With Danielle Kang 5 behind So Yeon Ryu at the Canadian Pacific Women's Open, Jane Park continuing to play well for the 2nd week in a row, Mina Harigae and Tiffany Joh making charges yesterday to make the cut, and Jennifer Song missing the cut by a single stroke thanks to a walkoff bogey, now is as good a time as any to report on what I saw of their games during last Sunday's final round of the Wegmans LPGA Championship. Basically, I wanted to see how some of my favorite Asian American golfers on tour compared to the Japanese players I primarily followed the previous days.
Mina Harigae: I got to Pittsford later than I hoped and could follow her only for the 16th through 18th holes, so I didn't get to pay as much attention to her game as I did 4 years ago when I focused on her and Mika Miyazato in "a tale of 2 20-year-olds." Just as I predicted back then, Mina's made steady improvements each year, tweaking rather than rethinking her precision game. She's putting the best this season of any year on tour and has a scoring average below 72 for the 2nd-straight year. However, she was seriously steamed (by her laid-back Californian standards) by the time I got to interview her at the end of her round. Despite nearly making a tough sandie on the tough par-3 16th, giving herself a great birdie chance on the tough par-4 17th, and nearly chipping in from all the way across the long 18th green, she was very disappointed in her play that week. She told me she had been hitting the ball great coming into Monroe Golf Club, but had a terrible ball-striking week by her standards (I saw a microcosm of that in just those 3 holes, as she sandwiched a perfect 260-yard drive on 17 between a right miss on 16 and a left miss on 18). Although she thought the course was set up fairly all week, she definitely bought into the narrative that it advantaged the long hitters on tour, with its generous fairways and relatively benign rough to either side of them. Clearly she was tired of hitting 4-hybrids in when others were hitting 7-irons. But think about how far she's come to be talking like that: 1) she's got the confidence as an established veteran to be criticizing the way the majors have been set up this year; 2) just making the cut at a major does not satisfy her (she's done that in her last 5 in a row); 3) she's playing consistently well enough to raise her expectations on herself. So I'd venture to predict that 2014 will be the best season of her career and that we should see her back in the top 10 soon.
Jennifer Song: I backtracked to the 6th green and followed her until the 12th green. Most of that time, she and her playing partner Stacey Keating were on the clock, so they would jog between shots and generally play as fast as they could. Even so, she displayed great touch around and on the greens, making a fantastic sandie from the very deep bunker to the right of the 7th green by using a backstop to pull the ball back within 3 feet of the cup, knocking down a 20-footer to save par on the par-3 8th after catching a bad lie from the right rough, making a tester to save par on the par-5 9th, and just missing a tester for birdie on the par-5 12th. Her key performance stats are very similar to Harigae's--the most important area of their games both ought to focus on improving the most would be hitting greens in regulation--but she's struggling to stay in the top 80 on the money list because she's missed a lot more cuts and hasn't broken into the top 20 yet this season (her T30 last week was tied for her 2nd-best finish of the season thus far). She's definitely pulled herself out of the depths of last season and has a good chance to make this her best year on tour, but she's going to need to get out the gates faster from here on out. With only 3 more starts until the limited-field fall Asian swing, the clock is ticking to get into the top 50 on the money list and guarantee herself spots in those events.
Danielle Kang: I spent the most time with DK of anyone today, catching up with her and Laura Diaz on the 10th fairway and staying with them the entire back 9. And I got to see the most fireworks from her, too, as she pitched in for eagle on the par-5 12th, made a 40-foot sweeper for birdie on the tough par-3 13th after her approach stuck on the front-right portion of the green instead of falling off the cliff and ending up 70 yards away from the green, and followed it up with a delicate 10-foot downhiller for birdie on the par-5 14th after frankly chopping it around for most of the hole. At that point, she had fought her way back to -2 for the week, and she stayed there after just missing a birdie on the par-4 15th and making a fantastic 20-foot par save on 16, but she just couldn't keep the magic going as she finished bogey-bogey on the 2 tough closing par 4s at Monroe Golf Club. She found Death Valley to the left of the 17th green and left her 35-foot par attempt dead center but 5 inches short, and she got too aggressive on 18 after blasting her drive 20 yards past Diaz, going over the green, trying to chip in, having it run by into tester range, and just missing the par save. But at least she was going for it and trying to keep her run going. She ended up with her 2nd-best finish of the season and clearly left Pittsford with a lot of confidence. In London, Ontario, she's been driving the ball great, hitting a lot of greens, and putting well. Can't wait to see how she handles playing in the final threesome with So Yeon Ryu and Anna Nordqvist today. She's made over $200K each of her 1st 2 seasons on tour but so far this one has barely made over $100K. But I'm thinking she's turned a corner! Let's see what she can do over the weekend with her great start to the week!
Tiffany Joh and Jane Park: T-Joh was in the group ahead of Park, so I kind of tried to keep an eye on both UCLA grads from the 12th through 17th holes, but by the end of the day my focus shifted to Lydia Ko and Inbee Park. Jane Park was in Chie Arimura-style lockdown mode, making 6-straight pars while I watched her. Meanwhile, T-Joh stuck a little wedge to 2 feet on the 12th, but missed her birdie attempt right after her playing partner Azahara Munoz made her longer try to get to -9, then bogeyed the 16th after missing it pin-high left and failing to convert a 6-footer after a great pitch after just missing medium-length birdie attempts on the previous 2 holes. Both were playing really solid golf, with Park the more consistent ball-striker and T-Joh the more artistic player around the greens. T-Joh has clearly pulled herself back from the brink after 2 forgettable seasons in a row; if her putting were as improved as the rest of her performance stats are this season, she'd be having more rounds like Friday's than Thursday's and be much higher on the money list. She made 8 cuts in a row to start the season and is on a 4-event-and-counting run right now, so I expect her to give herself a good shot at qualifying for the Asian swing this fall. Park has been fighting injuries all year, wrist sprains early on and back spasms that forced her to withdraw from the U.S. Women's Open. She won the U.S. Women's Amateur on a Donald Ross course, so she was very disappointed not being able to compete at Pinehurst and very pleased with her near-top 10 in Pittsford. This week she's making her 3rd solid start in a row, which has been a long time coming, as she's been driving the ball great all season, hitting the fairway 80% of the time while hitting it about 11 yards farther than last year, the 1st year she was that accurate off the tee. And she's hitting greens in regulation at a higher rate than at any time in her career (71%), so it's really just a matter of getting those putts to drop. With 8 birdies in her 1st 2 rounds in London, Ontario, I'd say that's just what's happening.
With Michelle Wie and Christina Kim the most prominent faces of Asian-American golf on the LPGA, I decided to focus my attention on lesser-known but quite promising Asian-American players during the tour's last stop in Rochester for at least awhile. I'd followed T-Joh several times on the Symetra Tour at their Syracuse stop in recent years, so it was neat to see her in one of the final pairings in a major. It was nice to check in with Harigae and watch her compete in person instead of just playing in a pro-am. While I had my most embarrassing interview ever with DK a few years ago in Rochester (it started off with my referring to USC even though I knew damn well she went to Pepperdine and went downhill from there--but at least she could joke about it when I ran into her later at Waterloo), it was fantastic to actually get to see her play close to her potential. And I came away impressed with Park and Song, whom I've been following online for quite some time but rarely saw on TV.
I'm happy to report that Ai Miyazato, Harukyo Nomura, Ayako Uehara, and Chie Arimura all made the cut this week and seem to be playing well. So 9 of the 10 players who I followed at Monroe Golf Club who haven't been setting the LPGA on fire in 2014--and actually 12 of 13 if you add Laura Davies, So Yeon Ryu, and Lizette Salas into the mix!--are getting something of a Mostly Harmless bump in Canada. Here's hoping it lasts for the rest of the season and beyond!
Showing posts with label scouting reports. Show all posts
Showing posts with label scouting reports. Show all posts
Saturday, August 23, 2014
Saturday, August 16, 2014
Wegmans LPGA Championship Special Report: On Chie Arimura, Ayako Uehara, and Harukyo Nomura
As I mentioned in my Friday Wegmans LPGA Championship post, I followed Chie Arimura for 9 holes yesterday and planned to follow her for 6 holes and Ayako Uehara for 6 holes today (after following Lizette Salas for the 1st 6 holes of the day). Instead, I decided for follow Arimura for the front 9, Uehara for the back 9, and Harukyo Nomura for the back 9 (it just turned out that she was making the turn as Uehara and Katy Harris were finishing their rounds). So with rain approaching Rochester and Golf Channel coverage in the media center, I decided to write this special report up while the leaders are out on the course. If it clears up in time for me to follow Jane Park and Lexi Thompson for the back 9, I will!
Let me start with brief bios of each player. Arimura is clearly the most accomplished of the bunch, having won on the JLPGA 13 times and getting her 1st major title in 2012 at the Konica Minolta Cup. She finished 3rd on the JLPGA money list 3 times between 2009 and 2012 (and 6th the other time), but has struggled on the LPGA with consistency, although she does have 3 career top 10s so far. Uehara doesn't have quite the resume of Arimura despite having joined the JLPGA back in 2003. Although she has only 3 career victories there, she finished in the top 26 on the tour's money list for 6-straight seasons before she decided to try to qualify for the LPGA in 2012 Q-School--where she finished 1 shot behind Moriya Jutanugarn and Rebecca Lee-Bentham and 4 shots ahead of Arimura. And even though she has only 1 LPGA top 10, she's missed the cut only 5 times in her 33 starts as an LPGA member. Nomura, meanwhile, won on the JLPGA as a non-member in 2011 (the same year she debuted on the LPGA) and finished 29th on the 2013 JLPGA money list but was 1 of 2 golfers in a 4-way playoff at 2013 Q-School to make it onto the LPGA with full status, so she has decided to make it her home tour again this year after not exactly setting it on fire in 2011 or 2012. 2014 has been much better to her, however, as she's just outside the top 30 on the money list, 20th in driving distance, and 3rd in putts per green in regulation. As a result, she's #12 on my list of the 22 best female golfers in the world under age 22.
Next I'll make some general observations about their games, based on what I saw yesterday and today.
Arimura is a very efficient player in every aspect of her game, from the way she moves around the course to her pre-shot routine to her swing to her putting stroke. She's short but powerfully built, and she takes advantage of her strength and flexibility with a wide stance that you'd think would make it hard for her to make a complete turn, but she does so with ease. Picture a wider triangle formed by her legs and a narrower inverted triangle formed by her shoulders and arms that she maintains pretty much throughout her swing. When I watched her play, she went into lockdown mode after a crazy double on the par-3 13th put her right on the cut line. And she executed it beautifully, hitting fairway after fairway and green after green. Her putting was very conservative both days I watched her. I think she got a 1st putt past the hole maybe twice. I don't know if she was respecting the speed of the greens too much or if it was a conscious strategy to make her pars as stress-free as possible, but either way she never took a real run at a birdie putt in the 18 holes I watched. Where she was aggressive with was her chipping and pitching, which didn't always serve her well. At the same time, she seemed to have the most creativity with her approach shots of all the players I've followed this week. She and her caddy have definitely done their homework, as she used the contours and backstops to her advantage several times. That helps explains why she's hit 38 greens to Nomura's 36 and Uehara's 30 thus far today.
Uehara is a much more aggressive and high-energy player. She walks as fast as anyone I've ever followed on either tour, swinging her arms in textbook fashion as she zooms along. Her swing's tempo is faster than Arimura's, too; in fact, she takes such a big cut at the ball that her right knee is in danger of buckling outwards when her hands reach their apex. If Arimura has more of an Ai Miyazato-type swing, then Uehara's is closer to Sakura Yokomine's (although she doesn't go nearly as far past parallel as Sakura does!). And yet she's not nearly as long as Arimura off the tee (once again, the holes they measure understate the difference in driving distance, both this week and for the season; Arimura was more like 10 yards longer off the tee than her, not the 3.3 their stats say). As a result, she was often hitting fairway woods when Arimura was hitting hybrids. On the other hand, she's a much more aggressive putter than Arimura, which sometimes got her in trouble on Monroe Golf Club's slick greens.
Nomura is a totally different type of golfer than Arimura and Uehara, who are both definitely precision players (Uehara was #11 in driving accuracy coming into this week), hitting 88% of their fairways off the tee thus far this week. Even though Nomura's even smaller than they are, she has a much more powerful game. She's got the potential to be a straight-up bomber like Ya Ni Tseng was back when she was dominating women's golf. In fact, you might call her "Mini-Ya Ni" if you watched her play! She doesn't rely for her power as much on upper-body rotation as on upper-body strength. She has a very armsy backswing, but once she bends her knees to start her downswing and pushes her body up as she hits the ball, her club falls right in the slot and the ball just explodes off the club. The move depends on timing, so she's not as consistently excellent a ball-striker as Arimura in particular. But she hit the longest drive I saw on the par-5 14th all 3 days of walking the course I've done so far (although not the longest of the day: a spotter told me Jennifer Kirby hit it to 153 yards away from the 1st group this morning, while Nomura was about 175). Her weakness today, however, was short putts. She could have gone really low today if she had been better from 4 feet and in. I saw her miss 3 short ones in her 1st 7 holes on the back, including a 3-foot downhill eagle attempt on 14 after a fantastic approach. So even though she birdied 3 of the 4 par 5s today, she had to settle for a 72.
I watched Arimura make 14-straight pars (and 17 in the 18 holes I saw overall!). The most memorable came yesterday on the par-4 11th, where she had the 3rd-longest drive of any I saw on that hole. Instead of trying to fly it to the front-middle of the green and hope it released to the pin at the base of a bump in the back-middle-right, she hit a low punch that landed short-left of the green and ran right up to the bump, which she tried to use as a backstop. The ball fell to the right instead of coming straight back to the hole, but it was still a neat try that left her about 18 feet for birdie. She did something similar today on the par-4 7th, landing her shot left of the front-left pin and using the contour to release the ball back toward the center of the green, about 20 feet past pin-high but exactly on line and with a relatively flat look for birdie. Her best birdie chance that I saw, however, came on the par-5 3rd, where she hit a fantastic sand wedge from the front-right bunker to recover from a rare imperfect hybrid when she tried to hit the green in 2. But from 4 feet to the right of the tucked front-left pin, she hit a dead pull that didn't even come close to touching the hole. Obviously she is capable of making birdies--she made 3 in a row to close out her 1st round, 2 in a row at the start of Friday's round, and what must have been a fine walkoff birdie on 18 to salvage a 73 today. But what she really was when I was watching was a par-making machine.
That's why the 13th yesterday stands out so much. I can't remember if she was in the back trap or the rough just short of it, but when she came out of it her ball came perilously close to rolling all the way off the green and down a hill that was sending even well-struck shots back 50 yards short of the green. Then she did something I never saw again: she rammed her par attempt from 40 feet away. Fortunately, she hit the hole so solidly it bounced in the air and only rolled 3 feet away (instead of the 10 or more it was clearly slated to!). Unfortunately, she missed that comebacker and went from E to +2 in a single hole. She needed to stay there to make the cut, something that neither Ai nor Mika Miyazato were able to do over their last 5 holes. And she did it by playing textbook golf, fairway to green to tap-in. The only putt in that stretch I really saw her try to make sure she got to the hole was on 17, when she finally took a run at a birdie. But when you're giving yourself putts of 4 inches or less for par, that's the way you cruise to making the cut. Pretty impressive when you consider that she was playing with a club pro and with Reilley Rankin, who was scrambling heroically all the way home.
The 13th was also memorable for Uehara and Nomura today. Uehara had made her 3rd bogey in her previous 6 holes on the 10th, but righted the ship with pars on 11 and 12. When her fairway wood landed on the front-right of the 13th, it looked like she was in good position to make her 3rd-straight par. But then the ball started trickling slowly back toward the edge of the green. By the time it got there, it had enough speed to roll out all the way down the hill to about 50 yards short of the green and 50 feet lower than the pin. From there, she hit a good pitch to the back-right corner of the green, about 20 feet from the back-middle pin. And she rammed it home for par! Nomura missed her approach short-right and it ended up in one of those really deep bunkers that look like a challenge just to clear the lip. And when she barely did so, the ball trickled down the hill about 25 feet left and short of the cup. Then she, too, rammed it home for par! So even though she missed a 4-footer to save par on 11, a 3-foot eagle putt on 14, and a 7-foot birdie putt on 15--missing the chance to go 4-under in that 5-hole stretch--she also avoided a bogey or worse on 13. So I'd say she's about even. Uehara, by contrast, was deadly from short range--and good for her she was, because she wasn't afraid of getting the ball past the cup. She got her speed down on her last 2 holes, however, making a great 50-foot lag on 17 to 2 feet and getting her speed near-perfect on 18 from 25 feet down and through the gully.
