Laura Davies on Long Drives (Video)

Since Laura Davies is leading the US Senior Women's Open by five shots going into the final round, this video seemed appropriate. It's from the GCA show featuring Laura with Martin Hall.



Now, you can get all the details of how Laura hits the long ball off the tee just by watching the video -- and I'll be honest, Laura uses some keys that I wouldn't teach because I think they lead to inconsistency -- but they work for her, so you can certainly learn from them. They aren't what I want to focus on in this post.

Instead, I'm calling your attention to how Laura isn't sure about calling her grip a 'strong' grip. She says she thinks that's what it's called, but that "she doesn't follow all that sort of thing." However, that doesn't mean she doesn't know what she's doing. She knows exactly how to set her hands on the club -- that IS the entire point of what she's saying.

Bubba is the same way. He says he doesn't know what he's doing, but he means he doesn't know the terminology to explain what he's doing. If he really didn't know what he was doing, he wouldn't be able to maintain his swing at the level he does, for as long as he has, without a teacher.

What is important for a player to know? It isn't terminology, and it isn't being able to teach others. What matters is that you know what YOU need to do in order to get the results you want. It doesn't matter if other people agree with you or not, as long as you know that it works for you.

That's the biggest thing I believe you can learn from Laura: Do what works for you. And if that puts you in position to win big -- like Laura might do today at the inaugural US Senior Women's Open -- then you get the last laugh. And I'm all for that!

Don't Forget the US Senior Women's Open on FOXSports1 Today

It's only a couple of hours coverage today, starting at 4pm ET, but this inaugural event is shaping up to be pretty good.



You can keep check on the scores at the official USGA website. Of course, I'm a bit excited because of how my picks in my "5 to Watch" post from earlier in the week are doing. While Suzy Whaley missed the cut and my sentimental favorite, Pat Bradley, currently sits at T37, my other three picks -- Laura Davies, Juli Inkster and Trish Johnson are T1, 2 and T1 respectively.

That's right, three of my picks hold the Top3 spots. I know it's only been two rounds, but it's rare for me to do THAT well.

As I said, I just wanted to remind you about the TV coverage this weekend. With only two hours each today and Sunday, you don't want to miss it.

Testing Players VS Protecting Par

Sunday's post was a rant about US Open setups, but this post is more about a mindset that I just don't understand. Can you test players and protect par at the same time?



USAToday posted an article (from which the photo came) that wonders whether Shinnecock has become obsolete as a US Open course. I believe that's a flawed view to begin with.

The real question is whether the USGA's concept of a US Open setup is obsolete. And that, I believe just as strongly, is very likely.

My Sunday rant took the USGA to task for ignoring the "architect's intent" for the way the course should play -- specifically, the speed at which classically contoured greens should be played. (If you read that post early on, I added an extra paragraph early Sunday because I realized there were a couple of things the USGA does that I don't have a problem with, but I didn't mention them so I wanted that to be clear.) I contend that if you need to challenge the pros, you don't burn the greens out and make them impossibly fast. Rather, you make them a little smaller and still keep them playable.

You see, the USGA's idea of "protecting par" seems nonsensical to me. And I offer Sunday's setup as proof.

A total of 67 players made the cut at Shinnecock. And after the debacle on Saturday, the USGA on Sunday made what most of us -- me included -- consider an overcompensation. And let's be honest, they needed to. They owed Shinnecock an apology for swearing up and down that they wouldn't make the same mistakes they made in 2004... and then they made worse ones on Saturday.

But after looking at how the course played in the final round, I simply don't understand WHY the USGA made the decisions they did on Saturday in the first place!

Let's look at the facts.

Of the 67 players to make the cut, Sunday’s admittedly soft setup produced only 15 scores below par, and only four better than -2. That's just over 22% of the field -- not even a quarter of them broke par. If you want the exact breakdown, there was:

• one 63 (-7)
• one 65 (-5)
• one 66 (-4)
• one 67 (-3)
• three 68s (-2)
• eight 69s (-1)

Of the Top15 finishers, only seven bettered par, while only one bettered -2. That was Fleetwood's 63, of course. Then there were three each of the 68s and 69s.

And the field average was 72.3 strokes. Correct me if I'm wrong, but that's an average of two over par for the entire field.

Sunday's setup involved slowing the greens down to what they should have been all along, softening the greens a bit more than necessary, and moving roughly half the flags to the center of their respective greens. They made the course MUCH easier than most of us believe was necessary, yet less than a quarter of the field beat par and the field average was more than two strokes over par.

If that setup didn't test the players, and if if was too easy in the USGA's eyes to "protect par," then what the hell do they think their job is???

If they believe their job is to prevent ANY player from breaking par, then they aren't interested in testing the players' skills. I repeat what I said Sunday -- they can get those kind of results by using a cow pasture, but the results won't be what I'd call 'golf.'

Some will debate that it's the fault of the equipment but, from a historical standpoint, the US Open is typically won with a score close to -8. If there's a need to blame something for good scores, then blame it on the influx of athletes to our game. And since that's presumably what everybody wanted, in order to legitimize our game as a sport in the general public's eyes, then making the course artificially harder to keep them from doing what they do seems a bit myopic to me. It's the equivalent of the NBA raising the baskets an extra five to ten feet during the Playoffs. It defies common sense.

If the debacle at Shinnecock -- and the resultant 'easy' setup on Sunday -- has proven anything, it's that the USGA needs to reexamine its understanding of how to 'test players' and 'defend par.' Because as far as I can see, when you have a legendary course like Shinnecock, you don't really need to push the course to the edge to create a test that protects par.

