2018 lpga

[Toxic]

Yep!

Who is "Yep" Can't find her on the leaderboard

[marcel]

Cleveland cap?

[jimandr]

Are you saying they all look the same?

Don't be silly.

But I've said this before. They must have some great coaching in Korea. Almost every player who emerges onto the world scene, both the men and women, has a terrific one-plane swing with perfect tempo. While it is not the only way to swing a golf club, I wish I could do it.

It was an interesting comparison to Emma Talley yesterday. Her swing was very different, and she probably has days when she swings and plays really well, but a lot more could go wrong in her swing.

I saw Chilled in his red cap on the TV today. It was one of the highlights of the day's viewing. Much better than the ABC ads and tourist promos that keep interrupting the broadcast.

[Chilled]

I saw Chilled in his red cap on the TV today. It was one of the highlights of the day's viewing. Much better than the ABC ads and tourist promos that keep interrupting the broadcast.

Only just!

Was a wonderful event, Ko was steel, virtually not a single jitter apart from the short chip from the back of the third......tough shot unless you can putt it. Otherwise there wasn't much else that went wrong. Hanah looked soooo nervous, maybe the Green team helped her, I dunno, but standing next to them several times they were LOUD. I guess that what happens when you load up on CC&Coke.

In the entire three days I was there not one single person yelled "get in the hole!", which was refreshing. Crowds very respectful. Ko a worthy winner, wire to wire!

Can't wait for next time

[Rod Morri]

This is a great piece by Mike Clayton the other day Jim which touches on exactly this point. A really interesting read.

http://www.golf.org.au/newsdisplay/c...the-game/99703

Don't be silly.

But I've said this before. They must have some great coaching in Korea. Almost every player who emerges onto the world scene, both the men and women, has a terrific one-plane swing with perfect tempo. While it is not the only way to swing a golf club, I wish I could do it.

It was an interesting comparison to Emma Talley yesterday. Her swing was very different, and she probably has days when she swings and plays really well, but a lot more could go wrong in her swing.

I saw Chilled in his red cap on the TV today. It was one of the highlights of the day's viewing. Much better than the ABC ads and tourist promos that keep interrupting the broadcast.

[Chilled]

This is a great piece by Mike Clayton the other day Jim which touches on exactly this point. A really interesting read.

http://www.golf.org.au/newsdisplay/c...the-game/99703

So Mike wants to advocate for lesser course management and Bubba Watson style craziness?

Bah, whatever. I've had her shot many times, I was standing right behind her when she hit it. Dean advised proper course management, which was correct, there was absolutely no point going for the pin. Call it boring, whatever, but it was the right thing to do. There was a overhanging branch, it would have to be a 40+ yeard draw to an elevated green with extreme danger to the rear, problems left, and right (if it didn't draw) would have been an issue also with potential sand/cones/etc.

Hit to the front of the green, easy chip shot (I have it routinely on that hole and it's not hard) and come out with bogey worst case scenario. Oh and the lie was ok, not sure about "good".

Good course management, they demonstrated it well, we can all learn from it.

[marcel]

So Mike wants to advocate for lesser course management and Bubba Watson style craziness?

Errrrr, no?? Not from that article anyway. Maybe you need an ice-cream after 9 holes, might improve your comprehension

[Chilled]

Errrrr, no?? Not from that article anyway. Maybe you need an ice-cream after 9 holes, might improve your comprehension

The 1998 internet called, they want their 101 cookie cutter newbie insult back. I expect better from you marcel, you're better than that, ......no....I demand better from you!

Age is catching up with you my friend....

"It is good even for old men to learn wisdom" - Aeschylus

[jimandr]

I must admit I was tempted to bite back after reading the article, because Mike Clayton picked a very poor example to prove his point.

I'm fairly sure I've read Mike making the point previously, arguing that young players spend too much time on the practice fairway honing their robotic swings, and not enough time on the course learning how to play shots.

He may be correct in a way, but if you are always on the fairway and always firing at flags on soft greens you don't need to show much imagination. Which describes a lot of US golf, now I think of it.

But the example he picked actually demonstrated one of the other things Mike Clayton is always going on about. And that is the art of course management, as Chilled has pointed out correctly. Much of the credit may go to her caddy, but she made the decision, and executed it well.

It was in fact an example of why golf is a great game.

