Good question. Not sure I can answer it, but here's some info that might be relevant.
Par for the Torrey Pines South Course (where they're playing today) is 72. According to http://www.golfserv.com/apps/courses....asp?crs=12420, from the Championship tees, the course rating is 74.6 and the slope is 136. However, the yardage given for the Championship tees is 7055 yds. According to the PGA Tour site (http://www.pgatour.com/tournaments/r004), the yardage is 7208 yards, so it would appear that the Tour lengthened the course a little, so the course rating and slope would be a little higher.
PGA Tour pro's are not scratch players (HDCP = 0), of course; they're better than that. I have no idea what Tiger's HDCP would be. Could it really be as low as +9 or +10 (http://www.findarticles.com/p/articl...2/ai_73959562). If so, he'd be maybe about a +4 or +5 on a course with a slope higher than 136 (e.g., maybe the Tour set-up puts the South Course into the 140s?). If so, maybe he'd be shooting about four-under-par on one of his better days? So, if he has two good days and two OK days (by Tiger standards), he should be about 10 or 12 under for four rounds?
Just speculating for fun here. Tiger did finish regulation play at 10 under, so maybe I'm on the right track. Or maybe it's coincidence. Anyone have any ideas?
You forgot they they played one round at the much easier North Course! Other than that it is a good analysis.
The par for the 2008 US Open at Torrey Pines will be 70. They are converting 18 and one of the other par fives to be par fours. It should be brutal. I heard this on the Golf Channel. Hopefully the greens will be a little smoother, the putts were bouncing too much.
Well, thanks for that info, Dan. Brutal, indeed. The greens on the South Course are a mixture of Penncross creeping bentgrass/Poa annua and they tend to grow unevenly. By the summer of 2008 the Poa annua should be completely dominant.
A good thing about hosting a U.S. Open right along the coast is that the grass can be cut as low as possible without fear of being scorched by the sun. This will be especially true in San Diego, in June, because of the usual early-morning and late-afternoon fog.
By the time the USGA gets done with those greens...cutting them ultra-low and rolling them a million times...they should be very true and very fast.
February 1st, 2006, 10:36 AM
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