You just need some respect for the course and a little common sense.

It Happened Again...

And I just don't understand why the USGA keeps struggling with course setup. The solution is simple.



There is a lot of talk about the "architect's intent" and making sure that the course is treated in a way that preserves that intent. Yet the USGA continually tries to set up US Open courses in a way that ignores the clear implications of their chosen course's design.

There are limits to how far you can push any course's design. In their efforts to "test" the players, the USGA takes a classic design, with greens that the architect designed with contours meant to be played at perhaps 10-11 on the stimpmeter, and they push those greens up to 13. They push them until the surface is brown and dying -- excuse me, but aren't they called "greens" for a reason? -- and then act surprised when good shots roll off them like they were made of cheap linoleum.

When the USGA wants to test a player's ability to hit a fairway, do they dry them out until they're so brown and hard that every ball rolls into the rough? No, they narrow the fairway and grow the grass around them a bit higher -- not so much that the ball can't be hit a decent distance -- so shots that aren't hit perfectly (but aren't terrible either) demand a price but can still be played.

So why don't they just do the same with the greens? All they have to do is make the greens a bit smaller. Decrease their perimeter by a foot or two, so that a well-struck shot has room to land but a poorly-struck one won't stay on the green. Let the grass in the surround grow a bit taller -- not so much that the ball must be dug out of the rough, but enough that a putt or a chip takes a little extra skill. And then they can stimp the greens at the speed intended by the architect.

[ADDENDUM: I wrote this late Saturday night and, when I woke up Sunday morning, realized I forgot to mention that shaving the edges of the greens -- so poorly-hit shots rolled off -- would be alright as well. The pin position may demand that you hit away from the pin and leave a longer putt; that's okay too. My point is that green speeds should be appropriate to the design of the green complex, so that a well-hit shot always holds and is not left to luck.]

Is that really so hard, folks? Test the players by giving them a slightly smaller target, rather than transforming grass into stone?

This isn't about testing the players. This is about pursuing an unrealistic goal, one based on how equipment from a century past behaved. If they want players to shoot 15-over, they can play the US Open in a cow pasture. At least it would be played on grass, the way the game was intended.

But it still wouldn't be golf, now would it?

I agree that the 16-under score of last year's event at Erin Hills wasn't what we want to see at a US Open. But setting things up so the game resembles craps instead of golf isn't the answer. This time, the final pairing will be two players who, if the course has been just reasonably consistent all day,  probably would not have been in contention.

If the USGA can't understand how to set up a fair golf course that STAYS fair for an entire round, perhaps it's time they let someone else take over course preparation.

End of rant.

A Few Thoughts on the Two-Hole Playoff Format

The USGA's decision to use a two-hole aggregate playoff to break a tie at the US Women's Open was the subject of much debate in the months leading up to the event. But now that we've seen it in action, I think we can finally make a few informed observations.



First of all, many thought a two-hole playoff would not be long enough to eliminate the "randomness" of sudden death, not the way a three- or four-hole aggregate playoff does. Well, we learned that's just not true. In sudden death, Hyo Joo Kim would have won on the first playoff hole... and as it turned out, a three- or four-hole playoff would not have changed the outcome we actually got.

The two-hole format allowed one player to take a lead, and the other player to even the score before moving to sudden death. Would the results have been the same if one player had been sitting for quite a while and the other player was just coming off the course? We don't know the answer to that question, but the result shows that this playoff format can work.

We also learned that the two-hole format is sufficient to provide an exciting finale to a major. It provides a real chance for a punch-counterpunch result that moves into sudden death, with each player having had a couple of holes to regain their rhythm and even some time to compensate for a poor start.

And, if the players successfully counter each other, as Ariya and Hyo Joo did Sunday, the sudden death playoff that follows doesn't seem so random anymore. In fact, Sunday's two-hole format actually felt like a three-hole aggregate that went an extra hole of sudden death.

I realize that, should this format get used when one of the players has been sitting for a while, and should that player lose two straight holes and thus the playoff, there will be a lot of questions about whether a two-hole aggregate playoff is really fair.

But given what we saw on Sunday, I'd have to say that the USGA won the first hole of this debate.

My "5 to Watch" at the US Women's Open

The women are back in the major game this week. The US Women's Open is being played at Shoal Creek in Alabama, which will be playing a bit over 6700 yards. This time of year in Alabama, that should make for a hard and fast course -- but the extended forecast looks like the ladies will be dealing with heat, humidity and rain.



As usual, Tony Jesselli has a preview of the event over at his blog, so I refer you to it for more info. I'll be focusing on my picks in this post.

And those picks are tricky enough when dealing with the men; the parity among the ladies has turned my picks into a real crapshoot. The ladies not only have depth -- which the men also have -- but more of the ladies tend to be "on their games" each week. You need look no further than Pernilla Lindberg's win at the ANA Inspiration, as she took down Inbee Park head-to-head without any apparent nerves at all despite not having been in that position before.

So looking at "current form" is less useful when picking winners among the ladies, although...

