George White

Golf with George
June 18, 2007

George has been a journalist for close to 40 years. He wrote sports for the Houston Chronicle for 19 years and the Orlando Sentinel for 7 years. In 1994 he was one of the first people hired at the Golf Channel, were he started a career as an on-air talent, then moved over as one of the first writers of Golf Central and then their website. White retired from the Golf Channel after 12 years at the end of 2006. He will be writing a weekly column for GolfObserver.

- GolfObserver editors

A great week of golf

Photo: © Ross Kinnaird/Getty Images Oakmont hit new levels with holes longer than what we expect for the par like the 8th hole

In a world of humongous golf holes, it really isn’t very much. After all, it was only 306 yards long on Sunday. They had to call it something, either par 3 or par 4. The USGA would probably have preferred to call it 'par 3,’ the rule book would say 'par 4.’ Let’s just say it was 'par 3 ½.’ Hey, maybe they should have called it a 306-yard 'par 5.’

It’s the 17th hole at Oakmont, and if there ever was an example of short being much more difficult than mere length, then this is it. In this age when everything in golf course architecture is about length, this little shorty makes a mockery of all the prodigious 490-, 500-yard par 4s. When, oh when, are the game’s stuffed shirts going to realize that it’s the hole’s scores that count, not the yardage?

Yardage means little on this hole. Actually, golfers would have loved it to be 50 yards longer Sunday. They could have comfortably hit a fairway wood or long iron off the tee, then wedged the ball up on the green and had a reasonable shot at birdie. Instead, they had to contend with a hole that was sort of like a man to eat a bowl of soup with both arms tied to your side.

There are about several things that make this hole a terrifying experience, and none of them are about length. Number 1, there is no comfortable area to place your tee ball. You either try to go all the way to the green with your driver or 3-wood, or you try to fit an iron into a spot the size of a Volkswagen. Oh - on a fairway that is slanted to the left. Number 2, the left side of the green - short left - contains some of the highest rough on the course, and No. 3, the right side contains a deep bunker. Number 4, of course, is the green itself, which throws a rolling golf ball every which way but the intended direction.

It was this hole which proved the difference in the United States Open Sunday. Had Jim Furyk just parred it, he would have tied winner Angel Cabrera. Had Tiger Woods birdied it - a suitable request for the best player of the planet, right? - he also would have been playing today. And - had Cabrera just parred it, the previous two scenarios would have been moot.

The three players all took different routes to reach the green. Furyk, tied with Cabrera when Furyk teed off, hit his driver but missed the green in the worst possible position - the left front side just off the putting surface. Woods went for the green also, surely a reasonable play considering a mere par would hardly do him good. And he landed in "Big Mouth," the yawning bunker to the right of the green. But his bunker shot skipped over the green into the long collar and he could make only a par.

Cabrera thought he was playing it smart when he elected to hit the shorter club off the tee. He positioned the ball perfectly in the fairway, but alas - he missed the green with his wedge! That meant bogey. And that also meant he would spend the next 45 minutes anxiously watching the television screen instead of beginning the celebration.

Furyk’s decision to hit driver off the tee was the one that had most second-guessing. It appeared that an iron to the fairway - and that’s still assuming he found the fairway - would have virtually taken bogey out of the equation and might well have put 'birdie’ into it. After all, he is one of the most accurate iron players in the game.

But Furyk refused to second-guess his decision - the surprise there was that he could hit the ball that far, he said. If he had hit his usual little "popgun" drive, he asserted, he would have been all right, even with the driver. But, surprise of all surprises, he picked the worst possible time to boom it out there the 300 yards.

"The play I made was the play," he assured.

"I would stick by that play through and through, with the way the wind conditions were and the pin position was. In my mind, I made the right decision. I shouldn't have hit the ball so far left, but I'm surprised it went as far as it did."

But sail it did, into an area that was nearly impossible to get out of. He stabbed at the ball once, moved it only a few yards, then reached the green and two-putted for bogey.

Cabrera, already in the clubhouse, breathed a huge sigh of relief in front of the TV.

But he still had to dodge a huge arrow, that of Woods. Tiger has plenty of length, and he could use his normally reliable fairway wood to put it on the green. However, he put the ball in the right bunker, certainly not the worst of circumstances. But he said there was a pebble in the bunker behind his ball, and that kept the ball from spinning properly, meaning it wouldn’t check up after it hit the green.

"I hit a nice bunker shot, too, but unfortunately when I hit it, I could tell it caught a rock on my wedge," he said. "And I heard a 'cling,’ you know?

"And when it came out, I was hoping, 'Please, still have the spin on it' … but it didn't, it released on through."

Tiger still had another chance for birdie. He wound up just off the green, in high grass around the collar, but with only about 20 feet to the cup.

"And I had a pretty easy chip," he said. "Tried to make it; didn't."

That hole, declared Woods, is "the hardest hole on the golf course."

Seventeen was logically the last place they could hope to gain ground. The 18th played to 484 yards, just long, long, and a birdie there would have been a miracle.

All three players, incidentally, parred the monstrous 18th. But the devilish little 17th - ah, that was the one that caught them. Golf course architects, country club presidents and superintendents are all enthralled with length. A golf hole’s worth isn’t measured in length - it’s measured in difficulty. And difficulty is measured in so many more ways than simply a yardstick.