[thecollective]

That caddy was sensational Jim; watched him up close and was all over everything

[marcel]

Now I'm really confused. Perhaps my browser has opened a different article (doubtful, I am using the latest version of Netscape), does the article finish with "..... but predicting winners with a day to go is never a particularly good idea." or is there a second page I'm missing?

jim,
What point do you consider Clayton was trying to prove? The item is titled "Many ways to play the game" He compares the methods learnt by these girls and Seve. Fact, not criticism. I don't see where he writes that the shot she played on 12 was wrong for her in the circumstances.
Apologies if you may have addressed this at the end of your post but when my cutting edge word recognition software saw the grouping of "as Chilled has pointed out correctly" it automatically deleted the remainder of your post.

Chilled,
age is certainly catching up with me. However, there was no insult! You did read the mention of ice-cream in the item, or did you skim the part where he is lauding the work ethic of the young Koreans as you moved on to identify his imaginary advocation for 'lesser course management"

I really think I may not be accessing the entire article, mine doesn't mention Bubba either

[Chilled]

marcel, just because you didn't see something doesn't mean it's wrong or "imaginery". Have you studied English at any level previously? It doesn't sound like it.

It's not expressly pointed out for you in the article, but there is a subtext that suggests Korean players are churned out like robots in factories with technical correct and "robotic" likeness, in direct comparison to Seve who was somehow a self taught magical genious who learnt down the village beach fighting all adversary to become such a great player.

He then goes on to pull some quote from "Tom Watson" (the legendary Tom Watson? lol) suggesting they are so accurate they don't even need to know how to play out of trees. I mean wtf!?? Is he serious? Players at this level know how to play every facet of the game.

This 'lack of imagination' of Korean players, or Ko specifically, was further illustrated in the following:

The lie was good, easily good enough to hit a hard low draw up onto the middle of the green. It was a shot Ballesteros would have hit on to the green ten times with ten attempts. Sure, he was stronger, but Ko is easily strong enough and good enough to hit the required shot.

Easily? Well no it wasn't an easy shot and I seriously doubt even Seve could do it 10 out of 10 times. The subtext here again is boring/robotic golf that lacks the Seve magic and imagination. What he conveniently misses is the excellent course management shown in a time when no wild adventurous shots were needed. She was protecting a lead that could have easily been lost with an errant shot. I watched Charlie Hull the day before hit one errant second shot (pull) to the green on 12 (I even have the video of her kicking her club along the ground) after an awesome splitting fairway drive that left her 120m out from the green, just off to the left of the green no more than 4meters away from the green, straight shot to the pin over a mound, and she came away with a 6. Treacherous green with false front and nasty surrounds. There's a very good reason why it's a low index.

The chip from front to back left pin was not hard (despite what Clayton says), I see players do it all the time, and rarely any go over the back; on the day it was an up hill chip into the wind. For a player of her skill it's not a big deal, and iirc even Dean said it's an easy chip up.

The same attitude is leveled at players like Speith, boring, no imagination, split fairways and hit greens in reg all day long....boring golf right? Well that's actually how the game is meant to be played in the true sense, so these players are masters of the game. Unfortunately some call them boring.

Sorry marcel, but not everyone can be Seve or Tiger and get out of the craziest bad places to make eagle. She played technically great golf and employed fine course management skills. What else can you ask a player to do.

Oh and nice reference to Netscape but I was thinking more along the lines of CERN, Erwise or ViolaWWW.

[petethepilot]

Chilled...Tom Watson (the caddy and no relation) is one of the most famous and experienced caddies in Australian/European tour history.
The shot played (I saw it on TV) was well played and smart given the circumstances (large lead) and her familarity with that type of shot.
Why I said ‘that type of shot’ is exactly what MAC was elluding to. I was a member for a number of years at Indooroopilly gc in QLD. It was one of the favoured winter (Korea) destinations for up and coming Korean golfers. Their practice (that I observed) was always intense and diligent. I once saw a high ranked Korean player practice the same 75 metre pitch shot for 4 hours (his dad was under an umbrella behind the green plotting the results. I would have seen 5 shots outside 15 feet in that 4 hours. Thet were always pedantic about setup, tempo etc. The last thing u would call the many young players I observed, would be ‘feel’.

Of course, MAC and Seve came from a different era. The courses (especially in Korea) are mostly manufactured clones of 70’s/80’s american golf. They don’t play Seve shots....because they don’t practice them...because the courses don’t demand them! The course the girls played last weekend would be one of the few that the Asian (and USA) tour girls would play all year that test their imagination and feel. It is no wonder that she went the chipout. She knows how to play the pitch from in front of the green. The low chasing hook wouldn’t be in her bag. You rightly said it would be high risk. She had a good lead so her good caddy would demand she play the percentage shot. Just what Seve wouldn’t do.