• Minjee Lee certainly has to be one of my picks this time. Minjee is not only coming off a win at the Volvik last week, she won the Oates Victorian Open (cosponsored by the ALPG and LET) earlier this year. And her control from tee to green last week was incredible. This season she is, in my opinion, in her best form heading into the thick of the major season, so I like her chances this week.
• Moriya Jutanugarn finally broke through for her first LPGA win just a few weeks back, but she had been playing well enough to win for well over a year before that. While some players get their first wins at majors -- Danielle Kang and Pernilla come to mind, among others -- it's more typical to have a win under your belt first. Moriya is consistently in the Top10 these days and, with her control from the tee, a US Women's Open seems a likely track for her first major.
• Defending champ Sung Hyun Park has already proven she can win a US Women's Open and she won on tour only a month ago, at the Volunteers of America event. If Shoal Creek should get waterlogged, her length will give her a huge advantage.
• Jessica Korda has cooled down a bit since her early win this season but it's not as if she's played badly. She has three Top4s and no finish worse than T26, and she is certainly feeling better as she gets further along in her recovery from surgery. I think she's more ready for this major than she has been in quite some time.
• And my flier is... Nasa Hataoka. The youngster seems to have found her legs on the tour in the last month, with finishes of T19, T19, T7, T2 and T10 in her last five starts, and she hasn't shot over par in her last four Sunday rounds. I think she could post a good score early on Sunday and sneak up on the rest of the field.

I know that I have left off a number of players who should be favored above the ones I listed above. Inbee Park, Shanshan Feng, Ariya Jutanugarn, Lexi Thompson and more have stronger major pedigrees than all of my choices other than perhaps Sung Hyun Park. But I think Pernilla may have set the pace for this season, and I suspect her win may encourage some of the other "close but not yet" players to believe they can do it too.

And so my pick this week is Moriya. I really like the trajectory of her game over the last couple of years and I think she could be the next player to stake her major claim.

Rules Bifurcation Arrives... in a Small Way

It appears that the USGA and the R&A finally decided that some form of bifurcation in The Rules of Golf was inevitable. And it was the pace of play issue that finally forced their hand.



There are four main rule changes that have been emphasized in the announcements over the last day or two. You can get the lowdown from this article at golfchannel.com, this one at golfweek.com and this one at golfdigest.com. The Golf Digest article also has a graphic showing how the new bifurcated rule will work. Here's what that graphic looks like, although the original is much easier to read:



Yes, it's the stroke-and-distance rule. Most of us hate the extra trip back to the tee when we lose a ball or simply hit it out-of-bounds. Here's how the Golfweek article summed up the change:

Balls lost or out of bounds: Alternative to stroke-and-distance penalties: A new local rule will be available in January 2019, permitting committees to allow golfers the option to drop the ball in the vicinity of where the ball is lost or out of bounds (including the nearest fairway area), under a two-stroke penalty. It addresses concerns raised at the club level about the negative impact on pace of play when a player is required to go back under stroke and distance. The local rule is not intended for higher levels of play, such as professional or elite competitions. (Key change: This is a new addition to support pace of play.)

There are two very interesting aspects of this change:

• It's an optional local rule that courses can use. It's not required, but it's now available as a sanctioned part of the Rules.
• Most importantly, this optional rule is NOT available to competitions involving professions or "elite amateurs."

That, my friends, is bifurcation. The Rules of Golf will now recognize a rule that affects top-level competitions but not regular amateurs. And it's a rule that will be instituted in order to speed up play.

I'm perfectly fine with this change. Let's face it, most amateurs don't obey the stroke-and-distance rule anyway! This will, as most would argue, simply bring the rule into line with the way most players already play.

But -- and this is just an observation -- I expect this change to have some unexpected side effects. After all, most handicaps are determined by casual rounds, not by official rounds in a tournament. The two-stroke penalty assumes that a player would go back to the tee and hit his or her tee ball somewhere near the spot where they take a drop... but we all know that doesn't always happen.

The handicaps determined through those casual rounds could end up being used by some amateurs when they play in various levels of tournament play. Will it be a large number? Probably not, although this local rule does open the door for some "creative handicapping" if players so choose, and they could argue that they did it legally. (Those handicaps would be better than the player actually deserves, so they might get into a tournament they would not otherwise qualify for.) I don't expect that to be a big problem, as most players tampering with their handicaps would prefer to make them worse so they could sandbag it a bit.

Again, that's just an observation and, from a practical standpoint, it probably won't amount to much. But it's the sort of problem that bifurcation brings to the table...

And I suspect the USGA and the R&A might have chosen this rule to be a test case for bifurcation. Misusing this rule would hurt a player more than help, so it seems a safe way to see how bifurcation might affect the intergrity of the game.

But make no mistake about it: The ruling bodies have given us what we wanted. For better or worse, bifurcation will now officially enter the game of golf, effective 01 January 2019.

Now we'll just have to see where it leads.

Some Thoughts on the Distance Debate

As I was watching Golf Central yesterday, I couldn't help but be surprised at some of the things that Geoff Shackelford, Jaime Diaz and Matt Adams said about the various statements that have come out from the USGA, the R&A, the PGA Tour and the PGA regarding the distance study. So I thought I'd note a few things that I believe have been forgotten in this discussion.



In case you haven't heard, the USGA and the R&A released a report Monday which they say shows an unusual jump in the distances golf balls carry on six of the seven tours that were studied. Most thought this report indicated consideration of new rules to "roll back" the golf ball. Here's a link to Golf Channel's post about that report, with a link to the report itself in it.

The first thing that surprised me was the panel's general belief that the statements from the PGA Tour and the PGA probably meant that any meaningful discussions would be stymied. Why? Because the statements made it pretty clear that the ruling bodies and the "playing bodies" had opposing views.

That makes no sense at all to me. We all know that each of the interested parties in this discussion has their own agenda. That's nothing new in any situation like this because the movers and shakers in any discussion have something at stake, and we know that they're always going to take stances to defend those stakes.

In my opinion, knowing what those stances are in advance make it easier to discuss things, not harder. If they made statements that indicated they didn't care one way or the other about the outcome, they would only be saying what they thought others wanted to hear and not what they meant. Knowing where everyone stands up front should make it easier for them to uncover the issues — the real issues — and perhaps make progress toward a solution.

