NO ISLAND RETREAT
Three Canadians take on a beast of a course at this week's PGA Championship ... The return of Rory ... Happy homecoming for world No. 1 Johnson
The saying what you don't know can't hurt you is going to be put to quite the test this week.
The PGA Championship arrives at the Ocean Course on Kiawah island for the first time since 2012, and for many of the world's best golfers it will be their first look at Pete Dye's diabolical seaside masterpiece in South Carolina.
Defending champion Collin Morikawa was just 15 years old when Rory McIlroy romped the field at Kiawah by a record eight strokes to win his second of four major championships. The 24-yearold Morikawa paid a visit last month and found out why
Golf Digest magazine ranked the Ocean Course toughest in America. Professional golf's forever war against distance has been ratcheted up another notch for the PGA Championship with the par 72 course set to play 7,876 yards, surpassing the 2017 U.S. Open at Erin Hills as longest ever for a major championship.
“I was hitting a bunch of 6-, 5-, 4-irons into greens, even had a couple 5-woods. Yeah, you really can't get lazy on any of these shots,” Morikawa said after playing the course for the first time. “You can't take anything for granted because it'll bite you in the butt for sure.”
With 10 holes on the Atlantic ocean, wind was always going to be an issue and players found that out quickly at the 1991 Ryder Cup, which was played shortly after course designers Pete and Alice Dye put the finishing touches on the course.
“During The Ryder Cup, the wind was extremely heavy,” said Roger Warren, president of Kiawah Island Golf Resort and past president of the PGA of America. “So the interesting thing was, it was the perfect golf course for a match-play event because you didn't have to keep score. All you had to do was score on each hole, and win or lose.”
This week, however, players will indeed be asked to keep score, and with unpredictable wind, small greens, waste bunkers everywhere, and a finishing stretch that packs four of the toughest holes over the final six, there's a lot of work to do to prepare for Thursday's opening round.
“It would take me actually a little longer on this course because it's so unique on the second shots, not just the tee shots but the approach shots on where you have to hit it, where you have to miss it,” Morikawa said. “Because there's some spots where you could easily miss it and there's some spots where you definitely don't want to be.”
After the year we've just had, every golfer in Canada has been daydreaming about going on that next great golf trip with friends. For two of Canada's best golfers that's what this week could feel like, if it wasn't a work trip for Corey Conners and Mackenzie Hughes, who both travelled to Kiawah Island on Sunday.
“I'm going with my wife Malory,” Conners told Postmedia. “We are actually going to stay with Mac Hughes and his wife and family so that will be nice. We have a house rented near the golf course.”
As nice as a trip with friends and family sounds to most Canadians at the moment, Conners and Hughes will be busy trying to learn a golf course that neither player has played.
“I've never been there,” he said. “My only experience is remembering Rory dominating in 2012 and just the other night they had a special highlighting his final round and watching that was really my first time seeing the golf course. I've never played it and don't really know too much about it, but I know it's a Pete Dye and it's long.”
Conners said one thing that he noticed while watching a replay of the 2012 PGA Championship was the visual similarities between the Ocean Course and another Pete Dye course, his home course in Jupiter, Fla., The Dye Preserve.
If possible, Hughes has even less of an idea what to expect this week.
“I've never been there, never even really seen it,” Hughes told Postmedia. “I looked at a few pictures online so that's my only experience with it. I didn't even watch in 2012. It will be a new experience for me and I'm looking forward to it. I've had lots of new experiences with golf courses over the last year or so, so it will be no different.”
It's been a very good year professionally for both Conners and Hughes who enter the week as Canada's top ranked golfers. Conners recently reached 37th in the world, the highest any Canadian has been ranked since Graham DeLaet in 2014.
Adam Hadwin is the third Canadian in the field, and still looking to kickstart his season. Hadwin has recently fallen out of the top 100 in the world after cracking the top 50 at the end of 2019.
