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| Past U.S. Amateur champion John Harris focuses on his short game Wednesday afternoon at Crooked Stick. (John Mummert/USGA) |
Tough Week Lies Ahead
By Dave Shedloski
Carmel, Ind. – It’s called Crooked Stick Golf Club after its founder and designer, Pete Dye, mused aloud about the origins of the ancient game, how early practitioners must have swung at stones with random tree branches. But the site of the 30th U.S. Senior Open is anything but a strictly throwback design.
True, there are old-world golf elements that the field of 156 players will encounter when the championship begins at 7:45 a.m. EDT. Crooked Stick, founded in 1964, has a links feel with its railroad ties, strip bunkers, mounds, hollows and fescue fringes.
But the course that Dye completed in 1967 remains a modern aerial test that demands both length and accuracy off the tee and precision into small, sloping greens. Plus, there is its size; Crooked Stick will play to upwards of 7,316 yards, par 72. That makes it the longest layout in U.S. Senior Open history, surpassing the 7,254-yard East Course at The Broadmoor in Colorado Springs, Colo., last year.
“It's a long golf course. It's a long ball-hitters’ golf course – always has been,” said Indiana native Fuzzy Zoeller, who gave Dye a bit of a ribbing after finding out that he had stretched his prized course to give the senior players an even greater challenge. “I think if you're driving the ball well and you're a long hitter, you should fare fairly well this week.”
That probably bodes well for Bernhard Langer, who has won four times this year and leads the Champions Tour in scoring average and earnings. More important, the former two-time Masters champion ranks first in total driving and greens in regulation.
“I’ve been playing nicely for the last few weeks, and looking forward to this golf course. Expectations are fairly high,” said Langer, 51, who tied for sixth in his U.S. Senior Open debut last year. “As Tiger (Woods) would say, you need your ‘A’ game, hit precise off the tee, and you need a good touch around the greens and on the greens as well.”
There are other power players to watch, including two-time major winner Sandy Lyle, who is ranked third in driving distance with a 299.1-yard average, the always fit and powerful Greg Norman, who led after 54 holes at last week’s Senior British Open, and Tom Watson, a three-time U.S. Senior Open runner-up who came within a stroke of winning the Open Championship two weeks ago at Turnberry, Scotland.
And don’t rule out defending champion Eduardo Romero, another power player.
“I think it's very important to have a few extra yards this week,” said Romero, who ranks seventh in driving distance on the senior circuit at 288.4 yards per pop. “I'm ready. I know I'm one of the longest hitters this week, but I think it's a very difficult golf course. I know I have an advantage over other players but you never know. You never know. Drivers, putting and bunkers … every shot counts this week.”
Crooked Stick is hosting its sixth U.S. Golf Association event, but the tournament for which it earned renown is the 1991 PGA Championship, when ninth alternate John Daly pummeled the long layout into submission on the way to his surprise victory, and thereby cemented the identity of Dye’s design as a long-ball paradise.
“I think Pete Dye's done a good job here, no question about it,” Norman said. “It's already hosted a major championship, and it's proven its credibility. So it suits my game to a degree, suits the longer hitter. Obviously with John Daly winning around here and flying the ball through the air you have some advantages.”
But not total advantage. Crooked Stick’s putting surfaces could be an equalizer.
“There's a lot of squirreliness on some of the greens, which is what Pete likes to do,” Norman said. “He likes to test your mind. You got to know where you are going to hit the shot. And more importantly, if you are going to hit it and miss-hit it, where you are going miss-hit the shot.”
Loren Roberts, winner of last week’s Senior British Open, agrees that navigating the greens is crucial, but they are no more or less important than any other feature of the layout.
“You have to really pay attention to just a lot of little intricacies of this golf course, because there are a lot of them,” said Roberts, who visited the club last month and played two practice rounds to get a jump on the competition.
“This is probably the strongest course that I've seen for the Senior U.S. Open in the five that I've played as far as length and difficulty of shots and difficulty of greens.”
Dave Shedloski is a freelance writer whose work has previously appeared on www.ussenioropen.com.