Of course, it's unlikely that any real progress will be made toward a solution anytime soon. The reason? Because the only logical solution involves bifurcation of the rules, and to do that eliminates one of the things that really differentiates our sport from other sports. As it stands, amateurs and pros can compete against each other using handicaps, because handicaps take into account the things that differentiate an amateur's game from a pro's game.

You know, things like differences in driving distance.

But once you bifurcate the equipment, you eliminate even the possibility of a handicap. In fact, you eliminate the very thing which allows amateurs and pros to compete together. Because if they use different equipment, their games don't have enough in common to allow a usable comparison of their games. So the argument that bifurcation of the equipment is necessary to maintain the integrity of the game is actually a faulty one, because the ability of pros and amateurs to compete together is an integral part of our sport.

But that's only the beginning of the problems. Because the basic assumption — that rolling back the ball's distance will mitigate some of the challenges our game faces — is shortsighted.

One of the concerns is that classic courses are becoming obsolete because of the golf ball's distance. However, distance is the least of the problems. Most classic golf courses, having a smaller footprint as they do, don't have the space to handle a modern golf tournament. They weren't built to handle modern crowds, nor the parking that crowd will require, nor the rest of the infrastructure a modern event requires.

Things like grandstands, executive boxes, merchandising tents, and even sufficient trash cans and recycling receptacles to handle the waste a modern crowd creates take up far more ground space than the designers of those golf courses ever expected to need.

Rolling back the distance a modern golf ball travels will have absolutely no impact on those problems.

But can we even be so certain that rolling back the golf ball will have a major impact on the other issues that depend directly on the golf ball? By that I refer to the actual factors involved in the launching and landing of a golf ball. For the sake of this post, I'll ignore the agronomy issue, because hard and fast fairways certainly influence how far the ball travels once it lands.

Let's go back in time to 1997, Tiger's first year as a pro. That's the year the distance became something of an issue as Tiger rewrote the entire concept of the power game. This is before the introduction of the Titleist Pro V1, which debuted in October 2000. I pulled the driving distance of a few big-name pros that year from the PGA Tour's website.

• Tiger Woods, 294.8 yards (2nd)
• Phil Mickelson, 284.1 yards (5th)
• Mark Calcavecchia, 279.1 yards (14th)
• Ernie Els, 271.6 yards (52nd)
• Mark O'Meara, 261.7 yards (153rd)

The reason for choosing Tiger and Phil is obvious, but perhaps the others are not so clear. Calc was in one of his better stretches of golf, winning three times from 1995 to 1998; Els was in a dominant stretch which spanned several years, and had won his second U.S. Open that year; and O'Meara won twice that year, with his two majors to follow in 1998. (In case you're curious, the longest driver on tour that year was John Daly at 302.0 yards.)

What's interesting here is that both Mickelson and Els were noticeably taller than Tiger, while Calc and O'Meara will roughly the same height. (Daly was the only one of this crew under 6 feet in height.) The changeover from persimmon drivers was nearly complete, with Davis Love being one of the last holdouts; 1997 was the last year any significant number of players used one.

Note that Woods was significantly longer than Mickelson — and Daly significantly longer than Woods, for that matter — although the major new ball technology had not been introduced yet. All three of these players used swings which were distinctively different from most other players — Woods used a very powerful, muscular swing while Daly and Mickelson both used swings which were much longer and more flowing than the standard tour swing. While it's possible to lay some of the credit for this distance on driver technology, it's clear that strength and flexibility were a much bigger influence on their results.

Look, I'm not saying that the distance golf balls travel these days is an unimportant consideration, nor that we can ignore the challenges it poses to the future of our game. The costs involved in maintaining longer golf courses are a real cause for worry. (As an aside, I suspect that indoor golf courses using simulators may become the next great source of growth for the golf industry. They have far less overhead, it doesn't take any more time to play a long course than a short one, and they are more easily located in population centers where they might attract casual players.)

But I do think the golf ball is receiving far more than its share of blame for modern golf's problems. And I hope the industry proceeds slowly as it pursues possible solutions because, if this is mishandled, we could harm the future of our game far more than we'll help it.

The USGA Dumps the 18-Hole Playoff Format (Video)

It's official, and here's USGA Executive Director and CEO Mike Davis on Golf Central to explain how and why the USGA changed its mind about Monday playoffs at their events.



So starting this year, the USGA will use a two-hole aggregate playoff to break ties at the end of all four USGA championships and, if that's not enough, they'll go to sudden death till they get a winner.

It'll be interesting to see how the format goes over with the various "voices" around the golf world. But it's worth noting that this brings the USGA in line with the other three majors.

The New Video Protocols

In case you missed it, on Monday the USGA and R&A finally released their new "video protocols" for dealing with -- let's be blunt here -- TV viewers calling in to report rule infractions. Here's your quick guide to what's involved.

First, here are the USGA video protocols page and the R&A video protocols page. And here is the link to the brief video clip (embedded below) from Morning Drive announcing those protocols:



Now, the short version is this:

• One or more officials will watch the broadcast to monitor possible rules violations.
• Nobody is going to take phone calls reporting said violations. (At least, that's what it sounds like.)
• The only video that will be accepted is the broadcast video. No phone or camera videos.
• And a local rule eliminating the two-stroke incorrect scorecard penalty will be enacted as a bridge to the 2019 official rule.

Sweet, simple and to the point. The language is a bit wordier than that, but that's the gist of it.

