Masters 2012

Post up a few stats from the first round… Interesting to note that the players that drove the ball on the fairway seemed to have a much easier time… Westwoods stats are particularly impressive and he should be sitting atop the scoreboard with that display.

westwoodround1.JPGoostround1.JPGlawrieround1.JPGmolinaround1.JPGphilround1.JPGtigerround1.JPG

I didn’t watch much on TV…but saw some horrific driving… The course is not that intimidating from the tee to be so erratic and wild as this… Mickelson on the wrong fairway on 9 …lost ball on 10…Phil was way pushed on 14 also but couldn’t find video of that…Tiger 2 penalties from errant drives…pretty sub standard stuff when the tee shot is used to set up the entire hole. Stenson threw it all away on 18 with a snipe pull hook…
In the 70’s & 80’s we may have seen this many poor drives over a total of four days…but not this from just a few players and just in round 1 as we witnessed today…
It just helps any argument or discussion to watch this stuff and wonder how and why …and see we aren’t making this stuff up.

[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/39872404[/vimeo]

Did anyone actually hit a fairway in round 1? What I watched was garbage from the majority of the field, Phil and Bubba would of looked more at home in a Remax Long Drive Comp, just wildly flailing at the ball. In the end Faldo was joking about where Phil’s ball was going to end up, just plain embarrassing. The 18th hole, what the hell have they done to that, they may as well fill in the fairway bunkers because no one can reach them off the tee, apart from Bubba. As for that guy, if he manages to win this thing (which I bet everything I own that he won’t) I will quit golf.

Following on from TM’s stats i present the current best golfer in the world:
donald stats.png
And just to note he was 4/15 GIR’s after 15

I wouldn’t really be all that surprised if Bubba wins this week. I have said this before on here but I don’t understand why Bubba gets so much shit talked about him on this site. Does everyone have to play like Corey Pavin to get respect around here? It’s a different style of play. Get over it. John Daly used it to win 2 majors.

At least Bubba understands how to bring a wedge in low to a back hole location. It boggles my mind watching so many of those guys go all out at a sand wedge so they can carry it to the back fringe and spin it back to the hole.

Also, if we are looking at GIR, your guy Bubba Watson is leading the tour this year. Fun fact.

Maybe because he is the poster boy of what modern golf has become, hit the thing as hard as possible because he knows he cant miss it with his pink toaster. He shot shaping is way over done, more than likely to disguise the fact he can’t hit it straight. John Daly hits some great positions in his swing and was bombing drives way before frying pans came into the game, i remember watching him, must of been about 94ish, rip his small headed wilson driver on the range at Huntingdale at the Aussie masters, he was flying the net at the end of the range and landing them on a shed over the back, it was an impressive display.

He is 146th in Driving Accuracy and leads GIR’s, fun fact. How do you think something like that comes about?

That’s a great question. Well Langer '93 was the last guy hitting a persimmon driver but the steel heads didn’t change all that much, maybe trajectory some but that’s it… Tiger '97 is a throwaway for everybody else, the mere mortals because he was on a different plane of existence and nobody else even thought about doing THAT to Augusta. I got a tape I’ve just about worn out of '94, Ollie, Lehman, Mize with some Els & Couples sprinkled in, that was a great tournament. By that time there were a lot of wedges into 7, 14, & 17; Els hit flip L wedge into 7 which isn’t supposed to happen but for the most part the course played pretty true to form. '95, the Harvey Penick memorial DLIII pretty much obliterated the place, should have won by ten and was hitting it pretty close to Tiger territory, Driver-3 iron on 8, flying in to the slope on 9, 3 wood & 7/8 iron on 13. You can’t really pay attention to the 3 wood part of it because of that goofy angle but the short iron in is a big problem. Plus you have to look at the lofts and lengths of the irons rather than the numbers on the bottom of the clubs. Traditional loft for a pitching wedge is 52°, Hogans were always about 50, then PINGs and Tommy Armours got to 48 in the late 80s and on down the line. Guppy and Couples were always notorious for always setting their lofts stronger than snot so the nine iron was a 7 1/2 iron & the six iron that went OMG 205 was really a stock four iron. Gotta take that into consideration and the dimple patterns on the balls on the synthetic covered balls like the Professional and the Slaz which came out in the mid 90s.

So by the time you get to like '98, O’Meara, Couples, Duval, Els Augusta played way too short. That was still 2-3 years pre-ProV. So all in all it’s impossible to pick one specific year but if I did anyway its gotta be the Great Collapse of '96 that was the last one that wasn’t stupid. Seems poetic enough.

And if you listened you could hear Hogan spinning in his grave when Bubba went for it on 11 from there. Tic tic tic BOOM!! Bubba is what you get when you combine Chi Chi with blotter acid, crystal meth and some shit nobody’s even thought of yet. If you want to take the Hunter S Thompson approach he’s your guy all day long. But that ain’t in it for the long haul.

It’s a combination of things of course. Course set up is a big part. However, you also have to take into account the fact that he is averaging 10 yards further than anyone else on tour, and probably 30 yards more than the mean distance. This means he is naturally going to miss a higher percentage of fairways (even Norman had multiple years where he finished in the 100s in driving accuracy) but will also make up for that by having 3 less clubs into greens than your average tour player. Again, it’s a different style of play. I’m not saying it’s right and I’m not saying it will hold up forever.

So far the new big 3 was far from impressive some of the worse driving i’ve seen ever. Lee Westwood looked great 16 greens is some great stuff he controlled his ball very nice. Hard to believe Sandy Lyle could post such a big number 86.
Augusta is pretty wide open compared to most tournaments Tigers shot on 1 was really 3 fairways over!!!

