| GOLF PGA Championship
- Thread starter PurlJam
- Start date
Bammerboy321
Bama Club
That drive on 17 was incredible.
JoseyWalesTheOutlaw
Crimson Tide Club
Congrats to JT and Bones for a huge comeback win. JT played the final playoff hole (18) like a Champion. The most difficult hole and with all that pressure he nailed the drive and the approach and his birdie putt was just off a little.
The young guns all fell off their bicycles.
The young guns all fell off their bicycles.
BamaFan334
Scholarship Club
<checks notes>
Sounds 'bout right.
I don't like having to sweep gravel out of my putting line.
Well, there weren't any in there when I played, so must have been something new. And no offense, but I'm not buying the "they killed our club groves" as if it's having some crazy affect on their score. Groves are what catches the ball, helps them work the ball and such, I completely understand that and don't need an education on what they are for. How many shots was he hitting from the sand where it made a huge impact on his game? Maybe you call your club rep and speak to him about how a partial swing out of a bunker is chipping their club groves and apparently costing him hundreds of thousands of dollars. Not to mention most pros are carrying five wedges each round and carry multiple replacements they can exchange each round. I always love it when the pros bitch and complain about things like this. You're freaking professionals that are good because most likely you can hit about every shot, improvise, and get up and down from rough spots. The rough they hit out of are better than 98% of fairways from courses out there that normal citizen golfers play, but they still complain and want sympathy as if the conditions aren't the best. Crying about the wind is my favorite. If it's not the way the course is set up, it's the weather, or it's the distance, or it's the golf balls being used, or it's the belly putters, or a yardage book. It's always something.
I've played a many courses in Charleston and I know gravel or sand in your putting line isn't the biggest concern with what I've seen out there from a bunker. Out of curiosity, how often is sand from a bunker in your putting line? You play more frequent than me, but having played enough over the last 30 years, I can honestly say that's been an issue for me a handful of times in all of those years. Not to mention in a tournament like this the groundskeepers keep that from happening, so I wouldn't see it as an issue. You get that upset when you have to wipe a pine needle or pinecone piece out of the way. Now, that I've dealt with thousands of times.
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JoseyWalesTheOutlaw
Crimson Tide Club
Final standings with dollars from the PGA
JT 2.7 million
Davis Riley 253k
Roll Tide
JT 2.7 million
Davis Riley 253k
Roll Tide
If "most" is defined by 20%, yeah.
Eight of ten tour players carry four where roughly half of them keep their PW (that came with their irons) and then add from there (gap, loft, and sand.) Some players will carry a fifth—Phil the better known example—but the normal practice you'll see when players start making changes with their wedges is they'll scrap the PW that came with their set and use a customized club: still with only four wedges. You're stating how much the grooves affect ball flight and in the same breath you're stating you don't believe it has an effect on their score? I'm guessing your wording/phrasing here is off point.
The statement that fine sand is better on a club face than sand with a higher gravel content is common sense. If you're hitting pebbles between the ball and club face it's going to damage the club face: every, single, time. (It's not a lot different that looking at the bottom of just about any weekend golfer's wedges and seeing how scuffed and scratched up it is after a year's play: and that's playable areas, not a lot of hazard play.) That's almost exactly what i said earlier when I mentioned the sand at Southern Hills and other courses with similar hazards: "It's hard as hell on your club face(s)."
Depending on the course you'll see some top dress greens as frequently as once a week; most no less than once every four weeks. Anything less than that and you're playing on a below-par municipal track. So, dealing with sandy greens? If you play a lot, you'll see it a lot.
The last time I was out I walked nine and had that situation on 1, 7, and 8. It's common on 1 and 7 due to the green design (pea shaped—narrow and long.) The sand at Snee Farm is like playing out of flour so we don't see it often there. The links based courses in the area...almost every time you're near a bunker on the green: the later in the day the worse it is. It's one reason I like to be one of the first groups off the tee (just behind the worker cutting new holes.)