Overall, I don't see any reason why these golfers shouldn't continue to be LPGA regulars for years to come. They certainly have the games to compete with the best in the world! Let's see what they can do Sunday.
Let me start with brief bios of each player. Arimura is clearly the most accomplished of the bunch, having won on the JLPGA 13 times and getting her 1st major title in 2012 at the Konica Minolta Cup. She finished 3rd on the JLPGA money list 3 times between 2009 and 2012 (and 6th the other time), but has struggled on the LPGA with consistency, although she does have 3 career top 10s so far. Uehara doesn't have quite the resume of Arimura despite having joined the JLPGA back in 2003. Although she has only 3 career victories there, she finished in the top 26 on the tour's money list for 6-straight seasons before she decided to try to qualify for the LPGA in 2012 Q-School--where she finished 1 shot behind Moriya Jutanugarn and Rebecca Lee-Bentham and 4 shots ahead of Arimura. And even though she has only 1 LPGA top 10, she's missed the cut only 5 times in her 33 starts as an LPGA member. Nomura, meanwhile, won on the JLPGA as a non-member in 2011 (the same year she debuted on the LPGA) and finished 29th on the 2013 JLPGA money list but was 1 of 2 golfers in a 4-way playoff at 2013 Q-School to make it onto the LPGA with full status, so she has decided to make it her home tour again this year after not exactly setting it on fire in 2011 or 2012. 2014 has been much better to her, however, as she's just outside the top 30 on the money list, 20th in driving distance, and 3rd in putts per green in regulation. As a result, she's #12 on my list of the 22 best female golfers in the world under age 22.
Next I'll make some general observations about their games, based on what I saw yesterday and today.
Arimura is a very efficient player in every aspect of her game, from the way she moves around the course to her pre-shot routine to her swing to her putting stroke. She's short but powerfully built, and she takes advantage of her strength and flexibility with a wide stance that you'd think would make it hard for her to make a complete turn, but she does so with ease. Picture a wider triangle formed by her legs and a narrower inverted triangle formed by her shoulders and arms that she maintains pretty much throughout her swing. When I watched her play, she went into lockdown mode after a crazy double on the par-3 13th put her right on the cut line. And she executed it beautifully, hitting fairway after fairway and green after green. Her putting was very conservative both days I watched her. I think she got a 1st putt past the hole maybe twice. I don't know if she was respecting the speed of the greens too much or if it was a conscious strategy to make her pars as stress-free as possible, but either way she never took a real run at a birdie putt in the 18 holes I watched. Where she was aggressive with was her chipping and pitching, which didn't always serve her well. At the same time, she seemed to have the most creativity with her approach shots of all the players I've followed this week. She and her caddy have definitely done their homework, as she used the contours and backstops to her advantage several times. That helps explains why she's hit 38 greens to Nomura's 36 and Uehara's 30 thus far today.
Uehara is a much more aggressive and high-energy player. She walks as fast as anyone I've ever followed on either tour, swinging her arms in textbook fashion as she zooms along. Her swing's tempo is faster than Arimura's, too; in fact, she takes such a big cut at the ball that her right knee is in danger of buckling outwards when her hands reach their apex. If Arimura has more of an Ai Miyazato-type swing, then Uehara's is closer to Sakura Yokomine's (although she doesn't go nearly as far past parallel as Sakura does!). And yet she's not nearly as long as Arimura off the tee (once again, the holes they measure understate the difference in driving distance, both this week and for the season; Arimura was more like 10 yards longer off the tee than her, not the 3.3 their stats say). As a result, she was often hitting fairway woods when Arimura was hitting hybrids. On the other hand, she's a much more aggressive putter than Arimura, which sometimes got her in trouble on Monroe Golf Club's slick greens.
Nomura is a totally different type of golfer than Arimura and Uehara, who are both definitely precision players (Uehara was #11 in driving accuracy coming into this week), hitting 88% of their fairways off the tee thus far this week. Even though Nomura's even smaller than they are, she has a much more powerful game. She's got the potential to be a straight-up bomber like Ya Ni Tseng was back when she was dominating women's golf. In fact, you might call her "Mini-Ya Ni" if you watched her play! She doesn't rely for her power as much on upper-body rotation as on upper-body strength. She has a very armsy backswing, but once she bends her knees to start her downswing and pushes her body up as she hits the ball, her club falls right in the slot and the ball just explodes off the club. The move depends on timing, so she's not as consistently excellent a ball-striker as Arimura in particular. But she hit the longest drive I saw on the par-5 14th all 3 days of walking the course I've done so far (although not the longest of the day: a spotter told me Jennifer Kirby hit it to 153 yards away from the 1st group this morning, while Nomura was about 175). Her weakness today, however, was short putts. She could have gone really low today if she had been better from 4 feet and in. I saw her miss 3 short ones in her 1st 7 holes on the back, including a 3-foot downhill eagle attempt on 14 after a fantastic approach. So even though she birdied 3 of the 4 par 5s today, she had to settle for a 72.
I watched Arimura make 14-straight pars (and 17 in the 18 holes I saw overall!). The most memorable came yesterday on the par-4 11th, where she had the 3rd-longest drive of any I saw on that hole. Instead of trying to fly it to the front-middle of the green and hope it released to the pin at the base of a bump in the back-middle-right, she hit a low punch that landed short-left of the green and ran right up to the bump, which she tried to use as a backstop. The ball fell to the right instead of coming straight back to the hole, but it was still a neat try that left her about 18 feet for birdie. She did something similar today on the par-4 7th, landing her shot left of the front-left pin and using the contour to release the ball back toward the center of the green, about 20 feet past pin-high but exactly on line and with a relatively flat look for birdie. Her best birdie chance that I saw, however, came on the par-5 3rd, where she hit a fantastic sand wedge from the front-right bunker to recover from a rare imperfect hybrid when she tried to hit the green in 2. But from 4 feet to the right of the tucked front-left pin, she hit a dead pull that didn't even come close to touching the hole. Obviously she is capable of making birdies--she made 3 in a row to close out her 1st round, 2 in a row at the start of Friday's round, and what must have been a fine walkoff birdie on 18 to salvage a 73 today. But what she really was when I was watching was a par-making machine.
That's why the 13th yesterday stands out so much. I can't remember if she was in the back trap or the rough just short of it, but when she came out of it her ball came perilously close to rolling all the way off the green and down a hill that was sending even well-struck shots back 50 yards short of the green. Then she did something I never saw again: she rammed her par attempt from 40 feet away. Fortunately, she hit the hole so solidly it bounced in the air and only rolled 3 feet away (instead of the 10 or more it was clearly slated to!). Unfortunately, she missed that comebacker and went from E to +2 in a single hole. She needed to stay there to make the cut, something that neither Ai nor Mika Miyazato were able to do over their last 5 holes. And she did it by playing textbook golf, fairway to green to tap-in. The only putt in that stretch I really saw her try to make sure she got to the hole was on 17, when she finally took a run at a birdie. But when you're giving yourself putts of 4 inches or less for par, that's the way you cruise to making the cut. Pretty impressive when you consider that she was playing with a club pro and with Reilley Rankin, who was scrambling heroically all the way home.
The 13th was also memorable for Uehara and Nomura today. Uehara had made her 3rd bogey in her previous 6 holes on the 10th, but righted the ship with pars on 11 and 12. When her fairway wood landed on the front-right of the 13th, it looked like she was in good position to make her 3rd-straight par. But then the ball started trickling slowly back toward the edge of the green. By the time it got there, it had enough speed to roll out all the way down the hill to about 50 yards short of the green and 50 feet lower than the pin. From there, she hit a good pitch to the back-right corner of the green, about 20 feet from the back-middle pin. And she rammed it home for par! Nomura missed her approach short-right and it ended up in one of those really deep bunkers that look like a challenge just to clear the lip. And when she barely did so, the ball trickled down the hill about 25 feet left and short of the cup. Then she, too, rammed it home for par! So even though she missed a 4-footer to save par on 11, a 3-foot eagle putt on 14, and a 7-foot birdie putt on 15--missing the chance to go 4-under in that 5-hole stretch--she also avoided a bogey or worse on 13. So I'd say she's about even. Uehara, by contrast, was deadly from short range--and good for her she was, because she wasn't afraid of getting the ball past the cup. She got her speed down on her last 2 holes, however, making a great 50-foot lag on 17 to 2 feet and getting her speed near-perfect on 18 from 25 feet down and through the gully.
Overall, I don't see any reason why these golfers shouldn't continue to be LPGA regulars for years to come. They certainly have the games to compete with the best in the world! Let's see what they can do Sunday.
Wednesday, August 13, 2014
Wegmans LPGA Championship Day 3: Monroe Golf Club's Back 9
All right, continuing my previews of the Wegmans LPGA Championship, I follow up here on my overall impressions of Monroe Golf Club and observations on its front 9. Drawing on my notes from yesterday and the LPGA media guide, here's my scouting report on the back 9!
#10: 423-Yard Par 4
As on #1, players get a little bit of a break on their drives with a wide fairway that doesn't pinch until about 290 yards off the tee. So long as you avoid the small hidden right-side fairway bunker about 270 off the tee, you'll be fine with a right miss, as this is one of the few fairways on the course that doesn't have trees on both sides of the fairway (or at least that many where most drives would typically end up!). The green narrows from 45 feet across at the front to only 24 feet at the middle, and it's protected b short-right and middle-left bunkers, so most of the challenge comes on the approach shot. The green itself slopes severely from back to front and has a false front, so flying your approach well onto it is a good idea, but quite a challenge, as there's something of a cliff right behind the green that extends down into the right rough on the 12th fairway. On the bright side, there is something of a bowl effect, particularly on the right side, so approaches at most edges should feed back toward the center of the green.
#11: 414-Yard Par 4
This one starts to dogleg right about 200 yards from the tee, the right rough is thick, and an overhanging tree blocks the right side of the green from the right rough, so it'll be a challenging but necessary fairway to hit, particularly with that fairway bunker guarding the left landing area about 250 yards out. The green is slightly elevated and deep but somewhat narrow, has a false front, slopes left to right, and has a big bump in the back. It was raining fairly hard, but I hung out with a retired couple in the well-situated shelter to the right of the green and watched Christina Kim keep up a running conversation with her caddy as she putted from dozens of spots to dozens of other spots on this green!
#12: 480-Yard Par 5
This is another great short par 5, as the landing area for drives is narrow, going for the green in 2 is tempting but a huge risk and almost impossible from the left rough if you find yourself in "Smitty's Moguls." Most drives will end up somewhere in the vicinity of the 2nd right fairway bunker, which is about 250 yards off the tee, but those who go for the left side of the fairway should get a forward kick. Assuming you do find the fairway and can go for the green, it's super-narrow (only 10 paces wide!), guarded by big trees on both sides, a deep bunker front right, and a series of mounds and bumps everywhere else. I saw more players practicing chips and pitches from the rough around the green on this hole than any other. The green itself is a piece of work, with at least 5 bumps separating the green into very different sections. Where the pin will be each day will affect players' game plans in a big way. It was too tough a puzzle for me to figure out when you'd be better off laying up than going for it, but the landing area for your layup is no picnic to hit, either, what with all the traps surrounding it, so probably most players who can will go for this one in 2 and hope for the best. The LPGA media guide notes the green is fast from back to front and deceptively slow from front to back, so even hitting the green in 2 gives you no guarantee of a birdie. Another great hole!
#13: 183-Yard Par 3
The LPGA media guide notes that amateurs in the Monroe Invitational Championship have had the most trouble with this hole over the 70-year history of the tournament, and I can see why. The difficulty starts with a steep, closely-mown neck that repels all shots that land even a little short and turns ones that happen to spin back off the false front into awful approaches. Many players were practicing tossing wedges from the bottom of that neck maybe 30 feet up to the green. So missing short is bad, but finding any of the deep traps that surround the green may be worse. Overall, the green slopes from right to left, but there's a back-left bump that can serve as something of a backstop, with luck. If you go long-left, though, you'll end up in a chipping area. The back-right corner of the green has been extended out in a recent Gil Hanse restoration.
#14: 488-Yard Par 5
The left fairway bunker is about 220 yards off the tee and the right is about 260, so most drives will end up between them--tending toward the left side of the fairway--as a big tree guards the right side of the green about 100 yards short of it. Long hitters will be able to overcome the incline leading up to the small green and, with accuracy, negotiate its left to right slope, although most players will end up in the little neck that widens out about 30 yards short of the green on the left. The green itself is kind of rectangular, with bumps on its front-left and back-right and another false front.
#15: 360-Yard Par 4
The shortest par 4 on the course has one of its most diabolical greens. You hit from an elevated tee into a gently-sloping uphill fairway by guarded by a deep right-fairway bunker about 190 from the tee, but it's really the pot bunker on the left side of the fairway about 260 yards from the tee that most players will be worrying about. The fairway is wide short of it, but if you go too far right, there's a 2nd fairway bunker guarding the right corner, maybe 230 yards off the tee or so. The good news is that shots hit to the left side of the fairway will kick back toward the center, so longer hitters may wish to challenge that last left bunker yet avoid going through the fairway which ends in another pair of traps. The reason is that the 2-tiered green is very wide but not very deep, and you get really different challenges if the pin is on the right or the left. The left tier is lower and harder to see from the fairway; it's guarded by a trap short and deep rough long and left. The right tier is also guarded by a trap to the right and trees left and long. You definitely want your favorite wedge in your hands for either approach!
#16: 193-Yard Par 3
Another hole where you fly over a big valley and end up on a hill, where the relatively flat green (for Monroe GC, that is) slopes generally from back-left to front-right. The traps are well short of the green, so all you have to deal with if you miss it is really thick rough, especially on the left.
#17: 415-Yard Par 4
Having few trees on the right gives this hole a relatively open feel (for Monroe GC, that is) and both short and long hitter should get kicks forward off well-placed hills. With the green set off on its own hill kinda diagonally right off the fairway, a tree about 125 yards out on the right can block approaches from the right rough, so expect players to stay left with their drives. The approach is one of the few downhill ones on the course, but if you miss the green left, it's death valley down there, whether you find the trap, the rough, or the fairway, and with traps guarding the front and back-right portions of the green, it's still a very challenging one. The green itself is one of the flattest on the course, but it does gently slope left to right and has just as gentle a bowl effect, so Ross did take it easy on golfers to some extent!
#18: 422-Yard Par 4
This is a great finishing hole, made even more difficult by how closely the bleachers surround the green! It's one of the widest fairways on the course and you get lines or clumps of trees rather than the more-typical foresty feel, so all short hitters have to do is stay left of the trio of bunkers near their landing area, which shouldn't be that much of a problem, because shots down the right side of the fairway ought to kick left back toward the center of the uphill fairway. Long hitters may even reach a level shelf past those bunkers, but will have to pay attention to a left-side fairway bunker about 250 yards from the tee. The green itself is another piece of work, with a swale that separates it into 2 tiers running from its back-left to its front-right portion. Thank god (or Ross) that it's a less-elevated and flatter green than most!
So that's what I saw yesterday while I was hoping I wouldn't get soaked. I'd say more about how Lisa McCloskey, Kelly Tan, and Heather Bowie Young played the back, but I have to get out to Diamond Hawk!
[Update 1 (5:12 pm): Here's the LPGA's (more concise) overview of the course!]
#10: 423-Yard Par 4
As on #1, players get a little bit of a break on their drives with a wide fairway that doesn't pinch until about 290 yards off the tee. So long as you avoid the small hidden right-side fairway bunker about 270 off the tee, you'll be fine with a right miss, as this is one of the few fairways on the course that doesn't have trees on both sides of the fairway (or at least that many where most drives would typically end up!). The green narrows from 45 feet across at the front to only 24 feet at the middle, and it's protected b short-right and middle-left bunkers, so most of the challenge comes on the approach shot. The green itself slopes severely from back to front and has a false front, so flying your approach well onto it is a good idea, but quite a challenge, as there's something of a cliff right behind the green that extends down into the right rough on the 12th fairway. On the bright side, there is something of a bowl effect, particularly on the right side, so approaches at most edges should feed back toward the center of the green.
#11: 414-Yard Par 4
This one starts to dogleg right about 200 yards from the tee, the right rough is thick, and an overhanging tree blocks the right side of the green from the right rough, so it'll be a challenging but necessary fairway to hit, particularly with that fairway bunker guarding the left landing area about 250 yards out. The green is slightly elevated and deep but somewhat narrow, has a false front, slopes left to right, and has a big bump in the back. It was raining fairly hard, but I hung out with a retired couple in the well-situated shelter to the right of the green and watched Christina Kim keep up a running conversation with her caddy as she putted from dozens of spots to dozens of other spots on this green!
