BAD LIES & GOOD SHOTS
Will TPC Harding Park favour the big bombers? ... It’s DeChambeau’s first major since reinventing himself and game ... Who will having no fans help and hurt?
It’s finally here. Children have Christmas morning, and golf fans have the first major championship of the year.
On Thursday the PGA Championship that was supposed to be played three months ago will begin at TPC Harding Park in San Francisco. Like Christmas morning we can expect plenty to be revealed and lots of surprises, so stay in your jogging pants all day (novel idea, I know) and reserve your favourite spot on the couch.
One mystery to unwrap will be the golf course itself, and whether the cool weather, heavy air, and difficult rough will make Harding Park a bomber’s paradise.
At last year’s PGA Championship at Bethpage Black, won by Brooks Koepka, there was very little guesswork needed ahead of the tournament. The famously difficult New York public course was well known to everyone, from the golfers in the field to the local hackers in attendance who were quite certain they knew the course better than the players themselves. At Bethpage you needed to be long off the tee, and if you found the gnarly rough you better have had a wedge in your hand, or incredible swing speed plus a steep angle of attack if you wanted to reach the green. Plenty of players were eliminated from contention before the championship even started.
Whether it will be more of the same this week, when the 7,251yard par 70 Harding Park makes its major championship debut, is the million dollar question. Most signs point to yes. The pinched-in fairways of the Cypress-lined parkland golf course demand accuracy, the soon-to-be famous “marine layer” (count the number of times you hear that mentioned this week) brings a heaviness to the air and moisture to the turf, and the rough looks Bethpage-like in some places. “You’ve got to drive it well, I think that’s a big key for me,” last year’s runner-up Dustin Johnson said. “If I can drive it well this week, I feel like I’m going to have a really good week. The course is long. Rough is deep. It’s cold. Ball is not going very far.” Johnson doesn’t waste words, and he’s probably right. The hopes of players who can’t hit the ball off of the planet are likely planted in the inconsistency of the rough at Harding Park.
“It is quite patchy in places, so you can get some good lies but you can get some bad ones,” Open Champion
Shane Lowry said on Wednesday. “There is a bit of luck involved.”
The greens are firm which again will favour the longer players who are approaching them with short irons. Expect to see mostly drivers off the tee from everyone in the field.
“There’s probably only one or two par-4s where you’re not going to hit driver,” Rory McIlroy said. “Most of the time you’ve got driver in your hand off the tee and you are trying to get it down there as far as you can.”
So if your game is not length, but rather hitting fairways and greens, you need to cross your fingers for a full week of lucky lies in the rough and there could be hope. Maybe.
RELEASE THE KRAKEN
Another gift we will receive on Thursday morning is watching Bryson DeChambeau bring his new oversized swing, body, and attitude to a major for the first time.
He’s been the talk of the golf world since the PGA Tour restart with four top-10s including a win in six starts. His experiment in hacking the game of golf with mega-distance has been a success so far, but major championships are the final exam.
DeChambeau’s best finish in a major is a tie for 15th (expect to hear that frequently on the broadcast as well), and that result came in his first major start as a professional at the 2016 U.S. Open. Since then, his best finish is a T25 and he’s missed five of 11 cuts.
The surly scientist says he plans to approach the PGA Championship no differently than any other tournament since he’s packed on the muscle. It will be driver everywhere he can to try to gain every possible advantage from his insane distance.
Get your popcorn ready.
CHIP SHOTS
Who does having no fans in attendance help or hurt? The lack of major atmosphere could possibly hurt the game’s proven major winners such as
Tiger Woods and Rory because they are so used to being in contention at big events and having the crowd support would be part of the familiarity of the moment. It’s likely the opposite that could play a bigger role in the outcome this week though. The lack of fans will help younger or inexperienced players should they find themsleves battling for the trophy on Sunday. There’s no better year than 2020 for up-and-coming stars such as Collin Morikawa,
Matthew Wolff and Sungjae Im to win a major without feeling true major pressure ... Woods will have a new putter in the bag this week. There was some question whether he would make the switch, but after using the new putter for Wednesday’s practice round you can expect to see it in the bag. The prototype Scotty Cameron looks much the same as his legendary Cameron Newport 2 GSS that he won 14 of 15 majors with but has adjustable weights on the bottom ... No players or caddies tested positive for COVID19 this week.