US Open 2012

Public Forum—Concepts in Advanced Ball Striking
61

To me, it comes down to the golf swings. Bad shots are a result of poor golf swings. Good golf swings hit fairways. If you can’t put the ball in the fairway when you need it… even under pressure, then your golf swing is not working properly.

The winner hit 55% of the fairways. That should not be good enough to win a US Open. The rough was not penal enough.
The winner missed 8 fairways on Saturday and posted an under par round. That should NOT happen at a US Open.
He averaged 10.5 greens in reg and won. That is ridiculous.

Els hit 33% of the fairways and could have won the tournament with a bit of luck. Wouldn’t that be something.

Oosthuizen who seemed not that long ago to be driving the ball well at The Masters hit 28% of his fairways. He should do better than that with a blindfold on.

What if they had really set up Olympic like a US Open should be set up?

62

Couldnt agree more Lag

I saw plenty of shots from deep rough, that landed on the green, and stayed on. That never happened when i started watching the US Open in '82.

Its all turned into a bomb it and putt or chip it and putt if the roughs up. Webb is prob a nice guy, and a reasonable player,but I saw him down under for the pres cup, and he is what i would call a Hot Dog pro. When the Shark got on the tee, everybody watched, when Woods gets on the tee, everybody watches, when Webb gets on the tee, everyone grabs a Hot Dog.

He isnt the worst player thats won a US open, or maybe he is, i dont know. But NOBODY will talk about his percision driving and rifle straight irons.

Steve

63

Y’all are out of your gourds, that was one of the best tournament of our lifetimes. You do it better than that with this golf ball. Course brutal right on the edge, play especially by the winner as good as you can do it with this stuff.

64

I believe Mayacama is a 73.8 index, so 80 would not require a letter from the USGA. Plus, John was playing with persimmon. That may come off as foolhardy in some people’s eyes, but shooting 80 at a 73.8 course (150 slope) that is setup for US Open qualifying isn’t something to assume that a person cannot play.

As far as the Open goes, I enjoyed it. I don’t get bogged down too much on Webb ‘only’ hitting 55% of his fairways. I’m sure a lot of the misses went into the first cut of rough and to me, golfers should be punished too much, if at all, for hitting a shot that winds up in the first cut of rough.

As far as the deep rough goes, I think the equipment makes it easier for players to get the ball up and out of the rough. But, the players are probably much stronger. From my study of Tour metrics, there is a correlation between clubhead speed and play out of the rough. These guys are using steel shafts, some heavier than vintage model shafts. I just think they are stronger with some help from the equipment. But to counter that, the approach shots are from a longer distance, particularly on the par-3’s. While they hit less club, the ball still has to travel in the air for that amount of distance, which has a great chance to be affected by wind, humidity, etc.

So IMO, the rough was probably penal enough. Look at Webb on 18. Short hole where he misses the rough and really has to scramble like crazy to make par as his second shot just got to the greenside rough, and that was a difficult shot that he hit to 4-feet and had the cajones to make the putt. And I don’t know what tournament some were watching, most of the time players had difficulty holding the green from the fairway. Out of the rough was almost no chance of holding.

3JACK

65

Loco, thanks for wearing the hat I sent you http://youtu.be/oOBwx0UDjyQ. :wink: It made it worth staying up…

All the best,

George

66

And the rough did its job perfectly. You’re dealing with landing areas the size of dining room tables on the majority of the holes just to hold the greens anywhere. Add the wind & the ball dynamics where it flutters instead of pierces and if you go any further than they did in any way whatsoever the entire thing explodes and nobody breaks 300. Then add on top the pressures of the moment and the entire event is bordering transcendent it was so good. 68-68??? At like 24 in your fifth major?? Build Webb Simpson a statue that’s so good. First six +1108 for the week by the best in the world, then the rest of that? Epic, totally epic golf. Only bad hole on the course was 7 & that was bad but even sixteen I thought was genius. Hell yes throw in a surprise, a champion should be able to adjust on the fly and a champion did. He even looks like a real golf pro and seems to be a rock solid young man. The problems with the structure of the game remain but this week was incredible and produced a totally proper national champion. My personal wish would be to have the Open at the Lake every year like the Masters if they can make it that good. That place rose like a Phoenix, you all have no idea how bad it was before and how great it is right now this second. It is better than the SF Club now for the first time ever. Congratulations all around to the USGA & Mike Davis, Pebble is forgiven, if Merion is like this even Congressional is forgotten forever. Wow was that great, that’s NorCal everybody The Golf Mecca of America.