The page with the Morning Drive video also has a number of other videos related to the issue, since quite a lot of time was devoted to it. Even Thomas Pagel spent considerable time answering questions.

I see a couple of potential issues that might have to be dealt with as this protocol goes into effect in January:

• First, I suspect the monitoring officials may end up being stationed in the broadcast trucks to better monitor all of the network cameras, in an effort to catch potential problems as soon as possible. If so, there will almost certainly always be more than one official on duty. Even if you only watch a single TV showing the broadcast, you don't want anybody getting distracted for a moment and missing the very thing they're looking for!
• And second, I'm under the impression that any person physically at the event -- players, caddies or fans -- will be able to report things they see to the officials. If so, they may have to rethink the camera/phone video ban since that would provide instant feedback about the legitimacy of the report.

Having said that -- and knowing that every new protocol generally needs some tweaking -- this is a major step forward. Pagel said that their feedback from the pros had been mostly favorable and that the pros were in favor of infractions being reported and penalties enforced, even if those penalties had to be enforced in a later round. It's that extra two-stroke incorrect scorecard penalty that most of them found to be unacceptable.

For those of you who are afraid that some penalties will be missed, let me just say this... they will. Even in sports where the events happen on a relatively small playing field -- like a basketball court or a football field -- infractions are not only missed in real time but even in the replay reviews. Because we are human, there is NO WAY that all the infractions will be caught or even properly dealt with, and we'll just have to accept that. We'll just have to do our best and accept the results.

And once any little bugs have been worked out, I think everyone will be pleasantly surprised at how well it's going to work simply because our sport is unusual in that most of us want the correct ruling to be made, even if it goes against us. As Lexi Thompson tweeted regarding the new rule, "I am thankful that no one else will have to deal with an outcome such as mine in the future."

All I can say is "amen to that."

My "5 to Watch" at the US Women's Open

It's time for the third LPGA major of the year, the US Women's Open at Trump National Bedminster in Bedminster NJ.



The defending champion is Brittany Lang, although in many ways Brittany seems to be a forgotten player this week. Her best finish this season is a T13, and she's missed two of her last three cuts. She'll have her work cut out for her if she hopes to repeat.

As usual, Tony Jesselli has a preview of the event at his site. Tony and his wife are at the event this week and you can also see photos he has taken if you check some of his other posts.

Well, that takes care of the window dressing. Time to get down to business and make my picks.

As you may expect, I'm not taking some of the better players who I might typically pick.

• I still don't think Lydia Ko is quite back in major form.
• I'm bothered by Ariya Jutanugarn's recent WD due to a shoulder injury.
• Ironically, I don't think Inbee Park's putting is quite up to the task right now.
• And while Lexi Thompson's mom is finally finished with her radiation treatments, I'm not sure her mind is going to be fully on her game.

So who does that leave? To be honest, I'm not sure anybody's a lock this week. But let's see what I can come up with:

• Let's start off with Danielle Kang. Normally I wouldn't pick someone who has just won their first major -- as my regular readers know, I generally figure on a two- to three-month readjustment period. But Danielle has been building to this over the last few months and she said she "found something" at her last event, which happened to be her major. So I'm going to take a gamble on her this week.
• Likewise, So Yeon Ryu has become a standard in my picks because, even if she doesn't win, she's so consistent that she has a good chance to get in contention. I see no reason to leave her bandwagon yet.
• Brooke Henderson is right on the cusp of a big win. In her last three starts she got a win at the Meijer and a runner-up at the KPMG. So how can I leave her off my list?
• Michelle Wie is struggling a mild case of whiplash from an off-season car accident. However, she's played extremely well lately, with three Top4 finishes in her last few starts. I'm thinking that bump-up is the reason she's played with such a controlled swing as of late, and that should serve her well this week. After all, that's how she got her first major -- also a US Women's Open.
• And my flier is Cristie Kerr, who basically just needs for her putter to catch fire this week. With her, it could happen.

This could be a wide-open major, at least for the ballstrikers. It's a new venue so no one really has the advantage of experience here. That certainly levels the playing field and, although I didn't pick any new winners, I could definitely see one getting the trophy this week.

But I've gotta go with my gut, and my gut says that Ryu is due. She broke through on a tough US Open course, and that's what they should be facing this week. So yeah, I'm going chalk.

Remember that USGA events are being covered by FOX now, so coverage begins Thursday at 2pm ET on FOX Sports 1. Also be sure to check out the LPGA leaderboard page, as there are numerous listings for online coverage at usga.org.

My "5 to Watch" at the US Senior Open

Today I make my picks for this week's US Senior Open. Gene Sauers is the defending champion.



This week's major is being held at Salem Country Club in Peabody, Massachusetts. It's a Donald Ross course, first opened in Salem MA in 1895 and moved to Peabody in 1925. Among the events that have been played there, there have been two US Women's Opens (1954 and 1984) and the US Senior Open was there once before in 2001.

So a course like this isn't likely to produce a fluke winner. This is a quality course and, if you don't mind me overusing an old turn of phrase, we can be pretty sure that the cream will rise to the top. And who might that creamy goodness turn out to be?

