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!

Wegmans LPGA Championship Day 2: Rain, Rain Go Away!

It rained pretty hard overnight here in the Rochester area and we've got a hurricane-like cell slowly rotating around us, so the media center here at Monroe Golf Club is still pretty quiet.  My plan is to survey the back 9 and write up my scouting reports before I head out around 5.  Let's see if I can stick to it!

Wegmans LPGA Championship Day 1: Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes!

The best-laid plans of mice and golf bloggers....  As you can see by the time stamp on this post, I'm about an hour later to the media tent than I expected to be.  I have about 2 hours to orient myself on Monroe Golf Club and maybe scout out the front nine.  I'm off!

[Update 1 (8/12/14, 9:07 am):  Well, I did get to check out the putting green and driving range (right next to each other, an improvement on Locust Hill although there could be crowding issues on the range, which seems a lot smaller than Locust Hill's), where I saw Inbee Park, among others, putting, and Ya Ni Tseng and Ryann O'Toole, among others, hitting balls.  Then I had just enough time to scout the entire front 9 (on which more in a separate post), catching glimpses of Jessica Korda, Marina Alex, Pernilla Lindberg, and Joanna Klatten as I made my way.  Finally, I took my friend who's putting me up out to our favorite Korean restaurant in Rochester and, in addition to great food, we also got to wish Ya Ni Tseng luck this week!  Just a typical day in Rochester when the LPGA's in town!  Hard to believe this could be the last year it happens for quite some time.]

Rory and Ji-Yai Rose to the Occasion; Inbee and Suzann Couldn't

Heading out to Rochester after my union retreat in Albany is over to scout out Monroe Golf Club and see who I can follow, but I couldn't help thinking aloud about the way in which Rory McIlroy and Ji-Yai Shin rose to the occasion on their respective tours, while Inbee Park and Suzann Pettersen couldn't block rookie Mirim Lee from getting her 1st career win on the LPGA.

Let's face it:  Rory's win was epic in every way.  Seemed even Thor was sending him some lightning bolts in honor of his play by the time they finished the final round in near-darkness!  Ji-Yai did what she had to do against a former LPGAer whose career never took off in the States like Shin's did.  But the epic battle that could have happened between Inbee and Suzann just never materialized.  Suzann was +2 over her final 13 holes, while Inbee was +1 over her last 15 holes.

It's crazy what a fine line separates a truly great performance from the "coulda woulda shoulda" chorus line!  At least Inbee and Suzann are in some fantastic company, as I don't think there's enough room on the internet to list all the guys who are wondering what mightabeen yesterday at Valhalla!

Meijer LPGA Classic Sunday: Mirim Lee Beats Inbee Park on 2nd Playoff Hole for 1st Career LPGA Victory

Mirim Lee made 4 birdies between the 5th and 15th holes in the final round of the Meijer LPGA Classic on her way to a 69 that allowed her to pass Suzann Pettersen and catch Inbee Park at -14.  Park had birdied 2 of her 1st 3 holes to get to -15 and was caught by Pettersen's birdie-birdie-par-par-eagle start.  But both top-ranked players opened the door to the LPGA rookie and 3-time KLPGA champion, as Pettersen made 3 bogeys in her last 13 holes and Park parred out except for a bogey on the par-3 14th.  And Lee busted right through it in the playoff.  After matching Park's par on the 18th, Lee took advantage of her length off the tee on the 17th and drove into the left greenside bunker, from where she made her 1st sandie of the week (from about 5 feet) in 4 tries, right after Park had laid up with an iron, caught a hard 1st 2 bounces on her approach, and barely missed a 20-foot birdie attempt after hitting the high corner of the hole.

While the leaders were playing very careful golf, several people way back in the field freewheeled their way into good finishes.  Thidapa Suwannapura made 5 birdies and an eagle (most of them as she made the turn) to tie Pettersen, Lee, and Cristie Kerr for the 18-hole tournament record, a 64, which was good enough for a top-20 finish.  Sandra Gal birdied 5 of her last 12 holes to post a 66 and move into the top 5, while Shanshan Feng's 6-birdie 66 got her into the top 10 and Stacy Lewis's bogey-free 66 brought her to -6, just 1 shot behind her and just barely outside the top 10.  And Kris Tamulis's 6-birdie 67 got her into the top 10, as well.

Lee wasn't the only rookie to play well this week, as Line Vedel finished a -9 and T5, while Rookie of the Year race leader Lydia Ko and Xi Yu Lin got top 20s.  But she was the one who knocked off a former world #1 and joined a pretty elite club of golfers to win in their rookie seasons on the LPGA.  Congratulations to Mirim!