Normally, people complain that the Open setup is too hard. Karrie Webb, who finished about a million strokes out of the lead at Interlachen (actually, 15), thinks that Mike Davis and crew set up the Open to be too simple. What?

Former world No.1 Webb believes the Interlachen course is playing far too easily for the biggest championship in women’s golf, and she lays the blame firmly with the United States Golf Association.

And with 19 players under par after the third round, and leader Stacy Lewis on nine-under 210, Webb made a valid point.

“I really don’t understand what the USGA have tried to achieve this week, because they’ve kept the greens soft all week,” said the two-time Open champion, who was 12 strokes from the lead.

Didn’t it rain?! That would hurt that a lot. Anyway, Webb complains that the course was so soft that it made ballstriking not as important as putting.

Webb believes that firm greens reward the best ball strikers, those who can control the distance they hit their approach shots, but that soft greens have made the Open more of a putting contest.

“It opens it up to people who don’t have great distance control and to me that’s what the US Open is about, good ball-striking.

“If you’re putting yourself in positions where you should be, you’re supposed to be at an advantage, but I don’t think it’s playing that way right now.”

Mike Davis came to his own defense on the allegations:

Mike Davis, the USGA official responsible for the course set-up, said the greens had been the same speed and firmness every day, including practice days.

“No disrespect to Karrie, but this is as consistent (a course set-up) as I’ve ever seen,” he said.

First of all, I love the “no disrespect” line. After watching Talladega Nights the other day, I am going to begin using that line to make putrid remarks about people. I’m a little off track, though.

The real point is whether or not the Open was too easy. 12 players finished under par this week. That is unusually high for any Open. Pine Needles had five finish under par last year. But that played to a par of 71.

Interlachen’s par was rigged by Davis and the USGA to play at an unheard of 73 with five par 5s. Let’s just say that Interlachen was instead set up to play at par 71 but kept the same layout. That would knock off 8 shots to total par. In that case, only In-Bee Park would have finished under par. The artificial par made scoring look better than it really was.

In-Bee did kind of prove Webb’s theory, though. If you look at my instant final round analysis, it shows that In-Bee was not very solid in the fairways and greens department. She won on putting, by finishing 2nd in that statistic. Among the top 14 putters this week, 8 of them finished sixth or better. Maybe she has a point.

But, if that was the key – and the Open was a putting contest – Webb should have fared much better than she did. She is T29 in putts per hole this season on the LPGA Tour. That’s in the top 25% of all players. She is also 122 in driving accuracy, which should not have hurt her if this was just a putting contest. Also, being 13th in greens in regulation for the year would lead you to believe that there is little correlation between her poor driving and hitting greens. She should not have had a problem in putting the ball in the correct position and subsequently making putts.

Too easy? Maybe. But, if so, Webb should have finished a whole lot better.

They keep getting in his way of scoring maximum points toward the Ryder Cup. So, he’s skipping Royal Birkdale and electing to play in Milwaukee instead.

AOL Fanhouse with the details via Golfweek:

Perry … confirmed that he will skip the British Open to play in the Greater Milwaukee Open in his attempt to make this year’s Ryder Cup in his home state of Kentucky.

“I’ve won Milwaukee, and I’ve top-10ed it there the last 12 years in a row and love that tournament,” said Perry, No. 6 in the U.S. Ryder Cup standings. “I’ll play the British next year.”

See my column for how well his strategy is working – because it is. Still, I don’t understand this one. The Milwaukee events run opposite to the Open Championship. That tournament earns on 0.5 Ryder Cup points per $1000 won. Each regular event has double that figure in points offered. The majors have 2 points per $1000 won. In effect, Perry is giving up 4 times the number of points possible for him at the Open to stay in a familiar setting.

The winner in Milwaukee will win about $720,000. He will get 360 points if he wins. I know he wouldn’t win the Open Championship, but his maximum potential there would be to win and take home over $1.5 million with the exchange rate. He could get 3000 points by winning the Open. This one just doesn’t seem to work mathematically speaking.

Besides, Helen Ross at pgatour.com has us pretty well convinced that Perry is already on the team.

Several weeks ago, Kenny Perry was the butt of many jokes in the media for his decision to skip playing the US Open at Torrey Pines because he did not want to play in a 36 hole qualifier and his personal distaste for the layout. After winning the Memorial tournament, Perry said he was not going to change his schedule and that he would continue his season motivated by his desire to make the Ryder Cup team one last time. At 48 years old, Perry would likely not have another opportunity to make a serious run at the team – much less at a course that he loves in Valhalla in his native Kentucky.

