The 89th PGA: Getting Back to Basics

Other than the fact that Tiger Woods removed any doubt about his place in the hierarchy of golf, is there anything we can learn from the PGA Championship at Southern Hills? I think so, if you’re willing to keep an open mind and scratch below the surface, that is. Pick your favored quote – “things aren’t always as they seem,” or “the more things change, the more they stay the same.” Either way, the season’s final major reinforced some of the lasting truths about golf, and don’t let some golf prophet of doom tell you otherwise.

Tiger Woods outlasted the field in Tulsa last week, following the Nicklaus recipe to the letter. He wasn’t perfect, but was never in serious trouble, scored acceptably during the portion of the week when he wasn’t playing his best, and made hay when the sun was shining. He won comfortably, but didn’t lap the field. He put on his usual impressive display of power and accuracy, but for the most part didn’t take the course apart with Daly-esque drives 50 yards short of the greens. There were no unearthly recoveries from the bermuda rough or fairway bunkers, no Arnold Palmer charges with a white-hot putter. No circus chip-ins. No trash talk from his competitors, and no dramatic melt-downs from other big-name players. Even the second round 63 was somewhat under the radar in terms of fireworks …the shots were so precise, so on-target, anything other than a 62 or 63 would have been shocking. It was simply a no-doubt-about-it win over the field by hitting fairways, hitting greens, and making his share of putts.

Boring? I guess it will never be boring when Tiger wins, given his apparent destiny as the man to break all of golf’s records. But you must admit, there wasn’t really a big story here. Unless if, when you think about it, this is the story.

If you are anything other than a casual observer of golf, you cannot have been paying attention at all over the last three or four years and not have heard complaints about the changing nature of the professional game. Specifically, that modern golfers with modern equipment hit the ball too far and too straight, changing the game from a contest of accuracy and artistry to an exposition of brio and brawn. The very man Tiger is chasing in the record books has said as much, in many ways and many times, adding that the distance revolution of the 21st century is causing a crisis of sorts in golf architecture, rendering the Rembrandts and Renoirs of our golf course gallery obsolete.

In my mind there is nothing about the 89th PGA that supports any of this drivel.

Tiger Woods is a long hitter, of course, and he won. But several short to medium-length hitters were in the hunt until the very end. And Tiger won not by hitting sand wedges into every hole, but often laying up with irons from the tees and electing to hit middle irons from 200 or more yards for approach shots.

John Daly bombed the ball around the course with good success, especially on Thursday, probably striking it as well as he had in years. Certainly a power player, on his game, on a short course should be a formula for success for the “bomb and gouge” philosophy. But his formula was ultimately unsuccessful, and on many holes his aiming for landing areas never intended as such appeared to be the golf equivalent of trying to fit the square peg into the round hole. Any benefit he gained with the short approaches was given back on the inevitable misses in the bermuda rough. In short, he tried to overpower Perry Maxwell’s gem, but the old girl was having none of it.

As for the golf course being “obsolete,” I don’t know how anyone could suggest this with a straight face. The course set up was lauded as perhaps the most fair of the season, and length was very modest by today’s standards, yet only five men in a field of 140 or so managed to break par. Scoring conditions were as favorable as they’ve been in many years for a major championship, too, with the oppressive heat requiring watering of the greens, making them unusually receptive for a major championship.

The skeptical reader may be thinking “but JP, you dope, Tiger hit an 8-iron on a 200-yard approach shot into number one Sunday, and he reached a 635-yard par five in two shots. How can you say the game hasn’t changed?” You have a point about the 635 yard hole, and nobody can deny they hit it far today. But let’s take a closer look at that “201-yard 8-iron.”

Tiger laid up off the tee on that hole, playing for position. Yes, he had 201 yards to a back pin placement on a large green. His 8-iron approach landed on the front of the green, and he struck it perfectly. Obviously, he was not intending to hit a 200-yard 8-iron. The CBS crew pointed out that Tiger had been practicing 40- and 50-foot putts all morning on the practice green, so evidently his strategy was to lay up there. That approach was slightly downhill and slightly downwind.

And another thing… lost in the repetitive “club-and-distance” commentary we get from today’s on-course announcers is the fact that an 8-iron is not an 8-iron is not an 8-iron. Tiger’s 8-iron might not be much different from mine (with the exception of the dime-sized hole worn in the sweet spot on his club), but for sure, the club stamped “8” in Tiger’s bag is not your father’s 8-iron. In fact, in terms of loft, lie, and length, it’s likely a lot closer to the club Nicklaus had stamped “6” in his bag when he won at Oakmont. Tiger’s lofts are rumored to be a bit weaker than other Tour pros, but you get the point. Yes, along with all that technology we’re getting with modern equipment, there’s some good old salesmanship in there, too. Lofts and club lengths have been creeping ever-stronger for about three decades now.

So, if we make appropriate adjustments for the nature of the shot, the fact that he was intentionally playing well short of pin high, and the changing nature of standard club specs, Tiger’s “201-yard 8-iron” is really more like a “185-yard 6½-iron.” Still a mighty swipe, but not exactly a symptom of a terminal disease for strategic golf.

Next time you hear something sensational about a mammoth drive or iron shot, be sure to have your B.S. meter turned on. While we are perhaps in the midst of the greatest technological revolution in golf, we are also bombarded, from all sorts of people “reporting” on golf, by an unending array of exaggerations, hyperbole, and sometimes outright nonsense.

And remember, Tiger also hit a 157-yard 9 iron into the tenth hole, so that should be enough to tell you that simple yardage and the club data doesn’t tell the entire story of the shot.

When you look at the way Tiger navigated his way around, you could argue he was playing the course from the places Maxwell had actually intended. Yes, he hit 2- and 4-irons where they hit drivers and brassies 60 years ago, but the point is that the winner played the course in keeping with the designer’s intent. The numbers on the clubs were different, but the results really weren’t. Which all makes perfect sense, and should make any traditionalist happy.

And while I am far from a traditionalist, this year’s PGA brought a smile to my face. To me, there is the suggestion that we are in close to a perfect world today with golf technology. It’s there to help those who need it most, but it has by no means destroyed the value of precision, strategic golf. Tiger Woods showed all of us, or at least those of us who have kept our eyes open, that the supremacy of bomb and gouge golf – and the fears of all those wailing about it – are not yet proven.

Now if we could just do something about those funky J. Lindberg threads out there.

Photo Credits: © SI.