Masters update

Three friends and I attended yesterday. Here are some random things that struck me:

Condition, course: The course is very damp. The greens appear soft. You can tell by the sound and the way they are receiving shots. Even areas that are very hilly have not drained well. This must make the course play longer, but make the greens a bit easier to hit. We saw an offical using some contraption on #6 at the end of the day. It looked like he was drawing moistutre out of the green…maybe measuring it??? I don’t think the course will dry enough by Sunday, unless the wind picks up. We could see some really low scores.

The new practice range is built to last. It probably is at least 500 yards long. So when Gary Player is right about the guys hitting 400 yard drives, the practice range wil not be obsolete( like the old one became).

Conditioning, players: Most of the pros look different than the rest of us humans. Fit and lean. I think you could have taken the ten fittest people in the gallery and they would not have looked as fit as most of the pros. This course is so hilly, you can’t help but thnk that conditioning may play a role by late Sunday.

Bernhard Langer must not have but a few ounces of body fat. I stood behind him on 10 as he hit his tee shot. It seemed like he took a controlled smooth backswing and then you saw/felt a tremendous effort resulting in a powerful strike.

I almost didn’t recognize Rory he looked so fit.

Saw Greg Norman up pretty close. He looks about the same as 20 years ago. Very charismatic, and like he belongs there. And he does.

Weeds: My group of four saw zero weeds all day long.

Bathrooms: Kinda hate to include this, but having been to all kinds of sporting events at many venues, I have never seen bathrooms function so efficiently for large crowds. It is just one more thing showing how the Masters pays attention to detail.

Play: Tiger had two unplayable lies. We saw plenty of errant tee shots…one guy flew his tee shot on nine over into #1 fairway…leaving a wide open shot to the green. Rory jerked it way left on #8, but caught a break hitting a tree. Stenson was in the zone…until #18, then made an 8 with no penalty shots and a 2-putt. That shows how close the demons are lurking.At the range, Molinari seemd to have the best control of his mid-irons of anyone…repeatedly hitting tiny draws. Westwood had a great day…it might finally be his year.

I caught a few of the early 60’s ones. A few things stood out for me in big way;

First is how wide open Augusta looked back then. It is so much more grown-in and matured today. Trees 50 years older are all more lush and much taller. Grass looked yellowish back then compared to pristine green now, so better maintenance and care. Just by comparing todays 1st round to the 60’s I just watched, I would say it plays MUCH more difficult today for any wayward shots. When Stenson was playing his pull-hook tee shot on 18 and Phil was looking for his lost ball, they looked like they were deep into some forest. Ducking down through crevices in bushes, brushing branches away from their faces, etc. Back then it looked like they were only off into the pine needle rough with some young trees thrown in for annoyance.

Second difference from the 60’s is just how unique and individual the actual SWING was. Everyone seemingly developed their own method of how to best go about hitting that little white ball for THEM. Upright for some, hunched over for others, big knee bend yet for others. Everyone had a style all their own. Even more so was this evident in putting. Today, everyone looks pretty much cookie-cutter comparatively. From tee to putt, today’s pro’s resemble and swing like each other WAY more than in the 60’s.

I thought about this while watching and can only attribute it to the now vast teaching and coaching industry. More specifically this industry who all collectively don’t waiver much in their concepts and fundamentals and pretty much teach the same modern swing. Same with the standard pendulum putting stroke. Todays pro’s are basically perfect implementors of a standardized swing & putting model. Back then they were the best of the “dig it out of the dirt’rs”. Not that there weren’t teaching pro’s back then, there were obviously, but more for tune up or a set of eyes? Today you basically start at a very young age in a closed system of big-name teachers/schools to a lifetime of conformity.

Also, back then it looked liked average guys. Today they just look mostly like athletes. Most everyone today would look just as right in a baseball uniform.

Interesting that a 52 year old is leading the Masters…but he’s using the “anchoring” crutch ( belly putter) that Gary Player spoke so strongly against in his interview this week, saying that part of the exam is seeing who has the best nerves. Even Nicklaus, when he won in 1986 said basically the same…“it is a young man’s game, with greens this fast.”

But the media loves “Freddie”. I have a hard time warming up, maybe I’m just jealous.

And here comes the armada of armchair rules officials because Urkel’s foot was on the hazard line on 13. I bet he wished he wasn’t wearing mallwalkers so he could have played out of there instead of picking it up.

This whole day feels like watching mauve colored paint dry. I’m on the Jimenez bandwagon now for keeps. Viva Espana.

Oh hell yeah. Pullin hard for The Most Interesting Man in the World. “I don’t always warm up, but when I do, I prefer to do it like this…”

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6PuO3y1DopM[/youtube]

HAHAHAHAHA!! The smedium shirt is the icing on the cake. Breaking out my Messi jersey as we speak.

Great call by David Fehrety regarding Tiger. He playing golf swing, not golf. He must have a bazillion swing thoughts going through his head instead of picturing his ball flight. It’s like seeing a bad car accident at the moment.

I’m pulling for Sergio, would love to see him and Jimenez battle it out in the last group on Sunday. OLE!

Here’s a good prop bet, it’s obvious Urkel & Phil got nothin this week, I set the opening line for total number of shots shown on the main CBS feed of the two of them even v. the field for the weekend. Does anybody take the field?

Urkel be lucky to make the cut lol

Got 4 to get down from the bunker, we can hope though…