good score. All you need to hit are decent shots. Your task is to find a way to internalize that truth, trust it, and use it, the shots you get will be truly brilliant.

today's round

Today’s Round

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I don’t seem to be posting many rounds. I’m not skipping any, it’s just that I can only play every other week (and only nine holes) and sometimes I miss even then. So here is today’s story.

I shot a 44 at the OGA course in Woodburn, Oregon. Highs, lows, nothing in between.

The first hole I bogied because my drive landed right behind a little tree and I had to chip out to the fairway. That happens. PW on, two putts.

Number two, drive, 6-iron to twelve feet, two putts, par. I feel good.

Number three, a par three, hooked an iron into wet sand, staring at a pond directly on the other side of the green,. It took me two cautious shots to get out, barely, and a chip and a putt for a DB. It’s going to get worse before it gets better.

Fourth, par 5, hooked my tee shot into the water hazard. Third went right onto some heavy rough. I had a downhill lie and forgot you have to aim left. Hacked out, pitched on, two putts, DB.

Fifth, another par 5, drive and an advancement shot down the fairway. Looking real good. Hooked my 9-iron off the course and lost the ball. Another 9 and two putts, DB.

Sixth (now it gets better): 7-iron on a par 3 and sank the chip using a putter.

Seventh, pillaged my second shot on par 4, pitched on, two putts.

Eighth, par 3, 9-iron short, chipped in. I’ll tell you about the chip later.

Nine, par 5, drove into a fairway bunker, 6-iron out, sliced (my first slice in about five years) into the water, pitch, two putts, DB.

So. Take away four bad swings and I’m looking at a 40. That’s the good news. The bad news is four bad swings. Gotta work on those hooks (not worried about the slice).

About the chip-in on #8. This is a shot I have been working on, and bought a club just to hit it, a 60° wedge with only 4° of bounce. When you’re short-sided off the green, you play the ball well forward in your stance. That adds even more loft to the club, and the ball pops up and rolls out politely.

But I had fun. The score doesn’t bother me. I play, see what needs fixing, try to fix it, and go out again to see how I did. That’s what golf means to me.

playing the game

A Few Shot Savers

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Here are some easy ways to save a shot here and there which do not require you be any better than you are now. Each one can save you one stroke per round. They are taken from the upcoming edition of Bob’s Living Golf Book.

Play from the right set of tees.

Off the tee, use the longest club with which you can reliably hit the fairway. If that’s your driver, go for it. If it’s not our driver, don’t just assume it is your 3-wood.

Every shot at the hole (iron, pitch, chip, putt) must pass the hole. If the iron into the green requires a longer club than you can reliably hit straight, lay up. It is easier to chip on from the unobstructed fairway than from problematic ground on the sides of the green.

From 10-20 yards off the green, getting the ball on the green in one shot is a higher priority than getting the ball close to the pin.

For any putt of under roughly 20 feet (you have to determine the exact distance) look at the hole when you putt.

For putts beyond 20 feet, use the Triangulated Approach Putting technique.

Realize that some holes are too hard for you. Play them for an easy bogey instead of a hard par.

When you’re in trouble, think first about hitting the ball back into the fairway and playing on from there.

Put more importance on having fun with your companions and enjoying the day than you do shooting a low score.

Carry these playing tips with you, use them, and see how many strokes they save you. There are nine of them. What if each one did save you one stroke per round?

tournaments

2019 PGA Championship Preview

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Winner: Brooks Koepka by two shots over Dustin Johnson.

A major championship comes back to Bethpage Black in Long Island, New York. On May 16-19, the 101st PGA Championship will be contested on, what can I say, a ferocious golf course.

Official website.

I spent two days in 2010 walking around Oakmont. If you hit the ball straight and putt, you’ll do alright. I’ve seen the Pine Valley flyover on Youtube. Same thing. But Bethpage Black, that course scares me. Watch this.

The U.S. Open was played here in 2002, won by Tiger Woods by three strokes over Phil Mickelson. Woods was the only competitor to finish under par. In 2009, Lucas Glover on the Open by two over Mickelson, Ricky Barnes, and David Duval, in the most dramatic final round at the Open I have ever seen. Only those four and Ross Fisher finished under par.

The PGA likes birdies, though, and the rough will definitely not be U.S. Open style. I’m guessing the winning score will be -10.

Read this fascinating article about why The PGA at Bethpage will be different from a U.S. Open at Bethpage.


