Up and at 'em early on this Friday (yes, it's actually still considered "early" on the West Coast) because I've got a full agenda ahead of me today.
With Tommy Robinson not teeing off until 2:30 p.m. local in the second round of the U.S. Senior Open, I decided to fill my open morning with a trip south to visit this area's other "major" golf venue, Chambers Bay, which will host the U.S. Amateur in a few short weeks as well as the U.S. Open in 2015. Superintendent Dave Wienecke has been gracious enough to give me a little time this morning, so we'll take a casual tour of the course, I'll snap a few pictures and then report on my visit later on the blog.
Before I hit the road, a couple of items that I didn't get to include in last night's post. First is the photo that is included with this post. The golfer in the shot, Jerry Johnson, doesn't really matter much, nor does the occasion — it was the first shot in this year's tournament. Instead, I post the photo (provided courtesy of the USGA) because it provides a great illustration of the challenge facing Robinson and the other competitors this week. This is shot from behind the first tee, and the extremely narrow corridor you see here is typical of almost every hole on the golf course. Any tee ball that veers even a little left or right is flirting with disaster, as Robinson unfortunately learned during his opening-round 83.
The other item that impacted Robinson's round yesterday was course set-up. Yes, the superintendent at Ravinia Green CC in Deerfield, Ill., caused plenty of his own problems with errant driving off the tee. But those problems were only compounded by what I observed to be extremely difficult hole locations set on greens that were very firm and only got firmer as the first round wore on.
Robinson merely nodded and rolled his eyes when I asked him if the hole locations were as difficult as they appeared. And some of the world's best golfers agreed with that assessment. Bernhard Langer, who won the Senior British Open a week ago, called them "borderline unfair." Mark Calcavecchia said, "They must have thought the top 100 in the world were here, not 156 old guys. Seriously, I think it was the hardest set of pin placements I've seen in years."
The par-3 ninth hole, Robinson's last of the day, provided a great example. The hole is long to begin with, but Thursday's hole was tucked on the far left side of the green, guarded by a steep-faced bunker on the front left of the green AND a pond that is wrapped around the entire left side of the green. The only safe play was to the middle of the green, but that left a long, winding birdie putt. Robinson hit a great lag putt from about 45 feet to par the hole, but he was among the lucky ones.
Enough for now. Off to Chambers Bay and later, a late afternoon/evening stroll around Sahalee with Robinson.
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