Saturday
Sep122009
Woods humbles Dubsdread and the field
Saturday, September 12, 2009 at 2:06PM
Writing from Lemont, Ill.
Saturday, September 12, 2009
So you're Frank Jemsek, and you want a U.S. Open on Dubsdread, your pride-and-joy golf course, so you call architect Rees Jones and Wadsworth Construction, pull $5.2 million out of the Cog Hill Golf & Country Club kitty to pay for the added toughness, and what happens the Saturday of the 106th Western Open, the first big tournament on the golf course?
Tiger Woods goes out and shoots a 62, that's what.
A 62!
That's a course record on Dubsdread in any iteration, whether it was Rees Jones or Chuck Jones doing the re-doing.
It's a score that matches the championship-record 62 scored by Jim Furyk in the second round of last year's Western, or BMW Championship, if you prefer, at Bellerive Country Club.
It's a 9-under-par outburst that – if it was anyone else in golf – would have defied imagination, given the added difficulty that Dubsdread now presents. In his case, it simply restates the obvious, that Woods is the greatest player ever. Ever as in across the 600-odd years the game has been played.
Oh, and the 62 began with a bogey 5 on the par-4 first hole and finished with a 30-foot par putt that came up short on the par-4 18th.
Hey, nobody's perfect. Otherwise, Woods played the 15 holes from the third to the 17th in 10 under, with eight birdies, and an eagle on the par-5 ninth.
The 62, which supplants Ben Hogan's similar round in the 1941 Hale America National Open at Ridgemoor Country Club as the best round ever authored in Chicagoland, also brings Woods to 16-under-par 197. That matches the Western Open mark for the first 54 holes set by Camilo Villegas in his victory last year, and stakes him to a seven-stroke lead on Brandt Snedeker and Australian Marc Leishman with a round to go.
Snedeker, paired with the great man himself at 12:55 p.m. Sunday, has never played with Woods in three years on Tour. Leishman is a rookie. Fancy their chances at all on Sunday? Or those of Padraig Harrington or Matt Kuchar, the 1997 U.S. Amateur winner – on Dubsdread – who are eight strokes back at 8-under 205?
Didn't think so. That means the engraver of the J.K. Wadley Trophy is warming up in the bullpen.
Woods – and who are we, as mere humans, to argue? – said the par on the par-4 seventh hole "kinda saved my round."
There was this tree he ended up behind on a sidehill lie in the left rough, and it presented a vexing problem.
Until, that is, he cut a 6-iron around it, landing the ball on the proper quadrant of the green from 185 yards out, and proceeded to two-putt from 20 feet.
"Sweet," Woods said of the cut shot.
It got sweeter. He had already birdied the third and sixth holes.
"I saw Paddy (Harrington) birdie three of the first four, and I knew Marc (Leishman) was birdieing up ahead," Woods said. "You had to get into double-digits today."
For the first 54 holes, he meant.
The show, witnessed by a goodly amount of the estimated 40,000 spectators on hand, then began in earnest. He birdied the eighth, sinking a 3-footer. He eagled the ninth, hammering a drive 311 yards and then blasting a 3-metal 303 yards to within 11 feet of a cup on the back of the severely elevated green. When the ball disappeared for a 3, you could hear the roar from 600 yards away.
"The round kinda built upon itself," Woods said. "You can always make up shots from 8 to 11. The only one I didn't take advantage of was the 10th."
He narrowly missed a 30-footer for birdie there, but sank a 7-footer for a bird on the par-5 11th, a 6-footer for a 3 on the par-4 13th, a 26-footer for a 2 on the par-3 14th, and then "saved" a birdie after finding a greenside bunker and an insane lie on the par-5 15th.
At that stage, Woods was 15 under. He was five strokes ahead of Leishman, then his closest pursuer. He had played eight holes in 7-under, not only taking dead aim on a course record – Woods was one of seven players to have scored 63 on Dubsdread, and he was the only one to do so twice – but on locking up his record-tying fifth title in the Western, whether the name of BMW – a car record-holder Walter Hagen would likely have driven if a Deusenburg was unavailable – is stitched onto it or not.
There was one more birdie, a 6-footer on the par-4 17th. By then, it was clear that the title will belong to Woods unless he signs an incorrect scorecard on Sunday. He's 47-of-51 leading or sharing the lead after 54 holes. And Woods' failure to win after leading last month's PGA Championship through three rounds won't be repeated. Woods led the PGA by two strokes. He leads this one by seven, his fifth-largest margin.
Not bad for a guy who, after two rounds, was last in the field of 68 players in hitting his approaches close to the pin.
"I was just doing what I always do, plodding along and playing shot-for-shot," Woods said, dismissing the idea of a 59 floating through his head. "You've got to have the right golf course for (thinking 59), and this golf course is a little bit more difficult than that."
Gee, won't Frank Jemsek and Rees Jones be glad to hear that.
Jemsek was fine with the idea that a new record had been set, and especially glad that it was Woods who had set it.
"I'm thrilled for anybody who's done it, and jealous," Jemsek said.
As for the renovation – and now, who knows what the USGA might think of Dubsdread as a possible U.S. Open site – Jemsek said, "We really hoped we'd made it harder."
So will bulldozers soon return to toughen the tougher Dubsdread?