#12: 480-Yard Par 5
This is another great short par 5, as the landing area for drives is narrow, going for the green in 2 is tempting but a huge risk and almost impossible from the left rough if you find yourself in "Smitty's Moguls." Most drives will end up somewhere in the vicinity of the 2nd right fairway bunker, which is about 250 yards off the tee, but those who go for the left side of the fairway should get a forward kick. Assuming you do find the fairway and can go for the green, it's super-narrow (only 10 paces wide!), guarded by big trees on both sides, a deep bunker front right, and a series of mounds and bumps everywhere else. I saw more players practicing chips and pitches from the rough around the green on this hole than any other. The green itself is a piece of work, with at least 5 bumps separating the green into very different sections. Where the pin will be each day will affect players' game plans in a big way. It was too tough a puzzle for me to figure out when you'd be better off laying up than going for it, but the landing area for your layup is no picnic to hit, either, what with all the traps surrounding it, so probably most players who can will go for this one in 2 and hope for the best. The LPGA media guide notes the green is fast from back to front and deceptively slow from front to back, so even hitting the green in 2 gives you no guarantee of a birdie. Another great hole!
#13: 183-Yard Par 3
The LPGA media guide notes that amateurs in the Monroe Invitational Championship have had the most trouble with this hole over the 70-year history of the tournament, and I can see why. The difficulty starts with a steep, closely-mown neck that repels all shots that land even a little short and turns ones that happen to spin back off the false front into awful approaches. Many players were practicing tossing wedges from the bottom of that neck maybe 30 feet up to the green. So missing short is bad, but finding any of the deep traps that surround the green may be worse. Overall, the green slopes from right to left, but there's a back-left bump that can serve as something of a backstop, with luck. If you go long-left, though, you'll end up in a chipping area. The back-right corner of the green has been extended out in a recent Gil Hanse restoration.
#14: 488-Yard Par 5
The left fairway bunker is about 220 yards off the tee and the right is about 260, so most drives will end up between them--tending toward the left side of the fairway--as a big tree guards the right side of the green about 100 yards short of it. Long hitters will be able to overcome the incline leading up to the small green and, with accuracy, negotiate its left to right slope, although most players will end up in the little neck that widens out about 30 yards short of the green on the left. The green itself is kind of rectangular, with bumps on its front-left and back-right and another false front.
#15: 360-Yard Par 4
The shortest par 4 on the course has one of its most diabolical greens. You hit from an elevated tee into a gently-sloping uphill fairway by guarded by a deep right-fairway bunker about 190 from the tee, but it's really the pot bunker on the left side of the fairway about 260 yards from the tee that most players will be worrying about. The fairway is wide short of it, but if you go too far right, there's a 2nd fairway bunker guarding the right corner, maybe 230 yards off the tee or so. The good news is that shots hit to the left side of the fairway will kick back toward the center, so longer hitters may wish to challenge that last left bunker yet avoid going through the fairway which ends in another pair of traps. The reason is that the 2-tiered green is very wide but not very deep, and you get really different challenges if the pin is on the right or the left. The left tier is lower and harder to see from the fairway; it's guarded by a trap short and deep rough long and left. The right tier is also guarded by a trap to the right and trees left and long. You definitely want your favorite wedge in your hands for either approach!
#16: 193-Yard Par 3
Another hole where you fly over a big valley and end up on a hill, where the relatively flat green (for Monroe GC, that is) slopes generally from back-left to front-right. The traps are well short of the green, so all you have to deal with if you miss it is really thick rough, especially on the left.
#17: 415-Yard Par 4
Having few trees on the right gives this hole a relatively open feel (for Monroe GC, that is) and both short and long hitter should get kicks forward off well-placed hills. With the green set off on its own hill kinda diagonally right off the fairway, a tree about 125 yards out on the right can block approaches from the right rough, so expect players to stay left with their drives. The approach is one of the few downhill ones on the course, but if you miss the green left, it's death valley down there, whether you find the trap, the rough, or the fairway, and with traps guarding the front and back-right portions of the green, it's still a very challenging one. The green itself is one of the flattest on the course, but it does gently slope left to right and has just as gentle a bowl effect, so Ross did take it easy on golfers to some extent!
#18: 422-Yard Par 4
This is a great finishing hole, made even more difficult by how closely the bleachers surround the green! It's one of the widest fairways on the course and you get lines or clumps of trees rather than the more-typical foresty feel, so all short hitters have to do is stay left of the trio of bunkers near their landing area, which shouldn't be that much of a problem, because shots down the right side of the fairway ought to kick left back toward the center of the uphill fairway. Long hitters may even reach a level shelf past those bunkers, but will have to pay attention to a left-side fairway bunker about 250 yards from the tee. The green itself is another piece of work, with a swale that separates it into 2 tiers running from its back-left to its front-right portion. Thank god (or Ross) that it's a less-elevated and flatter green than most!
So that's what I saw yesterday while I was hoping I wouldn't get soaked. I'd say more about how Lisa McCloskey, Kelly Tan, and Heather Bowie Young played the back, but I have to get out to Diamond Hawk!
[Update 1 (5:12 pm): Here's the LPGA's (more concise) overview of the course!]
Wegmans LPGA Championship Day 3: Monroe Golf Club's Front 9
Following up on yesterday's general impressions of Monroe Golf Club, I continue my Wegmans LPGA Championship blogging from off-site today (as I have to prepare for my own Mid-Amateur qualifier at Tuscarora on Friday!), with observations on the front 9, drawn from my own notes from Monday and the LPGA media guide.
#1: 396-Yard Par 4
Even though there are trees on both sides of the fairway and 2 fairway bunkers down the right side (long hitters will have to watch the 2nd, which I estimated to start around 255 yards off the tee), this is one of the more open tee shots on the course. The real challenge comes on your approach shot, which is to an elevated green guarded by a front-left pot bunker. It looks to me like your ball will be drawn into one of 3 collection areas on the green, which is deeper than it appears from the fairway: either FL, BL, or BR. Especially if the course is softer this week, you don't want to play around trying to bounce it in from just short of the green or even from the very front of it. Better to take your medicine on your first iron shot of the day and make sure you fly it to the middle of the green.
#2: 381-Yard Par 4
The fairway widens out past the fairway bunker on the right, which starts about 160 yards from the small green and is still a factor until you get to about 125 yards out. Long hitters will have a small advantage here, but they have to make sure not to run their drives through the fairway on the left, where a couple more bunkers await them. The 2nd shot is a little tricky, with 2 very visible bunkers at the end of the fairway that are actually well short of a green which is surrounded by much less visible ones concentrated to the left of it (although there are also a couple very close to it on the right!). Oh yeah, and OB long is definitely a factor, too. The green itself slopes from back to front and has a tiny shelf way in the back. I can imagine a Sunday pin there.
#3: 465-Yard Par 5
This is a hole on which almost everyone should have at least a decision about whether to go for the green in 2, as the fairway slopes severely downhill in your landing area off the tee. On paper, the left fairway bunker at about 340 out and the hidden one on the right about 370 out shouldn't be a factor at all on your drive, but I saw some super-long ones on this hole on Monday, so if the course returns to that level of firmness, maybe some of the longer hitters will take 3-wood instead of pulling the driver? There's a big valley short of the green, but the last 30 yards rise sharply with 2 big bunkers protecting its front left and 1 protecting its front right. I saw some players bouncing their approaches up the neck between the left and right bunkers, but since the green is something of an inverted bowl, once again flying an approach to the middle of the green is probably the best play for those who have the distance.
#4: 406-Yard Par 4
I love the view off this tee, with fairway bunkers tracking up the right side of the fairway and 2 large ones marking the end of the left side of the fairway accessible off the tee, about 300 yards out. Short hitters get a break on this hole, as drives on the fairway kick forward starting about 210 yards off the tee. It's pretty much all uphill to the green after that last pair of left fairway bunkers. The green slopes from left to right toward a large and long and deep bunker guarding the right side of the green, and there's also a bunker on the left, but the back right corner of the green is elevated.
#5: 431-Yard Par 4
This is the #1 handicap hole on the course and it's easy to see why. First, you have pretty much a blind tee shot to a tortuously-contoured fairway. You will get a forward-left kick from the right side of the fairway if you land it less than 230 yards off the tee, but if you carry it around 240, the fairway starts running downhill sharply even as it doglegs right, and there's a weird wedge in the middle of it that can carom your ball to the right or the left, depending on where it lands or bounces on it. If you can carry it about 250 you can fly it past that bump and usually get a nice forward kick onto the left side of the fairway, but since you can't see where the ball lands, you really have to trust the line you pick from the tee. Really long hitters can take a huge risk and try to bomb it down the far right side of the fairway that you can see off the tee and trust it to fly the rough and find the narrow fairway straight down that hill most players will find themselves on, ending up 100 to 125 yards from the green on a level lie. (I would love to try that myself, just to see where it ends up!) Next, the level of difficulty stays high on the approach shot, as the green may be the most contoured of any on the course, with a big bump in the middle and a back tier that's lower than the front tier. And if you miss it, it's surrounded by Locust Hill-style bumps and nodes. Hitting it is no picnic, either, as every putt on it is delicate and challenging. Just a great hole!
#6: 207-Yard Par 3
The last 150 yards or so of this tough par 3 are uphill and the green is actually about 25 yards past what may look like a front-left bunker from the tee. The green is rectangular, deeper than it is long, sloping right to left, guarded by a deep bunker beyond it and traps on either side of it. Those side traps do provide bumpers of a sort, nudging shots just missed right or left back toward the middle of the green (if they manage to land on the green instead of in them, that is). This green is flatter than most and particularly flatter than the previous 2, so if players can get over the contrast, they may be able to take advantage of birdie opportunities here. They also get a peek of the 17th fairway and may start wondering what the players ahead of them are doing, which is probably why there's a scoreboard to the right of the green. It's the 1st time those on the front get any hint of what's going on on the back since the scoreboard to the left of the 3rd green.
#7: 392-Yard Par 4
This is a tight, blind driving hole, with fairway bunkers down the left side that start about 180 yards from the green and end about 130 out. Long hitters may have to worry about the fairway pinching and guarded by a right-side and 2 left-side bunkers at about 100 yards out. But the 2-tiered green (on a left to right diagonal across the green) is an even bigger challenge, as your approach shot will be quite different depending on where the pin is. Right and it brings very deep bunkers into play, but if you play it safe to avoid them you face a downhill big breaker. Left and you run the risk of having the green bounce your approach further left into a steep slope with deep rough. No problem!
#8: 145-Yard Par 3
The front-left trap is quite deep, the 2-tier green has a false front, and there's a bump in the front-left portion of the small green, so this one may be short, but it requires a high degree of precision on the approach. With 5 traps protecting the green and a tough chipping area on the left side of the green, hitting it is essential.
#9: 516-Yard Par 5
This is the only hole on the course longer than 500 yards (or 490, for that matter), and it's a great finishing hole for the front 9. The tee starts back parallel with the middle of the 17th fairway, your drives will end up between the 18th tee and the start of its fairway, and the rest of the hole parallels the 18th fairway, with a huge scoreboard near the end of the right side of the fairway to get you thinking about what's going on ahead of you. If you can carry you drive past the uphill portion of the fairway, it looks like you'll get a kick forward and to the right, so long hitters, especially those who carry the ball a long way, will get an advantage on this tee. But most players will decide not to go for this green in 2, as you'd need to fade your shot into a fairly narrow green that slants on a diagonal from left to right from a fairway that itself has been swinging gently to the right. The green itself is flatter than most, but it slants downhill at the end, so it's easy to go over it, even with a very good approach shot. You'll see a lot of players planning to stay left of the fairway bunkers that guard the approach to the green at intervals up the right side of the fairway. Anywhere past the crossover in the fairway gives you a pretty good look at the green. Players who miss the green, whether in 2 or 3 shots, will find out why this is the #3 handicap hole on the course.
So that's the front! On to the back!
[Update 1 (5:11 pm): Here's the LPGA's (more concise) overview of the course!]
#1: 396-Yard Par 4
Even though there are trees on both sides of the fairway and 2 fairway bunkers down the right side (long hitters will have to watch the 2nd, which I estimated to start around 255 yards off the tee), this is one of the more open tee shots on the course. The real challenge comes on your approach shot, which is to an elevated green guarded by a front-left pot bunker. It looks to me like your ball will be drawn into one of 3 collection areas on the green, which is deeper than it appears from the fairway: either FL, BL, or BR. Especially if the course is softer this week, you don't want to play around trying to bounce it in from just short of the green or even from the very front of it. Better to take your medicine on your first iron shot of the day and make sure you fly it to the middle of the green.
#2: 381-Yard Par 4
The fairway widens out past the fairway bunker on the right, which starts about 160 yards from the small green and is still a factor until you get to about 125 yards out. Long hitters will have a small advantage here, but they have to make sure not to run their drives through the fairway on the left, where a couple more bunkers await them. The 2nd shot is a little tricky, with 2 very visible bunkers at the end of the fairway that are actually well short of a green which is surrounded by much less visible ones concentrated to the left of it (although there are also a couple very close to it on the right!). Oh yeah, and OB long is definitely a factor, too. The green itself slopes from back to front and has a tiny shelf way in the back. I can imagine a Sunday pin there.
#3: 465-Yard Par 5
This is a hole on which almost everyone should have at least a decision about whether to go for the green in 2, as the fairway slopes severely downhill in your landing area off the tee. On paper, the left fairway bunker at about 340 out and the hidden one on the right about 370 out shouldn't be a factor at all on your drive, but I saw some super-long ones on this hole on Monday, so if the course returns to that level of firmness, maybe some of the longer hitters will take 3-wood instead of pulling the driver? There's a big valley short of the green, but the last 30 yards rise sharply with 2 big bunkers protecting its front left and 1 protecting its front right. I saw some players bouncing their approaches up the neck between the left and right bunkers, but since the green is something of an inverted bowl, once again flying an approach to the middle of the green is probably the best play for those who have the distance.
#4: 406-Yard Par 4
I love the view off this tee, with fairway bunkers tracking up the right side of the fairway and 2 large ones marking the end of the left side of the fairway accessible off the tee, about 300 yards out. Short hitters get a break on this hole, as drives on the fairway kick forward starting about 210 yards off the tee. It's pretty much all uphill to the green after that last pair of left fairway bunkers. The green slopes from left to right toward a large and long and deep bunker guarding the right side of the green, and there's also a bunker on the left, but the back right corner of the green is elevated.
#5: 431-Yard Par 4
This is the #1 handicap hole on the course and it's easy to see why. First, you have pretty much a blind tee shot to a tortuously-contoured fairway. You will get a forward-left kick from the right side of the fairway if you land it less than 230 yards off the tee, but if you carry it around 240, the fairway starts running downhill sharply even as it doglegs right, and there's a weird wedge in the middle of it that can carom your ball to the right or the left, depending on where it lands or bounces on it. If you can carry it about 250 you can fly it past that bump and usually get a nice forward kick onto the left side of the fairway, but since you can't see where the ball lands, you really have to trust the line you pick from the tee. Really long hitters can take a huge risk and try to bomb it down the far right side of the fairway that you can see off the tee and trust it to fly the rough and find the narrow fairway straight down that hill most players will find themselves on, ending up 100 to 125 yards from the green on a level lie. (I would love to try that myself, just to see where it ends up!) Next, the level of difficulty stays high on the approach shot, as the green may be the most contoured of any on the course, with a big bump in the middle and a back tier that's lower than the front tier. And if you miss it, it's surrounded by Locust Hill-style bumps and nodes. Hitting it is no picnic, either, as every putt on it is delicate and challenging. Just a great hole!
#6: 207-Yard Par 3
The last 150 yards or so of this tough par 3 are uphill and the green is actually about 25 yards past what may look like a front-left bunker from the tee. The green is rectangular, deeper than it is long, sloping right to left, guarded by a deep bunker beyond it and traps on either side of it. Those side traps do provide bumpers of a sort, nudging shots just missed right or left back toward the middle of the green (if they manage to land on the green instead of in them, that is). This green is flatter than most and particularly flatter than the previous 2, so if players can get over the contrast, they may be able to take advantage of birdie opportunities here. They also get a peek of the 17th fairway and may start wondering what the players ahead of them are doing, which is probably why there's a scoreboard to the right of the green. It's the 1st time those on the front get any hint of what's going on on the back since the scoreboard to the left of the 3rd green.
#7: 392-Yard Par 4
This is a tight, blind driving hole, with fairway bunkers down the left side that start about 180 yards from the green and end about 130 out. Long hitters may have to worry about the fairway pinching and guarded by a right-side and 2 left-side bunkers at about 100 yards out. But the 2-tiered green (on a left to right diagonal across the green) is an even bigger challenge, as your approach shot will be quite different depending on where the pin is. Right and it brings very deep bunkers into play, but if you play it safe to avoid them you face a downhill big breaker. Left and you run the risk of having the green bounce your approach further left into a steep slope with deep rough. No problem!