(Click to enlarge)

Moving the PGA to May was a stroke of, well, not genius, but of common sense. It was once a highly respected major championship, and can return to that status by being in the middle of the majors crunch instead of on the tail end. Playing it at the finest courses will help, too.

Patrick Reed has commented that this course challenges every club in the bag. I believe him. The winner will be determined by who makes the fewest big mistakes.

One thing everybody is hoping for is that Phil doesn’t wear these pants again. (Who dresses him???)

today's round

Today’s Round

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I played nine today at an executive course in town. It has five par 4s, four of them over 300 yards, and four par 3s. I learned something on almost every hole.

On the first, I hooked my approach and had to pitch on. The green sloped away from me, so I opened the clubface to get more loft on the shot and have it stop quicker, but when you do that you have to hit the ball harder, which is counter-intuitive, and which I failed to do. The ball fell short of the green, so I chipped on and sank the putt for a bogey.

On the second, I hooked my iron into the green again, and chipped from thick rough. I got under the ball and just got it on the green. Two putts for a bogey.

Third, looong approach putt. I thought more about distance than line, and let a gentle break carry a ball hit with the right pace away from the hole. Three putts for a bogey.

Fourth, I air-mailed the green with my approach. The ball rested on a bare spot in the grass with no way to sweep the club through the ball. Also, the ball was below the green and the green sloped away. Playing the shot shown in this video, I chipped to five feet and sank the putt.

Fifth, a drive put me 64 yards from the pin. At my range, there is a post 66 yards from the mats, which I always hit to when I warm up. Oh, boy. Pitch to 12 feet, the downhill birdie putt stopped three inches short.

Sixth, air-mailed the green again, and had to chip across a slope to the pin. I left the ball four feet below the hole, which is golden. Uphill putts going straight in are really easy. Sank it for the par.

Seventh, a drive into the rough and a 9-iron into the green. I forgot to put the ball back in my stance, which you always do when hitting out of the rough. It gives you as steeper swing that puts less grass between the club and the ball. The approach landed in front of an elevated green with the pin in front. Normally this might be a little flip onto the green, but the grass was mown very short so I putted the ball on with a 24-degree hybrid to six feet. Sank the putt for par.

Eighth, iron on, two putts.

Ninth, dogleg right. I decided to fade the ball around the corner, but got set up wrong. You have to open the clubface and aim it at where you want the ball to start off, but I aimed it where I wanted the ball to end up. The ball went into trees and I had to chip out. The ball landed in rough, but this time I played it the right way. 9-iron onto the green to six feet and a downhill slider for par. I got too tentative and the ball didn’t hold its line. Bogey.

Go back and read the post on Your One Right Hand. That was working supremely well off the tee. Also, read this post on hinging your wrists. I’ll be posting a video soon on this subject.

golf stories

Birdie at the Road Hole

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Almost nine years ago, I wrote a small post about my small hole-in one.

In that post, I mentioned the birdie I had made on the Road Hole at St Andrews and said I would talk about that sometime later.

I guess nine years is sometime later, so here goes.

In 1968, I was between my sophomore and junior years in college. Spending a summer abroad was becoming the thing to do. My college roommate suggested the winter before that we do that. I made the pitch to my parents, and they said yes.

Now getting to Europe back then was a Big Deal, especially if you lived on the West Coast. You had to get to New York, then catch a flight over, and it wasn’t cheap. But we made it cheap.

I took a cheap flight to New York, and from there, flew on Icelandic Airlines to Luxembourg, with a stop in Iceland. The airplane was a four-engine prop that didn’t go very fast and made lots of noise.

From Luxembourg I took a train the next day to Paris, where I met up with my roommate, and we were off and running. After a few days in Paris, we headed to Jolly Old.

We stayed in London, did the town, in the middle of the Swinging Sixties, Soho, and the like. After a few days we hitchhiked to Edinburgh (which has four syllables, not three), which is really close to the town of St Andrews (Note that St has no period after it. This is correct.)

After a few days of seeing this town, we hitchhiked to St Andrews so I could play the famous course. Or tried to hitchhike. We had no luck getting a ride all the way, and had to catch a bus to complete the trip.

So there I was, at the home of golf, with an indulgent roommate.

Things were different in 1968. There was no lottery for tee times. In the middle of June, I walked up to the starter’s shack, paid my green fees, rented a half set of clubs, bought some balls and tees, and went off.

