I'm off to see the show at Hazeltine on Saturday and Sunday. I'll be moving crisply and with far more golf sense than the horde I'm up against. Hazeltine has to rate close to an A+ for navigation by the fans compared to the thought of some truly modern course strewn all about God's creation with many of the practical routes only accessible inside the ropes. And it sure comes in handy to be 6'3'' tall.
I've been selective in attending golf tournaments:
1975 U.S. Open @ Medinah (Lou Graham)
1976 PGA @ Congressional (Dave Stockton)
1987 U.S. Open @ Olympic (Scott Simpson)
1990 U.S. Open @ Medinah (Hale Irwin)
1991 U.S. Open @ Hazeltine (Payne Stewart)
1998 U.S. Open @ Olympic (Lee Janzen)
1999 PGA @ Medinah (Tiger Woods)
Just one round at the PGAs. All four rounds, plus one or two practice rounds, plus the 1991 playoff, at the U.S. Open's. That's it for tour level golf. Eventually I'll kick back and check out a Phoenix Open or something like it. But for now I am anxiously holding four entries in the USGA Member's lottery for pairs of tickets to the 2003 U.S. Open at Olympia Fields in Chicago.
The Olympic Club is my clear favorite among the courses where I've seen championships contested, with tiny greens, and with breezes off the
ocean swirling through the brooding trees and sloping fairways that require only one fairway bunker. The indelible moments from my lifetime of golf are shadowing Tom Watson for 72 holes at Olympic as he inexplicably found his legendary form before Scott Simpson made like Jack Fleck, 69 holes at Arnie's side in 1975 as my boyhood idol lost by three when he could have just as easily won by three, and Nicklaus' ball chasing after me DEEP in the trees on the 70th hole from a double-cross duck hook (that he has frequently discussed with much disdain) while he was stalking the Grand Slam in 1975 and I was dashing to the next green.
During the first round at Hazeltine in 1991, I was standing on tree roots in a stand of trophy oaks near the seventh hole (along with at least 500 other wet fans) when a lightning bolt killed a young man under a willow tree about 700 yards away on No. 11. That storm was right on top of us and repeatedly made its presence felt. While the sound of thunder may travel a mile in five seconds, that bolt and at least two others were only fractions of a second away from our nervous group. Golf tours everywhere rapidly implemented new rules and policies for suspending play in hazardous weather (i.e., a player may not finish the hole, etc.) after that sobering day.
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The 84th PGA Championship at Hazeltine National
The golf traditions in Minnesota are rich and passionately held. The U.S. Open at Hazeltine in 1970 is synonymous with a fiasco. For a club that incorporates hosting major golf championships in its mission statement, the wounds were deep. When The Open returned in 1991, the refrain at every stage of the proceeding was "a very nice course and very fair". But the fine shot values and agreeable flow of the revamped course didn't produce a loveable classic either, any more than Firestone is a masterpiece (although I suspect Hazeltine rates a notch above that). And the
membership has not been sleeping at the helm while nurturing their course for this year's moment. I know they got it right by making a new tee on #15 the most significant change since 1991, as I even heard Linda Watson comment on how her husband (and others) were having fits finding the fairway there when even an iron was angled toward the out of bounds while diagonally crossing the prevailing wind. I suspect they made the hole fairer and tougher.
An astonishing 13 of the top 18 finishers in the 1991 U.S. Open won major championships during their careers (that includes any championships won after 1991), and 9 of the 18 won multiple majors. My random look at quite a few the U.S. Opens and the PGA's from that era found only one championship that was even comparable (in the 1994 PGA at Bellerive, 11 of the top 18 won a major during their career, but only 5 of the 18 won multiple majors). Unless Tiger makes it a contest for second place, I expect that come Sunday the 84th PGA will have a distinguished looking leaderboard.
Speaking of Tiger, he may have a major rebound in his crosshairs, but Stan is right that this is a couple steps removed from Tiger's best circa 2000, when he still had to stave off Bob May. When you win last week with as many holed putts and as much good fortune as Tiger has recognized, you can see where a few bad bounces might take him this week. And that pairing looks tough on everyone by Sunday, if not before then.
It's in the greens and bunkering that the course retains most of its Robert Trent Jones character. I've seen several references in the media that
said the rough was "manageable", and David Gossett felt some reasonable birdie opportunities could be found from the middle of some of the fairly small greens. Plenty of shots will get rinsed on #16, #17 and #8, plus #7, too, and probably #6. The Par 3s are strong, with #13 and #4 playing downwind, #8 exposed to the wind, and #17 probably deserves to be rated next in line behind # 16 as the signature hole. I'd say the first 8 holes offer the best scoring opportunities, while the last 3 holes could produce much disgust before a score gets posted. The visual targets and landing areas presented by the fairways look positively inviting compared to Olympic and will yield some opportunities to properly played golf. The players are repeating the refrain of "a very nice course and very fair" from 1991.
The wind howled on Thursday in 1970, the wind blew on Saturday in 1991, and it didn't exactly lay down the rest of the time. DTB had a fine link
to a column discussing this subject, but I've played about 150 rounds in the area since 1986 (including Chaska Town Course off Lake Hazeltine), and while columnist Patrick Reusse must remember the stagnant and still air hovering over his patio, Tom Lehman was absolutely correct to note that you can expect blustery conditions on the golf courses dotted along the lakes and across the praries of the Twin Cities area. The forecast is not to the contrary. I'm not suggesting that you need to be a shotmaking specialist in the wind to get it done, but scores should be affected.
I have a friend that carries a 7 handicap at exclusive Woodhill who has been marshalling on the Par 3 13th hole for four hours each on Monday and Tuesday. I called him and asked the questions, and he supplied his answers: "the rough is long and the ball is sitting down . . . he hasn't heard any buzz about any particular golfer or the field as a whole giving the course better than it was giving back . . . they are struggling to hit the green on #13, and it was a bitch in 1991, too . . . Mickelson hit a couple of really nice shots . . . Nick Price had David Ledbetter with him on Tuesday and the impression was that things could have been going a whole lot better."
The PGA is certainly not the USGA when it comes to setting up courses for their signature championship, but the gap is closing. With an assist from the Hazeltine membership.
Three players (Jacklin, Stewart and Simpson) have bettered 285. I didn't notice anyone that came close to having 3 rounds in the 60s.
Going about 8 under par on those Par 5s and 6 under on the rest of the course? That seems off the charts to me.
I expect a fair but stern test.
That's as good as I've got to give.
Two Units: Winning Score Over 274.5 @ Olympic
GL
lostinamerica