BamaFan334
Scholarship Club
You're stating how much the grooves affect ball flight and in the same breath you're stating you don't believe it has an effect on their score? I'm guessing your wording/phrasing here is off point.
My wording was most likely incorrect. How many sand shots is a tour player making in one round on average? One, MAYBE two, if even the one? The guy making a comment about this one shot chipping the groves on his golf club as if it inflated his score solely by the one, maybe two shots from the sand is comical. Clubs are made of materials so tough they can withstand an average of what, 120 mph club head speed, but a simple chip from the sand tears them up? Of course anything in between the club face and golf ball can cause issues, but we're talking something so tiny that those elements aren't causing winners and losers. Even funnier is when you hit from the sand you're technically not even hitting the ball you're punching the sand behind it and underneath it to lift the ball out, so the groves aren't even hitting the ball in 95% of proper sand shots. They're supposed to be hazards, not landing spots as well I feel. At times at places like Augusta National guys would rather play out of the sand. I don't see that as the way golf was meant to be played personally. I could be wrong, but I'm not seeing where one and one are adding up to two here. I have a text out to a tour instructor that had multiple guys at Southern Hills this past weekend. I'll let you know what he says on whether or not it was in fact a big deal to the players and if he felt it was hindering their scoring. I was curious so I thought I'd ask him.
Doing the math it would require to find that average would require ... too much math for me to answer. There are too many variables. The PGA tracks Sand Save Percentages. In the top ten you'll find one guy who has only played 38 rounds, another with 78 rounds played, and they're ranked 9th and 10th.
Coincidentally, Bud Cauley leads the PGA. 65 rounds, 109 bunkers, 69 saves, 66.99%.
Whether consciously or not you're going back to what I said in my original post mentioning the one advantage is they aren't using the bunkers as a landing area. "Worse case scenario, I'm in the trap." Hell, I think that. I've seen it happen a lot.
Here's where you're missing the point. The sand they were playing out of this past weekend is not like the sand you normally play from. It's hard to call it "sand." From Poulter:
The guy who won the tournament said it was the most challenging sand he's ever dealt with in golf. JT was four of seven in sand saves for the tournament. The PGA Tour pointed to a third of the sand save possibilities in round one were converted. The tour average is a little south of 60%.
You mention playing in this area. The first time I saw that type of bunker was at a Holiday Inn Resorts training center whose course was also open to the public: north Mississippi. I do see it here, but it's course specific with the true links courses being the main culprits. (I will forever avoid the bunkers on the left, #10 Stone Ferry, because of what it did to the face(s) of two of my wedges. I lay up now...on a four par.)
BamaFan334
Scholarship Club
I will need to chexk our course as it's a links style course. They try and keep as native as they can, so they mixed in some red clay to give the bunkers a reddish color, but I'll have to look at the substrate. Yes, it's been long enough where I don't recall. Terrible, considering the money being wasted. I stay out at all costs. I take tripleif I go in a bunker, nine out of ten times.
I guess some courses avoid the expense of not using local sand to build out their bunkers. When I built the lake house, I ordered sand for the brick as normal, it came from Chilton County and came in with some clay content and a yellow/red tint, about $450 if I recall. However, we had opted for a very white mortar and my brick mason told me, over time, the mortar would yellow from the sand. $950 later and I had a tandem truckload of beautiful, fine white sand from the quarry in Phil Campbell - about 125 miles from me. Supposedly, they supply a number of golf courses. When I start landscaping, I plan to make a junket up there and get some of their egg-sized gravel for part of my dry creek bed.
RTR,
Tim
They do and often they're paying more. Southern Hills (Tulsa) has their sand shipped in from Ohio.
Ah yes.... those sandy shores of Lake Erie. Most prestigious stuff, when the lake's not on fire.
Rolltide24
Century Club
Terry lays up on a par 4? I just lost a little admiration for your stick skills.
Dog leg right, 270'ish to the left bunkers, 240'ish to the right, with a fairway that's sloped right and maybe 20 yards wide.Terry lays up on a par 4? I just lost a little admiration for your stick skills.