#8: 145-Yard Par 3
The front-left trap is quite deep, the 2-tier green has a false front, and there's a bump in the front-left portion of the small green, so this one may be short, but it requires a high degree of precision on the approach. With 5 traps protecting the green and a tough chipping area on the left side of the green, hitting it is essential.
#9: 516-Yard Par 5
This is the only hole on the course longer than 500 yards (or 490, for that matter), and it's a great finishing hole for the front 9. The tee starts back parallel with the middle of the 17th fairway, your drives will end up between the 18th tee and the start of its fairway, and the rest of the hole parallels the 18th fairway, with a huge scoreboard near the end of the right side of the fairway to get you thinking about what's going on ahead of you. If you can carry you drive past the uphill portion of the fairway, it looks like you'll get a kick forward and to the right, so long hitters, especially those who carry the ball a long way, will get an advantage on this tee. But most players will decide not to go for this green in 2, as you'd need to fade your shot into a fairly narrow green that slants on a diagonal from left to right from a fairway that itself has been swinging gently to the right. The green itself is flatter than most, but it slants downhill at the end, so it's easy to go over it, even with a very good approach shot. You'll see a lot of players planning to stay left of the fairway bunkers that guard the approach to the green at intervals up the right side of the fairway. Anywhere past the crossover in the fairway gives you a pretty good look at the green. Players who miss the green, whether in 2 or 3 shots, will find out why this is the #3 handicap hole on the course.
So that's the front! On to the back!
[Update 1 (5:11 pm): Here's the LPGA's (more concise) overview of the course!]
Tuesday, August 12, 2014
Wegmans LPGA Championship Day 2: Sizing Up Monroe Golf Club
The decision to move the Wegmans LPGA Championship from Locust Hill to Monroe Golf Club has sure created a lot of extra work for players and caddies--and for me!--in what could be the last year for the LPGA in the Rochester area for a long time (more on that later). I'm going to break my scouting report on Monroe GC into 3 posts: this one on my overall impressions of the course; the next on the front 9, and the last on the back 9.
This one will be a little rushed, as I got to talk to the Full Metal Archivist for almost 2 hours straight this morning after she dropped onechan and imoto off at the home of the girl who stayed with us each of the 2 previous summers, so got to the course much later than I originally planned. And then I spent a half-hour watching Stacy Lewis, Ai Miyazato, Karine Icher, Austin Ernst, and Karrie Webb practicing on the putting green instead of writing. I have to catch the shuttle to my car in about half an hour, so whatever I can't get to here will go into my next 2 posts.
It's More Oak Hill Than Locust Hill. The overall feel of Monroe GC is very different than Locust Hill to me. Although it's obviously a classic Donald Ross design, it seems to combine many of the attributes I associate with newer, linksy courses with the tree-lined fairways, often elevated and bump-laden greens, and clever use of the terrain that are hallmarks of Ross's designs. For one thing, the fairways and greens seem like they drain better than Locust Hill's and hence are firmer (although we'll have to see how they handle the most recent wave of rain to hit this area). The grass in the fairways seems more similar to Oak Hills, very tightly mown and somehow smoother than Locust Hill's, while the rough doesn't seem to be grown to the sometimes insane lengths you saw in previous years, particularly when it became a major. Don't get me wrong, it's thick and heavy (and today wet) and I don't know whether they'll be mowing it all week. But it's really the combination of fairway bunkers and much more hilly and complexly-contoured fairways that make this course more reminiscent of Oak Hill than Locust Hill to me. There are several holes where you can get serious kicks forward or to the side, depending on where your ball lands. There are many holes where the shaved area in the neck of traps guarding the green is so steep it seems designed to repel approach shots or allow one spun back off one of the many false fronts to roll 15-25 yards away from the green. But the key design feature--and maybe this is why I think of Monroe GC has a woodlands-links hybrid of sorts--is the plethora of fairway bunkers, which are often quite deep and usually placed to maximize pressure off the tee on all kinds of golfers.
It Doesn't Favor Any Particular Type of Golfer. Yes, I can see where short hitters may be at a disadvantage with 6 par 4s playing over 400 yards and 3 of the 4 par 3s playing long and often severely uphill. BUT, and this is a big but, all its par 5s are short, it also provides many holes with a lot of roll out, its fairways are typically narrow, and there are so many fairway bunkers they challenge players of all lengths. As I'll go into more detail in my next 2 posts, there are a few holes where the bombers can take a risk and get a big reward if they can keep it in play off the tee. BUT, and this is another big but, everyone is going to face serious challenges on and around the greens. You need to know where to land your ball to get it close to different kinds of pins--something I couldn't figure out very well in the abbreviated time I had to study the greens. And you need to deal with holes where there are very few places to miss it and still have a fairly simple up-and-down attempt. That's why I saw so many players practicing all kinds of chips and pitches from all kinds of places off the green to all kinds of places on it. Like at Pinehurst, one's scrambling ability will be at a huge premium this week. And like at Royal Birkdale, so will driving accuracy. So while longer hitters will always have the advantage of clubbing down off the tee for accuracy and using shorter clubs on their approach shots, they'll still have to be consistently accurate to be a factor on Sunday.
It's Visually Intimidating and Deceiving. In a different way than Locust Hill. My recurring image of Locust Hill is trees very close to fairways and greens with very subtle breaks, and while you have the tree-lined prison effect on a few holes at Monroe GC, you more have to deal with the occasional overhanging tree and with the fairway bunkers and fairway contours here than at Locust Hill. And there are a fair number of greens that aren't as bumpy or undulating or tiered as the rest, more so than you'll find at Locust Hill. But you also have your share of blind tee shots, tee shots where you have to aim over trouble to get to the best side of the fairway, rises and falls that are hard to judge and that play with your depth perception, and areas of greens you can't see from the fairway. You also have to really make an effort to look at the greens from all directions and angles, because you can get a totally different look at the slopes and contours when you do that. Basically, there are a lot of illusions out there on every kind of shot, so you really have to do your homework on this course. At the same time, if you put yourself in good positions, it seems to me that you'll have a lot more good birdie chances than at Locust Hill. We'll see who's able to do that soon!
All right, it's time for me to hit the road. Going to hang with my friend and his family and maybe go to that Korean restaurant again, this time as a group. If we have too good a time, I'll sleep over here again (where the internet connection is not as fast or stable as at home), so I may not get to my next posts until I return to Hamburg. We'll see!
One thing I can say is seeing so many good swings, great tempos, and players I know and don't know much about (got to see a lot of Lisa McCloskey, Kelly Tan, and Heather Bowie Young on the back 9 today, for instance, as well as Christina Kim) is that it makes me wish I could play this course under the same conditions they do. I'm really getting psyched up for my Mid-Amateur qualifier this Friday at Tuscarora, even if the timing of my Texas trip and this tournament has cut down on my practice and playing time!
This one will be a little rushed, as I got to talk to the Full Metal Archivist for almost 2 hours straight this morning after she dropped onechan and imoto off at the home of the girl who stayed with us each of the 2 previous summers, so got to the course much later than I originally planned. And then I spent a half-hour watching Stacy Lewis, Ai Miyazato, Karine Icher, Austin Ernst, and Karrie Webb practicing on the putting green instead of writing. I have to catch the shuttle to my car in about half an hour, so whatever I can't get to here will go into my next 2 posts.
It's More Oak Hill Than Locust Hill. The overall feel of Monroe GC is very different than Locust Hill to me. Although it's obviously a classic Donald Ross design, it seems to combine many of the attributes I associate with newer, linksy courses with the tree-lined fairways, often elevated and bump-laden greens, and clever use of the terrain that are hallmarks of Ross's designs. For one thing, the fairways and greens seem like they drain better than Locust Hill's and hence are firmer (although we'll have to see how they handle the most recent wave of rain to hit this area). The grass in the fairways seems more similar to Oak Hills, very tightly mown and somehow smoother than Locust Hill's, while the rough doesn't seem to be grown to the sometimes insane lengths you saw in previous years, particularly when it became a major. Don't get me wrong, it's thick and heavy (and today wet) and I don't know whether they'll be mowing it all week. But it's really the combination of fairway bunkers and much more hilly and complexly-contoured fairways that make this course more reminiscent of Oak Hill than Locust Hill to me. There are several holes where you can get serious kicks forward or to the side, depending on where your ball lands. There are many holes where the shaved area in the neck of traps guarding the green is so steep it seems designed to repel approach shots or allow one spun back off one of the many false fronts to roll 15-25 yards away from the green. But the key design feature--and maybe this is why I think of Monroe GC has a woodlands-links hybrid of sorts--is the plethora of fairway bunkers, which are often quite deep and usually placed to maximize pressure off the tee on all kinds of golfers.
It Doesn't Favor Any Particular Type of Golfer. Yes, I can see where short hitters may be at a disadvantage with 6 par 4s playing over 400 yards and 3 of the 4 par 3s playing long and often severely uphill. BUT, and this is a big but, all its par 5s are short, it also provides many holes with a lot of roll out, its fairways are typically narrow, and there are so many fairway bunkers they challenge players of all lengths. As I'll go into more detail in my next 2 posts, there are a few holes where the bombers can take a risk and get a big reward if they can keep it in play off the tee. BUT, and this is another big but, everyone is going to face serious challenges on and around the greens. You need to know where to land your ball to get it close to different kinds of pins--something I couldn't figure out very well in the abbreviated time I had to study the greens. And you need to deal with holes where there are very few places to miss it and still have a fairly simple up-and-down attempt. That's why I saw so many players practicing all kinds of chips and pitches from all kinds of places off the green to all kinds of places on it. Like at Pinehurst, one's scrambling ability will be at a huge premium this week. And like at Royal Birkdale, so will driving accuracy. So while longer hitters will always have the advantage of clubbing down off the tee for accuracy and using shorter clubs on their approach shots, they'll still have to be consistently accurate to be a factor on Sunday.
It's Visually Intimidating and Deceiving. In a different way than Locust Hill. My recurring image of Locust Hill is trees very close to fairways and greens with very subtle breaks, and while you have the tree-lined prison effect on a few holes at Monroe GC, you more have to deal with the occasional overhanging tree and with the fairway bunkers and fairway contours here than at Locust Hill. And there are a fair number of greens that aren't as bumpy or undulating or tiered as the rest, more so than you'll find at Locust Hill. But you also have your share of blind tee shots, tee shots where you have to aim over trouble to get to the best side of the fairway, rises and falls that are hard to judge and that play with your depth perception, and areas of greens you can't see from the fairway. You also have to really make an effort to look at the greens from all directions and angles, because you can get a totally different look at the slopes and contours when you do that. Basically, there are a lot of illusions out there on every kind of shot, so you really have to do your homework on this course. At the same time, if you put yourself in good positions, it seems to me that you'll have a lot more good birdie chances than at Locust Hill. We'll see who's able to do that soon!
All right, it's time for me to hit the road. Going to hang with my friend and his family and maybe go to that Korean restaurant again, this time as a group. If we have too good a time, I'll sleep over here again (where the internet connection is not as fast or stable as at home), so I may not get to my next posts until I return to Hamburg. We'll see!
One thing I can say is seeing so many good swings, great tempos, and players I know and don't know much about (got to see a lot of Lisa McCloskey, Kelly Tan, and Heather Bowie Young on the back 9 today, for instance, as well as Christina Kim) is that it makes me wish I could play this course under the same conditions they do. I'm really getting psyched up for my Mid-Amateur qualifier this Friday at Tuscarora, even if the timing of my Texas trip and this tournament has cut down on my practice and playing time!
Thursday, June 6, 2013
Quickie Locust Hill Hitchhikers Guide Update
In retrospect, spending 2/3 of my limited time on Tuesday walking the course at Locust Hill might not have been the best allocation of my efforts, given that Weather Channel is now predicting a 90% chance rain in Pittsford today, with "possibly over one inch" and "locally heavier rainfall possible," which basically means they're pretty sure some rain will fall but have no idea how bad it will be. Assuming it won't be tournament-delaying or round-postponingly bad, my observations from Tuesday may not hold much water, so to speak. But here they are, along with some speculation on what golfers in the morning wave might face.
First off, the 2nd cut of rough is the toughest I've ever seen it in my 5 years of attending this event. Maybe it's because the tournament is early June rather than late June, or maybe it's because the combination of sometimes hot, sometimes wet, often sunny conditions this spring in Western NY have been perfect for growing grass, but the rough is filled with these 3-to-5-inch long seed-bearing shoots that I don't recall ever seeing before. Not just in clumps, but fairly continuously in the roped-off areas on most holes. True, crowds will be trampling a good deal of this stuff, but even trampled, it'll be nasty, and of course it extends well into the players' side of the ropes, as well, where it will be pure evil. So only the strongest of the non-precision players will have a good chance to win this week.
Second, the course was soft on Tuesday, and even after two full days of drying out, it won't be able to take much water before it becomes mucky. So if it starts raining soon, or rains hard for a few hours, Locust Hill will go from being receptive--it's a much tougher course when it's hard and fast, because it's that much harder to hit and not run through the narrow fairways on most every par 4 and par 5 and because the undulations on the greens start pinballing approach shots, pitches, and chips around--to playing very long and presenting players with even thicker, heavier rough, tougher lies in the fairways, and varying speeds on greens as they drain at different paces. This'll be hard on everyone, but particularly hard on players who don't carry the ball very far.
So it would seem that a straight shooter like Cristie Kerr or Shanshan Feng would have a huge advantage this week, and indeed, I believe that type of golfer has a much better chance than a bomber like Ya Ni Tseng or a precision player like Ji-Yai Shin (I'm choosing recent champions at Locust Hill, in case you haven't noticed). But of course it all depends on who adjusts best to the changing conditions over the next four (or more) days.
Besides that, I don't have too much to add to my 2010 scouting report or my 2011 focus on the back 9 or my 2012 take on Ai Miyazato's take on Locust Hill. I did get closer looks at the 5th green, which is much more complex than a mere "3-tiered green," as I described it then, and the 6th green, which does not just feature a "big mound in the back" of the green, but one that will shoot your shot to the right or left depending on which slope you find. And I noticed that #1 and #10 look very different from the greens looking uphill than the tees looking downhill. #1 is much more of a dogleg than I imagined, while #10 has a lot more rough jutting into the fairway around its fairway bunkers than I previously noticed. But otherwise Locust Hill is just the same as it's always been: a tree-lined, narrow-fairwayed, mostly-small-greened course that ought to give most of the field fits and select out a winner worthy of the major champion title she's earned!
First off, the 2nd cut of rough is the toughest I've ever seen it in my 5 years of attending this event. Maybe it's because the tournament is early June rather than late June, or maybe it's because the combination of sometimes hot, sometimes wet, often sunny conditions this spring in Western NY have been perfect for growing grass, but the rough is filled with these 3-to-5-inch long seed-bearing shoots that I don't recall ever seeing before. Not just in clumps, but fairly continuously in the roped-off areas on most holes. True, crowds will be trampling a good deal of this stuff, but even trampled, it'll be nasty, and of course it extends well into the players' side of the ropes, as well, where it will be pure evil. So only the strongest of the non-precision players will have a good chance to win this week.
Second, the course was soft on Tuesday, and even after two full days of drying out, it won't be able to take much water before it becomes mucky. So if it starts raining soon, or rains hard for a few hours, Locust Hill will go from being receptive--it's a much tougher course when it's hard and fast, because it's that much harder to hit and not run through the narrow fairways on most every par 4 and par 5 and because the undulations on the greens start pinballing approach shots, pitches, and chips around--to playing very long and presenting players with even thicker, heavier rough, tougher lies in the fairways, and varying speeds on greens as they drain at different paces. This'll be hard on everyone, but particularly hard on players who don't carry the ball very far.
So it would seem that a straight shooter like Cristie Kerr or Shanshan Feng would have a huge advantage this week, and indeed, I believe that type of golfer has a much better chance than a bomber like Ya Ni Tseng or a precision player like Ji-Yai Shin (I'm choosing recent champions at Locust Hill, in case you haven't noticed). But of course it all depends on who adjusts best to the changing conditions over the next four (or more) days.
Besides that, I don't have too much to add to my 2010 scouting report or my 2011 focus on the back 9 or my 2012 take on Ai Miyazato's take on Locust Hill. I did get closer looks at the 5th green, which is much more complex than a mere "3-tiered green," as I described it then, and the 6th green, which does not just feature a "big mound in the back" of the green, but one that will shoot your shot to the right or left depending on which slope you find. And I noticed that #1 and #10 look very different from the greens looking uphill than the tees looking downhill. #1 is much more of a dogleg than I imagined, while #10 has a lot more rough jutting into the fairway around its fairway bunkers than I previously noticed. But otherwise Locust Hill is just the same as it's always been: a tree-lined, narrow-fairwayed, mostly-small-greened course that ought to give most of the field fits and select out a winner worthy of the major champion title she's earned!