• Well, it's hard to make this kind of list without including Bernhard Langer. Ironically, he's only won one US Senior Open, back in 2010 at Sahalee. He's already got three wins this year, including the first two majors. Despite his record in US Senior Opens, it's hard not to make him the favorite.
• Believe it or not, I have to put defending champion Gene Sauers on this list, even though he only has one win on the Champions Tour -- this major. But that win came at Scioto Country Club, which is another Donald Ross design, he was a runner-up in this event back in 2014, and he's been playing well coming in to this week. Maybe this major just suits his style of play.
• Scott McCarron is $800k behind Schwab Cup leader Bernhard Langer, but that puts him #2 on the list. And he's playing some seriously good golf this year. Leave out his T23 last week, and you'll see him coming off three Top5s -- two of which were this year's majors (T2 and T5). You've gotta take him seriously.
• Miguel Angel Jimenez. He's got a win and sits #4 on the Schwab Cup list. He's only got one Top5 since his win earlier this season although, granted, that was a T3 at the KitchenAid Senior PGA Championship. But, with one exception -- his very first event of the year -- his scoring has been consistently between -8 and -13 all season. I think that score can win a US Senior Open.
• And my flier... Fred Couples is coming off a win. And though he hasn't played that much -- roughly half the starts of McCarron (7 vs 12) -- he's got two wins and trails McCarron by only $9k. If his back holds up, Freddie's dangerous!

And my choice is... surprise! I'm taking Jimenez over Langer this week. As good as Langer has been, US Opens (on any tour) seem to give him a lot of trouble. Jimenez's consistency should loom large this week.

Remember that, since this is a USGA event, the US Senior Open will be broadcast on FOX Sports 1 for the first two rounds and the regular FOX affiliates over the weekend. Thursday's broadcast should start at 2pm ET.

Some Observations on Erin Hills

No one knew what to expect when the US Open actually got started at Erin Hills. After all, it looked like a bomber's paradise.



What we learned in short order is that Mike Davis is as devious as Pete Dye. Erin Hills is a wolfish US Open layout in sheep's clothing. Those wide open fairways aren't as wide as they appear. How can that be? Isn't a 60-foot wide fairway plenty wide for all but the worst hack? Aren't the knee-deep fields of fescue too far off the centerline to cause trouble for the best in the world?

Much has been made of the lay of the land, shaped by receding glaciers 10,000 years ago and barely altered by the architects. But those severe mounds and valleys, coupled with tilted fairways that resemble waves on a stormy green sea, mean that golf balls don't necessarily bounce in predictable ways.

And apparently -- this is why I liken Davis to Dye -- apparently the length of the course and the rolling fairways create an illusion of narrowness, and Davis recognized this when he walked the original routing, even before the course was built. Even the best golfers, all of whom are familiar with the optical illusions Dye creates in his designs, simply can't convince themselves that they have enough room to just "let 'er fly." Instead, they tend to overshape their shots, actually flying the ball deep into the fescue.

With rare exceptions, it was the shorter hitters who posted the best scores on Thursday. Of the Tour's 26 hitters who average over 300 yards, only Brooks Koepka (#5 in the list) and Xander Schauffele (#22) made it into the Top10 on the leaderboard. Kevin Na's tweet that short hitters had a chance because accuracy would be more important than length this week -- and that short hitters are naturally more accurate -- seems to have been prophetic.

Then again, perhaps the shorter hitters just can't reach the fescue. That might have something to do with it as well.

As for the scores, Rickie Fowler's -7 tied the record for lowest opening round score in relation to par. The other holders of the record? Jack Nicklaus and Tom Weiskop, who both shot -7 (aggregate score: 63) at Baltusrol in 1980. It's worth noting that Jack won the tournament with -8.

Rickie's total on Thursday tells us nothing about what might win this week, but I won't be surprised if we see something similar -- either because the USGA toughens up the course (they probably feel safe doing so now) or because bad weather comes in.

There were also a record number of players under par -- a total of 44. However, only ten scored -4 or better, and another seven posted -3. So while there may have been more scores under par, most of them weren't unrealistically low. I don't think it will mean much for the final result.

Ultimately, I think this US Open will play out much as the others have. The USGA will toughen up the course, and the weather will complicate things (either with dry conditions and wind, or wet conditions and wind). It's possible that we could see a record low score, of course. But except for Tiger's win in 2000 (-12) and Rory's in 2011 (-16) -- both of which were weather-related -- no one has EVER needed a final score of more than -9 to take the title. I don't expect this championship to be any different.

Oh, and one more thing: Yesterday I said I suspected the 6-9pm ET broadcast on Fox would be a recap. I was wrong. I didn't take the time zone into account. The late broadcast on Fox is showing the late groupings, so you'll want to check it out if your favorite player has a late tee time today.

A Couple of Reminders

With so much going on today, I thought I should post some TV info so you can keep up with it all.



First of all, remember that the US Open is on FOX, not GC. The FOX Sports 1 channel is broadcasting all day, from 11am to 6pm ET. Then they switch over to the regular FOX channel for three hours (6-9pm ET) for what I imagine will be a condensed broadcast of the highlights.

Second, although the US Open will pretty much dominate all of men's golf this week, the ladies are still in action. GC will broadcast the Meijer LPGA Classic from 4-7pm ET. You can read the normal preview of the event over at Tony Jesselli's blog, Lydia Ko will begin her campaign to regain the #1 spot from Ariya Jutanugarn, as both are in the field this week.

So you've got plenty of choice today. You can watch the men on FOX or the women on GC. It's gonna be a good week!

My "5 to Watch" at the US Open

Finally! We'll get to see how the pros handle the fescue-laden Erin Hills course as they vie for the 2017 US Open title



I suppose you already know the basics -- Erin Hills will host Wisconsin's first US Open, new daddy Dustin Johnson is the defending champion, Phil Mickelson desperately wants a weather delay on Thursday while first alternate Roberto Diaz desperately wants good weather, and the analysts have no idea what to expect since Erin Hills is unlike anything they've ever seen before.

So let's move on.

Let me start by eliminating a few names from my "5 to Watch" list and tell you why they've been left off.