Despite remaining firm that Perry should have played the US Open as the second hottest golfer on the planet right now, he deserves kudos for remaining firm to his plan. With a final round performance aided by a sandy for eagle, Perry won for the second time this season at the Buick Open at Warwick Hills, Michigan. It is his second win in four starts.

In 18 starts this year, he has made all but one cut – his first start of the year at the Sony Open in Hawaii. Although he has two wins, he could have easily had three were it not for a freak bounce at TPC Sugarloaf in the AT&T Classic. Instead, he has a second place finish, a third at the Hope, and he finished sixth last week in Connecticut.

The good form certainly took a lot of hard work, practice, and is coming together at the right time. But, it is also not as much of a surprise as you might expect for a guy that is two years away from the Champions Tour. That is because Perry has made a conscious decision this season to schedule his year around events in which he has historically done well.

Take this week’s event, for example. In his career, he has won at Warwick Hills, and has finished in the top 15 on seven occasions. Last week’s host course – TPC River Highlands – has seen Kenny Perry finish in the top 15 in 7 of his last nine starts there. With track records like those, he can go into those events with much higher confidence that he will finish in the top 10 and earn significant Ryder Cup points.

Perry came into the week sitting on sixth in the Ryder Cup standings, which awards one point for every $1000 earned in official events except majors, where they are doubled. For the victory, Perry got $900,000 and will take 900 Ryder Cup points as well. That will propel him the fourth on the points list. It is critical to keep moving up the points list because only the top 8 in points are guaranteed a place on the team. Captain Paul Azinger revamped the selection criteria for these matches to place a greater emphasis on money won and performance in the majors. Given that Perry skipped the US Open and did not qualify for the Masters, he lost two opportunities to earn double points. Also, with eight automatic spots on the squad, there is still time for other players to unseat Perry’s current position. By winning twice (almost three times) now, even if that were to happen, it seems almost impossible that he will not make the team in one fashion or another.

The strategy paid off for Perry. It seemingly is a borrowed one, though. For years, PGA Tour officials, fans, and corporate sponsors have lamented about the reality of the Tiger Tour. Tiger Woods plays around 18 events per year in a regular season. The events that comprise that schedule do not change from one year to the next. The latest addition to that schedule was the Wachovia Championship at Quail Hollow. The schedule is set by Woods to allow him to play the majors, the Buick events (since he is sponsored by them), the World Golf Championships, the events that he serves as host, and a handful of other events in which he has an excellent track record. Woods only plays on courses that he likes and that suit his eye. He does this to prepare for majors, attain success consistently, and have a sense of order to his season.

Perry borrowed on this idea with a goal that is slightly less lofty than Woods’ grand slam grandeur, but he has employed it splendidly. In the end, he will make the Ryder Cup team and may very well be the anchor of the American squad.

I love it when a plan comes together.

golf instruction utilizing the most advanced instructional aid ever developed

Author: jistaf1
Keywords: golf lesson motion amazing aid best teaching
Added: June 29, 2008

Admittedly, NBC is not my top network for golf coverage. But, they also don’t do a bad job. They’re just not my favorite. This week, though, I thought they gave a real half-ass effort in the production of their coverage from Interlachen.

First, you can tell from the get go how important this event was not to NBC Sports. Dan Hicks, the usual golf anchor, was no where to be found. In fairness, though, he is anchoring NBC’s coverage of the Olympic trials this evening and they paid a lot of money to broadcast the Olympics. Mark Rolfing performed anchor duties. Rolfing is a good reporter and did a nice job, but has very little gravitas and certainly not a lot of experience in controlling a telecast from on camera. He did handle the duo of Dottie Pepper and Johnny Miller fairly well, though.

Speaking of the dual color commentator approach, I think that NBC may have been going for some Faldo-Zinger magic with pairing Miller and Pepper in the booth. On multiple occasions that I noticed, Pepper had to correct or just outright disagree with something Johnny Miller threw out on air. He seemed fairly lazy in his preparation and on camera looked like he was just collecting a paycheck. Either that or he was extremely uncomfortable with covering women’s golf. If you’re going to not have Dan Hicks, you may as well not have Johnny Miller either. Make Rolfing-Pepper the booth for LPGA coverage and I would be pleased.

