Cam Cole: Golf legend Gary Player tees off on 'unpleasant' Chambers Bay
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niversity Park, Wash - Gary Player’s Saturday morning Golf Channel rant about the site of this year’s U.S. Open ranks among the all-time takedowns of a major championship venue.
The 80-year-old Black Knight was unsparing of the architect, Robert Trent Jones Jr., the USGA for choosing Chambers Bay ("The worst golf course I might've ever seen in my 63 years as a pro golfer"), and the course’s unsuitability both for players and spectators ("This has been the most unpleasant golf tournament I’ve seen in my life.")
Other than that, he quite likes it.
FOR THE DEFENCE: Brad Fritsch’s 72 in Saturday’s third round of the U.S. Open was no work of art, but it was another gritty fight back from a poor start--- three over par on the front, one under on the back --- and left him still relatively content with Chambers Bay the golf course.
“There’s guys under par, there’s guys making putts. It’s not that bad, it’s just a study in patience,” said the 37-year-old from Ottawa, who is six-over-par for three trips around the much-maligned links. “If I had hit a couple of different clubs off tees this week I’d be around one or two over par and I’d be right in there, so I can’t say a bad word about it --- other than the greens are very difficult to see when you hit good putts and they don’t go in, and sometimes they don’t have a chance to go in.”
As for Player’s rant, he heard about it on Twitter.
“He’s not playing so it doesn’t matter.”
JOIN THE CHORUS: Player’s critique may have been the loudest, but it is hard to find anyone singing Chambers Bay’s praises; Player even said he’d love to have FOX’s TV commentators and analysts hooked up to lie detectors to see if they were being honest on-air.
Oddly enough --- or perhaps not so oddly, considering it’s the national championship of the U.S. --- many of the complaints came from Europeans, including Lee Westwood, Henrik Stenson, Sergio Garcia, and Justin Rose, all of whom made the cut.
Westwood, interviewed by Sky Sports, was most critical of the USGA’s decision to alternate No. 1 and 18 as par-fours and par-fives, and move tee boxes, notably on No. 15, to places that the pros had never been shown. Garcia and Stenson hate the greens. Rose thinks there are serious design flaws.
Reaction to Westwood’s comments led him to tweet: “I love how people criticise the pros for saying what they think. We should all just stand there and dribble out the PC BS.”
EVEN RORY …: Reminded of Stenson’s Friday comment that the greens were “like putting on broccoli,” Rory McIlroy quipped: “I don't think they're as green as broccoli. I think they're more like cauliflower.” This was after he shot even-par 70 Saturday for a four-over total.
“Like, they are what they are, everyone has to putt on them. It's all mental. Some guys embrace it more than others, and that's really the way it is. It is disappointing that they're not in a bit better shape. But the newer greens like 7 and 13, they're perfect. They're just one grass, fescue, and the ball rolls really well on those. But it's just the ones where the poa has sort of crept in and the two grasses grow at different speeds and that's what gives it the bumpiness.”
THE HARDY BOY: Nick Hardy, the 19-year-old amateur from the U of Illinois whose bogey at the final hole late Friday evening moved the cut line to five-over-par, letting 15 players into the weekend’s play, was probably offered a few gifts by the pros who will collect paycheques thanks to his largesse.
Some others were probably hoping their suffering was over, and he prolonged it.
Which led to this conversation after his Saturday round:
Q. What are the NCAA rules in terms of gifts those guys can give you?
“I turned it down this morning.”
Q. What sort of things did they --
“They were just goofing off. They were joking around with me, just saying I'll buy you dinner. I'm like, no, that's against NCAA rules.”
Q. Walmart gift card? Savings bond?
“I can't accept any of that. It was fun.”
Q. Was anybody ready to go home, like, ‘Come on man?’
“No.”
TAKE THAT AS A NO: Asked if the quality of a leaderboard at a major reflects the quality of the course it is played on, 2003 champ Jim Furyk (73 Saturday) wasn’t buying it.
“I think quotes like that --- if Tiger wins when he's in his prime, then it's a reflection of a great course; and if a guy that's ranked 150th in the world wins, it's not --- it’s a real slap in the face to a guy that might not be ranked that well but had a good week and played well.”
ONE HOLE, TWO PARS: After all the grousing about the USGA playing the 18th as a (good) par-five on Day 1 and a (bad) par-four on Day 2, things returned to normal Saturday.
“It’s a better par-5 than a par-4. I’m assuming it’s going to be a par-4 tomorrow,” said Fritsch. “You know what, though, there’s so many U.S. Opens where 18 is just the biggest you-know-what of a hole, I think of Oakmont, think of Winged Foot, I mean those are hard, hard holes.
“And when this is a par-4 it’s really hard, you’ve just got to deal with it. I know guys who ripped driver yesterday and had 8-irons in, so, that’s not too hard. Just sometimes an unlucky bounce will do you in. I’m glad we’re probably only going to have to play it as a four two of the four (days).” |
發表於 2015-6-21 06:52
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