• Phil Mickelson: Obviously I don't think the weatherman is going to cooperate with him.
• Rory McIlroy: I want to stress that I'm leaving Rory off purely because of the rib injury. I remember how much trouble Brandt Snedeker had with his rib injury a couple of years back. I'm not convinced Rory will survive the week, especially if he hits a couple in the rough.
• Jason Day: Look, I know his mother is feeling better and her cancer treatment is going well. But I just don't think he's quite over the emotional strain yet.

That doesn't mean they can't play well. (Although Phil's weekend game in California probably won't help him win his sixth major.) I just think these "life issues" will affect them enough to throw their games off a bit.

So who am I picking? It's a hodge-podge that might surprise you.

• Of course, I have to include Dustin Johnson. I think DJ is playing the best of anyone right now, having won two WGCs under wildly differing conditions. And now he gets to hit that driver into fairways that are 60 yards wide? It's just not fair.
• Thomas Pieters is due to win on the PGA Tour, and a big European-looking course like Erin Hills seems tailormade for his game. He's not quite as accurate as DJ... but 60-yard fairways? Like I said, it's just not fair.
• I admit that even I'm surprised at this one, but Sergio Garcia makes my handful of faves this time. Normally, I would give a player who just had a super-emotional Masters win a three-month pass and, with his wedding coming up at the end of that time, I wouldn't expect him to do anything this week. But Sergio is defying my expectations with his play since the Masters. I don't believe that bit about floodgates opening just because a player wins a major, but Sergio's win seems to have been the result of an improved mental game. THAT just might change his fortunes.
• Jon Rahm is another player who is on his game. I no longer care that he's a rookie -- Rahm is a force of nature! Erin Hills and the US Open are not too big for him, and his emotional outbursts don't undermine his confidence. He can win here.
• And for my flier, I'm taking Steve Stricker. It's not just that Stricks is at home. Rather, it's all about his health. He says he's playing pain-free for the first time in quite a while, and his schedule over the last few weeks proves it. I agree with Kevin Na -- short hitters have a chance at Erin Hills; heavy rains have a way of evening the odds. With his game and these wide fairways, I like his chances to become the oldest major winner ever.

As tempting as all of these players are, I still have to go with Dustin Johnson. He's on a high from his new son's birth, and the Masters withdrawal left a bad taste in his mouth. I don't believe there's a lock to win this thing, but DJ's probably the closest thing we've got.

Phil Likely to Skip the US Open

In case you missed it, Phil Mickelson announced that he will probably miss the US Open to attend his daughter's high school graduation.



You can get all the details from this PGATOUR.com article, but basically it comes down to this: Phil's daughter Amanda is the school president and scheduled to give the commencement address. Since her graduation is on Thursday morning of the US Open, and Phil lives in California -- which is two hours behind Wisconsin, where the US Open will be held -- even an afternoon tee time is unlikely to give him enough time to fly back after the graduation ceremony.

Look at it this way: It takes roughly four hours to fly from CA to WI, and then you have the two-hour time difference. If Phil was able to leave at 11am CA time, it would still be around 5pm WI time before he arrived -- much too late to play.

Phil hasn't withdrawn yet. It's possible that something could happen to make it all possible -- perhaps the graduation ceremony has to be rescheduled for some reason, or the first round of the US Open gets a weather delay. But Phil isn't counting on either, and said he wanted his alternate into the event to be ready to play, as well as for the USGA to know before they made the TV tee times.

But even if Phil misses the Erin Hills major, the next two sites -- Shinnecock Hills and Pebble Beach -- should give him good shots at the one major that has eluded him. The 2020 site, Winged Foot, might suit him as well...

Assuming that daughter Sofia doesn't have her graduation during that week.

FOX, the USGA and the 12-Year Deal

Golf Digest posted a very interesting article by Ron Sirak called TV's $1.1 Billion Problem: Making Sense of Fox and the USGA. I'm giving you this link today because this is an enlightening article about the 12-year broadcast deal between FOX and the USGA and the unexpected problems both have come up against.



Starting in the second paragraph you'll find this:

According to sources familiar with the situation, tensions between the USGA and Fox increased after the network's aggressive handling of rules controversies at the 2016 U.S. Open and the U.S. Women's Open. There was also significant dissatisfaction within the USGA, sources say, over the fact that Fox and its cable arm Fox Sports 1 (FS1) did not take advantage of a West Coast venue for the Women's Open to push the broadcast deep into East Coast prime time, bringing the women's game much-needed exposure.

The USGA and Fox are saying the right things publicly, but they both acknowledge there have been conversations after 2016's major championships to settle differences. And both sides shot down whispers that they wouldn't mind an early end to the deal, which has 10 more years to run.

This very detailed article then goes on to explain the various "situations" that have arisen over the first couple years concerning the deal, which helps you understand why TV golf is such a difficult sell to many of the networks. It also looks at how event streaming may be affecting TV viewership, and how contracts with -- and proven viewership of -- other sports may be affecting golf broadcasts.

I was impressed with how clearly these issues were explained; Ron Sirak did an exceptional job on this piece. It's a post that dedicated golf fans should read, simply so they will be better informed about the issues that efforts to "grow the game" will face going forward, both in terms of who is watching and what other options they may be choosing instead.

And it just may help you appreciate exactly what Arnold Palmer and Joe Gibbs managed to accomplish when they started GC. We are very lucky, folks.

Thomas Pagel on the Teeing It Up Podcast

I'm skipping the Limerick Summary today. After all, there's been no new golf this past week (nor will there be any for the next two weeks), so three generic Limerick Summaries in a row just seems a bit ridiculous to me.