67

I think JE was playing with persimmons and vintage blades to attempt to prove a point. And professionals, even PGA Tour pros, are not always prepared. Plenty of instances where Tour pros have a driver that that doesn’t come close to fitting them, but they use it anyway. Or they go with new equipment, even though it is ill fitted towards them…simply because they got the big $$$ for it. And the fact that Tour pros are still using swingweight instead of something much more advanced and actually scientific like MO tells me that Tour pros are not always prepared or smart when it comes to equipment.

That’s just patently false. IIRC, he shot 81. Why do I know this? He posted it up on this forum and discussed the round afterward. I don’t think he’s ‘hiding from it.’ He’s also won the TRGA event, which has Nationwide Tour pros involved in it.

JE and I don’t always agree. We don’t even agree on the past US Open. But, you’re making false statements which makes me question your credibility, not JE’s.

3JACK

68

And also golf pros by the majority are not Mensa members. Can’t even begin to count the number of events I’ve played with FCs who were hung over, drunk, drinking, high, all of the above; didn’t have a clue about equipment, fundamentals and a thousand other things. I remember playing with an international player, won’t get more specific here in the States who had no clue what yards were and spoke no English so I couldn’t explain it to him. And yeah he blew it over almost every green. Still don’t see how any of this has anything to do with SlapChop.

69

LCDV, look a little harder next time.

Here’s details, from page 123 of the original LTLGM thread.

Here’s the scorecard link:
advancedballstriking.com/LTLGM/i … 4a59ab.jpg

Obviously Lag isn’t hiding from the round. On the other hand, none of us even know your full name and you’ve never posted any swing video. Who’s hiding?

70

We’d love some stupid tapes from you. You’ve posted interesting stuff in the past, but we really have no verification of your credentials. On the other hand, we all know Lag was a highly successful junior, an all-american, and won on the Canadian tour. I am looking forward to playing with him in the next month to get a better look at his ball striking, but from what I did get to see in person about 6 months ago, he can back up everything posted on this site.

We’ve never seen your move on video and we don’t know your name. Who’s hiding in the basement?

71

I wrote LCD several times requesting that he stay on topic. The recent posts by LCD have clearly not had good direction as far as the topic on hand. Debating, arguing points, differing opinions are all welcome here. But such aggressive bashing of any poster or member here is not in the good spirit of this site. It’s not acceptable behavior. I am not interested in having even the public side of this forum turn into GWRX or other internet forums where posters must constantly be policed for bad behavior.

In general we should all be proud of the contributions here and the various inputs from differing points of view.

LCD will no longer be posting on this site. This decision is based not only upon the tone of recent posts, the failure of him to stay on topic as he was informed several times, but also from a stream of personal PM’s he sent me that confirmed his intentions.

The positive contributions he has made will remain for us to read, ponder and enjoy… and I am sure are appreciated here by many including myself.

While I can’t speak for the man himself, I do wish him the best in his future endeavors.

72

I agree, there was certainly rough out there… compared to the last three years or so. One of the issues may be the fact that the guys can’t curve or shape the trajectory of their tee shots with the modern ball and modern drivers to get the ball to hug the fairways properly. Any decent player who has spend much time playing on courses with un even fairway slopes knows the value of shot shaping.

I saw that Tiger was trying to hit some very low bullets out there at times. I didn’t see anyone else trying to do that.

In the age of great ball strikers, I can’t imagine a US Open player missing 9 straight fairways on Sunday and having any chance of winning the event with two holes to play.

If the fairways were so fast that the ball could not be kept in the fairway, then it is really an issue with a flawed course set up.

No argument that Simpson played the best golf of the week.

We all learn something each time a major is played in the modern era… I know I do… whether it is what I want to learn or not. But I just don’t see the frying pan drivers really working well for anyone on a consistent basis… especially under pressure. They are too long, too light, they lack feel, and two of the so called straightest drivers, both who have won US Open’s in the past can’t find a fairway to save their lives coming down the stretch.

With a persimmon, one of the shots you can hit is to put the ball on the ground with a driver… just maybe nestled on a tuft of grass… just like they used to do. So the ball is teed very low, and it is very hard if not impossible to hook the ball left doing that. So then what you do is try to hook the ball… so in doing so… it is not likely to go right either. I use this shot all the time when I absolutely need to get one in play and hug a fairway that slopes left to right. The ball comes off low with a draw and just runs out for miles and stays underneath any wind. A shot like this is what Fuyrk should have hit on 16. There is no way he could have hooked it doing that. Trevino was a master of this shot… and Venturi claims he never put the ball on a tee all week when he won the US Open. Low bullet drives still work today… and especially on fast fairways where you have to hug the ground and slope. All this stuff is lost onto the modern players that only know launch angles and have one stock driver swing.