Nice to see Jennifer Mills is still in the media world, but I think she struggled with interviews. Some of the questions that she asked and the flow of interviews with players just appeared awkward to me. Perhaps it is because it has been a while and she is normally in an anchor position (from her days at the Golf Channel). Contrast her interviews with the one that Gary Koch had with In-Bee Park after the win, and you’ll know what I mean.

Overall, I’d give NBC a mark of B- for their effort this week. It just seemed obvious throughout the whole presentation that this was a nonchalant effort just to fulfill contractual duties.

In-Bee Park became the youngest winner in the history of the US Women’s Open on Sunday at Interlachen in Minnesota, replacing Se Ri Pak as the owner of that distinction. It was an impressive performance for the week for Park, being the only player to post an under par round every day. In the end, she won by four shots over Helen Alfredsson. The overnight leaders, Stacy Lewis and Paula Creamer, faltered significantly and finished at -4 and and -3 respectively.

What did it for In-Bee, though, is not the usual US Open mantra of fairways and greens. Park was T28 in fairways hit for the week. She was T21 in greens in regulation. But, she was T2 in putting and that was critical to her momentum. Everytime Park faced a clutch par putt or an opportunity to score, she seemed to make it.

Her calm demeanor and prior experience in pressure-packed situations (having won the US Girls Junior previously) really carried her through. Perhaps even some naivety helped, too, as she did not know that she had such a huge lead until 16. Without the realization of the moment she was in, all she had to do was finish it off once she realized it.

In-Bee is another shred of proof that the movement that Se Ri Pak began 10 years ago has really come full circle. With Park’s victory and the fact that more Asian players made the cut than Americans, it can call into question the direction of the sport for Americans – and the direction that the LPGA Tour will take next.

me having a golf instruction

Author: jamesbond19932000
Keywords: golf
Added: June 29, 2008

I went over to PGATour.com today to check up on the Buick leaderboard. To my disgust, they had a video advertisement playing in their Flash highlight player. I wanted to stop it. But, I couldn’t because there was no stop button. That’s annoying. In the future, I’ll just go to The Golf Channel.

What do we know about Johnny Miller? He shot 63 to win the US Open at Oakmont. He choked away some other major opportunities.

We also know that he puts his foot in his mouth a lot in the NBC golf booth. It is possible that his schtick has grown old with the golf audience from what I am reading.

And he is an egoist. (Really, what golf commentator that hasn’t been doing the job for a legendary period of time would allow the Golf Channel to profile them for a half hour special?)

So why not rub some salt in the wound and post a piece interviewing him for the Reno Gazette-Journal? Before I do, though, I’d like to go on record as pleading with the media community to simply stop talking to the guy. He does provide endless material, but it is a cycle of perhaps four or five things. Until he starts saying new funny things, just re-print old interviews.

But, I will work with what I am given.

First, on ratings, Johnny presents a keen insight:

“To be honest, the tour is really going to be hurting,” Miller said Friday at the unveiling of Timilick Tahoe, a private course he co-designed along with John Harbottle. “You know, really hurting, a lot more than people know. It will go on. Nobody is bigger than the tour, but if anybody has ever come close to being as big as the tour, it’s Tiger. And a lot of these tournaments that thought they bought their way into getting Tiger to show up, they’re out of luck, aren’t they? The TV ratings are going to go down quite a bit.”

For the record, Tiger was only going to play about 10 more times this year. Pretty much every tournament not currently in the Tiger Tour knows what they’re getting.

Then, how about an unintentional joke?

“It seems like Vijay (Singh) is still a really good player, but maybe has had his best days,” Miller said. “Phil (Mickelson) I think still has got some great golf left in him, but he’s getting up there too. It’s interesting to see who’s it going to be. Is it going to be a European? Europeans are good.”

Vijay would tell you that Europeans – particularly the British – are lazy and happy to lose. By process of deduction, then, Phil must be the guy.

And Miller is ready with balloons and refreshments for everyone if Tiger winds up not beating Jack’s mark of 18 majors. Why? Because he … called it.

“In my book (”I Call the Shots,” published in 2005) I wrote that there’s a good chance that he wouldn’t beat Nicklaus’ record because who knows what his back would do, or his elbow, or, I didn’t say knee, but the guy creates a 185-mile-per-hour ball speed, and he’s got 132-mile-per-hour club speed and he’s got that violent left foot jump-back.”

Stop feeding the bears!

I don’t normally get into paparazzi stories, and I’m not going to quote this one on this blog, but a column on news.com.au gives some information about Greg Norman and his associates that, if validated, proves that he’s probably not someone you would want as your friend.