You’re mean Dom DeLuise, mean, mean, mean.
ps I don’t teach putting. Green reading friend, green reading.
If I recall my history…Hellen Keller taught reading in much the same manner I would guess.
Captain Chaos
Oh dear, are you making jokes at the expense of the disabled??
Shame on you captain chaos, rip at me all you like but I think joking at the expense of the disabled is taking the joke a step too far.
Has anyone else watched the whole clip here I posted?
There really is a lot to study and consider in approaching the game.
I watched it all, loved it
Steve
So now of course we look and Langer.
How did he get it done?
From when coverage picked up…
he birdies 5 which is a great birdie.
Hits the greens on 6, 7, 8, and 9.
Hits a bad drive on 10 and gets a break clipping a pine and ending up in the fairway. With a long iron in… misses just short but straight below the hole for a fairly easy conversion.
Hits a great shot into 11, then sticks in in tight on 12 and makes birdie… which is rare there. Fantastic stuff.
Knocks it on both 13 and 15 in two and converts for birdies there, while hitting fairway and green on 14 for par.
Plays a good iron into 16 just past pin high right and has a fairly easy two putt.
17, great drive, sticks it close with an 8 iron and makes birdie… really seals it up there.
With a two shot lead, plays 1 iron off the tee, just nails it 230 yards leaving a 4 iron approach. Safe play to win the event is out to the right. Right bunker is an easy shot with the pin left and plenty of green. He can only lose the tournament if he misses left. He probably aimed at the right edge of the green and hit it right on that line just pushing it a hair. A good swing and avoids the disaster that could come from going left. If he tugs the iron a bit… he would be on the green. Instead he is into the right bunker safely. Great shot out to 6 feet. Probably chokes a bit on the putt pulling it left… but good enough for the green jacket, as Strange fails to birdie 18.
The only bad swing Langer made was the drive on 10. I would say the 4 iron into 18 was well planned and executed. That was the correct leave. He didn’t need birdie… not even par… just needed to take 6 out of the equation which he did.
Between Langer and Strange, you see top notch ball striking. They are not ping ponging the ball around into the pines or dogwoods. They are not missing many greens… very rarely. Shots are positioned into the correct part of the fairways and greens. Long irons are in their hands on #4, #5, #10, #11, #13, #15.
So you have a really exciting Masters with 4 Hall of Fame golfers finishing on top the leaderboard. Langer, Strange, Seve, Floyd. Watson, Nicklaus not far behind them. This course was created and set up combining proper gear and a great strategic layout to showcase who the real master players are. Every year the best would rise to the top.
I don’t feel The Masters now is consistently separating the cream from the curd.
i watched it all and enjoyed every minute.
thanks lag
yep me too, enjoyed it very much.
I’ve watched it 1,5 times now. Very much looking forward to the next installment of classic golf, whenever that may be.
The big difference here between today’s Masters is that Floyd starts off poorly, missing fairways wildly and then has to manage those misses the best way we he can to stick around. Whereas today you can miss wildly and it actually can put you in an advantageous position if you’re long enough. It’s not a legitimately ‘good’ shot, it’s just a ball hit a long ways and the course design not penalizing the golfer enough for a poor golf shot.
I think the Masters committee has gotten too much into Bobby Jones’ and Nicklaus’ style of play. I don’t know about Jones since we truly don’t have any metrics showing his skills and are more or less going on eye-witness accounts which could be greatly exaggerated. Yes, Nicklaus was super long off the tee. But, he was also extremely accurate. So this idea that Augusta was always supposed to be ‘meant for bomber’ is just a fallacy and a poorly thought out one at that. I could live with last year’s Masters since it was the most exciting I’ve seen outside of Jack in '86. The contenders could hit it a long ways, but they were generally good ballstrikers and Schwartzel won by birdieing the last 4 holes.
But, odds are that will be the exception instead of the rule.
I honestly don’t know why they don’t grow out the rough there. I was at Bay Hill and the rough was much thicker than Augusta’s, but it wasn’t anywhere near traditional US Open rough. It was just there to make things genuinely more difficult if you missed the fairway. I don’t understand why that concept comes off as invalid at the Masters.
3JACK
Player contends that with the new length they are hitting the same clubs now into the greens that they used to. This may be true on some holes but I have seen guys hit 8 iron into 13 and 15. Wedge on 12, Wedge or 9 iron into 10 and 11. Wedge into 18. I have never seen guys hit those clubs into the greens in the persimmon era.
The argument for no rough would be that the ball would just keep rolling off into the pines or off the shaved slopes around the greens… down and away from the raised greens. When I played the Australian Tour, a lot of courses were set up like this and these long chips up a hill often played of hardpan lies were not easy… but they did offer options also for a ground shot.
I saw a couple guys get saved by the rough in the last few years where a ball would have rolled down the slope into the water.
But again… it’s the trajectory issue that no one seems to bring up… that to me is so obvious. 210 used to be a 3 iron, now guys are hitting 7 iron from 210 with the rocket balls. They are not nearly as accurate, but with the ball falling out of the sky, the specific area to land the ball depth wise becomes much greater.
I think for many of the holes, they are hitting the same amount of club into them. But some they simply are not…like #13 and #15. Nicklaus hit 4-iron in '86 on #15, but he pulverized it and was still one of the longest in the game. I’m sure we’ll see a few 7-irons or even less into one of those greens this week.
That being said, that doesn’t really bother me. Hit it massively deep and reasonably accurately, you deserve to be rewarded. And we could argue that today’s players are ‘built’ to hit it longer than they did in '86.