To Tiger’s credit, I can see he was trying to manufacture these kind of shots even when he clearly was not having his best week.

73

One thing that’s interesting to me is that nobody out there seems to have the lower trajectory drive. I am by no means that solid of a ballstriker yet, but I hit a ton of fairways (in tournament competition) with my modern driver. I don’t hit it out there quite as far as the tour guys do, but I’m not short off the tee. I am consistently 275 or more down the middle, and I hit a few every round out past 300 on the more open holes. My ballflight is mid-low and very flat. I don’t max out my carry distances, but I make up with it in roll and keep the ball in play.

Nobody on tour seems to play that shot. I’m sure some do, but you don’t see it on tv. It’s the same thing at the junior tournaments I play in, where everyone hits it a mile high. My driver has definitely become the best club in my bag since starting ABS, and I think that a big part of that has been because of my practice with a persimmon. I don’t see the high lob trajectory drives ever being as consistent. I have no problem hitting 10-12 fairways a round in tournaments now.

74

I thought the fairways were ulta-fast. That’s why I couldn’t see a lot of the complaining about the course being too long. I actually thought for the most part, it played pretty reasonable distance wise. There were guys hitting irons on their 2nd shot to hit into 17, the supposedly treacherous par-5. The shot called for a low bullet thru the traps and the rough. The problem is that they couldn’t execute that extremely difficult shot. But, they still were able to go after the hole in 2-shots…some with irons.

I think the final day had some really long approaches, but I think the weather played a big factor. I thought the course was extremely difficult, but fair for these players. And I think most of them would agree.

There was one hole, late in the round yesterday that McDowell hit a driver that missed the fairway by a good margin. He then got one up by the green, but in the greenside rough. Then that shot was basically dubbed due to the ultra thick rough grass. And he wound up making bogey. To me, that’s more fun to watch than some guy like Bubba blasting one and missing the fairway by 30 yards and still possibly having an advantage over the pro golfer who pipes one down the middle.

I have little issue with the US Open this week. And it surprised me on how smooth it went given the last time they were at Olympic.

3JACK

75

Somewhere I thought I had copy of a Shell’s Match with Nicklaus playing Miller at Olympic back in the 90’s. Jack was playing persimmon and Miller I think was using a metal wood… but not one like today’s titanium version. The ball was balata.

If I remember right, Jack shoots 68 or 69, while Miller shoots 80. It looked like Miller just hadn’t been playing much as he was new to the TV tower. I remember Jack telling him to get back into competitive golf in a friendly way.

Jack was just playing textbook golf. Fairways and greens, proper positioning of the ball and talked about the course and design. It was very inspiring to watch. Lot’s of great long iron play, especially into the four pars. If anyone has a copy or seen it, let me know.

It would be interesting to take a look at that compared to how the event last week was set up.

76

I remember that match. Very painful to watch. Johnny had the yips big time…3 putting and even 4 putting.

77

Its funny - I played in a charity scramble this past Friday. I carry two drivers in my bag…a Toney Penna persimmon (I need to check the model) and a 15 year old Tour Edge Beti Ti driver (aka the Green Frog as it has a green head and green Graffaloy shaft). The Tour Edge is a semi-Frying pan, still nowhwere near the size of the new ones though. The Tour Edge is my ‘distance’ driver - I’ve tried the new stuff and literally cannot hit it. Every time someone gives me a new silicon-faced pan, same thing. Distance is OK but no feel at all. After 5 swings, I’m done. I pull out my Tour Edge with chipped paint and all and hit it where I look (most of the time) with distance equal to any frying pan on the market.

The point of this is when I really need to hit a fairway, I pull out the Toney Penna persimmon driver. Tee it low and work it either way - sometimes I overcook it but that is OK. It is nice in that I also do not need a 4" tee to hit my persimmon in the sweet spot! A friend of mine (whose Mom lives on farmland) still has old golf balls that the kids used to hit around the pasture. He was on my scramble team and gave me the following to hit: Titleist 384 Tour Balata and Tour Prestige 90s, Maxfli DDH Tour Balata and a few really old Golden Ram Balatas (really old). HItting the old Balata’s were great. He even asked me if I ever heard of a Podo! I never hit one but my dad used to tell me those were the bomb back in the day.

I think this may be my first post but I have admired from the sidelines here for about a year - love this site, the posts and the information. Thanks to everyone is is more of a consistent contributor and poster!