Instead, I'm passing out information. You may remember I did a couple of posts on the new DJ Rule a couple weeks back, and in this one I mentioned Jeremy Shilling. Jeremy hosts the Teeing It Up podcast on iTunes, and he messaged me to let me know that he's going to have Thomas Pagel from the USGA on today's podcast. (That's Thomas in the photo above.) They're going to talk about the DJ Rule, among other things.

The podcast happens this morning and, as soon as Jeremy sends me the links, I'll update this post so those of you who are interested can find it quickly. I should get them sometime today.

LINK UPDATE:

Okay, here are the links.

• This link will take you to Jeremy's blog, where you can listen to the podcast on any computer.
• And this link is the SoundCloud link that will let you listen to the podcast online . You'll also find a couple more of his recent podcasts on this page.

If Jeremy gets me a link directly to iTunes download -- apparently there's a technical issue with it right now -- I'll add that to this list.

The podcast is about 16 minutes long.

I Can Fix the "Ball Moved on the Green" Rule

If you saw Rory question whether he "was deemed to have made his ball move" on one of the greens during Thursday's round, you heard Daniel Summerhays make a brilliant (and obvious) observation. He simply said that the USGA botched this rule.

I agree, folks. And the fix is so simple that I can't understand why it's still a problem.



First, let's get one thing clear: Either you made the ball move or you didn't. There's no in-between here. Personally, I think the guys would be honest enough to say they tapped the ball if they did, so I wouldn't make it an issue at all. But that's not the way the USGA thinks, so we need a way to determine whether the player is "deemed' to have moved the ball... and that's a simple fix.

All you have to do is set a threshold, a distance that your putter should be from the ball to guarantee that you didn't touch it, and decide based on that.

So what should the threshold be? Greens are cut very close, so just use the width of a golf ball as the measure.

• If ANY part of your putter is within one golf ball width of the ball -- regardless of whether you ground the putterhead or not -- and the ball moves, you DID make the ball move. Take your one-stroke penalty and replace the ball.
• But if NO part of your putter is within one golf ball width of the ball -- regardless of whether you ground the putterhead or not -- and the ball moves, you DID NOT make the ball move. There is no penalty, play the ball as it lies.

This one simple change would eliminate problems on the greens. The question now becomes "Was your putter within one ball width of the golf ball?" That's a yes or no question that is easily answered. And players then know how to avoid the penalty: Don't address the ball with your putterhead closer to it than one ball width if you don't want to risk the penalty.

And just for the sake of clarity, let me suggest some solutions for the "deemed to make the ball move" question elsewhere on the course.

• In the fairway, where the grass is cut fairly close, make the threshold two ball widths. Inside that, you made the ball move; take a penalty stroke and replace the ball. Outside that, play on and don't worry about it.
• Anywhere else on the course EXCEPT TALL GRASS, we adapt the bunker rule: If you ground the club, you caused it to move. Take a one-stroke penalty and play it as it lies. I don't care if you're a foot behind the ball, if you grounded the club, you caused the ball to move. We play in bunkers all the time without grounding the club, we can do it in the rough as well. Ground the club at your own risk.
• In tall grasses like heather and such, THERE IS NO PENALTY. PERIOD. Play the ball as it lies. Tall grasses are inherently unstable, and we shouldn't be surprised it the ball moves. Now I expect players to use a little common sense in these situations and not tempt fate by grounding the club two inches behind the ball. As long as they don't do something stupid like that, the bad lie is penalty enough.

I realize that some folks may disagree with these last three suggestions, especially my belief that you should play the ball from its new position if you aren't in the fairway. If you disagree, I'm okay with that. I simply see no reason to complicate play from the rough any more than we have to.

But when the ball moves on the green? Come on, USGA. This ain't rocket science. Simplify the rule and speed up the game.

Surprises at the US Women's Open

This is Sung Hyun Park's very first US Women's Open -- her first USGA tournament of any kind, for that matter, and only her fifth LPGA start. But here she sits, on top of the leaderboard at the halfway point at -8. I doubt that anyone picked her at the start of the week

But then, it's been a week of surprises so far.



The cut came at +4, higher than expected because the course turned really nasty on Friday afternoon. Firm conditions and a different wind direction caught players off-guard -- including three of my "5 to Watch" picks. At least Brooke Henderson, Lexi Thompson and So Yeon Ryu made the cut, but at +3 they're unlikely to be in contention come Sunday.

My other two picks, Amy Yang (-6, T2) and Lydia Ko (-5, T4), made their way to the top as expected. Haru Nomura (also T4) isn't a surprise either. But the rest of the Top10 -- which actually includes 14 players -- is not what most of us expected.

For obvious reasons, I looked for the American players. Danielle Kang and Jessica Korda are at -4 (T6), while Mo Martin, Angela Stanford and Sydnee Michaels are at -3 (T10). Only 'Mighty Mo' has a major, but it's a Women's British Open; given the firm and windy conditions, her accuracy helps her overcome her lack of distance.

In fact, while I don't want to rule anybody out this early, there are four players near the top who are proven in these kinds of conditions -- Yang, Ko, Nomura and Martin. If these conditions continue, they may become the new favorites. (Yes, I know Lydia is always a favorite!)

Can Sung Hyun Park hang on? Will experience win out? Or will we see yet another surprise winner this week? At this point, it's anybody's guess.

Remember that today the Open TV coverage moves from FOXSPORTS1 to the regular FOX Network from 3pm-7pm ET. LPGA.com also says that USGA.org will broadcast during the same hours.