Is the PGA Championship a major joke?
I have praised the R&A for not trying to "trick up" the British Open courses, but just letting nature take care of the conditions. This weekend, I have tried my best to defend Medinah C.C. from the intense criticism it has elicited as being just "too easy." ESPN has basically "mocked" the easiness of Medinah in a parody article. I've talked to a number of people, and they all say the same thing: the tournament this year is not really a major, it's more like the John Deere Classic -- won this year by John Senden with a final total of 18-under par. That appears to be the same final score where the PGA Championship winner is heading. Even Tiger Woods said that the low scores and conditions on the golf course at Medinah made it feel like not a major.
I've done my best to defend the PGA. Even though Medinah was trumped up to be the longest course in major history, the rains softened the greens so much that the players were having a field day yesterday. Blame it on the rain, I said. But, today, I've given up defending the PGA. The rough is playing way too easy, the pin placements too receptive, and the course is giving up more birdies than a mother hen in heat. I'm done defending the PGA.
6 Comments:
A bunch of comments:
You can't prepare for the weather. Rain + no wind makes any course easier, especially when the best players are playing and peaking. If this same set of players were at the John Deere, the score would be much lower than -18.
I would rather watch this than the debacle that the US Open or the Masters has become. The Masters is now a grinding bore with little chance of the type of late charges that exemplified the Nicklaus era, and the US Open is a boring stress-fest where everyone cranks along in misery. Ugh.
How much longer do you want the rough? How much more narrow do you want the fairways? The players are so strong that the rough doesn't matter. I think people forget that as supers adapt golf courses to better players, the players adapt to those changes. Some viewers love the sadism of suffering pros, but I'm not one of them. I want skill to win, not luck. If that skill creates low scores, so be it.
There is such a fine balance between a test and a debacle, and the effect of the weather on a course is larger than the difference between a perfect Major setup and a Winged Foot Massacre.
embarrassing for the PGA. what a total joke. the course rolled over like a baby.
Surely it's how the field responds to the pressure, and not the winning score, that defines a tournament. And the leaderboard sure looks like a major: the top 20 contains 9 major champions with 22 major wins between them. The top 10 have all won multiple times on tour, there's the mix of experience (Woods, Weir etc) and wannabes (Garcia, Scott and Donald) that gives major tournaments flavour. All in all, seems very much like a major to me...
They should never hold a major at Medinah again. And they should make the TPC a major and "de-major" the PGA. This was pretty ridiculous.
I have this opinion about tournaments in general, not just the majors, but I think we're really losing something by continuing to lengthen the courses and phasing out the short, straight hitters from the strong bombers. I personally would rather see tighter courses where there is more risk-reward to bombing it.
Also, I am curious about Jack's idea of furrowing the bunkers, and wonder if tournaments should do that. Harvey Penick made the same comment twenty years ago.
I was at Medinah on Sunday and I think calling it easy might be an overstatement. There was significant rough and the course is pretty tight in some places. The biggest disadvantage for Medinah is that unexpected rain and overcast conditions kept the course from drying out and speeding up the greens and fairways. There isnt a lot of undulation in the greens there and when tour players can putt boldly from 20-plus feet then scores will go low. That said, only one player went to -18. The rest of the field was 5 strokes back at a total that reflects how conditions were. There were only a couple of players that took full advantage of the conditions on Sunday, and none more so than Tiger. He was in such control of his game Sunday that when he did hit it offline he made some tremendous recovery shots to make par, or even birdie after driving into the sand. If the PGA had it to do over again, they might use less water on the greens early in the week, but Medinah is major worthy.
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