As we have seen in sports these last few weeks, in the Olympics and Open Championship (Golf), there have been a lot of athletes who failed to perform under the pressure of the big stage. In these situations, to me, there are two types of athletes. The first type is the young athletes competing in the sport more or less for love of the sport. Young athletes like the gymnast Jordyn Wieber or golfer Beau Hossler (US Open Championship) are still young and even though they spend hours and hours training at their respective sports, they are not professionals, the sport is not their job. As such we should view their short comings as, perhaps, moments of learning and growth. The second type of competing athletes are the professionals. Guys like Adam Scott at the Open Championship or Jim Furyk at the US Open are professionals, sport is their job, and as such I feel like we should view their failures as we would any other professional.
What do I mean when I say that? Well consider how you might feel if a surgeon, a professional in his field, were to fail as completely at the end of a major surgery as Scott did at the end of the Open Championship. Consider how you'd feel if an airline pilot failed on landing? No, we as a society tend to wear the white gloves when we talk about athletes and their failure in competition. Yet if a surgeon failed so completely at the end of a surgery and the patient died, a literal failure where he knew the proper way and simply did not do it, he would, at best, be liable for thousands, if not millions, of dollars in compensation to the family, and at worst sitting before a jury of his peers facing significant time in prison.
With athletes we always like to talk about how great a pressure they faced in a given situation. But is that pressure any greater than the pressure faced by the surgeon or the pilot? I think not. But as I said, we treat athletes with ease. Why not simply say it how it is and admit that these people have failed at their jobs? I took some serious heat two years ago when I was quick to say that Hunter Mahan choked and failed to do his job at the Ryder Cup. But is that not the case? His job is to play golf and hit solid shots. He flatly did not do that. Same with Adam Scott at the Open Championship. He failed to do his job. If I were to fail at my job as they did, I would, be standing tall before my commanding officer, wearing my dress uniform, and waiting for him to dispense punishment. But again, we simply brush it aside when athletes fail.
On top of this, we often berate fans who dare try to put the screws to the athlete who failed. We would have no such sympathy for the real world professional. It is a different world, to be sure, but the sympathy that people shot athletes while showing none to professionals in the real world should not be the case. Show your sympathy to the seventeen year old girls who gave their best effort and did not succeed. She deserves it. But the professional who fails to complete his job deserves none of our sympathy, unless, of course, you'd show sympathy to other professionals, real world professionals, when they fail.
Saturday
Eagleglen Golf Club, Elmendorf AFB, AK
This was a really solid golf course. It was better than I was expecting it to be. Course was #1 in Alaska this year in Golf Digest, #4 in Golf Mag and Golfweek. As of this writing, I have only played Moose Run (River) in Alaska, but I do think this course is better than Moose Run. I hope to play 3 or 4 more courses before I leave Alaska in ten days. This course does have a lot of straight holes and it's routed over some really flat land, but it's rather gently shaped and has a lot of forced perspective. Several times I saw a bunker that looked many yards shorter or longer than it was and at least once it directly affected the club that I played.
There seems to be some confusion as to who designed the course. Worldgolf says RTJ, Jr. as does the course website. But the Robert Trent Jones Society lists Eagleglen on their master list of courses designed by Mr. Jones. Both list the year built at 1972. So, pretty much the only way I can wrap this around my head within saying the Trent Jones Society got it wrong is to say that Jr. designed this course while he was still working with his father's company. Either that or Jr. supervised a major redesign of his father's original and they have just omitted him from the papers. Either way, it's a solid design with some pretty small scale features and *gasp* ground game features, something not seen on some of Trent's work.
But overall, this course is really solid. It was better than I had expected and, while perhaps not as scenic as Moose Run up the street, it certainly made up for that in strategic features on the ground.
Holes of Note:
Hole 2: Par 4, 361 yards
This hole plays blind off the tee, a quality strategic feature missing from too many modern designs. The tee is located in a low spot near the creek with a narrow stream fronting the tee. The rise is probably less than 20 feet high but it works perfectly to obscure the fairway from the tee. The hole is a dogleg right with a fairly dense set of trees down the right side (most all the treed areas here are dense, but the corridors are wide enough so that the dense trees are not a real worry). With the fairway obscured from the tee, the player is left to make his best judgement as to where to hit the tee shot.
