DIABOLICAL DYE
The late course architect Pete Dye isn’t known, perhaps unfairly, for his player friendly designed golf courses.
Dye is most famous for his tournament venues such as TPC Sawgrass and Harbor Town that have so often brought the game’s best to their knees. And the Ocean Course at Kiawah Island only enhances that reputation.
Making its first significant appearance as host of the 1991 Ryder Cup famously won by the United States when Bernhard Langer missed a short putt, the South Carolina layout is long, covered with bunkers and sandy wasteland and almost constantly affected by winds off the Atlantic Ocean.
Ten of the holes lie next to the Atlantic, and at wife and design partner Alice’s suggestion, Dye raised many of the holes to sit above the natural dunes, serving to further increase the effect Mother Nature has on play at the Ocean Course.
Bearing its teeth during the second round of the 2012 PGA Championship, 35 mph gusts of wind and rain combined to produce a scoring average of 78.11 on the day and only two rounds in the 60s from the entire field.
Beyond the ever present threat of wind, the par-72, that has been previously named the toughest course in America by a local publication, will be stretched to its limits to measure nearly 8,000 yards for the PGA Championship. Its sloping fairways and greens adding to the test that is the Ocean Course.
Set to play a pivotal role over the course of the week is the closing trio of holes that can offer birdie opportunities and deliver round crushing bogies or worse.
The nearly 600-yard par-5 16th when played downwind could be the site of many a birdie and even the occasional eagle for the longer hitters, before the penultimate hole tests players’ nerves.
Measuring 221 yards from the back tees, the par-3 has water up the entire right side, and those competitors able to play it in even par over four days will have done admirably.
The second hardest hole on the course concludes the round in the form of a 439-yard par-4 with sand flanking either side of the winding fairway.
Considered the best par-4 on the course by Dye himself, the 18th is sure to create drama on Sunday if the race is close between two or more players.
just not part of my psyche or anyone’s psyche out here.
“I think that’s the di erence between people that make it to the elite level and the people that don’t, because they don’t think that way. I certainly believe that my best days are ahead of me, and I’m working hard to make sure that they are.”
The hard work being done, particularly given his comments regarding the error of chasing distance, won’t be a case of significantly reinventing the wheel for McIlroy. Although in late March, The Telegraph’s golf correspondent James Corrigan reported Rory had engaged legendary swing coach, Peter Cowen, to help his game, in part due to his long-time coach travelling infrequently to the United States from Northern Ireland.
Previously tinkering with putter varieties and gurus aside, Rory, unlike Woods the man he was so often compared to in his early days on Tour, had maintained one coach, Michael Bannon, his entire life, and as a result his fluid and slightly unique swing have remained almost unchanged despite his improved fitness and a number of injuries over the journey.
So too has he ignored calls from the peanut gallery to employ the services of a “professional caddie” in place of his best friend Harry Diamond, who from the outside looking in has done an admirable job since his boss and fellow Hollywood Golf Club junior parted ways with long-time looper J.P. Fitzgerald in 2016.
McIlroy’s decision to seek out Cowen – whom he has worked with before when an amateur in the Irish National Team and has been involved with Henrik Stenson and Brooks Koepka among others – a slight change in direction when considering media questions about potential changes alluded to following a disappointing Sunday at Bay Hill were quickly shut down by McIlroy.
“I certainly didn’t mean like a change of personnel per se. I think more a change in philosophy or maybe what I’m trying to work on, maybe going in a slightly di erent direction,” McIlroy said the following week. “Not so much in terms of – swing-wise I think there’s some things that I’m working on that haven’t quite bedded in or I’m struggling to grasp what I’m trying to do, so that’s sort of what I meant, talking about going in a di erent direction. Just sort of maybe trying something di erent or thinking about another way to do it, I guess.”
If there is an area that McIlroy could stand to approach di erently, and perhaps more like his younger self, it is his wedge play, particularly upon returning to Kiawah Island if the course is to play anything like it did in 2012. And Cowen is renowned for his work in this area.
