Ok… I just turned on the TV to check out The Canadian Open. There is rough on this golf course. At least as much as how tour events used to be set up. Looks about like how the rough was when I was playing on the Canadian Tour. This looks much more like a US Open than the US Open… in fact it looks 10 times more like a US Open than The Congressional Classic.
Guys are hacking it out of the rough… not getting the ball on the green and they are grumbing all over the place. El’s said this is how a good course like this should be set up… it’s a NATIONAL OPEN!.
Even the commentators are saying this looks like The US Open.
I remember this event used to be set up like a typical PGA Tour event. Apparently not this week. I love that the Canadians aren’t bowing down to the protocols of The PGA Tour… and are setting it up correctly for their National Open. Good for them.
This will be a fun event to watch this week… I suggest anyone do so if they have the chance.
Fowler, Kim, and Glover paired on Friday. Interesting to see how they will go. Off the opening hole (starting on 10), only Glover hits the fairway. Folwer drove left and had to pitch out sideways, Kim hacked out short and left green from the right rough on the par 4…ends up taking 4 shots to get onto the green. This will be a real test of golf. Fun stuff.
Apparently the US Open comes after the British on the calendar now…Fun to watch. Glad that they were only pulling our legs when they said Congressional was hosting it.
So if you get a chance to see this event this weekend… this course, Shaughnessy is 7000 par 70. Now take 30 yards off their tee shots or add three clubs to the approach shots into all these par 4’s and you will get a feel for how golf used to be played.
Firm up the greens a bit to boot and then you would have a proper North American major. There won’t be anyone shooting 14 under this week.
The 14th hole, is a short par 4 at 320. Fowler and Kim go for the green… Glover hits iron off the tee. Kim snaps it left and is dead and is lucky to make 5 on the hole. Fowler drives the green but three putts for par. Glover wedges up and makes birdie. Good lesson here. This is the kind of golf you will see this week.
Kim didn’t hit a fairway until the back nine. So climb aboard the bogey train to Vancouver.
Weir is one of the crookedest professional drivers of the ball I have ever seen and made an early exit citing an elbow injury that was irritated by hacking out of the rough all day.
Interesting to see Glover playing a very conservative approach with irons off tees and he is swinging good and being rewarded.
Lee Janzen is a blast from the past… with the two time US Open winner right there. Ogilvy back in it. Chad Campbell’s been striking it good obviously.
These good ball strikers can now have the proper advantage while guys like Kim that spray the ball all over the lot and shoot 81 can take the weekend off… but they can enjoy a few Molson’s down on Robson Street tonight, and view some of the sights like Stanley Park on Saturday or take a canoe out into English Bay or maybe a day trip over to Victoria on Sunday.
I would love to have been a fly on the wall and listened to the meeting between the Canadian and PGA Tour officials about setting the course up. I can just imagine…
“You can’t set up the course harder than our US Open! Oh yeah? Watch us!”
I’m glad you started this thread…I’m watching the replay as I type…I was wondering if you caught this telecast thinking that you might be enjoying watching these guys squirm…Also was thinking that this set-up except for the extra length might be perfect for your game…
This will be an interesting one to watch over the weekend. Lot’s of mis-hit shots and the announcers weren’t mincing many words in their descriptions. I hadn’t heard that Weir wd’d, but I did see him hit it all over the lot on Thursday. It had to be bad for him to wd out of his national open.
I saw Glover cold-shank an approach from the left rough on a par 4 today. Although I didn’t see any foot slippage, it was an awkward looking swing, and he put the tiger-stare on the soles of his feet that even Tiger would have envied.
What I am seeing is the usual 50% fairway hitting… so most of the guys are missing 7 fairways. They can’t get the ball on the green from the rough… so they have to pitch out short of the green and try to get up and down… but their pitch shots and putting are really sharp so it appears to be about 50% conversion. so the guys are making 3 or 4 bogeys a round. The ones who can’t find the green from the fairway are adding more bogeys, and then we might see the occasional three putt.
From tee to the green this is a US Open. The greens are soft and holding and not putting as fast and treacherous as a US Open… and this is why there are still 16 or so guys under par after two rounds… but I hope this wakes some people up… and other events follow suit. I hope the press picks up on the story this week. I’m really shocked to see this. Happy to see it.
The easy answer is to grow the rough tall if the equipment on tour is not going to be rolled back. 8000 yard courses is not the answer. I really hope they don’t cut the rough tonight going into the weekend. I am sure the phones are ringing off the hook tonight with calls from PGA Tour headquarters begging them to show some mercy on their players and cut the rough.
I like seeing risk and reward. If a player pulls driver and misses a fairway… there are major consequences. I even saw a few players buried deep in trees and rough hoping to get the ball back on the fairway somehow.
This is real tournament golf. Pros should be tested with their ballstriking. They are pros… they should be hitting most of their fairways and greens.