Once over the hill, the fairway opens up to the player. The best line is to play close to the tree line but hitting it far enough to clear past the trees. A ball down the left side might run off the side of the fairway into a small depression and playing towards the center will just leave a longer shot to the green. In the picture above, the best line would be towards the tallest trees in the center of the image, though they are on the right-center of the fairway. Anything left of those will roll into the depression. From the fairway, the green is quite open, but there is a single bunker guarding the left side of the green. A low running draw could be played into the hole if the player was comfortable with that shot.
Looking back down the fairway, the depression can be seen to start at the white tree in the center of the picture and work to the right of the image. As with all greens here, they are of limited interest due to growing and weather conditions.
Hole 5: Par 5, 520 yards
This hole plays straight off the tee but has a large knob in the fairway on the right side that certainly adds to the interest. A ball clearing the knob and hitting on the downslope will take a major bounce forward while a ball hitting short on the face of the knob will be stopped. The knob also keeps the player from simply bailing to the right side of the fairway away from the bunker on the left. And though it does not show well in the image below, there also seems to be a bunker in the distance, just a few yards beyond the knob on the centerline of the fairway.
However, once getting farther down the fairway, the bunker that looked mere yards beyond the knob is seen to be a greenside bunker. By designing the hole to look like this, Mr. Jones (whichever one of them) let the player's eyes trick him into possibly playing a shot off the tee that might not have been most ideal. From the fairway, the player is left to decide whether to lay-up or go to the green in two shots.
If the player hit his tee shot far enough such that he might be able to fly his ball all the way to the green, then ground features do not mean very much. However, given the typically cool temperatures up here (your writer lost 1 1/2 clubs in yardage having traveled from Alabama where the temps are 90 degrees opposed to 55 degrees) a 520 yard hole is rather substantial. So, the player is given the option to run the ball onto the green if he so chooses. However, this will require that he start his ball up the right side of the fairway, a hit a draw that lands short of the green, but beyond a bunker that covers from 45 to 60 yards short of the green.
For the player who can pull off that shot, an open green awaits. As can be seen from this image, the player choosing to lay-up should favor the right hand side, short of the bunker, in order to open the green up as best possible given the bunker short left and long right.
Hole 9: Par 4, 366 yards
Top quality short par 4. This hole has a significant dogleg off the tee and tempts the player to hit down the right hand side near the trees. Given the view of the hole, the player can tell that the fairway stops at a distance off the tee and may be forced to decide if the driver is the proper play from the tee.
But for the player who may have hit less than driver off the tee and played down the right side, the designer put a little surprise in for them, blind from the tee. A set of three bunkers guard the inside of the dogleg, standing ready to catch any balls that were hit short of the required yardage, but, given the yardage of the hole, probably the precise yardage a player not familiar with the course would have thought to be perfect.
From the fairway short of the green, but over the bunkers, the heavily defended green can be seen. There is the option to run a ball onto this green, but the opening is rather narrow. Given the length of approach shot for a person playing the correct tees, this writer has no problem with a hole requiring the player to fly the ball onto the putting surface. (Note: even though there is water standing in the fairway, this is a well draining course. It had been raining for 8-10 hours prior to my teeing off)
Hole 12: Par 4, 341 yards
This hole, the shortest par 4 on the course, also makes use of forced perspective, making the player think a bunker is much closer than it really is. From the tee, the player is given a generous fairway to look upon. But he is also given a bunker, that while obviously not on the preferred line of approach to the green, that being on the left side of the fairway, certainly does appear to be in play off the tee for any shot played right of center.
But, as before, once the player gets a ways off the tee, the bunker clearly shows itself to be a greenside bunker. Very good use of bunkering and deception to make the hole appear to be something that it is not and making it better because of that.
Hole 18: Par 5, 521 yards
This solid par 5 has likely not suffered from technology advances as some have. The hole plays as a hard dogleg right. The creek must be carried from the back tees (about a 40 yard carry), but not from the forward tees, which is always a plus. The creek also runs the entire length of the hole down the right side. The hole was built so to reward the player who takes a risky play off the tee and flirts with the creek. From the right side, the player will be left with a flat lie from which to play his second shot.
