Tour Guide: Low Point for the Highlands

Welcome to the third week in a row with either a PGA Tour signature event or a major championship. That’s a lot! The Travelers Championship offers us a chance to dive into changes at TPC River Highlands, which are probably not going to do much to strengthen the course’s defenses.

Plus a breakdown of Bryson’s bunker shot and a look back to the 2016 KPMG Women’s PGA at Sahalee, in honor of this week’s edition.

Time For a Change, Just Not These Changes

By Joseph LaMagna

A year removed from Keegan Bradley tearing up TPC River Highlands, leaving the tournament host scrambling to toughen the golf course, the PGA Tour returns to Cromwell, Connecticut, for a 71-player, no-cut, $20 million “signature event.” If that doesn’t interest you, especially following a thrilling U.S. Open at Pinehurst No. 2, I can’t blame you.

As Rory McIlroy said after last year’s Travelers Championship, technology has passed this 6,800-yard golf course by. With rain in the forecast once again, the Travelers Championship projects to be a soft wedge-fest, the worst conditions for testing professional golfers.

Under PGA Tour supervision, six holes have been tweaked in advance of this year’s tournament. The gist of the changes is that some landing areas have been narrowed and some greens shrunken (like the 11th), while mounds, hollows, and thick rough have been added.

The changes to the par-4 12th hole are perhaps the best example of both how the golf course has been passed by and how changes of this nature won’t substantively improve the championship. All while taking the golf course further away from its original design. Measuring ~400 yards, 12 has three bunkers lining the right side of the fairway. Clearing the bunkers requires about a 300-yard carry, an increasingly easy task for long hitters on the PGA Tour. Thus, as you can imagine, more and more players have been sending it over the right-hand bunkers, hoping to find the fairway but happy to risk finding the left-hand rough.

Therefore, in advance of this tournament, the PGA Tour has removed a large section of the fairway, taking driver out of play for many and channeling everyone into a similar location off the tee.

I have a hard time believing many people think these changes improved the golf course, for either professional or amateur play. To be fair to the PGA Tour, I’m sure they’d say, “Well, we’re constrained by the property and there’s nowhere to lengthen the hole. Modern distances have ruined the way this hole plays. What should we have done here?” And there’s not really a good answer short of a complete overhaul.

I just hope all the effort was worth increasing the scoring average on this hole by a fraction of a stroke. But more than anything, when you’re resorting to measures like this, it may be time to take the cue that the golf course can’t test the best golfers in the world. This is the type of hole that would’ve provided a compelling challenge in the 1990s, but it doesn’t anymore. And hey, maybe the PGA Tour actively fighting against responsible equipment regulation has its drawbacks. Distance advancements aren’t making golf holes more interesting, that’s for sure.

TPC River Highlands is a golf course that doesn’t challenge professional golfers. But it’s located in an area of the country that deserves a tournament, with a longtime sponsor eager to foot the bill, so we’re probably getting a soft, lucrative wedge-fest until further notice. Oh well.

One Shot From Last Week

By Will Knights

There are two ingredients that go into judging the quality of a golf shot: difficulty and circumstance. No shot is more difficult to pull off than a 60-yard bunker shot. No circumstance is more weighty than when a major championship hangs in the balance.

THE BUNKER SHOT OF HIS CAREER!@b_dechambeau has this putt left to win the U.S. Open! pic.twitter.com/Vleb6k6PvO

— U.S. Open (@usopengolf) June 16, 2024

Standing in the shadow of the Pinehurst clubhouse on Sunday, Bryson DeChambeau pulled off the best short game shot I have ever seen. I’m well aware that it sounds hyperbolic and influenced by recency bias. But when considering the number of ways that could have gone wrong, and the fact that he could have played it safe and just attempted a long putt, it’s hard to overstate how remarkable of a bunker shot he hit.

Now, what makes this length of a bunker shot so difficult? In short, it’s the contact. An 80-100 yard bunker shot allows you to hit the ball first. A greenside bunker shot allows you to take plenty of sand and land the ball softly. But the inbetween shot requires a little of both. You have to hit close to the ball, but not perfectly square or too far behind. You also have to match the speed of your swing to the amount of sand that gets between the ball and the clubface. Any mismatch in the two and you could end up leaving the ball in the bunker or have it careen off the Payne Stewart statue. And unless you happen to pick it just right, there will be very little spin as the ball lands, meaning you also have to judge the rollout.

That Bryson was able to perfectly match the contact with the proper clubhead speed in that moment was nothing short of extraordinary. I haven’t even mentioned the fact that he had to keep it on the back-right tier on the 18th green. The margin for error in getting that ball to roll out just the right amount is so small, yet he was able to execute when he most needed to.

Sometimes it helps to have a brain that thinks outside of the box.

Memory Lane: Going Back to Sahalee

By Meg Adkins

Major championship golf makes its return to the Pacific Northwest this week, as Sahalee Country Club plays host to the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship for the second time. It’ll take a fantastic finish to top what went down there in 2016 between Brooke Henderson and Lydia Ko.

Luckily for us, the LPGA posted the full broadcast from that Sunday to YouTube last night.

Not only is it a fascinating look back at Henderson’s sprint to the finish to catch Ko, but it’s a great way to familiarize yourself with Sahalee before the tournament begins tomorrow.

The Action

The battle of the teenagers saw Lydia Ko at the height of her powers vying for her third straight major. (Rory’s drought gets plenty of attention, but it’s mind boggling that Lydia is still searching for that elusive third major eight years later.) Brooke Henderson was looking for a breakthrough win, and led after the first two rounds. A Saturday 73 had her chasing Ko on Sunday, where a thrilling back nine ensued. The shots from 2016 you’ll see played over and over again on this week’s broadcast are Henderson’s 90-foot putt from off the green for eagle on 11, and her stuffed approach on the first playoff hole. The eagle kickstarted the back-nine push where Henderson added birdies at the 13th and 17th. Ko was no slouch that day either, posting a bogey-free 67, but her birdie at the 11th would be her last. Ariya Jutanugarn’s close call isn’t talked about, but birdies at 16 and 17 had her agonizingly close to making the playoff and having a shot at a fourth win in a row. It was a day of top-notch golf, with all three turning in clean scorecards.

The Course

Sahalee is narrow. Narrower than narrow. The massive trees lining the tight fairways make for a beautiful setting, but have to give players a sense of claustrophobia. While the visual intimidation would affect us mere mortals, the contenders in 2016 had no problem with the stern driving test. The tempo machine that was Lydia Ko wouldn’t have missed many fairways even if the corridors had been tightened even more. The early sentiment seems to be that players will take on a similar challenge once again this year. During her Tuesday press conference, Nelly Korda said, “If you have the length you have to hit it. This is the type of golf course where you just got to sack up and hit your driver.” Yuka Saso echoed that sentiment saying, “I think I have to hit driver, especially [since] KPMG is one the championships that is very long. I don’t want to have like 5-iron or hybrid second shot.”

The Extracurriculars

Inbee Park entered the week looking for her fourth consecutive Women’s PGA Championship. A missed cut was surely a disappointing result, but the week still marked her officially becoming eligible for the LPGA Hall of Fame. At just 27 years old, she is the youngest player to be inducted.

Brooke Henderson should’ve known it was going to be her week on Thursday. A hole-in-one on the par-3 13th won her a KIA K900. Brooke gave the car to her sister (and caddie) Brittany.

Annika Sorenstam as a broadcaster was something I had completely forgotten about. She’s in the booth with Curt Byrum and Dan Hicks, and while she acquits herself well, it was a bummer not to hear Judy Rankin on the coverage.