Rain and wind were a constant at Kiawah last time the major many consider to be the fourth of four visited the island in South Carolina, which meant despite its seaside location and design emulating the links land of United Kingdom and Ireland in parts the almost entirely paspalum surfaces required high, soft wedges rather than running approaches.
McIlroy, as a member of Nicklaus’ Bears Club in Florida which also has paspalum, is very familiar with the surface and despite being raised in the windy and often wet Northern Ireland has long been considered better suited to the American style of “target golf ”.
However, his long driving leaving short distances into the greens does little for his scores when considering his statistics based on proximity to the hole from 50-150 yards when playing from the fairway.
At the time of going to press, Rory ranked 165th from 125-150 yards on the PGA Tour, his worst since 2017 when he went winless for the year, ranking 186th in the same category.
McIlroy’s other “poor” year by his standards, 2013 when he struggled to adapt to his new Nike equipment and the Australian Open his lone win, seeing him rank 153rd.
Similarly, McIlroy’s ranking in the 50-125 yard category sits at 128th and was 129th in 2013.
In contrast, in 2012, McIlroy ranked 5th from 125-150 yards and 49th from 50-125 yards.
Of course, there is no such thing as a complete golfer, yet McIlroy has shown adeptness in the past for this area of the game. And his results in his best years compared with his worst clearly support the somewhat widely held theory that wedge and short iron play is the key to his game. And perhaps more importantly for McIlroy, winning majors.
His newfound speed is unlikely to assist in gaining greater control over his wedge distances and accuracy. Going back and watching his own highlights from 2012 combined with Cowen’s influence might do the trick however, with McIlroy’s wedge play one of the standouts of his performance last time around the Ocean Course.
Approaches hit close and stellar recovery play were features of McIlroy’s win and given Kiawah’s reputation as the toughest resort course in America and the PGA of America’s recent want to transform its biggest event into a U.S Open type slug fest, will likely need to be again if Rory is to add a third PGA Championship title.
McIlroy need look no further than a man likely to be the favourite at Kiawah Island, South Carolina native and World No.1 Dustin Johnson.
Much has been made of Johnson’s commitment to practicing and dialing in of his wedges with the assistance of Trackman in the past few years, which has seen his best golf and consistency improve, and join Rory in the conversation as the player when on their game is the best male golfer in the world.
Despite being a di erent golfer and person than he was in 2012, if Rory is to tame Dye’s tough test that first claimed attention when occasionally making the best players in the world look second rate during the 1991 Ryder Cup dubbed the ‘War by the shore’, he will need to channel some of that 23-year-old Rory.
Even his slightly indi erent form in the leadup to that year’s final major – missed cut at The Players and questions surrounding his place as second favourite behind Tiger Woods before taking the tournament by the scru of the neck on the weekend – is a potential inspiration, given his current play.
One can only hope he does, as looking back and watching that triumph it is hard to argue that golf at the top level isn’t better when McIlroy is striding the fairways of major championships in contention with the trademark bounce in his step that tells the other players in the field they are in for a fight.
Perhaps the inexplicable confidence he felt upon arriving last time at the same venue might even return and herald the end of a major drought of more than six years and the addition of more of the game’s biggest titles to a resume, although impressive, is approaching a slightly disappointing one considering McIlroy’s talent.
“I turned up here on Monday. I went up to my locker. My locker was right by the window overlooking the putting green and overlooking the beach and the ocean. I was think to myself, ‘I just have a good feeling about this week’,” he said in 2012. “And I said it to J.P. and I said it to my dad and I said it to my whole team; something about this just feels right.
“It’s funny how things work out. But yeah, I felt it from the start of the week that it could be special.”
And one thing is certain, McIlroy will be doing everything in his power to ensure that special feeling returns judging by his final comments before leaving TPC Sawgrass on Friday back in March.
“I want to get on the range right away and try to get through this. I’m pretty determined to get back to where I know I can be.”