Sunday, June 24, 2012
A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Sunday Pins at Grey Silo for the Final Round of the Manulife Financial LPGA Classic
All right, building on my scouting reports on the front and back 9 here at Grey Silo, here are my observations on the Sunday pins for the final round of the Manulife Financial LPGA Classic.
#1: They brought the right traps into play on the opening hole with a front-right tucked pin position. This also forces players looking for an opening birdie to play their 1st tee shot of the day further to the left and closer to the left fairway bunkers. The course set-up people upped the ante on this hole today.
#2: Very accessible pin in the front-middle of the green. Big birdie op if you can put your tee shot in play.
#3: It's tucked back left, but this is probably the easiest position to bounce it into with a slight draw. Go too long, though, and you'll need great touch to save par.
#4: Last night, I wrote, "Wonder if they'll go back left Sunday? There's a little mound there that can make things interesting...." Well, that's where they put it!
#5: They picked a back-right pin location that I think is in a little valley, the most accessible spot for those going for this short par 5 in 2! Should also provide interesting choices for chips and pitches and little wedges in....
#6: Last night, I wrote, "I didn't see many players take advantage of the bailout area past the right trap and to the right of the green; most chose instead to get as close to the left traps as possible on Saturday, despite the fact that the pin was cut front left, right under another back-left-quadrant mound (this one steeper than the one on the 5th). But I think if the pin is back-left Sunday, you'll see more players going there." Well, they went back-left shelf. Let's see if the players adjust!
#7: Last night, I wrote, "So far they've kept the pins to the front and right/back-right of the green to bring that front-right trap into play. Wonder if they'll give them a break on Sunday after a nasty one right behind the trap today?" Well, they did--it's just past a third of the way back smack in the center of the green.
#8: The back-left pin position brings some mounding in that quadrant into play on both putts and chips. Key to stay below this one.
#9: Sucker pin toward the right side of the green about halfway back. Just go left of the trap unless you absolutely need a birdie.
#10: Middle-left spot will test your accuracy with your wedges! There's a mound and a ridge near that pin.
#11: Back right may allow players to use a little backstop....
#12: It's way left, just past halfway back, bringing that big bunker into play big-time!
#13: Last night, I wrote, "Oh, and you have to hit it to the right tier, which, although not as severe as the one on 15, can be very difficult when the pin is tucked on the back one, as it was on Saturday. I'm thinking we'll see it front left Sunday to bring the left trap more into play...." Well, I was right about the front part. But it's more in the middle of the green than the left. Good chance to see some backstop action on this hole, too.
#14: This looks like it'll be atricky one, tucked a bit on the back tier or right under it. Can't tell exactly where it is till I see it....
#15: Well, I was looking for front right or back right today, but they went severely front left, bringing the huge trap left into play on both the tee shot and the approach shot.
#16: Back and middle-right spot should be a little easier to see from the fairway, maybe? Should be right under the tier, so players should be able to do interesting things with spin for the grandstand.
#17: They put the pin back left, which does bring trouble over into play but probably eliminates the wetlands right from being a factor in the final round unless someone does something Furyk-on-16-like (in the reverse direction)....
#18: w00t! Last night, I wrote, "I'd love to see an easy front-right pin position here to open up the possibility of a walkoff eagle winning the tournament!" And that's exactly what they did!
OK, so far Meena Lee is -4 through 11 and there are a bunch of players -3 already behind her, so I'd say the set-up may be the easiest yet and the wind is not up. Let's see how the leaders respond! Time to head to the course!
#1: They brought the right traps into play on the opening hole with a front-right tucked pin position. This also forces players looking for an opening birdie to play their 1st tee shot of the day further to the left and closer to the left fairway bunkers. The course set-up people upped the ante on this hole today.
#2: Very accessible pin in the front-middle of the green. Big birdie op if you can put your tee shot in play.
#3: It's tucked back left, but this is probably the easiest position to bounce it into with a slight draw. Go too long, though, and you'll need great touch to save par.
#4: Last night, I wrote, "Wonder if they'll go back left Sunday? There's a little mound there that can make things interesting...." Well, that's where they put it!
#5: They picked a back-right pin location that I think is in a little valley, the most accessible spot for those going for this short par 5 in 2! Should also provide interesting choices for chips and pitches and little wedges in....
#6: Last night, I wrote, "I didn't see many players take advantage of the bailout area past the right trap and to the right of the green; most chose instead to get as close to the left traps as possible on Saturday, despite the fact that the pin was cut front left, right under another back-left-quadrant mound (this one steeper than the one on the 5th). But I think if the pin is back-left Sunday, you'll see more players going there." Well, they went back-left shelf. Let's see if the players adjust!
#7: Last night, I wrote, "So far they've kept the pins to the front and right/back-right of the green to bring that front-right trap into play. Wonder if they'll give them a break on Sunday after a nasty one right behind the trap today?" Well, they did--it's just past a third of the way back smack in the center of the green.
#8: The back-left pin position brings some mounding in that quadrant into play on both putts and chips. Key to stay below this one.
#9: Sucker pin toward the right side of the green about halfway back. Just go left of the trap unless you absolutely need a birdie.
#10: Middle-left spot will test your accuracy with your wedges! There's a mound and a ridge near that pin.
#11: Back right may allow players to use a little backstop....
#12: It's way left, just past halfway back, bringing that big bunker into play big-time!
#13: Last night, I wrote, "Oh, and you have to hit it to the right tier, which, although not as severe as the one on 15, can be very difficult when the pin is tucked on the back one, as it was on Saturday. I'm thinking we'll see it front left Sunday to bring the left trap more into play...." Well, I was right about the front part. But it's more in the middle of the green than the left. Good chance to see some backstop action on this hole, too.
#14: This looks like it'll be atricky one, tucked a bit on the back tier or right under it. Can't tell exactly where it is till I see it....
#15: Well, I was looking for front right or back right today, but they went severely front left, bringing the huge trap left into play on both the tee shot and the approach shot.
#16: Back and middle-right spot should be a little easier to see from the fairway, maybe? Should be right under the tier, so players should be able to do interesting things with spin for the grandstand.
#17: They put the pin back left, which does bring trouble over into play but probably eliminates the wetlands right from being a factor in the final round unless someone does something Furyk-on-16-like (in the reverse direction)....
#18: w00t! Last night, I wrote, "I'd love to see an easy front-right pin position here to open up the possibility of a walkoff eagle winning the tournament!" And that's exactly what they did!
OK, so far Meena Lee is -4 through 11 and there are a bunch of players -3 already behind her, so I'd say the set-up may be the easiest yet and the wind is not up. Let's see how the leaders respond! Time to head to the course!
Impressions of Grey Silo: The Back 9
Barring Seaview, where the ShopRite is held, and Locust Hill, where I've attended the Wegmans event the last several years, Grey Silo is the only LPGA venue I know from personal experience. Unfortunately for this post, I've spent a lot more time on its front 9 than its back. Part of that's due to routing issues, as there's no way for spectators following a group to leave the 11th green, be barred from the bridge the players take to get to the 12th tee, cut across the 18th fairway just past the tee box (often waiting for another group to tee off), pass behind the 18th tee, and wait for the 15th tee to clear so they can backtrack on 15 and curl around the 14th green in time to watch them putt. At least I haven't had the time. So I've usually ended up heading back to the 3rd green or 4th tee after leaving a group that's just hit their drives on 10 instead of dealing with the frustration of logjams, or going from the 10th green backwards up the 18th fairway and backtracking from the 16th green to find a group I wanted to follow. But part of the reason is that I really like the stretch from the 3rd through the 9th holes. Bottom line is, I know 13 through 18 pretty well, but the 3 birdie holes that start the back, not so much. So take this continuation of my earlier scouting report with a grain of salt, check what I've written against what you see on Golf Channel, and feel free to write me corrections in comments!
#10 (par 4, 342 yards): Like #1, this has a fairly intimidating tee shot visually, what with the wetlands in all your sightlines right and just in front of you and little of the fairway to see except what's right near a huge bunker, but this straightaway par 4 with a fairway tilted from from 7 o'clock to 1 o'clock actually gives you plenty of room to the left and all you need to do is not hit it too far. Only thing is, the closer you cut it to the junk on the right, the better your angle to the green, the 1st one without a single bunker near it since the 2nd hole. Don't take it for granted, though, as mounds at 8 o'clock and 1 o'clock help define a tier that tilts away from the players in the back-left third of the green and there's another little mound at about 5 o'clock, as well. So far the pins have been toward the back of the green, Friday's tucked well back left and Saturday's very close to the 1 o'clock ridge. If Mike Davis were setting up the course Sunday, you'd see the players moved up to the front tee and the pin put in the front right of the green to encourage some bombers to take the risk of trying to drive the green.
#11 (par 4, 355 yards): There's a cluster of bunkers to the right that extends all the way to the green, but the fairway bulges out a little to the left to help you avoid them off the tee, which also gives you a good angle into the green, although no matter what angle you're coming in from you need to avoid the deep front-left bunker and make sure you carry the mound that helps make what's already an uphill slope to the green a severe elevation on its left side. They already used the front left pin position that's in a little valley defined by that mound and the ridge that runs from roughly 5 o'clock to roughly 10 o'clock that shoots balls back toward the mound, but otherwise kept it back near another severely sloping mound that's a great backstop. So I'm thinking the Sunday pin is likely to be front right, near a little false-front type depression and severe dropoff to the closest rightward trap to the green. This is another one that could move up from the back of the tips if they wanted to make the longer players think about drawing one over the traps and trying to run it up to the green, but maybe the course would have to build a more forward tee box.
#12 (par 3, 154 yards): Haven't seen it in person or on tv, so tell me all about it in comments. The big bunker on the left can't be the only difficulty on this short par 3, right?
#13 (par 4, 414 yards): This is the 1st tough hole on the back in my book, but since the wind tends to be with the players on it, it's possible for even the shorter hitters on tour to bomb it out there. I saw Ai Miyazato play it twice; on Thursday she was 150 out, which I thought was a long drive for her, until I caught up with her on Friday afternoon, when she almost reached cart path that's just over 100 yards from the green. Suffice to say that there's a downslope in the landing area! Of course, if you tend to pull it when you try to bomb it, watch out, as there's water way left from about 160 yards from the tee all the way to the green. And the green is protected by a huge trap with an island mound of grass inside it that runs all along the left side and even curls around the back, plus there are 2 tiny bunkers right of it. Oh, and you have to hit it to the right tier, which, although not as severe as the one on 15, can be very difficult when the pin is tucked on the back one, as it was on Saturday. I'm thinking we'll see it front left Sunday to bring the left trap more into play....
#14 (par 4, 402 yards): They're not playing the tips on this one, although they probably should, as the back measures only 3,082 yards (that's what having the shortest par 3 and the shortest par 5 on the course will do to you. Sure, the wind is usually against the players, but why not force the longer players to thread the needle (to the extent that phrase makes sense at Grey Silo) between the shorter left-side fairway bunker and the longer right-side fairway bunker while at least allowing the shorter players, who will have to deal with a longer shot in, not to worry about that right-side bunker? Be that as it may, the fairway goes uphill after those traps, although there's a shallow valley in it from about 120 out to about 40 out, when it climbs slightly uphill again. The back half of the green pitches sharply left to right, there's a ridge that defines 2 tiers running roughly from 8 o'clock to 2 o'clock, and there are mounds at 6 o'clock and 12 o'clock that complicate things yet further, but no bunkers! That won't happen again until the final hole....
#15 (par 4, 378 yards): A huge bunker on the left guards the direct approach to the green off the tee and is long enough to protect its front left quadrant, but the fairway is cut to produce a slight right-to-left dogleg effect, the more so the shorter the tee box used. The LPGA would do well to use every one of them, but I wouldn't know whether they have, as I've never made it back to that corner of the course near the 12th green (as explained above). All I know is that the wetlands creek behind and to the right of the 17th green never seem to both the players, who have generally hit the fairway. That's good for them, as the green features the most severe tiering on the course, with a huge slop separating the front and back tiers. It would be neat to see either a front right or back right pin on Sunday. The former would bring the back trap into play, but they've already used the back tier twice, so my bet is the front right quadrant, as it brings what look like (from the course map) a pair of tiny pot bunkers into play (although I don't recall them from the few times I've been back near that green).
#16 (par 4, 383 yards): The players are basically hitting into an island fairway here, as there's wetlands all the way up the right and circling around on the left all the way to a creek that cuts off the fairway about 100 yards from the green. Even though it's a very wide island, I've seen Stacy Lewis flirt with huge trouble left on Thursday and Maude-Aimee Leblanc right on Saturday. Most players, though, have no trouble hitting it and giving themselves a short or mid-iron to the green, which is guarded by a tiny pot bunker short right and surrounded by a kind of apron-like fairway that extends well to the right for very little reason I can see. But hey, it allowed the tournament organizers to set up grandstands there. What would make it an even more exciting hole than usual would be if they moved the tees Sunday way up from their usual next-to-back tee box to tempt the longer hitters to challenge the creek and go for the green. (Of course, if they couldn't do this for every hole on the back for which this is possible and if they had to pick just one, I'd say 10 is the better bet for a Sunday in terms of crowd reaction, although this one would be great for tv and come at an even more dramatic time in the action.) In any case, there's a kind of crescent moon-shaped tier on the left side of the green, so there's plenty of chances for backstop action with just about any pin. But don't miss left! After pushing her tee shot between the cart path and the hazard line on Saturday (something I didn't think was even possible) and not getting relief, Leblanc pulled her approach just past pin-high to a front-left tucked pin (hey, better that than duffing it right into the creek, which was entirely possible), played a great lob from deep rough, and sank a 10-footer for the 2nd-best par save I witnessed all week. But that's the exception that proves the rule....
#17 (par 3, 183 yards): This is #9's mean older sister. There have probably been more double bogeys on this hole than all the rest combined. Right is death! Don't be fooled by the small bunker that looks like a catcher's mitt: it's counteracted by the ball magnet that's been placed deep in the wetlands right of the green. And, oh, by the way, don't go long, either. Did I mention this is the narrowest/shortest green on the course? Just fade one in off the left trap, do what it takes to use the crescent-shaped backstop on the left side of the green. Do not, I repeat, DO NOT flirt with any pin to the right of the left-center of the green. You won't win a tournament here, but you can lose one. Or you can miss the cut by doubling it in the dark, as Hannah Yun did. Guess where her tee shot went....
#18 (par 5, 471 yards): This hole would be even more fun if the bombers didn't have to lay up off the tee, thanks to a silly creek/wetlands area that cuts across the fairway and adds nothing to the hole, unless you somehow find the right trap, as Danah Bordner did on Saturday, and then it's a risky shot to try to carry it (hers made it by about 10 feet), or get into trouble with the mounds and rough to the left of the fairway, as Stacy Lewis did on Thursday when she duffed one into it from a particularly gnarly sidehill-downhill lie. OK, so maybe the creek is a good idea. But it wouldn't hurt to build another tee further back and to the right (out of danger from the 15th tee while still keeping the 11th green safe) to bring the right bunker more into play and force some to fade it off the tee. That and not put a beer tent right by this tee. And build a spectator bridge from the 11th green to the 12th tee so that players and fans don't have to get in each other's hair all the time. Anyway, the drive isn't really the big deal on this hole; the 2nd shot is. Everyone goes for it, and anything can happen. Numa Gulyanamitta's approach was swallowed by the bleachers to the far right of the green, and the far-left ones are too close to the green for my comfort. Speaking of the green, the back-left quadrant of it is like the Bermuda Triangle. I've never seen so many short putts missed as back there, and there's no clear explanation for why it's so hard to read right. It's funny, because I've also seen great 60-foot lags from the front-right to the back-left.... That said, I'd love to see an easy front-right pin position here to open up the possibility of a walkoff eagle winning the tournament!
So that's it for my take on Grey Silo. It's a great change of pace from Locust Hill, even though it's not my cup of tea as a player. I'm sure I'm missing all kinds of nuances, as playing the course is infinitely different from walking it outside the ropes, and I've heard from various golfers this week that the variability of green speeds and firmnesses takes some getting used to. But as a general rule of thumb, it seems the higher the green is, the firmer and faster it is. Except going up the 1st 1/3 of #4. Everything there is fast except for that, as Ai Miyazato found when she left a 30-foot putt 11 feet short seconds before play was suspended on Thursday.