78

Welcome…
and thanks for posting your thoughts. As you can see you are not alone… (although it may seem that way out on the links)

Believe it or not… I really do try to stay open minded on modern gear… but what I need to see is results… from anyone. I’m not a fan of wide open golf courses. If the tee shot doesn’t ask me to do something specific regarding shot shape and trajectory and even distance placement, I lose interest quickly. My level of ball striking enjoys the challenge. I don’t mind going after one here and there as risk reward might offer up… but just going out and teeing the ball up 4 inches and swinging as hard as I can and letting the law of averages determine how many times my ball lands on or off a fairway is about as interesting to me as watching paint dry.

After thinking about Fuyrk’s tee shot on 16… I think he really wanted to curve it around the corner… but with the modern driver and plastic golf balls… the ball doesn’t want to curve much… so he just really tried to make sure he did… and he sure enough did. If he was playing persimmon and balata… I don’t think that swing happens. I understand the way he swings… and how he releases the club… and it’s not that hard to work a balata a bit right to left off a driver.

If the tour played courses set up like Olympic every week… I really believe over time you would see a change in both the gear used and the golf ball. The modern gear is not the right gear to negotiate a course like Olympic… or any course where accuracy is the premium demand.

This is Grand Prix vs Indy Car. This is driving an obstacle course vs driving on a fast oval track. Different game. I have no doubt that a great persimmon player could have won at Olympic last week. Strange, Faldo, Nicklaus, because the way the fairways were rolling out… a well struck low trajectory persimmon would run out 300 most of the time… and there was not a hole out there that would not be unplayable from 300 in the center. They could grow the rough up another 2 inches and it would not make much difference to a straight hitter. They don’t hit the ball into that stuff very often. Curtis Strange might miss one or two fairways a round tops… sometimes not miss any. He was that good in his prime. Straight.

When he so called “blew” the Masters… it was because a well struck 4 wood came up just a few feet short of clearing the creek on 13… and people talked about that shot for years. This year the winner ping ponged the golf ball into the Georgia Pines three times on the back nine and still won. That should not have happened… and I am not surprised he was quoted saying “this Olympic Club is too tough a course for me”. It was an accurate statement and I believe him. He is not anywhere good enough to compete on a real test of golf. If Augusta played like it used to… he could use that same quote there also… although his chances would be slightly better there I would agree.

The way Olympic was set up last week was similar to how most all tour events were set up in the past. There used to be thick rough at the LA Open… or at Colonial. The greens were much firmer and before every tour stop had TPC in front of it… they used to play a lot of narrow golf courses. Golf used to be about hitting it straight first… then you would see if you learn to control it with more power. The guys that just hit it long worked day jobs also. George Bayer was the Dustin Johnson of his day… but you didn’t see him winning majors or even many tour events. He sold a lot of nice drivers for MacGregor though. This idea that there were not big strong athletic players years ago is not correct.

ballBAYER2m.jpgBAYERdriveraaa.jpgboo.jpg

79

If you don’t spent at least an hour in the PGA mobile gym every morning they don’t consider you an athlete. Byron Nelson was a farmer that flung 100 lbs hay bails all day but he wouldn’t be considered an athlete today. Gary Player, one of the most vocal golfers about physical fitness doesn’t even get a mention as an athlete. Not even the fact that golfers way back then worked out and played other sports.

They want you to believe the new modern PGA pros are all long because they are super “athletes”. Not the fact that their drivers/balls have been techno-steroided up. That and the fact that todays’ 4 iron is really yester-years 2 iron. That’s why they only sell 4-PW sets now. As they say, no one can hit a 1-iron except God, and todays 3-Iron would be that 1-Iron that phrase was muttered about.

Don’t know why people seem to get a raging hard on about a 165 yard PW by the pros. What the hell do they have left to hit between their PW and SW they only hit 105? Oh, gap wedge and approach wedge. They should change the rules to make the club# actually be the actual loft of the club. Then maybe the weekend golfers might catch on and figure out why their 49 degree standard length p-wedge only goes 110 yards when the pro hits his 43 degree/1.5 inch over standard length PW goes 160.

A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. :smiley:

80

The lower trajectory shot is actually the short cut because it doesn’t have to travel nearly as far in the air compared to a higher arcing shot. If I am 120 and into the wind… and have nothing in front of the green… I will gladly take the short cut and pull a 5 iron with a 1/2 backswing and just chip run it up while everyone else is throwing a PW up into the wind and missing the green. I love playing against guys like that. Always wallet check before you play them!