2018 British Open Championship at Carnoustie

[iacas]

1 hour ago, billchao said:

The USGA manipulated course maintenance to artificially create the "links-style" for the aforementioned U.S. Opens.

So has the R&A Bill. Had the USGA let Shinnecock totally up to nature it would have been an absolute train wreck.

You’re taking this too far man. Every organization manipulates it.

[Vinsk]

Pretty tired of seeing Tiger hit trouble after doing well. Look at Brooks...+5 and gets back...Tiger and his silly mistakes....damn it.

[Shindig]

That shot by Ian Poulter... it hops over a burn, dives into a bunker and jumps out.  He's on grass right in front of the green.  WTF, why can't that happen to someone likable? 

[billchao]

15 minutes ago, iacas said:

So has the R&A Bill. Had the USGA let Shinnecock totally up to nature it would have been an absolute train wreck.

You’re taking this too far man. Every organization manipulates it.

The Scottish Open played pretty much like this. What people are complaining about is just a product of the abnormal weather. Shinnecock was set up the way they set up every US Open. They cut the greens low, let the rough grow, and cut the fairways narrow to make it tougher, then the wind kicked up and it got away from them a bit.

My point is it's not like the R&A went out and said, let's let Carnoustie dry out to make it harder to play because par should be a hard score or whatever.

[Shindig]

Tiger in at even.  I'm optimistic about where he can be after next round.

[1badbadger]

On 7/2/2018 at 12:49 PM, jamo said:

They don't have golf stores or pro shops in Manchester?

 

On 7/2/2018 at 2:16 PM, colin007 said:

This. Why on earth withdraw?? Just go get clubs and play.

I didn't see this mentioned in this thread yet:

https://www.pgatour.com/news/2018/07/19/jhonattan-vegas-almost-misses-tee-time-mixed-bag-british-open-championship-carnoustie.html

[ChrisP]

According to weather forecast, those that go early tomorrow morning could get hit with bad weather. Then those in afternoon get a break as winds lighten and rain stops. We could have a Lombard-Van Rooken-Stone showdown this weekend. Wouldn’t count out Southgate and Steele though.

Edited July 19, 2018 by ChrisP

[Shindig]

22 minutes ago, ChrisP said:

According to weather forecast, those that go early tomorrow morning could get hit with bad weather. .

How early are the times that they have to worry?  Is it the 7am crowd that's going to be hurt?  Might the 10:20 tee time be okay?

[GolfLug]

22 minutes ago, ChrisP said:

According to weather forecast, those that go early tomorrow morning could get hit with bad weather. Then those in afternoon get a break as winds lighten and rain stops. We could have a Lombard-Van Rooken-Stone showdown this weekend. Wouldn’t count out Southgate and Steele though.

Not throwing shade and I am certain these are fine gents, but that sounds like a no name webdotcom leader board. 😴

Some bigger names drafting couple three shots behind though. 

[Big C]

2 hours ago, Shindig said:

He just hit an iron off the tee on a par-5, but I think it's shorter than the 540 yards you described.

He then missed the green on his second.

I don't think this answers your question now that I think about it.

Actually it does. My unconfirmed suspicion was that these guys are hardwired to take out driver/3w on every par 5- regardless of the layout. But I haven’t been able to watch much of the action today, so apparently that is not the case.

[ChrisP]

25 minutes ago, GolfLug said:

Not throwing shade and I am certain these are fine gents, but that sounds like a no name webdotcom leader board. 😴

Some bigger names drafting couple three shots behind though. 

Yeah, I know. I don't expect them to all stay up there, but I wouldn't be surprised if a couple of them do, and I do think Finau will be a serious factor over the weekend. I like Kisner, but his ball-striking has been very poor of late. I'm not sure he can do what he did with the putter for three more days.

Still sticking with my pre-tournament pick of Rahm, but was impressed with Rory's performance today in the toughest of conditions. 

If weather forecast holds up, Sunday could be a trainwreck. Every time I look at Sunday's forecast the wind speed goes up.

Edited July 19, 2018 by ChrisP

[colin007]

Ugh, not a good round. How many putts did he leave 3-4 feet short? I think I counted at least 4....

He also had some iffy strikes on the irons off the tee, looked a little steep on a few of them, and I caught one on replay that he hit kinda high and toe-ey....SMDH.

[iacas]

4 hours ago, billchao said:

The Scottish Open played pretty much like this. What people are complaining about is just a product of the abnormal weather. Shinnecock was set up the way they set up every US Open. They cut the greens low, let the rough grow, and cut the fairways narrow to make it tougher, then the wind kicked up and it got away from them a bit.

The fairways at Shinnecock were among the widest we've had in the U.S. Open of late. The fairways at Carnoustie are actually narrower than they were at Shinnecock.

Shinnecock wasn't bad. There were two bad pins. That was all. They over-reacted and watered a bit too much on Saturday, perhaps, but Carnoustie isn't just "nature" just like Shinnecock wasn't just "the USGA 'manufacturing' things."