If tournament organizers wanted to make the course longer, they could certainly use the back tee boxes on #4 and #7, in addition to the one on #14 I mentioned above. They could also let thr rough grow out more in certain places that would increase the penalty for errant shots when it mattered, like to the right of #5, among the left traps on #8, behind #9 and #17, and to the left of #16. But it's not the length of the course or the wideness of the fairways or the depth of the rough that's the issue; it's how relatively quiet the wind was on Saturday. If we get it howling on Sunday, anything can happen, including an early leader in the clubhouse putting pressure on the last few groups. Sure, nobody's putted better than Inbee Park or Hee Kyung Seo, and only Brittany Lang, Karin Sjodin, and Mi Jung Hur have joined them with 3 rounds under 70, but if someone like Suzann Pettersen, Paula Creamer, Sun Young Yoo, or Amy Yang gets their putter going on the front 9, watch out! And if we get weather delays, all bets are off....
#10 (par 4, 342 yards): Like #1, this has a fairly intimidating tee shot visually, what with the wetlands in all your sightlines right and just in front of you and little of the fairway to see except what's right near a huge bunker, but this straightaway par 4 with a fairway tilted from from 7 o'clock to 1 o'clock actually gives you plenty of room to the left and all you need to do is not hit it too far. Only thing is, the closer you cut it to the junk on the right, the better your angle to the green, the 1st one without a single bunker near it since the 2nd hole. Don't take it for granted, though, as mounds at 8 o'clock and 1 o'clock help define a tier that tilts away from the players in the back-left third of the green and there's another little mound at about 5 o'clock, as well. So far the pins have been toward the back of the green, Friday's tucked well back left and Saturday's very close to the 1 o'clock ridge. If Mike Davis were setting up the course Sunday, you'd see the players moved up to the front tee and the pin put in the front right of the green to encourage some bombers to take the risk of trying to drive the green.
#11 (par 4, 355 yards): There's a cluster of bunkers to the right that extends all the way to the green, but the fairway bulges out a little to the left to help you avoid them off the tee, which also gives you a good angle into the green, although no matter what angle you're coming in from you need to avoid the deep front-left bunker and make sure you carry the mound that helps make what's already an uphill slope to the green a severe elevation on its left side. They already used the front left pin position that's in a little valley defined by that mound and the ridge that runs from roughly 5 o'clock to roughly 10 o'clock that shoots balls back toward the mound, but otherwise kept it back near another severely sloping mound that's a great backstop. So I'm thinking the Sunday pin is likely to be front right, near a little false-front type depression and severe dropoff to the closest rightward trap to the green. This is another one that could move up from the back of the tips if they wanted to make the longer players think about drawing one over the traps and trying to run it up to the green, but maybe the course would have to build a more forward tee box.
#12 (par 3, 154 yards): Haven't seen it in person or on tv, so tell me all about it in comments. The big bunker on the left can't be the only difficulty on this short par 3, right?
#13 (par 4, 414 yards): This is the 1st tough hole on the back in my book, but since the wind tends to be with the players on it, it's possible for even the shorter hitters on tour to bomb it out there. I saw Ai Miyazato play it twice; on Thursday she was 150 out, which I thought was a long drive for her, until I caught up with her on Friday afternoon, when she almost reached cart path that's just over 100 yards from the green. Suffice to say that there's a downslope in the landing area! Of course, if you tend to pull it when you try to bomb it, watch out, as there's water way left from about 160 yards from the tee all the way to the green. And the green is protected by a huge trap with an island mound of grass inside it that runs all along the left side and even curls around the back, plus there are 2 tiny bunkers right of it. Oh, and you have to hit it to the right tier, which, although not as severe as the one on 15, can be very difficult when the pin is tucked on the back one, as it was on Saturday. I'm thinking we'll see it front left Sunday to bring the left trap more into play....
#14 (par 4, 402 yards): They're not playing the tips on this one, although they probably should, as the back measures only 3,082 yards (that's what having the shortest par 3 and the shortest par 5 on the course will do to you. Sure, the wind is usually against the players, but why not force the longer players to thread the needle (to the extent that phrase makes sense at Grey Silo) between the shorter left-side fairway bunker and the longer right-side fairway bunker while at least allowing the shorter players, who will have to deal with a longer shot in, not to worry about that right-side bunker? Be that as it may, the fairway goes uphill after those traps, although there's a shallow valley in it from about 120 out to about 40 out, when it climbs slightly uphill again. The back half of the green pitches sharply left to right, there's a ridge that defines 2 tiers running roughly from 8 o'clock to 2 o'clock, and there are mounds at 6 o'clock and 12 o'clock that complicate things yet further, but no bunkers! That won't happen again until the final hole....
#15 (par 4, 378 yards): A huge bunker on the left guards the direct approach to the green off the tee and is long enough to protect its front left quadrant, but the fairway is cut to produce a slight right-to-left dogleg effect, the more so the shorter the tee box used. The LPGA would do well to use every one of them, but I wouldn't know whether they have, as I've never made it back to that corner of the course near the 12th green (as explained above). All I know is that the wetlands creek behind and to the right of the 17th green never seem to both the players, who have generally hit the fairway. That's good for them, as the green features the most severe tiering on the course, with a huge slop separating the front and back tiers. It would be neat to see either a front right or back right pin on Sunday. The former would bring the back trap into play, but they've already used the back tier twice, so my bet is the front right quadrant, as it brings what look like (from the course map) a pair of tiny pot bunkers into play (although I don't recall them from the few times I've been back near that green).
#16 (par 4, 383 yards): The players are basically hitting into an island fairway here, as there's wetlands all the way up the right and circling around on the left all the way to a creek that cuts off the fairway about 100 yards from the green. Even though it's a very wide island, I've seen Stacy Lewis flirt with huge trouble left on Thursday and Maude-Aimee Leblanc right on Saturday. Most players, though, have no trouble hitting it and giving themselves a short or mid-iron to the green, which is guarded by a tiny pot bunker short right and surrounded by a kind of apron-like fairway that extends well to the right for very little reason I can see. But hey, it allowed the tournament organizers to set up grandstands there. What would make it an even more exciting hole than usual would be if they moved the tees Sunday way up from their usual next-to-back tee box to tempt the longer hitters to challenge the creek and go for the green. (Of course, if they couldn't do this for every hole on the back for which this is possible and if they had to pick just one, I'd say 10 is the better bet for a Sunday in terms of crowd reaction, although this one would be great for tv and come at an even more dramatic time in the action.) In any case, there's a kind of crescent moon-shaped tier on the left side of the green, so there's plenty of chances for backstop action with just about any pin. But don't miss left! After pushing her tee shot between the cart path and the hazard line on Saturday (something I didn't think was even possible) and not getting relief, Leblanc pulled her approach just past pin-high to a front-left tucked pin (hey, better that than duffing it right into the creek, which was entirely possible), played a great lob from deep rough, and sank a 10-footer for the 2nd-best par save I witnessed all week. But that's the exception that proves the rule....
#17 (par 3, 183 yards): This is #9's mean older sister. There have probably been more double bogeys on this hole than all the rest combined. Right is death! Don't be fooled by the small bunker that looks like a catcher's mitt: it's counteracted by the ball magnet that's been placed deep in the wetlands right of the green. And, oh, by the way, don't go long, either. Did I mention this is the narrowest/shortest green on the course? Just fade one in off the left trap, do what it takes to use the crescent-shaped backstop on the left side of the green. Do not, I repeat, DO NOT flirt with any pin to the right of the left-center of the green. You won't win a tournament here, but you can lose one. Or you can miss the cut by doubling it in the dark, as Hannah Yun did. Guess where her tee shot went....
#18 (par 5, 471 yards): This hole would be even more fun if the bombers didn't have to lay up off the tee, thanks to a silly creek/wetlands area that cuts across the fairway and adds nothing to the hole, unless you somehow find the right trap, as Danah Bordner did on Saturday, and then it's a risky shot to try to carry it (hers made it by about 10 feet), or get into trouble with the mounds and rough to the left of the fairway, as Stacy Lewis did on Thursday when she duffed one into it from a particularly gnarly sidehill-downhill lie. OK, so maybe the creek is a good idea. But it wouldn't hurt to build another tee further back and to the right (out of danger from the 15th tee while still keeping the 11th green safe) to bring the right bunker more into play and force some to fade it off the tee. That and not put a beer tent right by this tee. And build a spectator bridge from the 11th green to the 12th tee so that players and fans don't have to get in each other's hair all the time. Anyway, the drive isn't really the big deal on this hole; the 2nd shot is. Everyone goes for it, and anything can happen. Numa Gulyanamitta's approach was swallowed by the bleachers to the far right of the green, and the far-left ones are too close to the green for my comfort. Speaking of the green, the back-left quadrant of it is like the Bermuda Triangle. I've never seen so many short putts missed as back there, and there's no clear explanation for why it's so hard to read right. It's funny, because I've also seen great 60-foot lags from the front-right to the back-left.... That said, I'd love to see an easy front-right pin position here to open up the possibility of a walkoff eagle winning the tournament!
So that's it for my take on Grey Silo. It's a great change of pace from Locust Hill, even though it's not my cup of tea as a player. I'm sure I'm missing all kinds of nuances, as playing the course is infinitely different from walking it outside the ropes, and I've heard from various golfers this week that the variability of green speeds and firmnesses takes some getting used to. But as a general rule of thumb, it seems the higher the green is, the firmer and faster it is. Except going up the 1st 1/3 of #4. Everything there is fast except for that, as Ai Miyazato found when she left a 30-foot putt 11 feet short seconds before play was suspended on Thursday.
If tournament organizers wanted to make the course longer, they could certainly use the back tee boxes on #4 and #7, in addition to the one on #14 I mentioned above. They could also let thr rough grow out more in certain places that would increase the penalty for errant shots when it mattered, like to the right of #5, among the left traps on #8, behind #9 and #17, and to the left of #16. But it's not the length of the course or the wideness of the fairways or the depth of the rough that's the issue; it's how relatively quiet the wind was on Saturday. If we get it howling on Sunday, anything can happen, including an early leader in the clubhouse putting pressure on the last few groups. Sure, nobody's putted better than Inbee Park or Hee Kyung Seo, and only Brittany Lang, Karin Sjodin, and Mi Jung Hur have joined them with 3 rounds under 70, but if someone like Suzann Pettersen, Paula Creamer, Sun Young Yoo, or Amy Yang gets their putter going on the front 9, watch out! And if we get weather delays, all bets are off....
Saturday, June 23, 2012
Impressions of Grey Silo: The Front 9
OK, I've put in about 25 hours on Grey Silo over the 1st 3 days of the Manulife Financial LPGA Classic, so I'm starting to feel like I've got a feel for the course. It's one of those links-style upscale public courses you often find in upstate or western NY or southern Ontario, not so different from, say, the Turning Stone courses in Vernon, NY, Ravenwood in Victor, NY, Harvest Hill in Orchard Park, NY, or Seneca Hickory Stick in Lewiston, NY (all of which I've played). It's not my favorite style of course design, as I grew up playing more tree-lined courses and am not a big fan of so many undulations in the fairways and greens, the combination of wide fairways and super-severe wetlands very close to their edges, and the too-manicured feel compared to real links courses (which, for those who are into 18th-century aesthetic and landscape design, can attain the sublime rather than remaining merely picturesque, as so many faux-links courses tend to be). Still, like all links courses, Grey Silo depends as much on the wind as on any design features to protect it, even more so from the highly-skilled golfers you find on the LPGA. So here are a few things to keep in mind as you watch final round tomorrow, first about the front 9 and in my next post the back.
#1 (par 4, 377 yards): This usually plays as the 18th hole, but the routing of the course makes it impossible to play it that way; along with the usual #1/current #2, it's way out in the boonies, equally far from the clubhouse as from the bulk of the course, so it would be impossible for spectators to get from the usual #17/current #18 to it, not to mention they'd have to destroy a lot of wetlands to accommodate everyone who'd want to see the closing hole. Even though it was designed as a closing hole, I think it works really well as an opening hole (and I love having a short par 5 as the closing hole, but more on that later). It's a slight dogleg right with a creek cutting across the fairway about 275 yards out there and wetlands all down the right side, very close to the fairway, and cutting into it near the tee complex, as well. With wetlands surounding the hole on the left, too, and 2 mounded traps guarding the left neck of the fairway, the effect is to be hitting almost a blind shot into a near-island fairway. From the creek, it's fairly sharply uphill, especially near the green, which is guarded by a big mound and a deep trap on the left and a pair of traps on the front and middle right. The green is at a 45-degree angle from the fairway, with the left side closer to the players than the right side. You can divide it into 3 sections, including a middle tier that's sharply downhill in the very back of the green and can send wayward shots at the middle of the green either to the front-left or back-right lower tier. Even though it's a visually intimidating drive for an amateur, it's a driver or less for the LPGAers I watched play the hole on Friday. Most everyone I saw put themselves in good position to go for the pin, which was cut front left that day, but nobody tried to get too cute and bring the left bunker into play. Most ended up in the very front of the green, just left of the right trap. Maybe they were hoping for a kick left, but it wasn't happening. They used a back right pin on Saturday, which to me is the toughest spot. Wonder where it'll be Sunday!
#2 (par 4, 379 yards): This is usually the 1st hole and it turned out to be the 1st hole I saw on Thursday, when Ryann O'Toole birdied it, Hannah Yun parred it, and Christine Song doubled it. This one has junk all down the left side after the 1st 100 yards (which Song found), the fairway bulges out to the right in the usual landing area for many of the LPGAers (a driver or 3-wood typically), and there's a nice little upslope there if you don't mind risking the cart path (which Yun found that day) or skipping over it into more junk that protects the 1st tee. Some players opted to go for the neck past the bulge to give themselves a shorter shot in (Ryann O'Toole and Ai Miyazato did so on Thursday). It's definitely a green you can be aggressive on your approach shot to, as it's the only one besides 10 and 18 not to be bunkered and one of the flatter ones on the course, although you have to be careful of mounds on the front and back left and front right that can repel your ball and be aware of a small ridge in the middle-right of the green that can send it a little left toward the middle of the green. I saw 2 disasters, 2 bogeys, and 3 birdies from the 15 players I saw play it on Thursday and Friday, so I'd count it as one of the easier holes on the course.
#3 (par 3, 170 yards): This is a tough hole to birdie and I saw a lot of good par saves here, most notable a sweet 10-footer from Anna Nordqvist on Friday when she missed the green pin-high right and short-sided herself from tougher rough than is usually found at Grey Silo. Christine Song played it the best of anyone I saw, making a good 2-putt par from 40 feet on Thursday and sticking her approach to Friday's front-right pin for a birdie, but Ryann O'Toole followed up Thursday's birdie with a bogey and both Ai Miyazato and Kirby Dreher bogeyed it Thursday. What makes it so hard? Well, the green kind of curls around a big, deep trap on the left and, as is typical at Grey Silo, is built up near it so that it forms a big mound in the middle of the green, with the back half of the green sloping pretty hard to the back. As a result, it's very easy for a shot hit to the middle of the green to kick hard to the back or over if you fly it too far or bring it in too hot (as happened to Yun and Miyazato on Thursday), for shots missed just a little right to be pushed further right when they land (although a little mound 3/4 of the way back on the right might keep you from bounding off the green entirely), and for short shots to stay short. As hard as it is for players, it's a great hole for spectators, with an amphitheatre-style hilly area behind the green. It's also the last time you'll see larger trees on the course for a long time, although unlike on 2 these should never come into play.
#4 (par 4, 402 yards): Even with a helping wind, this is one of the toughest holes on the course. By my count, 8 of the 21 players I've seen play the hole bogeyed it. The fairway isn't as wide as many on the course and it's guarded by a nasty little pot bunker on the left (which Ai Miyazato found on Thursday a few minutes before play was called) and framed by wetlands all the way down the right, so you have to be accurate off the tee. You also have to be a bit lucky, as the generally left-to-right sloping fairway's undulations are particularly severe in the usual landing areas for the players (between 240 and 270 out from what I saw) and you could easily end up with a sidehill or sidehill-downhill lie. From the fairway, which is protected by a ridge all the way down the left, it can also be difficult to gauge what the wind is doing over the last half of your approach shot. On Saturday morning, which was generally calm, a lot of players couldn't figure out that there was a decently-strong wind helping them and hence went to the back or over the green. What's more, even though the last 100 yards or so of the fairway slope gently uphill, the green kind of funnels toward its back-right quadrant, except for a diagonal running across the 1st 1/3 of the green that's still uphill. With pins in the middle and right of the green the 1st 3 days, the course set-up hasn't even brought the 2 traps guarding the left side of the green into play. Wonder if they'll go back left Sunday? There's a little mound there that can make things interesting....
