It was a three-way battle between Rory McIlroy and the two Camerons, Smith and Young.
Cameron Young tied for the lead briefly with a thrilling eagle two on the 356-yard final hole, but Smith birdied the hole to take the lead back, and a probable win, contingent only on McIlroy’s score on the 18th. If Rory could have pulled off an eagle of his own, he could have forced a playoff, but he settled for par and third place.
The field battered the Royal and Ancient. Cameron Smith fired two 64s on his way to a tournament result of 20 under par. Relative to par, that matched the best score in the history of the major golf championships, and it marked the first time that any player has shot two rounds of 64 or better in a major. It wasn’t just Smith who dominated the course. Young almost matched the twin-64 achievement with a 64 and a 65 over the long weekend, and the final scoreboard was littered with scores of 66 or better. There isn’t much the club can do to fight back. The course is already more than 7,300 yards long. That distance is daunting to weekend golfers, but length alone has a minimal impact on today’s pros, who are capable of overpowering par 5s and short par 4s. As a result, the top courses keep stretching out – Kiawah Island is now close to 8,000 yards from the tips, including four par fours measuring 480 yards or longer. Not that it matters to the pros. The median driving distance for tournament pros is 296 yards, and they hit an 8-iron an average of 180 yards. So the average tournament pro uses drive/8-iron to reach 480 yards. And that’s the average pro. Bryson DeChambeau averages 322 yards off the tee, and averages 170 yards with a pitching wedge, so he has to ease up on a drive/wedge to cover 480 yards. DeChambeau’s average drive plus his average four iron equals 578 yards (he doesn’t carry a three iron), so you need to stretch a hole to nearly 600 yards before he considers pulling out a fairway wood, and if he pulls out that wood, you need almost 650 yards to keep him from reaching it in two. And that’s just when he takes his contained, controlled swing. There’s no telling how far it’ll go if he winds up and gets all of it.
I have seen this sort of modern power game just playing with my youngest son, who is only a mediocre recreational player, but is powerful and swings for the fences. He and I were playing a par five recently. I hit what is a solid drive for a guy my age, about 220 yards, then hit a 7-iron about 150 yards to lay up perfectly behind a pond protecting the green. Those two shots, basically the best shots I can possibly hit on that hole, left me a few feet behind his 380-yard drive! Today’s strong young guys with today’s equipment can just blast the ball to distances we never dreamed of.
I was once in a foursome with Jim Rice, when the Indians and visiting Red Sox had a golf outing for a local charity back in the 1970s. 1 player+3 media/business were the foursomes. Rice, who once broke a bat with a check swing, hit for monumental distance, but his accuracy left him often hitting from one or two fairways over.
The “Royal and Ancient” is actually the British golf governing body, like the USGA. i think the course is simply the Old Course at St. Andrews Golf Links.
Yes, I know. I gather you are not familiar with the concept of metonymy.
Also, if you read the blog regularly, you’ll see that I refer to all stuffy traditions and institutions as royal and ancient, even when they are neither. It’s my personal cliche.
Same general trend in tennis. I wonder what Rod Laver might have done with today’s rackets.
You read my mind. I’ve always wondered how players like Tiger and Phil and Bryson would do with the clubs my grandpa played with in the Sixties. My guess is, nary a club would survive more than three or four holes, except maybe the putter. Maybe.
Yes, it’s the equipment,
… but it’s not JUST the equipment. Today’s players tend to have a different gym-to-pub ratio than the old stars. (With some exceptions, of course, like Gary Player.)
So it might be fairer to ask what Nicklaus might have done if he had today’s equipment AND the diet and exercise routine of Rory McIlroy.
Forget Nicklaus. Have you seen the scores Harry Vardon shot with the primitive tools of his time? I’d love to see today’s golfers play an old-timey round at Prestwick as it was laid out in 1903, with the balls and equipment of that time, wearing an effin’ three-piece suit, and see if any of them could match Vardon’s third-round 72.
I would bet against it, despite their superlative physical conditioning.
That suit looks like it weighs 40 pounds. Much, much more if it rains. Luckily it never rains in Scotland.