The AT & T Pebble Beach Pro-Am is played on three different courses and ShotLink is only set up on one - Pebble Beach. As a result, Shot By Shot's analysis can only be done on two of the four rounds of this tournament, which makes an in-depth analysis of what won and what didn't impossible. Nevertheless, it was still a very entertaining event on a magnificent golf course.
It was nice to see an exciting finish and I was stunned by the car wrecks on the par-5, 14th hole, especially by the two final groups. First, a quadruple bogey (+4) is somewhat rare on the PGA Tour and generally follows a major mistake off the tee requiring a re-tee. In this case we saw two contenders for the lead play hockey around the 14th green for back-to-back 9's. Bryce Molder and then Paul Goydos did their best impressions of choppers. It was both hard to watch and interesting to see how well they handled their demise.
They were not alone as the hole ranked the 5th most difficult of the 54 holes played with an average score of 5.187. Not that anyone really cares about the hole rankings or how they are ranked, but I believe this hole was clearly the most difficult and should have been ranked #1. Instead of ranking based upon the greatest margin over par, the holes should be ranked based upon the greatest margin from the Tour's average scoring on holes of like par. Below are the scoring averages for the entire 2009 PGA Tour season:
Par 3's = 3.08
Par 4's = 4.06
Par 5's = 4.68
The event score for the 14th hole was a full half stroke higher than the 2009 Tour scoring average on par 5's. According to this week's ranking, the most difficult hole at Pebble was the par 4, 9th with a scoring average of 4.253. OK, it was .25 strokes over par and that is difficult but it was only .19 strokes over the average scores that can be expected on par 4 holes at this level. See my point?
It is obvious that with today's length, the par 5 holes represent the real scoring opportunities on the PGA Tour. If players can't hit the greens in two, and most can, they can lay up to their favorite wedge distance and attack the flags.
What then was so hard about the 14th at Pebble? It was not the tee shot - 65% of the players hit the fairway (YTD Tour Avg. for Fairways Hit is only 62%). It was the green which presents a very small and unforgiving target. Only 53% of the field hit it in regulation. This compares to the Tour average of 84% for GIR's from 125 yards or less. The approach and short game shots to the small, firm plateau proved unusually difficult. It really did look like hockey as the balls slid past the hole, picking up speed as they ran over the other sides of the green.
Bottom line, #14 played a meaningful role in determining the winner. In addition to culling the list of hopefuls (Molder & Goydos), the 14th green extracted a critical bogey from David Duval (runner-up by 1). Finally, Dustin Johnson could credit his 1-stroke win to the very intelligent par that he recorded on this hole.
It will be very interesting to see how the USGA sets up #14, and how the players handle it, in the US Open later this year.
It was nice to see an exciting finish and I was stunned by the car wrecks on the par-5, 14th hole, especially by the two final groups. First, a quadruple bogey (+4) is somewhat rare on the PGA Tour and generally follows a major mistake off the tee requiring a re-tee. In this case we saw two contenders for the lead play hockey around the 14th green for back-to-back 9's. Bryce Molder and then Paul Goydos did their best impressions of choppers. It was both hard to watch and interesting to see how well they handled their demise.
They were not alone as the hole ranked the 5th most difficult of the 54 holes played with an average score of 5.187. Not that anyone really cares about the hole rankings or how they are ranked, but I believe this hole was clearly the most difficult and should have been ranked #1. Instead of ranking based upon the greatest margin over par, the holes should be ranked based upon the greatest margin from the Tour's average scoring on holes of like par. Below are the scoring averages for the entire 2009 PGA Tour season:
Par 3's = 3.08
Par 4's = 4.06
Par 5's = 4.68
The event score for the 14th hole was a full half stroke higher than the 2009 Tour scoring average on par 5's. According to this week's ranking, the most difficult hole at Pebble was the par 4, 9th with a scoring average of 4.253. OK, it was .25 strokes over par and that is difficult but it was only .19 strokes over the average scores that can be expected on par 4 holes at this level. See my point?
It is obvious that with today's length, the par 5 holes represent the real scoring opportunities on the PGA Tour. If players can't hit the greens in two, and most can, they can lay up to their favorite wedge distance and attack the flags.
What then was so hard about the 14th at Pebble? It was not the tee shot - 65% of the players hit the fairway (YTD Tour Avg. for Fairways Hit is only 62%). It was the green which presents a very small and unforgiving target. Only 53% of the field hit it in regulation. This compares to the Tour average of 84% for GIR's from 125 yards or less. The approach and short game shots to the small, firm plateau proved unusually difficult. It really did look like hockey as the balls slid past the hole, picking up speed as they ran over the other sides of the green.
Bottom line, #14 played a meaningful role in determining the winner. In addition to culling the list of hopefuls (Molder & Goydos), the 14th green extracted a critical bogey from David Duval (runner-up by 1). Finally, Dustin Johnson could credit his 1-stroke win to the very intelligent par that he recorded on this hole.
It will be very interesting to see how the USGA sets up #14, and how the players handle it, in the US Open later this year.
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