Said Jemsek, "Not until the bank loan's paid off."
– Tim Cronin
Saturday, September 12, 2009
So you're Frank Jemsek, and you want a U.S. Open on Dubsdread, your pride-and-joy golf course, so you call architect Rees Jones and Wadsworth Construction, pull $5.2 million out of the Cog Hill Golf & Country Club kitty to pay for the added toughness, and what happens the Saturday of the 106th Western Open, the first big tournament on the golf course?
Tiger Woods goes out and shoots a 62, that's what.
A 62!
That's a course record on Dubsdread in any iteration, whether it was Rees Jones or Chuck Jones doing the re-doing.
It's a score that matches the championship-record 62 scored by Jim Furyk in the second round of last year's Western, or BMW Championship, if you prefer, at Bellerive Country Club.
It's a 9-under-par outburst that – if it was anyone else in golf – would have defied imagination, given the added difficulty that Dubsdread now presents. In his case, it simply restates the obvious, that Woods is the greatest player ever. Ever as in across the 600-odd years the game has been played.
Oh, and the 62 began with a bogey 5 on the par-4 first hole and finished with a 30-foot par putt that came up short on the par-4 18th.
Hey, nobody's perfect. Otherwise, Woods played the 15 holes from the third to the 17th in 10 under, with eight birdies, and an eagle on the par-5 ninth.
The 62, which supplants Ben Hogan's similar round in the 1941 Hale America National Open at Ridgemoor Country Club as the best round ever authored in Chicagoland, also brings Woods to 16-under-par 197. That matches the Western Open mark for the first 54 holes set by Camilo Villegas in his victory last year, and stakes him to a seven-stroke lead on Brandt Snedeker and Australian Marc Leishman with a round to go.
Snedeker, paired with the great man himself at 12:55 p.m. Sunday, has never played with Woods in three years on Tour. Leishman is a rookie. Fancy their chances at all on Sunday? Or those of Padraig Harrington or Matt Kuchar, the 1997 U.S. Amateur winner – on Dubsdread – who are eight strokes back at 8-under 205?
Didn't think so. That means the engraver of the J.K. Wadley Trophy is warming up in the bullpen.
Woods – and who are we, as mere humans, to argue? – said the par on the par-4 seventh hole "kinda saved my round."
There was this tree he ended up behind on a sidehill lie in the left rough, and it presented a vexing problem.
Until, that is, he cut a 6-iron around it, landing the ball on the proper quadrant of the green from 185 yards out, and proceeded to two-putt from 20 feet.
"Sweet," Woods said of the cut shot.
It got sweeter. He had already birdied the third and sixth holes.
"I saw Paddy (Harrington) birdie three of the first four, and I knew Marc (Leishman) was birdieing up ahead," Woods said. "You had to get into double-digits today."
For the first 54 holes, he meant.
The show, witnessed by a goodly amount of the estimated 40,000 spectators on hand, then began in earnest. He birdied the eighth, sinking a 3-footer. He eagled the ninth, hammering a drive 311 yards and then blasting a 3-metal 303 yards to within 11 feet of a cup on the back of the severely elevated green. When the ball disappeared for a 3, you could hear the roar from 600 yards away.
"The round kinda built upon itself," Woods said. "You can always make up shots from 8 to 11. The only one I didn't take advantage of was the 10th."
He narrowly missed a 30-footer for birdie there, but sank a 7-footer for a bird on the par-5 11th, a 6-footer for a 3 on the par-4 13th, a 26-footer for a 2 on the par-3 14th, and then "saved" a birdie after finding a greenside bunker and an insane lie on the par-5 15th.
At that stage, Woods was 15 under. He was five strokes ahead of Leishman, then his closest pursuer. He had played eight holes in 7-under, not only taking dead aim on a course record – Woods was one of seven players to have scored 63 on Dubsdread, and he was the only one to do so twice – but on locking up his record-tying fifth title in the Western, whether the name of BMW – a car record-holder Walter Hagen would likely have driven if a Deusenburg was unavailable – is stitched onto it or not.
There was one more birdie, a 6-footer on the par-4 17th. By then, it was clear that the title will belong to Woods unless he signs an incorrect scorecard on Sunday. He's 47-of-51 leading or sharing the lead after 54 holes. And Woods' failure to win after leading last month's PGA Championship through three rounds won't be repeated. Woods led the PGA by two strokes. He leads this one by seven, his fifth-largest margin.
Not bad for a guy who, after two rounds, was last in the field of 68 players in hitting his approaches close to the pin.
"I was just doing what I always do, plodding along and playing shot-for-shot," Woods said, dismissing the idea of a 59 floating through his head. "You've got to have the right golf course for (thinking 59), and this golf course is a little bit more difficult than that."
Gee, won't Frank Jemsek and Rees Jones be glad to hear that.
Jemsek was fine with the idea that a new record had been set, and especially glad that it was Woods who had set it.
"I'm thrilled for anybody who's done it, and jealous," Jemsek said.
As for the renovation – and now, who knows what the USGA might think of Dubsdread as a possible U.S. Open site – Jemsek said, "We really hoped we'd made it harder."
So will bulldozers soon return to toughen the tougher Dubsdread?
Said Jemsek, "Not until the bank loan's paid off."
– Tim Cronin
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