The starter said, “The first tee is over there, and when the group on it tees off, you’re next.”

It was that simple.

I have to say I didn’t know much about the course except that it was famous. It had never been on TV for a British Open because TV didn’t cover the British Open back then. All I knew was that it was famous and I had read about it when I was growing up making golf part of my life.

I hit a decent drive on the first tee, well placed for a shot into the green. I thought the best shot from where I was would be to take out a 7-iron and hit a shot short of the green that would run on. You know, still getting warmed up.

I hit the shot I wanted to, but when the ball got close to the green it disappeared. I didn’t think much of that, probably it ran down a hill into a hollow spot.

The closer I got to the green, though, the more of a bad feeling I had about the choice I had made. There was this dark line going across the fairway that kept getting wider and wider.

I got close enough to see that it was a ditch, and when I got up to it, I was introduced to the Swilcan Burn, with my ball in it. Fortunately the ditch was not that deep and I was able to get my ball back out.

I have vague memories of the holes after that. The greens were light years faster than anything I had ever played on. The double greens were (are) huge, and I hit the ball into the gorse a few times and didn’t try to play out of it.

At one point, I think it was on the sixth tee, all I could see in front of me was weeds. I had no idea where to hit the ball. Some guy coming inward saw that I was completely confused, came over to the tee, and said, “See the church steeple way over there? Aim for that and you’ll be alright.” The steeple was about a mile away, across the River Eden.

Coming in, I was getting the hang of things and having lots of fun, though you would think otherwise by looking at my scores. I might be having selective memory, but I do not remember once being in a bunker the whole time.

At last we came to the Road Hole. I knew about that. Hit your drive over the railroad sheds, hit on and get par. I was really geared up for this one shot, over the sheds.

Only the sheds weren’t there anymore. They had been torn down the year before when a hotel was built on that spot. The romance was gone, but the shot was still there, though. The hotel had built a screen that forced you to hit the same shot if you wanted to take the short line to the green.

Now I hadn’t been hitting my driver well all day, so I took out the 3-wood to make my play. I didn’t care what happened, I hadn’t made this pilgrimage to chicken out of the most famous shot in golf.

I have no idea how it happened, but I hit a brilliant shot, not even close to what I had been doing earlier, and the ball sailed over the screen with room to spare, straight as a string. I had hit the shot I had been waiting to face, nailed it, and the rest would be an afterthought, or so I felt.

I found the ball in the fairway, looking right at the green. I took out a 3-iron and took aim at a piece of the green sticking out into the fairway. There was this bunker a bit to the left that looked like you wouldn’t want to hit into. Little did I know I was looking at the Road Hole bunker, the most feared bunker in golf. In the picture of me standing on the 17th green, look how close it is to the pin.

But as you know, the Lord takes care of fools and small children. Trying a shot that makes professionals perspire just thinking about it, my second good swing in a row put the ball on the green with room to spare.

Getting to the green, my ball was about 20 feet away, and there wasn’t much to the putt. Getting it close for a par looked easy, so that’s the shot I hit. Except I didn’t get my par. The ball went in and I had birdied the most famous and arguably the hardest par 4 in the world.

Wowie! Just, wowie! I made some noise, not knowing the eighteenth tee was really close by and there were guys teeing off. Apologies from me and kudos from them.

I finished the round and couldn’t have been happier. What started off as a lifetime memory ended up as a lifetime achievement. I am one under par for life on the 17th. Not many golfers can say that. I think this is better than a hole-in-one.

Years later, in 1990, I was watching the British Open, on TV, being played at St Andrews. Nick Faldo was on the way to winning his second title. As he played the 17th on Saturday, I thought to myself, “He would give his eyeteeth to have my score on this hole right now.”

As would they all in the Opens I have watched come through my birdie hole.

equipment

What’s In My Bag—April 2019

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I love to play around with my set of clubs. Every time I make a change I think I have really got it this time.

Here’s the set I’m playing with now:

Driver (11.5 degrees)
Fairway wood (16.5 degrees)
Fairway wood (20.5 degrees)
24-degree hybrid
27-degree hybrid
6-iron
7-iron
8-iron
9-iron
PW
GW
SW
LW
Putter

The clubs from the 16.5 fairway wood to the lob wedge have fairly consistent gaps in loft.

I’ve really got it this time.

Little Differences That Make a Big Difference in How Well You Play