4 hours ago, billchao said:

My point is it's not like the R&A went out and said, let's let Carnoustie dry out to make it harder to play because par should be a hard score or whatever.

But they kinda did… by choosing not to water it. They chose these conditions, just as the USGA chose the conditions they had (outside of each particular day's weather for both) at Shinnecock.

[billchao]

39 minutes ago, iacas said:

The fairways at Shinnecock were among the widest we've had in the U.S. Open of late. The fairways at Carnoustie are actually narrower than they were at Shinnecock.

Shinnecock wasn't bad. There were two bad pins. That was all. They over-reacted and watered a bit too much on Saturday, perhaps, but Carnoustie isn't just "nature" just like Shinnecock wasn't just "the USGA 'manufacturing' things."

I admit I'm overgeneralizing a bit, but for the most part the USGA is more active in how they set up a course which is why they tend to draw criticism when something is messed up.

39 minutes ago, iacas said:

But they kinda did… by choosing not to water it. They chose these conditions, just as the USGA chose the conditions they had (outside of each particular day's weather for both) at Shinnecock.

I think it's unrealistic for the R&A to water the entire course over a long enough period of time to seriously affect playing conditions, so it's a bit of a stretch to say they chose to let the course dry out. If anything you can say they chose to let the course go brown, since they probably could have watered enough to get the grass active, though I'm not certain that would be good for the turf in the long run.

They did water the greens but they're still pretty firm as evidenced by the amount of balls that rolled through them.

[Buckeyebowman]

43 minutes ago, iacas said:

 

But they kinda did… by choosing not to water it. They chose these conditions, just as the USGA chose the conditions they had (outside of each particular day's weather for both) at Shinnecock.

This will sound like a really stupid question, but I've never been there, so I don't know. Does Carnoustie have fairway watering? The reason I ask is the contrast between the baked, brown fairways and the lush, "slow" greens! I would find it hard to believe that they don't, being that they are in the Open Championship rota.

It just reminds me of a course where I used to play in a league that had water for tees and greens only. The first year we joined, a fellow member told us, in May, "Enjoy it now, guys! It'll never look this green again!" By this time of year and through August, it looked a lot like Carnoustie does now!

[iacas]

15 minutes ago, billchao said:

I admit I'm overgeneralizing a bit, but for the most part the USGA is more active in how they set up a course which is why they tend to draw criticism when something is messed up.

I agree with that.

15 minutes ago, billchao said:

I think it's unrealistic for the R&A to water the entire course over a long enough period of time to seriously affect playing conditions

They could. It'd still drain faster because it's sandy, but a little water goes a long way in changing the color of the grass. Not a lot of how it plays would be affected, but the actual colors would change quickly.

15 minutes ago, billchao said:

If anything you can say they chose to let the course go brown, since they probably could have watered enough to get the grass active, though I'm not certain that would be good for the turf in the long run.

It'd be fine for the turf. But yeah, it would mostly just be a change of color, because of all the sand.

2 minutes ago, Buckeyebowman said:

This will sound like a really stupid question, but I've never been there, so I don't know. Does Carnoustie have fairway watering?

Not traditional double-row sprinklers, but they can get water out there, yeah. Especially in the landing areas.

[ChrisP]

Pretty sure the R&A always lets mother nature dictate the fairways. 2003 St. George's, 2006 Hoylake and 2013 Muirfield come to mind as super dry summers where The Open was almost as brown as this one (although I don't think to this extent). Most summers are pretty wet so you see greener courses. This is the first time I've really seen them take care of the greens this well during a dry summer. Anyone remember 2013 Muirfield? They let those greens brown out, too, and you saw greens faster than you saw at Shinnecock at times. That was the infamous Ian Poulter clownmouth comment. I think that's one reason why the R&A wanted to take care of these greens so they didn't have a Muirfield redux.

Edited July 20, 2018 by ChrisP

[billchao]

20 minutes ago, iacas said:

They could. It'd still drain faster because it's sandy, but a little water goes a long way in changing the color of the grass. Not a lot of how it plays would be affected, but the actual colors would change quickly.

Right, I think you get what I'm saying. It would be a ridiculous waste of resources and a pointless exercise to water the fairways just to get them to be green, and maybe they roll 80 yards instead of 87? It wouldn't change the way the course is playing on a significant level.

If people don't like this tournament because the course is brown, I guess they can take issue with the R&A. I wouldn't agree with it, but that's their prerogative. If people don't like this tournament because the ground is too firm and there's too much roll, I'm not sure the R&A can be fairly criticized for that.

11 minutes ago, ChrisP said:

I think that's one reason why the R&A wanted to take care of these greens so they didn't have a Muirfield redux.

I feel like they definitely got this right, because if they didn't water the greens the course would absolutely be unplayable.