But, what gets me is when they simply hit a terrible shot, but it’s so long that they have a shot. Or it’s not really that long per say, but they still have a shot and because they can hit the irons a long ways, they can still go for the green.
Mickelson’s ‘miraculous’ shot on 15 a few years ago is a good example. That was a horrible drive. Yet, he still had a shot at the green. It did take a lot of guts to take the shot and it was a great shot, but he simply should never have a shot to begin with that god-awful drive. I could live with guys having a shot after a god-awful drive once in a while. But, it happens way too often and more often than not, they can simply lay up on #13 and #15 and still have a run at birdie. There’s no penalty for the long hitter on those holes. They know that they can swing recklessly at the ball and most likely come away with no worse than par.
That’s not golf, IMO and it’s certainly not what Dr. MacKenzie and Bobby Jones had in mind either.
3JACK
When I was watching this, it ended only part way through the round. Did this happen to anyone else? Or was it maybe just a fluke?
Same happened to me with the .swf file, and
the .mp4 file never downloaded completely, just sort of hung.
(I thought it was my system getting obsolete.)
Hard to know what the problem would be. Some people seem to be able to view it without issue. These are very large files. The mp4 file is much bigger.
I really enjoyed rewatching the 85 Masters and studying the play and strategy of the players. It fascinates me.
Thought I might watch a bit of the event today (2012). Opening coverage with all the talk about Jones and Dr. Alister. In no way can I imagine they would approve or be happy with what has happened to the game and the course.
First page of the leaderboard on Saturday has no major champions on it. Something is wrong? I think something is wrong.
Faldo made an interesting comment:
#7 is now 450 yards, which traditionally should be a long par 4. The green is completely protected by sand in the front… which is fine for a par 5 which would add the risk reward element to go for it… but is not appropriate for a par 4. The old hole played about 400, so it required a short to mid iron approach… and that was appropriate for the former length of the hole.
The question is… how long would a par four need to be in the modern age to where a run up option would be essential to the design of the hole? 300 yard drive and 230 yard approach? 530 probably. A new Masters design would need holes like 5, 10 and 11 to be that length because the greens there were designed to allow for a “skip it back there” type approach. 10 and 11 might need to be another 25 yards longer because they play downhill.
How long would par 5’s need to be to play as true 3 shot holes with only the longest hitters being able to take advantage of their length to over power the hole? 320 plus 300 I suppose. 620?
My internet connection is not the fastest available at 1.29 Mbps and maybe it choked on the video file sizes. Too bad though.
So for instance in 1985, coming into the final round… to win the Masters you had to contend with 8 Hall of Fame players on the first two pages of the leaderboard. The others, Lietzke, Stadler, Haas, and the dark horse
Hallberg. Lietzke who won 13 PGA Tour titles, Stadler a former Masters Champion also with 13 PGA Tour wins, Haas who won 9 times on the PGA Tour. Even the dark horse Hallberg bagged 3 PGA Tour wins in his career. It’s an absolutely star studded cast with great champions all over the board filling in every spot in the first dozen.
Now if we look at what Phil (certainly a Hall of Fame player) has to contend with going into Sunday, it’s a very different picture. Phil knows he is a far superior player to anyone on the first two pages. He has zero intimidation affect coming from his competitors.
It’s understood that these younger players are early into their careers, but I don’t see Hall of Fame potential going on with too many of them. Maybe Padraig if he can turn his game around. Everyone else would be about as intimidating to Phil as Hallberg was to Floyd in 85. Lawrie’s Open win was handed to him on a French Roll courtesy of Jean Van De Velde. Not one top ten finish in a major since his win in 99. This is not a Hall of Fame career.
With Tiger out of it at +3…Where are the former Masters Champions of the last 12 years outside Phil and Tiger… the two Hall of Famers? Even the favorite Rory bowed out with a 42 on the front nine.
2011 Charl Schwartzel +6 (48th)
2009 Ángel Cabrera +4 (41st)
2008 Trevor Immelman +9 (57th)
2007 Zach Johnson +3 (38th)
2003 Mike Weir +7 (MC)
2000 Vijay Singh +2 (32)
So Phil has no threat from even a former Champion.
Is Phil a shoe-in to win tomorrow? Probably a shade more than he would be at any other typical tour event.
My money is on Phil. If he sprays it into the trees with the driver, it will be another non Hall of Famer putting on the green jacket at sunset.
This leaderboard essentially looks no different that it would at the Heritage Classic or the Fry’s Invitational.
So the next question is… why?
Why is The Masters not separating the great players from the pack?
Great post Lag.
Tough question, but i’ll have a go. Number 1 is the ball. Its hard to work. Ive never seen so many balls in the pine needles on 13 as ive seen of late. Seems like its too hard to shape around that corner. The hall of famers get lost in the crowd with this ball. With the balata, you had to control your spin. It was a subtle move to bend it 20 yards around 13. The greats had a huge advantage, being able to shape it both ways, as well as trajectory, higher or lower at will. Now that art is lost. Hitting 300 is ho hum. they all hit it 300, Wedges go 150, so great ball strikers get lost in the crowd.
The guy leading hit it great today. But watch tomoorow, i be suprised if he lowers 75, due only to the pressure. Phil is 10/1 on to win this thing, and he wont have to do anything special, but probably will. His lob from the back of 15 today was just class. Balls of steel to hit that shot. But thats what Phil will be remembered for, great short game. wild driver, no suprises there.
Steve