From the fairway, the contouring can be seen. The fairway is rather flat for the player who took no risk and played far left, however, from there the green is likely not within reach; at least it shouldn't be, any player who either hit a shot that poorly or that safe off the tee has no business trying to reach the green from 260+ yards with a carry over a creek.
If a player hits up the right side without enough distance, he will be looking at this.
But with proper distance and angle, this shot from a nice flat lie awaits. Note the large tree on the right side of the fairway. The player will be forced to decide if he wants to risk going directly over the tree or if he wants to work the ball one way or the other around the tree.
The player who chooses to lay-up must contend with the tree and steer clear of it, otherwise his approach might be blocked out.
The par 3's on the course, while rather varied are much better as a set than they are individually, only lacking a very short hole. While they may not be as scenic as some, the set is certainly solid. As with any course in Alaska, the turf conditions suffer when compared to courses in the Continental US due to the extremely short growing season up here. But architecturally, this course is solid. Not much boredom to be found here as players are expected to think on every shot. On more normal days, dryer days, the course should play much firmer, allowing for ground play, if desired (according to local weather, the first half of July was the coldest on record and had 20% above average rainfall, not the best combination for firm and fast golf courses). But overall, this course is very good, perhaps the best in the state, perhaps not, that remains to be seen. 6 out of 10.
Sunday
Pebble Beach Golf Links, Pebble Beach, CA
As I began to play golf, as most do, I began to think of what courses I most wanted to play. Three courses have really stuck out in my mind over the years. Pinehurst #2, Augusta National, and Pebble Beach. As I started learning more about golf courses, the list grew to include any number of other courses, ones on Long Island, ones in the British Isles and so forth. But, still today, I would choose any of the three listed above over virtually any course in the world. Those three are still the top of the list for me. But other than Pinehurst #2, I wasn't sure if I would ever see any of them. I'm still not certain that I will ever play Augusta National. On April 2, 2011 though, I got to play Pebble Beach.
I found myself in California due to a school for the Coast Guard. I decided that I would try to play Pebble Beach after my mom agreed to pay the fare; many thanks are in order for that. I called on a Thursday with rather low expectations but to my surprise I was able to secure a teetime at about 11:00 am on that Saturday. I left out Saturday morning with my friend Nik who, having nothing better to do that day, decided to ride down with me.
As we pulled into the lot, the whole place really started to unfold. Walking down from the car park through a gap between the shops and the pro shop was unique. Once we got through the walk, the putting green sprawled out in front of us. It was, in no exaggeration, the largest putting green I have ever seen. I took some obligatory pictures on the putting green, by the Rolex clock, and by the wall of champions behind the first tee.
Finally it was my turn to tee off. To me, the first tee was just awesome. It really was electric from my point of view. The entire round was much the same. Any person who can stand around and say that Pebble Beach is anything short of fantastic needs his head examined. The Third hole offers you the first real chance to see the Pacific and it works really well as a teaser for things to come. It would be difficult for anyone to deny that the two highest points of the round, from a scenic point of view, are the 7th and 18th tees. The 7th hole at Pebble Beach really is a magical setting.
It's difficult to put into words how special a place Pebble Beach is. From the first tee to the eighteenth green, the whole place is magical. The setting is incredible. The history and tradition are incredible. There really is nothing else like it in the world. I really wonder if any golf experience that I might have in the future will ever compare to the experience at Pebble Beach. I'll get chance to find out this November when I play Pinehurst #2, see how that compares.
Pebble is a truly special place for golfers. I wait patiently for the day when I can return there to play again. Even though the cost is high, there is no doubt I would pay it. As I said before, it really is difficult to explain the feeling that I felt at Pebble Beach. I've played a fair number of high quality golf courses, I played Pacific Dunes only two weeks earlier, but at no time have I ever felt something like Pebble. It was, perhaps, something akin to Michael Murphy's round with Shivas Irons in "Golf in the Kingdom." At some point I think the round became something more than just a round of golf and went into something else, more fantasy. The day I played Pebble Beach is certainly a day I will never forget.
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