It will be the sixth consecutive major championship start for the 29-year-old Conners, who has four top-10s in his past eight PGA Tour starts, including a tie for eighth at the Masters. The Listowel, Ont., native has solidified his position as one of the best ball-strikers on tour, ranking eighth in strokes gained from tee-to-green; and recently drove the point home making two hole-inones in a month. The first ace came during the third round of the Masters, and the second was last week at Quail Hollow during the final round of the Wells
Fargo Championship. He has made a total of 11 holein-ones.
Conners has plenty of confidence heading to the year's second major and has continued to work hard on his improved putting, which is positive in strokes-gained this season for the first time in his career. Conners is looking forward to the challenge of the Ocean Course, even the famously difficult wind.
“I feel like I can separate myself even more in the wind, so I'm definitely not afraid to play in the wind because I know my ballstriking holds up really well.”
None of the three Canadians in the PGA Championship field played this past week at the AT&T Byron Nelson in Texas. Hughes is coming off two missed cuts with his best recent result at the WGC Match Play where he made it out of his group before losing to Sergio Garcia in the first knockout round. Hughes is trying to recapture the form he had last season when he went on a run during the PGA Tour playoffs, making it to the Tour Championship for the first time in his career.
The Dundas, Ont., native continues to work on keeping a positive mental attitude on the course, which is something he has struggled with over his career but has a better handle on now as a 30-year-old.
“Having kids and being a parent I kind of catch myself sooner when I know I'm not handling things properly or thinking the right way,” Hughes said. “I'm able to pick up on those things faster and try to reverse them. It's a hard game to have a handle on all the time. At the time you think you're broken and then you put it together and realize that it was pretty much the same but a putt fell here and there and you were a tiny bit more positive and things started going in the right direction. My best golf has been when I have a good attitude and that makes a big difference.”
Conners, Hughes, and Hadwin are all looking for their second PGA Tour win and Conners and Hughes are both just a month removed from playing their way into the mix on the weekend at the Masters. Conners hasn't paid much attention to the accolades his game has garnered during television broadcasts recently but said that it's nice to be recognized, although he said his focus is simply to continue getting the ball in the hole faster today than yesterday.
“I have a belief in myself that I'm one day going to win a major,” Conners said. “That's a boost going into the week. You can't force yourself to win but I'm feeling more and more comfortable and feel my game is solid and well suited to the difficult golf courses we play in major championships.”
Not everyone will be surprised by what they find at the Ocean Course this week.
World No. 1 Dustin Johnson is a South Carolina native and no stranger to the PGA Championship venue.
“I've played Kiawah Island quite a few times, I really like the golf course,”
Johnson said. “It's very challenging, obviously, depending on the wind, which can really pick up out there . ... It's always great to have such a big golf tournament in your home state and get a lot of fans to come out and watch. You know, family, friends, they are all close by. It's not very far from where I grew up.”
Johnson withdrew from last week's Byron Nelson before teeing up, citing pain in his surgically-repaired left knee, but is expected to play this week. Two-time PGA Champion Brooks Koepka will also give his injured knee a go. Koepka missed the cut last week in Texas — his first start since the Masters — and was still unable to squat to read putts.
McIlroy has turned his game around at precisely the right time, getting back into the winner's circle this month for the first time in a year-and-a-half.
“I'll go up there and try to do my homework and re-familiarize myself with the layout a little bit,” McIlroy said of Kiawah after winning at Quail Hollow. “It's certainly great timing. This is obviously a huge confidence boost going in there knowing that my game is closer than it has been.”
A rejuvenated McIlroy to go along with a rejuvenated Jordan Spieth is a shot in the arm for golf. Speaking of shots in the arm, fans are back and sure to make a difference. Much like the past two weeks on the PGA Tour, there will be a limited number of fans allowed at the Ocean Course but enough to bring back the atmosphere and added pressure that has been missing at golf's biggest events. In case the challenge of Kiawah Island wasn't enough.