I caught around 10 minutes of the final round of the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am Yesterday. I walked into the living room to see 2 players inside the top 5 have a golfer's nightmare in broad daylight, trying to get up and down on the par 5, 14th hole at Pebble Beach. The real scary nightmare scenario is that this is February and the Pebble Beach Pro-AM in chilly and damp weather, is playing soft and slow. Compare that to what it will be this summer when Pebble Beach hosts the US Open, and it's playing hard and fast.
My wife, Susan, had the PB Pro-Am on the TV and was following DJ, shot by shot on my laptop on Shot Tracker at PGATour.com. Susan also follows DJ on shot tracker because that is the best way to keep up on a close to real time way. Also, as we all know, TV coverage is so good at covering only players in the top 3 each week and the super stars. But be playing well and inside the top 10 in the tournament, even one of the last 20 or less players on the course, and your chance of being seen is only in a dream. The networks just don't get it. All the players on Tour have family, friends, members from their course and the general golfing audience wanting to see more players that they know and/or would like to get to know and follow. How can we learn and get to know who the new players, and for that matter some of the veterans, are if we don't get to see them unless they are in the top 5 with a chance to win?
Well, back to the 14th green and the nightmare for the two players I witnessed. I walked in on the tale end of Bryce Molder's meltdown where he had a difficult 2 putt for a 9. We know Bryce from college golf. He played for Georgia Tech and was paired many times with DJ in tournaments we attended and we got to see him play up close. Bryce has a great short game and is even a better putter.
Susan told me he had pitched to the back left pin and ran it over the back and down the hill. He had some run up chips come up short and roll back to him. Then, to be sure to get it up onto the green, he hit it too firm and rolled across the green, down the slope and off the front. When it was all over he holed out for a nine. He started the 14th hole at 14 under, which at the time was in a tie for 3rd, and left it at 10 under, made all pars coming in to finish in a tie for 10th with DJ and 4 others.
While Bryce was playing out the 14th hole, in a minute of no shot action on the green, the camera panned out to the fairway to show the leaders, Dustin Johnson, the eventual winner, and Paul Goydos, standing in the fairway having a friendly chat.
Goydos hit his second shot just short of the left front bunker, which would seem to be an OK spot with the back left pin, except the pin was in rather close just over the bunker. He hit what looked to be a pretty good high soft pitch. It hit in the fringe just short of the green and jumped forward low and running. At first I though it was still a good shot and would be past the hole inside of 10 feet. But it just kept on rolling all the way to the fringe, then down the slope all the way to inside the ropes into the gallery and under overhanging tree limbs. I guess the back of the green slopes pretty severely away from the front as it is not obvious on TV.
Goydos had only one shot and had to hit a chip and run up the hill. It looked like he chose an 8 or 9 iron by the looks of the head. He hit a nice looking chip into the bank and it scooted up the hill but it didn't reach the top and came right back to him. He changed clubs and hit again and came up short and again was standing by his ball a few seconds later. When he finally got it on the green with his 6th shot, he ran it way by and was on the lower level. The announcers said he had a real difficult long putt up the slope. He hit the first one around 6 to 8 feet by, came up short a couple of inches dead in the hole and with the tap in 3 putt, he walked off with a 9.
The announcers said that this was the first time they can remember witnessing two players in a row, especially one in the lead and one in 3rd place make back to back nines. Then they mentioned that Alex Prugh, who was also inside the top 10, made a 9 on the 14th hole a little earlier. So the 14th hole at Pebble really wrecked some havoc with 3 players in contention in this year's final round of the Pebble Beach Pro- AM. All I can say to the players for the US Open this summer is watch out for the back left pin placement on 14, especially if the back slope is cut short as it was for The Pro-Am.
The big question to address relative to these chip or pitches into the bank disasters on the 14th hole is first, can a run up chip be hit and the second, is club selection critical? Naturally as we saw at the 14th yesterday the bank was cut down real short as the run offs the green showed. So, run ups to the green are possible as compared to the slope being thick with long rough that will not allow a run up shot. The chip run up the bank shot is executed the same as a chip shot from the fringe, where the club never passes the hands.
My personal experiences of coming up short hitting chips into and up a bank and the ball rolling back down to me, and seeing it happen many times to other players, has shown me the problem is usually using a club with too much loft. The higher lofted club, even hitting a chip and run, is a problem if the arc of the ball is coming in at a too steep an angle that is penetrating into the ground. The key is to choose less loft, a 7, 6 or even a 5 iron that will have a lower arc. With a lower arc, the ball skips off the bank rather than penetrating it.
This shot is all about touch and feel for proper execution. The only way to learn how to sense and feel this shot is to practice it and figure it out. The key is to think 'skip' the ball off the bank.
The Surge!