I hope the Canadians stick to this formula in the years to come and don’t cower to pressure from below the 49th parallel.
It’s nice to see a US Open style event again. The US Open was considered the ultimate test of golf. Not anymore.
It has been nothing more than another tour stop in reality. Only the media hype is brainwashing people into thinking it’s still the US Open… a new record and other BS.
Greg Norman in his prime drove the ball better with persimmon than these guys are driving it with the frying pans. He could have won an event like this using persimmon and blades on a course set up like this… there is no doubt about it.
I hope I can bring the inside story about this event to ABS in the coming weeks. I see this as some kind of deliberate backlash from the watered down version of golf we have been seeing.
It’s a beautiful course & the setup is strong, looks a lot like Westchester without the big elevation changes. The problem is still the pellets though. They go so far & so high that the dispersion pattern is way bigger than the targets. I must admit I enjoy the looks & conversations over the short pitch shots where it looks like they’re trying to diagnose sentences in Cantonese. That’s awesome. And what’s up with all the awful putts by everybody?
Am I allowed to quote myself here? Turned on the TV today and the first thing I saw were the mower tracks all through the rough. They cut it down considerably from the first two days to accommodate PGA Tour weekend TV coverage… very disappointing. For Canada, it’s their National Open, and should not be bullied around by the PGA Tour. Apparently the phone calls got through…
At least the guys that couldn’t hit a fw for 2 days r gone. Amazing the reaction from some pundits I’ve heard like the Canadian Open is trying to throw some "schtick’ out there to be different. Man is the golf world lost! Such a state of the game that they would drop the rough mowers on Saturday.
So they cut the rough and all the rounds of par or higher disappear for the leaders except one round… Ogilvy’s 70.
They need to commit to the course set up Wednesday and let the guys finish it up on the weekend. The PGA Tour is just so afraid to expose the fact that these guys are not nearly as good as everyone thinks. Today I saw the same crap as the US Open… guys were holding the ball on the greens from the rough. They said the first two days that the players were missing the greens over 80% of the time from the rough… as it should be for a National Championship. The greens looked softer and slower.
Sorry to be harsh…but isn’t Purdy a has been or closer to a never was?..with just one win on tour…he should be thankful that one win about 5 years ago actually still enables him to play events such as this at all, because of past champion status
Well, after two rounds you had a guy with one of the better swings on tour leading the tournament, Chad Campbell, you had
Janzen who has won two US Opens suddenly back in the mix on familiar territory and so on… so maybe the “has beens” can drive it straight? The young Fowler was playing well and survived it for a couple days coming off some good major play last week. Young guys playing against older players? sounds good to me… I think that’s a lot more interesting.
It was fun while it lasted… at least we got to see who can play a little bit for two days. Regardless of the ball and frying pans, at least you still had to get it in play or you were dead.
I have the second round taped and will try to put some clips up from Friday for those who didn’t see it.
I am not familiar with Kris Blanks, but interesting to see that the guy who hit the most greens for the week (#1) and #7 in driving accuracy. 47th in driving distance…tie for first. I think a very good combination of stats. 43rd and 66th in putting for those two stats.
O Hair on the other hand… took a different approach… being #3 in driving distance and 27th in driving accuracy… very respectable stats… and 19th in greens in reg. Putting slightly better and he ties for first also.
Hadwin 2nd in greens in reg was right there and ties for 4rth.
Ogilvy had very well rounded stats… 11th in GIR and with putting and birdies being his second and third best stats for the week.
The point here is that if a golf course is set up properly… it allows a variety of ways to get into the hunt… and I just don’t understand any argument that would suggest that this is not only good for the game… good for viewing the game… and fair to a wider variety of players abilities. Why should quality ball strikers not be properly rewarded for their efforts
if they can also putt decently.
4 under par wins the event over 4 days. The golf course was protected properly, and had they not mowed the grass under Vancouver moonlight Friday night… we might have seen something resembling proper US Open stuff, in spite of technology even without the greens being stupid fast.
I’m disappointed that the rough was mowed… but it sure beats watching most other events including the Congressional Classic and the tournament formerly known as The Masters.
“To be sitting here right now is unbelievable. I tell you what, by the beginning of the week, to be honest with you, when I played my Pro-Am, obviously, it’s a very intimidating golf course and I played horrific. Probably, Wednesday night was my worst point of the whole year. Just kind of I didn’t know how I was going to play this week, and to be sitting here is amazing."
“I think the golf swing got off to a point where I was struggling to play the game and play it the way I play it. I like to hit a lot of different types of shots. I’m not a one-type of shot player. I like to shape shots both ways and strike it and whatnot."
“I got to a point where I had to go back to what kind of got me on the PGA TOUR. So I went back to an old coach of mine, Steve Dahlby, who has been coaching me on and off since I was about 11 or 12 years old."