#5 (par 5, 503 yards): As I mentioned before, this hole begins a make-or-break stretch on Grey Silo, where you'll find a lot of birdie opportunities. I saw Hannah Yun and Mina Harigae hit this par 5 in 2, but I also saw some pretty big mistakes, including Ryann O'Toole losing her momentum on Thursday when it took her 3 shots to get the ball in the hole from 25 feet away from the pin and bogeys from a previously-flawless Anna Nordqvist on Friday and from Na Yeon Choi and Hanna Kang on Saturday. What makes this short par-5 dangerous is a huge pond that comes into play on the drive and 2nd shot. The closer you get to it, the shorter your attempt to reach it in 2 is (and the designers encourage you to go for it by having the fairway bulge out just past a trap that's an easy carry for most players), but if you try that, your angle to the green on this sharp dogleg left is much tougher. Plus, you're hitting uphill to a green that's protected by a trap on the right and a pair of terraced traps on the left that are well below the raised surface of the back-left quadrant of the green. With a small mound in its front-right quadrant, as well, there's a kind of valley that runs diagonally through the middle of the green, wider at the front and back than in the very middle of it. So it's easy to make the 2nd shot to this par 5 a big risk-reward decision, as the course set-up people did on Saturday by sticking the pin in the middle of that back-left tier and forcing most players to try to play a draw that threads the needle between the front-right and front-left bunkers that guard the green and chase it toward the pin. Even though this is an easy par 5 if you play it safe, most players I saw decided the reward was worth the risk and I did see a lot of birdies on this hole.
#6 (par 5, 522 yards): This is another neat little birdie hole, with another trap you can aim over to a speed slot into another leftward bulge in the fairway that cuts into the pond and wetlands that run to the end of the 1st half of the fairway (which is separated from the 2nd half by a 10-yard-thick strip of rough that the longest hitters on tour might have to worry about). Even if you're not long enough or accurate enough to challenge that trap off the tee, you can aim right of it and still get a kick forward, although the righter you go, the more your ball will kick to the right instead of forward. From there, it's all uphill to a green that's protected by a trap about 50 yards short right of it and a trio of traps just to the left of it, so you have to decide if you want to lay back short of that right trap or try to put it into the neck between the traps. I didn't see many players take advantage of the bailout area past the right trap and to the right of the green; most chose instead to get as close to the left traps as possible on Saturday, despite the fact that the pin was cut front left, right under another back-left-quadrant mound (this one steeper than the one on the 5th). But I think if the pin is back-left Sunday, you'll see more players going there. This is another great hole for spectators, with another hilly amphitheatre-style viewing area behind the green, but it can be tough for players, as there's a lot of foot traffic near the nearby 7th tee and 12 green because that's where spectators enter the course, plus there are sounds of construction and loud trucks off to the right, as well.
#7 (par 4, 417 yards): The longest par 4 on the course is one of the trickiest, too, as the main landing area for the players is guarded on the right by a huge, deep trap with a mound that's too far for all but the longest on tour to blast it by and narrows down to a real bottleneck on the left with a trio of traps that come into play despite being overshadowed visually from the tee by a pot bunker on the left side of the fairway well short of the closest one. We're talking a 20-yard needle to thread at about 260 yards out (which might seem like nothing to golfers just coming off of Locust Hill, but is quite a contrast to most of the driving holes at Grey Silo). But just about everyone I watched challenged it, and most made it. It's easy to find the left rough past it, though, and with an uphill shot to a green that's guarded by a deep bunker to its front right and has a back-left to front-right ridge running through it that kicks shots leftwards, even a 130-yard shot can be a real challenge. So far they've kept the pins to the front and right/back-right of the green to bring that front-right trap into play. Wonder if they'll give them a break on Sunday after a nasty one right behind the trap today?
#8 (par 4, 328 yards): This is a neat-little risk-reward hole. You can lay up with a 5-wood or hybrid, staying away from the pond on the left, the wetlands to the right, and trap that defines the end of the fat part of the fairway. Or you could take a 3-wood or driver and try to get it past that trap into the sharply-uphill neck of the fairway just to its right--or be even bolder and trust that your draw off the right wetlands will find the right-bulging area of the fairway that runs all the way up to the right side of the green. I don't see the point of it, and most players saw it my way, but on Friday Stacy Lewis put it in the neck and Kirby Dreher just missed it (neither made birdie, although Ai did when she layed up--the only birdie I saw in 21 tries, even with a very accessible position right in the middle of the green on Saturday and no position that's particularly tough). I saw one of the best pars of the week on this hole, as Na Yeon Choi pulled her lay-up into the pond and got up-and-down from the rough. What made her shot so impressive was what made it difficult for everyone else to stick their approaches: a highly-elevated green that's much more affected by the wind than you can feel from the fairway and nothing nearby to help you figure out what it's doing up there. I don't know why players have had so much difficulty making putts on this green, as there are small mounds at 9 o'clock and 12 o'clock but not too much undulation otherwise. Maybe having the first fairly flat green in a long while throws them off? Or is it crowd noise from the 4th green?
#9 (par 3, 174 yards): This is a less-nasty preview of #17 (on which more later), with a kidney-shaped green like #3 with the mounded trap in front rather than to the left. The wind definitely affects your tee shots in a big way and you might have to deal with some crowd noise from the 4th fairway. There is a little bit of a kind of crescent-moon-shaped backstop near the back of the green, but it's the big mound off that deep front bunker that will affect approach shots the most. Missing long or right isn't death, but it's close. There's no need to take a huge risk on this hole with so many birdies elsewhere on the course. Amy Yang came into it having birdied 4 of her 1st 8 holes, lost her approach right of the green, made bogey, and lost all her momentum, turning what could have been a super-low round into a disappointing 68 today. Looking ahead to the final round, I wonder if we'll see a front left pin on 9? That would be the most accessible quadrant, and it hasn't been used yet....
I know Brittany Lang thinks the back is easier than the front (and for her it is, as she's torn up the last 3 holes every day, going -6 over those 9 holes already!), but I think if you're on, you can go even lower under par on the front than the back (Exhibit A: Sandra Changkija's 30 on Thursday; Exhibit B: So Yeon Ryu's 31 on Friday). Lexi Thompson is -6 on 5 and 6 alone this week, for crying out loud! But it can also hurt you badly, as 38s by Shanshan Feng and Suzann Pettersen today show. All in all, a very interesting side!
#1 (par 4, 377 yards): This usually plays as the 18th hole, but the routing of the course makes it impossible to play it that way; along with the usual #1/current #2, it's way out in the boonies, equally far from the clubhouse as from the bulk of the course, so it would be impossible for spectators to get from the usual #17/current #18 to it, not to mention they'd have to destroy a lot of wetlands to accommodate everyone who'd want to see the closing hole. Even though it was designed as a closing hole, I think it works really well as an opening hole (and I love having a short par 5 as the closing hole, but more on that later). It's a slight dogleg right with a creek cutting across the fairway about 275 yards out there and wetlands all down the right side, very close to the fairway, and cutting into it near the tee complex, as well. With wetlands surounding the hole on the left, too, and 2 mounded traps guarding the left neck of the fairway, the effect is to be hitting almost a blind shot into a near-island fairway. From the creek, it's fairly sharply uphill, especially near the green, which is guarded by a big mound and a deep trap on the left and a pair of traps on the front and middle right. The green is at a 45-degree angle from the fairway, with the left side closer to the players than the right side. You can divide it into 3 sections, including a middle tier that's sharply downhill in the very back of the green and can send wayward shots at the middle of the green either to the front-left or back-right lower tier. Even though it's a visually intimidating drive for an amateur, it's a driver or less for the LPGAers I watched play the hole on Friday. Most everyone I saw put themselves in good position to go for the pin, which was cut front left that day, but nobody tried to get too cute and bring the left bunker into play. Most ended up in the very front of the green, just left of the right trap. Maybe they were hoping for a kick left, but it wasn't happening. They used a back right pin on Saturday, which to me is the toughest spot. Wonder where it'll be Sunday!
#2 (par 4, 379 yards): This is usually the 1st hole and it turned out to be the 1st hole I saw on Thursday, when Ryann O'Toole birdied it, Hannah Yun parred it, and Christine Song doubled it. This one has junk all down the left side after the 1st 100 yards (which Song found), the fairway bulges out to the right in the usual landing area for many of the LPGAers (a driver or 3-wood typically), and there's a nice little upslope there if you don't mind risking the cart path (which Yun found that day) or skipping over it into more junk that protects the 1st tee. Some players opted to go for the neck past the bulge to give themselves a shorter shot in (Ryann O'Toole and Ai Miyazato did so on Thursday). It's definitely a green you can be aggressive on your approach shot to, as it's the only one besides 10 and 18 not to be bunkered and one of the flatter ones on the course, although you have to be careful of mounds on the front and back left and front right that can repel your ball and be aware of a small ridge in the middle-right of the green that can send it a little left toward the middle of the green. I saw 2 disasters, 2 bogeys, and 3 birdies from the 15 players I saw play it on Thursday and Friday, so I'd count it as one of the easier holes on the course.
#3 (par 3, 170 yards): This is a tough hole to birdie and I saw a lot of good par saves here, most notable a sweet 10-footer from Anna Nordqvist on Friday when she missed the green pin-high right and short-sided herself from tougher rough than is usually found at Grey Silo. Christine Song played it the best of anyone I saw, making a good 2-putt par from 40 feet on Thursday and sticking her approach to Friday's front-right pin for a birdie, but Ryann O'Toole followed up Thursday's birdie with a bogey and both Ai Miyazato and Kirby Dreher bogeyed it Thursday. What makes it so hard? Well, the green kind of curls around a big, deep trap on the left and, as is typical at Grey Silo, is built up near it so that it forms a big mound in the middle of the green, with the back half of the green sloping pretty hard to the back. As a result, it's very easy for a shot hit to the middle of the green to kick hard to the back or over if you fly it too far or bring it in too hot (as happened to Yun and Miyazato on Thursday), for shots missed just a little right to be pushed further right when they land (although a little mound 3/4 of the way back on the right might keep you from bounding off the green entirely), and for short shots to stay short. As hard as it is for players, it's a great hole for spectators, with an amphitheatre-style hilly area behind the green. It's also the last time you'll see larger trees on the course for a long time, although unlike on 2 these should never come into play.
#4 (par 4, 402 yards): Even with a helping wind, this is one of the toughest holes on the course. By my count, 8 of the 21 players I've seen play the hole bogeyed it. The fairway isn't as wide as many on the course and it's guarded by a nasty little pot bunker on the left (which Ai Miyazato found on Thursday a few minutes before play was called) and framed by wetlands all the way down the right, so you have to be accurate off the tee. You also have to be a bit lucky, as the generally left-to-right sloping fairway's undulations are particularly severe in the usual landing areas for the players (between 240 and 270 out from what I saw) and you could easily end up with a sidehill or sidehill-downhill lie. From the fairway, which is protected by a ridge all the way down the left, it can also be difficult to gauge what the wind is doing over the last half of your approach shot. On Saturday morning, which was generally calm, a lot of players couldn't figure out that there was a decently-strong wind helping them and hence went to the back or over the green. What's more, even though the last 100 yards or so of the fairway slope gently uphill, the green kind of funnels toward its back-right quadrant, except for a diagonal running across the 1st 1/3 of the green that's still uphill. With pins in the middle and right of the green the 1st 3 days, the course set-up hasn't even brought the 2 traps guarding the left side of the green into play. Wonder if they'll go back left Sunday? There's a little mound there that can make things interesting....
#5 (par 5, 503 yards): As I mentioned before, this hole begins a make-or-break stretch on Grey Silo, where you'll find a lot of birdie opportunities. I saw Hannah Yun and Mina Harigae hit this par 5 in 2, but I also saw some pretty big mistakes, including Ryann O'Toole losing her momentum on Thursday when it took her 3 shots to get the ball in the hole from 25 feet away from the pin and bogeys from a previously-flawless Anna Nordqvist on Friday and from Na Yeon Choi and Hanna Kang on Saturday. What makes this short par-5 dangerous is a huge pond that comes into play on the drive and 2nd shot. The closer you get to it, the shorter your attempt to reach it in 2 is (and the designers encourage you to go for it by having the fairway bulge out just past a trap that's an easy carry for most players), but if you try that, your angle to the green on this sharp dogleg left is much tougher. Plus, you're hitting uphill to a green that's protected by a trap on the right and a pair of terraced traps on the left that are well below the raised surface of the back-left quadrant of the green. With a small mound in its front-right quadrant, as well, there's a kind of valley that runs diagonally through the middle of the green, wider at the front and back than in the very middle of it. So it's easy to make the 2nd shot to this par 5 a big risk-reward decision, as the course set-up people did on Saturday by sticking the pin in the middle of that back-left tier and forcing most players to try to play a draw that threads the needle between the front-right and front-left bunkers that guard the green and chase it toward the pin. Even though this is an easy par 5 if you play it safe, most players I saw decided the reward was worth the risk and I did see a lot of birdies on this hole.
#6 (par 5, 522 yards): This is another neat little birdie hole, with another trap you can aim over to a speed slot into another leftward bulge in the fairway that cuts into the pond and wetlands that run to the end of the 1st half of the fairway (which is separated from the 2nd half by a 10-yard-thick strip of rough that the longest hitters on tour might have to worry about). Even if you're not long enough or accurate enough to challenge that trap off the tee, you can aim right of it and still get a kick forward, although the righter you go, the more your ball will kick to the right instead of forward. From there, it's all uphill to a green that's protected by a trap about 50 yards short right of it and a trio of traps just to the left of it, so you have to decide if you want to lay back short of that right trap or try to put it into the neck between the traps. I didn't see many players take advantage of the bailout area past the right trap and to the right of the green; most chose instead to get as close to the left traps as possible on Saturday, despite the fact that the pin was cut front left, right under another back-left-quadrant mound (this one steeper than the one on the 5th). But I think if the pin is back-left Sunday, you'll see more players going there. This is another great hole for spectators, with another hilly amphitheatre-style viewing area behind the green, but it can be tough for players, as there's a lot of foot traffic near the nearby 7th tee and 12 green because that's where spectators enter the course, plus there are sounds of construction and loud trucks off to the right, as well.
#7 (par 4, 417 yards): The longest par 4 on the course is one of the trickiest, too, as the main landing area for the players is guarded on the right by a huge, deep trap with a mound that's too far for all but the longest on tour to blast it by and narrows down to a real bottleneck on the left with a trio of traps that come into play despite being overshadowed visually from the tee by a pot bunker on the left side of the fairway well short of the closest one. We're talking a 20-yard needle to thread at about 260 yards out (which might seem like nothing to golfers just coming off of Locust Hill, but is quite a contrast to most of the driving holes at Grey Silo). But just about everyone I watched challenged it, and most made it. It's easy to find the left rough past it, though, and with an uphill shot to a green that's guarded by a deep bunker to its front right and has a back-left to front-right ridge running through it that kicks shots leftwards, even a 130-yard shot can be a real challenge. So far they've kept the pins to the front and right/back-right of the green to bring that front-right trap into play. Wonder if they'll give them a break on Sunday after a nasty one right behind the trap today?
#8 (par 4, 328 yards): This is a neat-little risk-reward hole. You can lay up with a 5-wood or hybrid, staying away from the pond on the left, the wetlands to the right, and trap that defines the end of the fat part of the fairway. Or you could take a 3-wood or driver and try to get it past that trap into the sharply-uphill neck of the fairway just to its right--or be even bolder and trust that your draw off the right wetlands will find the right-bulging area of the fairway that runs all the way up to the right side of the green. I don't see the point of it, and most players saw it my way, but on Friday Stacy Lewis put it in the neck and Kirby Dreher just missed it (neither made birdie, although Ai did when she layed up--the only birdie I saw in 21 tries, even with a very accessible position right in the middle of the green on Saturday and no position that's particularly tough). I saw one of the best pars of the week on this hole, as Na Yeon Choi pulled her lay-up into the pond and got up-and-down from the rough. What made her shot so impressive was what made it difficult for everyone else to stick their approaches: a highly-elevated green that's much more affected by the wind than you can feel from the fairway and nothing nearby to help you figure out what it's doing up there. I don't know why players have had so much difficulty making putts on this green, as there are small mounds at 9 o'clock and 12 o'clock but not too much undulation otherwise. Maybe having the first fairly flat green in a long while throws them off? Or is it crowd noise from the 4th green?
#9 (par 3, 174 yards): This is a less-nasty preview of #17 (on which more later), with a kidney-shaped green like #3 with the mounded trap in front rather than to the left. The wind definitely affects your tee shots in a big way and you might have to deal with some crowd noise from the 4th fairway. There is a little bit of a kind of crescent-moon-shaped backstop near the back of the green, but it's the big mound off that deep front bunker that will affect approach shots the most. Missing long or right isn't death, but it's close. There's no need to take a huge risk on this hole with so many birdies elsewhere on the course. Amy Yang came into it having birdied 4 of her 1st 8 holes, lost her approach right of the green, made bogey, and lost all her momentum, turning what could have been a super-low round into a disappointing 68 today. Looking ahead to the final round, I wonder if we'll see a front left pin on 9? That would be the most accessible quadrant, and it hasn't been used yet....
