Good Players Shooting Good Scores

There's been a lot of good scoring recently at the tournaments I've been at. I was fortunate to spend one full day (Friday) at Congressional during the U.S. Open. I wallked the golf course and it was an absolute beast - just long and extremely demanding. But you give the best players in the world soft conditions and they will shoot good scores. Rory McIlroy was off the charts, but many other players were well under par as well. You can't build courses long enough for these top players. The many challege is to get the course playing firm and fast and hope that Mother Nature conjurs some wind. I think top players would rather play in the rain than deal with constant and gusty wind. Absent those conditions and they will go low. All in all it was an exciting championship. Even though it was Rory in a runaway, he is someone good for the game and easy to root for.
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<:AtomicElement>I think any criticism levied against the USGA for this year's Open set-up is somewhat unfair. Mike Davis had no control over the weather. It was over 100 degrees the week before the Open for a few days and then of course the rain came. If Mike is going to err, he's going to err on the side of the player. I know that he and everyone else at the USGA never wants a repeat of what happened at Shinnecock. And speaking of that Long Island gem, it's nice to see that the fences have been mended and Shinnecock was announced as the site of the 2018 Open.
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<:AtomicElement>The week after the Open I was involved in the administration of the Northeast Amateur at Wannamoisett CC in RI. Long considered one of the top men's amateur tournaments in the world, the Northeast has a great list of past champions including Ben Crenshaw, John Cook, Luke Donald and Dustin Johnson to name a few. This year another "name" player won - Peter Uihlein, the regning U.S. Amateur champion and Mass native. He set the 72 hole scoring record with a 15 under par performance.
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<:AtomicElement>Again Mother Nature had a hand in the low scoring as the rain leading up to and during the tournament rendered the 6,700 yard course (short for today's elite players), specifically the greens, defenseless. At Wannamoisett the greens need to be firm and fast to challenge players. The rain simply turned it into a dart throwing contest. Luke Guthrie of the Univ of Illinois set the course record with an 8 under par 61 in the first round. That was an omen of what was to come as more than 20 players finished the tournament under par. But it was still exciting golf to watch down the stretch and Peter is a great champion.
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<:AtomicElement>Finally, to continue the trend this past week at the Mass Open featured a rain dampened Oak Hill CC course in Fitchburg. The potentially scary greens had a little bit of their teeth taken out with the soft conditions. Fortunately the weather cooperated during th tournament itself and Kyle Gallo of CT won his first Mass Open.
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<:AtomicElement>We will see what the weather brings in another week or so to Wyantenuck and the Mass Amateur. Whatever the conditions, one happy golfer will be raising a beatiful trophy at week's end.