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"IF YOU LIKE GOLF"
online golf column
by
Chris Dortch
May 26, 2010
Expect some
lights out scoring at next week’s NCAA men’s golf championships at
The Honors Course.
That
prediction comes from no less an expert than the course’s hall of
fame greens superintendent David Stone, with whom I had the
pleasure of playing 18 holes at the course on Tuesday as part of
the tournament’s media day.
The Honors
has been stretched to 7,395 yards, up from the 7,030 when Tiger
Woods dominated the individual championship and Arizona State won
the team title in 1996. But that extra yardage won’t be a problem,
given the improvement of the players and their equipment.
“That’s why
they’ll shoot better scores than they did in ’96,” Stone said.
“Equipment is better. There was no such thing as the Pro V1 [ball]
back then. Somebody figured out you could take the core of an old
Top-Flite and put a soft cover around it and allow good players to
do great things with it.
“And the
field will be stronger, too. The NCAA is using the same format as
it does for the men’s basketball tournament and spreading out the
talent among regions. Fewer weaker teams are going to be here.”
Recall that
Woods won the tournament at 3-under-par 285, though he was 11
under through the first three rounds after scores of 69-67-69. A
final-round 80 brought him back to the pack, but he still won his
final college tournament and was within months of shocking the
golf world with his rapid domination of the PGA Tournament.
Stone thinks
Woods’ scoring marks here will be surpassed, for a couple of
reasons.
In 1996, Tom
Meeks of the USGA, infamous for his tough U.S. Open set ups,
selected pin placements at The Honors, and some of them were
brutal. This year, pins will be set to an exacting standard using
a BreakMaster digital green reader.
“The limit
is a 1.9 slope,” Stone said. “I’d say on an average golf course
around Chattanooga, you could find many pins that are more than a
1.9 slope.”
The rough at
The Honors—trust me on this one—is stout, but not as tough as it
could have been because of the recent warm weather that allowed
the Bermuda grass to overtake the rye. Yet the weather isn’t quite
warm enough for the Bermuda to thrive. Thus, a trip to the rough
doesn’t guarantee having to pitch back onto the fairway.
Stone
predicts someone will shoot lower than 67.
Whoever does
that will have to get past the usual suspects among The Honors’
most demanding holes. The famous par-3 16th, guarded by
a ball-hungry lake, will play at “only” 175 yards, though it could
be stretched farther back. Even at 175, it was the third-toughest
hole in the 2005 U.S. Mid-Amateur qualifying rounds and the 2009
Tennessee Amateur.
The 475-yard
par-4 15th, with the lake looming large on the left and
woods on the right, will come into play as usual, but a couple of
holes people might not think about will be factors, too.
The par-4 5th
will play at 490 yards. It’s a tough driving hole with a
challenging green. And No. 17, the formerly easily reachable
par-5, has been stretched from 495 yards to 545. Forced to go at
the green with longer clubs, players could find themselves having
to challenge the infamous “Big Bertha” bunker more often or have
difficulty keeping shots on the putting surface.
There’s one
other significant change in the tournament from the last time it
was played at The Honors. In 2009, the NCAA adopted a change in
format. Starting on June 1, the field will play 54 holes of stroke
play. That determines the individual champion and the top eight
teams that advance to three more days of match play to decide the
team champion.
Given that
The Honors has historically been a great match play venue, the
NCAAs should be fun to watch.
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Former
Baylor star Brooke Pancake finished 12th in the NCAA
women’s golf championships last week in helping lead her Alabama
team to a third-place finish, but I’m even more impressed by
another accomplishment she notched at the tournament.
The NCAA
Elite 88 Award is given every year to the student-athlete with the
highest cumulative grade-point average competing at each of the
NCAA’s 88 championships. Pancake won the award for women’s golf;
she carries a 4.0 in business after two years in Tuscaloosa.
I’d be
willing to bet the student athletes—male or female—who have a
perfect record in the classroom and are capable of shooting under
par in their national championship could squeeze comfortably onto
a golf cart.
Under the
direction of coach Mic Potter, Alabama women’s golf reached
unprecedented heights this season. The Crimson Tide won the SEC
championship, finished third in the nation, produced two
first-team All-Americans (Camilla Lennarth, Jennifer Kirby), the
SEC Freshman of the Year (Kirby), the SEC Student-Athlete of the
Year (Pancake, of course), won two tournaments and set school
records for team season scoring average (293.6), single-round
scoring (278), 54-hole scoring (848) and 72-hole scoring (1,157).
More is in
store. Alabama loses only two players from this year’s team but
replaces them with Jessica Schall of Lake Mary, Fla., who once
shot a 62 at a North Florida PGA event; Stephanie Meadow of
Ireland, the No. 3 player in the GolfWeek/Sagarin ratings; and
Alabama state high school champion Hannah Collier of Birmingham.
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