I know Brittany Lang thinks the back is easier than the front (and for her it is, as she's torn up the last 3 holes every day, going -6 over those 9 holes already!), but I think if you're on, you can go even lower under par on the front than the back (Exhibit A: Sandra Changkija's 30 on Thursday; Exhibit B: So Yeon Ryu's 31 on Friday). Lexi Thompson is -6 on 5 and 6 alone this week, for crying out loud! But it can also hurt you badly, as 38s by Shanshan Feng and Suzann Pettersen today show. All in all, a very interesting side!
Saturday, June 25, 2011
What to Expect from the Back 9 at Locust Hill the Rest of Moving Day
Here's a little update of last year's scouting report of Locust Hill Country Club, the site of the Wegmans LPGA Championship. As I mentioned earlier, I followed Se Ri Pak and Ji-Yai Shin on the back 9 today, so I'm focusing on how they did, pin positions, and more. I wasn't able to walk the course on Wednesday as the rain was pouring down and I wasn't back until about 11 this morning, so I was struck by how much the course had changed since Tuesday afternoon, when I walked the 6th through 9th with Mika Miyazato's pro-am group.
#10 413-yard Par 4
Even with the longer elevated tee, Ji-Yai Shin was able to carry the trap that pinches the fairway from about 215-230 yards out, but she found the left rough, while Pak outdrove her by about 25 yards and put it in the middle of the severely downhill, right-to-left-sloping fairway. With the pin on the lower left tier, near the back of the green, Shin hit a great hybrid that just didn't hold the green, while Pak chunked her mid-iron and ended up just short of the green. Both made good chips to about 4 or 5 feet and sank their putts. This was a good example of how the wetter fairways and thick rough make it very difficult to judge how the ball is going to come off your club--and how the greens are very soft in some places yet relatively firm in others, making it difficult to anticipate or control what your ball is going to do when it lands on the green.
#11 511-yard Par 5
Last year, I wrote:
What struck me walking the hole again today was how narrow that tee shot is, even though both Shin and Pak hit it, and how dangerous it is to miss right. The 2nd shot was definitely a lay-up for both of them, although they each hit at least 5-wood, but with the landing area so narrow, and getting narrower the closer to the green you try to get, it was no surprise that Shin missed the fairway just to the left while Pak missed it right. Neither got close to the accessible pin from where they were, although Pak his the more impressive shot--a lob wedge that stopped quickly despite coming from out of what looked like cabbage a mere yard off the fairway! No birdies there for either of them.
#12 361-yard Par 4
From last year:
Shin put her drive in the 1st flat right in the middle of the fairway, but Pak rushed her downswing and pulled her drive what seemed like way left but ended up only being 10 feet into the rough and not blocked by trees. Both players missed the green short right, in a little neck of the fairway to the right of the trap guarding the front pin. It was an incredibly fast chip, as the left side of the green sloped sharply downhill to the left, and Shin's chip rolled 8 feet by after nearly hitting the flag. Pak took a lob wedge and left it 4 feet short or so. Both made great par saves. That pin is in a very difficult spot. It's real easy to 3-putt from the back of the green if you try to avoid that front trap, while a miss left puts you in heavy rough. Par is very good on this hole today.
#13 386-yard Par 4
From last year:
With the pin near the right-center of the green, almost at the back of the lower tier, and a left-to-right win blowing, I thought the shot was to try to fade one in, have it bounce or roll up the backstop, and roll back down and to the right toward the pin, but Shin inexplicably pulled her approach into the left front trap and Pak decided to stay below the hole, putting her approach about 12 feet short of the flag. Pak sunk her birdie putt, while Shin missed a tricky 5-footer.
#14 400-yard Par 4
From last year:
Shin pulled her drive to the left side of the fairway while trying to get a little extra out of it, but Pak put her drive in perfect position on the right edge of the fairway. Shin played an aggressive drawing hybrid that just skirted the trees on the fairway and avoided the big tree guarding the left of the green, while Pak stuck a mid-iron pin-high at the back of the green. I didn't see their putts, as I was headed to the 15th green, but from the sound of the crowd (or lack thereof), neither birdied. In fact, Shin bogeyed it!
#15 150-yard Par 3
From last year:
The pin was in the accessible lower tier, and players had a choice of landing it short or using the backstop to get more aggressive shots to back up. Pak pulled her short iron into the left trap and failed to get her sandie when she blasted a 5-footer through the left-to-right break. Shin just barely carried the front traps, got a good leftward kick toward the pin, but missed a 15-footer for birdie. The volunteer I talked to said he'd seen a lot of putts of around 10 feet but only 1 drop. Oh, and Brittany Lincicome hit the pin on 1 hop and had her ball drop into the hole--and bounce out. I would expect a lot of birdies on this hole.
#16 356-yard Par 4
From last year:
This is one of the tee boxes they moved back and to the right to emphasize the dogleg as much as possible. Pak outdrove Shin on what looked like a great line from the tee box, but whereas Shin stayed in the left side of the fairway and stuck her approach shot to kick-in range, Pak had to play a clever little shot from very heavy rough 1 yard to the left of the fairway to give herself a 12-foot uphill birdie chance from the middle of the green to the back-left pin. Somehow she read it going right to left, but the ball actually went a little left-to-right. She was steaming as she came off the green.
#17 478-yard Par 5
From last year:
Here's how wet the course was playing: Pak smashed her drive, but only ended up even with the trap, while Shin's drive was also in the fairway but just short of it. Both players went for broke, hitting good fairway woods, but Shin ended up going through the fairway and into some deep rough just short of the green and Pak got robbed when she hit a perfect fade that was tracking to the green, but landed too close to the front right trap guarding the green and slid straight right inton the rough just past it instead of bouncing forward onto the green. With the pin in a very tricky back-left position--with a ridge to its right kicking everything left and making it very difficult to be very aggressive on an uphill chip from short of the green, neither Shin nor Pak could get very close and neither could make their birdie putts.
#18 396-yard Par 4
From last year:
They moved the tee back, removed a lot of trees near the tee and green, and made a very difficult closing hole that much tougher. As before when Shin tried to reach back for more with her driver, she pulled it left, while Pak smashed her drive but had it kicked into the right rough by the left-to-right sloping fairway. Shin couldn't reach the green from some gnarly stuff about 20 feet left, but she hit a good fairway wood layup about 20 yards short of the front of the green. Pak had what looked like a decent lie from about 155 yards from the center of the green when I looked at it, but could only advance her hybrid about 140 yards. Both made very good chips, Shin pleasing the crowd with a bounce-and-spinner that used the backstop to back up to about 5 feet above the hole, while Pak kept hers about the same distance below the hole, and both made great par saves.
So that's my updated scouting report. I'd expect to see birdies on the odd-numbered holes and bogeys on the even-numbered, both from their layouts and where their holes were located. Let's see how the leaders do on them!
#10 413-yard Par 4
Even with the longer elevated tee, Ji-Yai Shin was able to carry the trap that pinches the fairway from about 215-230 yards out, but she found the left rough, while Pak outdrove her by about 25 yards and put it in the middle of the severely downhill, right-to-left-sloping fairway. With the pin on the lower left tier, near the back of the green, Shin hit a great hybrid that just didn't hold the green, while Pak chunked her mid-iron and ended up just short of the green. Both made good chips to about 4 or 5 feet and sank their putts. This was a good example of how the wetter fairways and thick rough make it very difficult to judge how the ball is going to come off your club--and how the greens are very soft in some places yet relatively firm in others, making it difficult to anticipate or control what your ball is going to do when it lands on the green.
#11 511-yard Par 5
Last year, I wrote:
There's a blind tee shot (you can just spot the tops of the bleachers by the green from the tee) and a creek about 310 out, but OB right is much more dangerous and the trees on each side of the fairway seem to funnel in on you but really funnel out. If you hit your drive past about 240, you're going to have a downhill lie on your attempt to reach the green in 2, which isn't necessarily a bad thing b/c you're likely to get some extra roll to compensate for the slight uphill grade to the slightly elevated green. But with traps guarding the false front, a ridge behind the green, and a bump on the left side that looks designed to shoot balls off the green, it might be a smarter play for most in the field to treat this as a 3-shot hole.
What struck me walking the hole again today was how narrow that tee shot is, even though both Shin and Pak hit it, and how dangerous it is to miss right. The 2nd shot was definitely a lay-up for both of them, although they each hit at least 5-wood, but with the landing area so narrow, and getting narrower the closer to the green you try to get, it was no surprise that Shin missed the fairway just to the left while Pak missed it right. Neither got close to the accessible pin from where they were, although Pak his the more impressive shot--a lob wedge that stopped quickly despite coming from out of what looked like cabbage a mere yard off the fairway! No birdies there for either of them.
#12 361-yard Par 4
From last year:
It's almost a blind tee shot; you can usually just see the tip of the flag from the tee. With both overhanging trees and OB right pushing you leftwards off the tee, but with some trees on the left interfering with the left side of the elevated, right-to-left sloping green and a huge and deep trap after a creek that runs beneath it, you have to be very accurate with your driver or 3-wood to have a good shot at a pin on this hole. Tee balls between 220-240 and 260-280 will find the flattest parts of the undulating fairway. Balls that land past the trap but on the very front of the green will kick forward, while there seems to be a collection area on the left (a "false side," if you will).
Shin put her drive in the 1st flat right in the middle of the fairway, but Pak rushed her downswing and pulled her drive what seemed like way left but ended up only being 10 feet into the rough and not blocked by trees. Both players missed the green short right, in a little neck of the fairway to the right of the trap guarding the front pin. It was an incredibly fast chip, as the left side of the green sloped sharply downhill to the left, and Shin's chip rolled 8 feet by after nearly hitting the flag. Pak took a lob wedge and left it 4 feet short or so. Both made great par saves. That pin is in a very difficult spot. It's real easy to 3-putt from the back of the green if you try to avoid that front trap, while a miss left puts you in heavy rough. Par is very good on this hole today.
#13 386-yard Par 4
From last year:
The little creek looks a little farther out there from the elevated tee than it really is--it's only about a 200-yard carry--and the fairway is wide, so players have a big incentive to go after their drives and climb the uphill slope past the creek as far as possible. They'll be hitting into a long, relatively narrow, and sharply-tiered green (kind of like a shelf in the very back of the green). There's a small bunker to the front right of the green that you can't see from the fairway (at least it was a surprise to me when I got far enough up the hill to spot it!) and 2 deep ones on either side more even with the middle-back part of the green.
With the pin near the right-center of the green, almost at the back of the lower tier, and a left-to-right win blowing, I thought the shot was to try to fade one in, have it bounce or roll up the backstop, and roll back down and to the right toward the pin, but Shin inexplicably pulled her approach into the left front trap and Pak decided to stay below the hole, putting her approach about 12 feet short of the flag. Pak sunk her birdie putt, while Shin missed a tricky 5-footer.
#14 400-yard Par 4
From last year:
The narrow fairway slopes right to left at first, but the hole curls slightly to the left at the end, where overhanging pine trees and a creek guard the front of a green with a false front and a collection area in the front left and bunkers on either side guard its middle and back.
Shin pulled her drive to the left side of the fairway while trying to get a little extra out of it, but Pak put her drive in perfect position on the right edge of the fairway. Shin played an aggressive drawing hybrid that just skirted the trees on the fairway and avoided the big tree guarding the left of the green, while Pak stuck a mid-iron pin-high at the back of the green. I didn't see their putts, as I was headed to the 15th green, but from the sound of the crowd (or lack thereof), neither birdied. In fact, Shin bogeyed it!
#15 150-yard Par 3
From last year:
I saw Ai Miyazato make a great birdie putt on this big, 2-tiered green. The back tier bulges a little, especially on the left, but there's a relatively flat area in the front left of the green on the lower tier. Expect a lot of birdies when the pin's down there. But with an elevated tee and a relatively open feel around the green compared to most holes at Locust Hill, look for any wind to affect approach shots more here than usual.
The pin was in the accessible lower tier, and players had a choice of landing it short or using the backstop to get more aggressive shots to back up. Pak pulled her short iron into the left trap and failed to get her sandie when she blasted a 5-footer through the left-to-right break. Shin just barely carried the front traps, got a good leftward kick toward the pin, but missed a 15-footer for birdie. The volunteer I talked to said he'd seen a lot of putts of around 10 feet but only 1 drop. Oh, and Brittany Lincicome hit the pin on 1 hop and had her ball drop into the hole--and bounce out. I would expect a lot of birdies on this hole.
#16 356-yard Par 4
From last year:
The fairway here slopes left to right and is uphill until about 200 yards out, but stays relatively flat until about 270. The green slopes severely back to front, tilts a little left to right, and is protected by 4 bunkers surrounding it and a mound behind it. Odds are you're going to have a downhill putt on this hole.
This is one of the tee boxes they moved back and to the right to emphasize the dogleg as much as possible. Pak outdrove Shin on what looked like a great line from the tee box, but whereas Shin stayed in the left side of the fairway and stuck her approach shot to kick-in range, Pak had to play a clever little shot from very heavy rough 1 yard to the left of the fairway to give herself a 12-foot uphill birdie chance from the middle of the green to the back-left pin. Somehow she read it going right to left, but the ball actually went a little left-to-right. She was steaming as she came off the green.
#17 478-yard Par 5
From last year:
Mentioned by many players in the media guide as their favorite hole on the course, this is one of the few tee shots where the longer hitters may have a slight advantage. The uphill, left-to-right sloping fairway seems to feed into a bunker on the right side of the fairway that's sitting about 230-250 yards from the back tees. If you can carry it past this trap with a slight draw and keep it on the right side of the fairway (where there's a little more room than you might have expected from the tee), you'll have a great view of the dogleg left, from a flat area that extends from about 220 to 100 yards from the green. There's a little depression between 60 and 100 yards from the green, which I'd try to avoid, but trying to get past it brings the 2 huge, deep, and long traps that guard both sides of the green and extend well in front of it into play. This is the hole I most wanted to play because I wanted to see if I could carry the trap and hit a good fairway wood or hybrid to the green, which is 2-tiered horizontally, with some weird subtleties that I couldn't catch from a distance. You can still make a birdie staying short of the trap, keeping at least 100 yards away from the green, and hitting an accurate wedge or 9-iron, but what's the fun in that?
Here's how wet the course was playing: Pak smashed her drive, but only ended up even with the trap, while Shin's drive was also in the fairway but just short of it. Both players went for broke, hitting good fairway woods, but Shin ended up going through the fairway and into some deep rough just short of the green and Pak got robbed when she hit a perfect fade that was tracking to the green, but landed too close to the front right trap guarding the green and slid straight right inton the rough just past it instead of bouncing forward onto the green. With the pin in a very tricky back-left position--with a ridge to its right kicking everything left and making it very difficult to be very aggressive on an uphill chip from short of the green, neither Shin nor Pak could get very close and neither could make their birdie putts.
#18 396-yard Par 4
From last year:
This looked like the longest par-4 on the course to me from the tee and for a hole where water doesn't really come into play (unless you spray it way right toward the 2nd green), it's probably the most intimidating drive on the course. That's because the narrow fairway seems to go straight up toward the clubhouse and get narrower as it goes. All I know is that the hole doesn't flatten out until you get to the long, narrow green that's guarded by 2 front traps on either side of it. The 1st third of the green seems flatter than the rest, which (you guessed it) slopes from back to front. Now surrounded by grandstands, this green is probably even tougher to hit (at least in your head), because you have to worry about an errant shot ending up someplace weird. I would not want to have to par this hole to win the tournament.
They moved the tee back, removed a lot of trees near the tee and green, and made a very difficult closing hole that much tougher. As before when Shin tried to reach back for more with her driver, she pulled it left, while Pak smashed her drive but had it kicked into the right rough by the left-to-right sloping fairway. Shin couldn't reach the green from some gnarly stuff about 20 feet left, but she hit a good fairway wood layup about 20 yards short of the front of the green. Pak had what looked like a decent lie from about 155 yards from the center of the green when I looked at it, but could only advance her hybrid about 140 yards. Both made very good chips, Shin pleasing the crowd with a bounce-and-spinner that used the backstop to back up to about 5 feet above the hole, while Pak kept hers about the same distance below the hole, and both made great par saves.
So that's my updated scouting report. I'd expect to see birdies on the odd-numbered holes and bogeys on the even-numbered, both from their layouts and where their holes were located. Let's see how the leaders do on them!
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