Distance off the tee matters too. People will hit good drives and they'll still land in the rough because the fairways are so narrow
Bryson has the power to manufacture half decent shots out of that ridiculous rough compared to the other players in the field
Lag putting is going to be a premium this week. Oakmont has one of the most difficult set of green complexes in the world Everyone is gonna miss fairways this week and thus numerous greens. But avoiding multiple 3 putts will be a separator of the field
Oakmont’s fairways are a bit wider than Winged Foot’s were, but there’s a lot more pitch to them which can send balls bouncing and rolling into the rough way more often than we saw at Winged Foot In this particular regard, I think the two will play somewhat similar. In a lot of other regards, they won’t. At Winged Foot, you can run balls up into most greens (post-renovation) with a recovery shot. At Oakmont, there are much fewer complete open throats into greens.
That makes sense. Never seen either one in person, but it did seem like Winged Foot was more narrow on TV.
They can get away with it a bit more there given how flat most of the land is. The green complexes are extremely built up and have wild undulations, but most of the fairways are relatively flat.
Joined the new iron gang yesterday. Zxi5/7 combo set with KBS C taper lite shafts. Unwrapped them on the course yesterday. Gunna take some getting used to the heavier/stiffer shafts but nice to finally feel like I have and am ready for a big boy iron set.
Rory really getting the good vibes tee time with Shane and Rose. Speith and Rahm should have Tyrell in there instead of Conners for the full lunatic tee time
Also just officially past one year of playing and down to an 11.5 handicap. I’ve played at least 200 rounds this past year so definitely feel like I’ve gotten way more than a year’s worth of experience in that time, which was definitely only possible by not having a real job. Goal is to be single digit by the end of the year but just had another baby in May, and back in the office much more than I had been. Those two things combined with my game kinda being at a point where it doesn’t improve as much week to week and I think it’s gunna take probably 2 to 2.5 more years before I’ll get my game to a point I’m content with. Highly doubt I’ll ever get down to scratch but if I can get to around ~5 my plan is to just leave it there for life. As of now I don’t play for money or anything (really want to join a Men’s league or something one day) so it’s just for vanity. The IG guy who doesn’t have an athletic bone in his body doing the zero to scratch in a year thing really pissed me off at first, but seeing his swing 2 months in after all the coaching and everything has me feeling better about myself.
It is bananas to me that someonenhas the time for 200 rds of golf in a full year, let alone half. I've played 2. This depresses me.
The biggest correlation to success in 2016 was SG putting from 10' so yeah I think people are underestimating putting
Live in Florida, WFH, be a member of a club that’s 3 minutes from your house. Those would be my suggestions.
I'm def doing it wrong. Live in Iowa, work in an office, have an 11 and 8 year old in tons of activities. Almost 0 free time.
I’ve got a 14 year old son who plays a lot of baseball so I get it. Daughters are younger so not much for them yet and I bring my 3 year old along with me at least once a week. Having a wife that grew up with her father and brothers playing constantly is probably the best thing I got going for me. I’ve been lifting and stretching with a focus on mobility for most of my adult life, so that allowed my body to actually handle it better than most I would hope. I honestly just hate sitting around and got to the point where I realized golf is the perfect outlet for my mental health, and it’s something active where I’m not worried about popping my Achilles or tearing an ACL. It really is perfect for me. I hope I can play for the next 40+ years.
Getting rid of the tightly mowed area behind that green was a mistake It made that green complex completely diabolical and that hole awesome to watch
I still contend that Bryson’s single length irons are a perfect match for a setup like this. Not to say he’ll win, but the tech is a legitimate advantage with tough this long
The thing I hate about the rough discussion is if there is one golf course that can say "you better hit the fairway or prepare to pay the price." It's Oakmont. It's not that long, it's reasonably wide, so taking less than driver to avoid a shot that you don't have in the bag is reasonable.
Going back to his win at WF. We heard so much about the rough etc leading up to it. But as he talked about in the quote above was just bomb the shit out of it then still hit a wedge into the green even out of the rough. It was also consistent so he knew the distance it would fly out of said rough. Not sure how that compares this week
The greens at Oakmont are also a lot more difficult than WF. You might be able to hack it out but it’s going to be hard to get it in the right place.
this rough will be far more punitive, going to be a lot of plugged balls in it. shackleford posted some good videos on his substack
I have a bad feeling this will happen…again Every US Open setup is the “toughest in awhile” until the USGA completely chickens out and pulls back on setup for Thursday and Friday under the guise of pace of play. We can only hope Saturday and Sunday actually play like a US Open. Anything beyond that will be a surprise They’re already getting the narrative going with 6.5 hour practice rounds today
The notion that the winning score needs to be at or around par for it to be a successful US Open is outdated. The equipment being so much better along with the depth of players makes chasing par to win a pipe dream. The best player for the week will be defined and I don't care if that's two under, seven under, or twelve under.
Yeah I have -3 (277) as my median winning score but high variance still. Over 20% chance you're right unfortunately