The PGA Championship: Day 1
August 11 2011
2:22 pm Mickelson determined to battle
JOHNS CREEK, Ga. — In a word, it was an "okay" start.
But those bogeys he made on his first and final holes at Atlanta Athletic Club tempered Phil Mickelson’s opinion of the 71 he shot during the first round of the PGA Championship. He was eight strokes off the lead being held by Steve Stricker, who tied the major championship record of 63.
“I played well today.,’ Mickelson said. “Got off to a terrible start. I spotted the field from shots right on the first hole (No. 10) and I had to fight. Throughout the day I hit a lot of good shots on the hard holes and made some good par, and only a couple birdies, and shot 1 over.
“Certainly not what I wanted. But I feel like my game is right there. You know, it’s about to turn. … I’m going to fight hard tomorrow to get into the weekend.
Mickelson, who was playing with David Toms, the man who beat him at the 2001 PGA on this same course, left no doubt about his feeling on this reincarnation of the Atlanta Athletic Club.
"It was a fun, great golf course, and what this is, is a long golf course," Mickelson said. "It’s not fun. It’s not great. It’s not exciting. There’s no intimacy. It’s just long and it’s hard, and that’s what it is."
The long par 3s – which measure 219, 184, 260 and 207 yards – drew some pointed comments from Mickelson. He likes them as a test for the PGA but feels they are too challenging for the average golfer.
“It’s a perfect example of how modern architecture is killing the game, because these holes are unplayable for the member,” Mickelson said. “… Now, for us out here, it doesn’t make a bit of difference, because we are going to fly the ball to the green either way. And that’s why I say it’s great for the championship.”
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Of course its long Phil, that’s what it is suppose to be. No driver wedge to a par 5 like in some tournaments. Even majors the y seem to move tees up so far that it defeats the purpose of making the hole longer to begin with.
The members don’t play it all the way back unless your talking about the best players in the club, even then they use their heads when choosing tees.
Phil had another average day…as usual for the past few Tournaments. However, the scores he is posting is far from what is needed to win.
Todays score is about what I expected. He should make the Cut again. He is the leading Golfer at 15 consective Cuts in the PGA Championship which is well ahead of the next player.
The second Group of Golfers are just getting underway and it will take a few hours to see where Phil sets overall. There is no doubt that the young Golfers are taking over this year.
I’m picking Rory McILRoy to win this week.
The courses are too long though. If the PGA really wanted to make the courses tougher there are much better ways to do it then to just add 200 or 300 yards to the course. Make the rough difficult, narrow the fairways, make the bunkers challenging and make the greens smaller. The PGA fell into the trap that big bombing shots sells the game of golf. When scores started getting too low they just decided lets make the courses longer.
Many of these course lack imagination. They are just long and narrow (typically) with heavy rough. Boring! I was at the U.S Open at Congressional and though I enjoyed being there it was a boring course. Whatever happened to shot making? With doglegs, strategic planting of trees ( close enough to the tees so that the pros can’t just bomb over them) and the placement of bunkers you force shots from 180 to 220 to smaller or well protected greens. The aformention distances for the pros 8 through 5 irons for the pros. Shots that are challenging but doable for the pros. They are the equivalent to 135 to 170 for amatuers. Instead of just have them bomb away and hit pitching wedges from the rough make them shape their shots. With these kind of course simple adjustments to the tee boxes can make them more accessable to the rest of us mere mortal. Personally I think they also are a better test of who really can golf and those who just can hit it a long way. Phil is right!
Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson are both “HAS BEENS”
phil has to improve his driving even if he loses distance. get on in regulation and let his putting take over.
hey jim better a has been rather than a never been
Ken, most of the courses on tour don’t have heavy rough at all. Even this course doesn’t have heavy rough. For the most part the rough at AAC is not difficult. The rough is made from Bermuda Grass and the ball will usually rest on top of it and it doesn’t grow that long.
If the courses wanted to make the rough heavy and difficult they would use Poa Annua Grass. It grows longer and more like a weed then anything else. Poa Annua Grass will actually wrap around the club head and shaft and can cause more mishits.
Ken, most of the courses on tour don’t have heavy rough at all. Even this course doesn’t have heavy rough. For the most part the rough at AAC is not difficult. The rough is made from Bermuda Gra$$ and the ball will usually rest on top of it and it doesn’t grow that long.
If the courses wanted to make the rough heavy and difficult they would use Poa Annua Gra$$. It grows longer and more like a weed then anything else. Poa Annua Gra$$ will actually wrap around the club head and shaft and can cause more mishits.
Ken, most of the courses on tour don’t have heavy rough at all. Even this course doesn’t have heavy rough. For the most part the rough at AAC is not difficult. The rough is made from Bermuda Gra$$ and the ball will usually rest on top of it and it doesn’t grow that long.
If the courses wanted to make the rough heavy and difficult they would use Poa Annua Gra$$. It grows longer and more like a weed then anything else. Poa Annua Gra$$ will actually wrap around the club head and shaft and can cause more mi$hits.
People always wonder why the media is so infatuated with Tiger Woods. Well Tiger shot 77 and Phil shot 71. They both have articles on this website but as of 10 pm, Phil’s article has 8 comments and Tiger’s article has about 58. Love him or hate him, Tiger moves the needle and that has to count for something.
Phil is absolutely right. This course is a difficut course but fine for the PGA Championship. If you were listening to Phil, he was NOT critisizing the golf course, but stating how difficult it was for the Membership to play.
And Jim, I assume you must be a scratch golfer to be able to say that Phil and Tiger are has beens.
Phil is spot on. The man knows the game and is not afraid to speak out. Walked with him last Friday at Firestone. Said that the 16th was all wrong nothing but a par 3 disguised as a monstrous 620 yard par 5. He was spot on. Only 2 players went for that green in 2 the entire tournament. Imagination that is what is needed in design. Phil mentioned some of the greats in his press conference and put Crenshaw in that class. Rees Jones is a predictable Hack. Just keeps moving the tees back!!
It may be time for Phil to get rid of Bones!
GMoney….How many of those 58 comments on Tiger Woods are good in relation to his golf?
Woods had many good years at the Top of the OWGR rankings and now that he is sliding back from whence he came it makes many people happy.
Give the guy credit for what he did on the Golf course.
Agree that the course is LONG! Besides actually designing a course from the get go actually FOR an annual PGA event (The Masters), alot of the architects are designing for daily member play- THEY pay the bills to keep it maintained. I don’t agree that this is what is driving people away from golf, from being too long. I would venture to imagine less than 1% of AAC members ever even think of playing the tees back there. Come on Phil you know that! Alot of tour courses here in the southeast actually remove these tees through the year. So yes, unless your bombing 320 plus off the tee, who would even have fun playing back there?
Crawco- They have a Tifton 10 Bermuda rough which is very different from your basic 419/Common Bermuda that 98% of southern tour courses play from. Bermuda would grow to around 8″ if they let it, but that’s unplayable. The rough at AAC is actually around 3″, but again this variety of Bermuda was created so the ball sits up. The test is having your ball sit up on a tee, yet there is 2.5″ underneath the ball that the club could easlily go too deep giving a flubbed shot. Poa annua is difficult to play from yes, but its impossible to have a healthy flush of Poa rough with the summer temps Atlanta has. It would be smoked out for the tourney because it is a cool season grass. And a FYI–Bermuda is considered a weed everywhere except the Southeast, in reality- a weed is defined as any grass that is somewhere its not desired by the grower.