Mac’s era where good prize money only went to the winner or second meant that players would gamble more and take more risk. I suggest he laments the passing of that era (hence the article) as perhaps we all should. It certainly was more exciting golf than 6 hour rounds on homogonous courses!

Regards,
Pete

[Chilled]

Good info Pete. There is undoubtedly a special magic about the Seve's of the world, a carefree era where you can be a swashbuckling pioneer with the utmost flamboyance and he fit that role very well. Somewhat different these days with manufactured production line golfers who seek to simply minimise the error count. Flamboyance doesn't even seem to enter the vocabulary. But they are technically excellent and play the game so incredibly well.

I think, as you say, MC misses that swashbuckling era, but it's just another era in golf as it evolves to a different place. Some just don't like that. I would be more than happy to be playing from fairways every shot and be classed as "boring" if it meant I was operating at that level.

As a side note what I found extraordinary is the petite size of some of the girls such as a few of the Asians (I forget thier names right now) and girls of Mo Martin's stature.....they hit their drives a freakin mile, it's amazing.

[petethepilot]

How long was the course chilled.
The LPGA tend to make the setups pretty easy.
The Aussie Open must be one of the hardest tests of the year for them. British Open likewise!

[Chilled]

How long was the course chilled.
The LPGA tend to make the setups pretty easy.
The Aussie Open must be one of the hardest tests of the year for them. British Open likewise!

6034 meters or 6599 yards.

http://www.golf.org.au/site/_content...016-source.pdf

[jimandr]

How long was the course chilled.
The LPGA tend to make the setups pretty easy.
The Aussie Open must be one of the hardest tests of the year for them. British Open likewise!

A few of the players in their post-round comments suggested it was one of the more difficult courses they will play all year.

While it wasn't super long, it wasn't piece of cake short either, and the fairways and greens had enough firmness to make the players have to plot and think their way around. Which is exactly what we want.

Compare Kooyonga with Thailand, where they are playing this week, and somewhere in Phoenix, where they are going after that. The Thai course will be soft fairways and soft greens, and boring target golf. If the Phoenix event is the same course as previous years, they normally short 25 under to win on a course that is definitely set up to allow artificially low scores.

I suspect the American golf authorities aren't really confident in the quality of their product, and they think the crowds will only come if they think they will see low scores. Then they set up their majors super-tough. I don't understand it.

[Rod Morri]

Excellent summation Pete. I would also suggest that while the chip out was the right play in that situation it may not be in all circumstances and that is perhaps one of the points Clayton is making. In the biggest events the players with ALL the shots tend to have a better chance than those who have perhaps less imagination and/or technical skill. Hitting the ball and playing golf (especially at the very top levels) are linked but not mutually exclusive. There are a lot of people in the world who can hit the ball as well as many pros but scoring, in tournament conditions, is a different beast. It also pays to keep in mind that Mike Clayton isn't just a writer or course architecture junkie but a tournament player of more than two and a half decades who won multiple times at the professional level (and an Australian Amateur title). His analysis in matters of playing the game and course management is worthy of consideration.

Chilled...Tom Watson (the caddy and no relation) is one of the most famous and experienced caddies in Australian/European tour history.
The shot played (I saw it on TV) was well played and smart given the circumstances (large lead) and her familarity with that type of shot.
Why I said ‘that type of shot’ is exactly what MAC was elluding to. I was a member for a number of years at Indooroopilly gc in QLD. It was one of the favoured winter (Korea) destinations for up and coming Korean golfers. Their practice (that I observed) was always intense and diligent. I once saw a high ranked Korean player practice the same 75 metre pitch shot for 4 hours (his dad was under an umbrella behind the green plotting the results. I would have seen 5 shots outside 15 feet in that 4 hours. Thet were always pedantic about setup, tempo etc. The last thing u would call the many young players I observed, would be ‘feel’.

Of course, MAC and Seve came from a different era. The courses (especially in Korea) are mostly manufactured clones of 70’s/80’s american golf. They don’t play Seve shots....because they don’t practice them...because the courses don’t demand them! The course the girls played last weekend would be one of the few that the Asian (and USA) tour girls would play all year that test their imagination and feel. It is no wonder that she went the chipout. She knows how to play the pitch from in front of the green. The low chasing hook wouldn’t be in her bag. You rightly said it would be high risk. She had a good lead so her good caddy would demand she play the percentage shot. Just what Seve wouldn’t do.

Mac’s era where good prize money only went to the winner or second meant that players would gamble more and take more risk. I suggest he laments the passing of that era (hence the article) as perhaps we all should. It certainly was more exciting golf than 6 hour rounds on homogonous courses!

Regards,
Pete