Keita Nakajima of Japan enjoying a bunker shot on the 4th gap in the first spherical.
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When the Royal & Ancient’s setup czars made the name to partially defang Royal Liverpool’s daunting pot bunkers earlier than the second spherical of the 151st Open Championship, it was a resolution most gamers undoubtedly embraced, even when it didn’t register with all of them.
“Not familiar,” Zach Johnson mentioned when requested about the transfer; this was following a second-round 69 that had elevated him to 2 over for the week.
A reporter defined to the U.S. Ryder Cup captain that in the wake of the first spherical — when balls often trundled into the bunkers and settled inside a couple of inches of the revetted sod partitions, making extraction a mighty, typically unimaginable, job — the R&A elected to make the pits much less penal by raking the sand towards the partitions, in impact creating a ramp that might push balls again towards the middle of the bunkers and provides gamers extra room to function. The R&A’s official discover learn, partly: “Yesterday afternoon the bunkers dried out more than we have seen in recent weeks and that led to more balls running straight up against the face than we would normally expect.”
“They made an announcement?” Johnson mentioned, starting to smile. “I probably should have read that.”
Johnson’s inattention to event alerts wasn’t the solely clarification for his obliviousness. He was amongst the fortunate few who largely averted the bunkers Friday, so he had few alternatives to examine them.
“I think I only hit it in one sand trap or bunker, fortunately,” he mentioned.
Other gamers have been much less lucky, which means by the finish of the second spherical, most of the discipline had had a probability to kind an opinion on the R&A’s surprising about-face.
Like Johnson, Rory McIlroy was unaware of the new raking protocol when his second spherical commenced. But when McIlroy knocked his second shot into a greenside pot bunker on the par-5 fifth, the gentler, kindler slopes shortly turned obvious to him.
“I was pleasantly surprised that I had a shot,” he mentioned, including, “I wouldn’t say there’s one person in the field that wouldn’t welcome that change.”
Perhaps, however there was no less than one participant who had blended emotions: Scotsman Richie Ramsay.
Ramsay, who acquired wind of the setup tweak not by the use of a formal participant discover however on social media, mentioned he not solely famous that the sand was fuller at the base of the partitions Friday however that it additionally may need been too full.
On the par-4 sixteenth gap, he mentioned, he hit a 4-iron into the breeze that discovered a greenside bunker — and a plugged lie. He had to pitch out backward, resulting in a double-bogey 6. Two holes later, at the par-5 18th, he mentioned he hit a 3-wood downwind along with his second shot that flew into a greenside bunker “like a missile.” That ball additionally plugged, in the center of the bunker. Ramsay mentioned he couldn’t inform if his shot had run as much as the wall after which trundled again into the unlucky lie, or if it had merely buried in that spot.
“Two just shockers, really,” mentioned Ramsay, who signed for a one-over 72 to drop him to a few over for the week. “I don’t know if that’s an anomaly or I don’t know if that’s something that’s a regular occurrence. You’ve just got to try and take the hit, but obviously I wasn’t that pleased [with] 16 and 18 to say the least.”
The sneaky purpose the bunkers at this Open Championship will give gamers matches
Alan Bastable
As ever with major-championship setups, hanging a steadiness between difficult and unfair is a high-wire act. It’s true of inexperienced pace and fairway width and tough size, however hardly ever is there as a lot scrutiny on bunkers as there was this week in North West England. Matthew Jordan, who’s a member of and the course record-holder at Royal Liverpool, is aware of these bunkers in addition to any participant in the discipline.
After a second-round 72 dropped him again to 1 underneath, he known as the R&A’s resolution “probably worthwhile,” however added, “I think we all want to see them as hazards, don’t we? We don’t want to see people hitting in there, getting perfect lies and flicking them out. It’s just hard to get a balance between — I had a couple yesterday which were just unbelievable. I’ve never seen that around here before. I think that was probably the right decision, but at the same time, I’m all for them being hazards.”
Of the plugged lies Ramsay encountered, Jordan mentioned: “Yeah, I think one thing that is happening is if the ball flies in, it’s flying in hard, it’s hitting up the face, and then because of —it’s not that steep, and there is a bit of sand there, so it’s just coming up and then coming down and semi-plugging, which isn’t great. I don’t know how the guys are preparing, but it’s just a difficult one, isn’t it, to get right? I think they’re close.”
Leave it to Jordan Spieth to supply one in all the extra nuanced takes on the state of affairs. In the first two rounds, Spieth managed to largely keep away from the bunkers, so he didn’t spend a lot time analyzing their severity. But, he mentioned, he did perceive why the flat bases may be problematic, if not borderline unfair.
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“You have these downwind par-5s where you can hit really, really nice shots into greens the way that they ask you to play them,” he mentioned. “And then they will find yourself basically — perhaps typically greater than a full-stroke penalty relying on the place it finally ends up, and also you hit the proper shot.
“The into-the-wind holes it doesn’t matter as a lot. The downwind holes it makes a large distinction as a result of the ball will simply proceed to chase till it stops, and you probably have simply a little little bit of an upslope or the ball comes again simply a couple inches from the place it might have yesterday, that might imply getting it out of the bunker versus having to play backwards like Tony [Finau] did yesterday on that one gap.
“That’s a good instance on a par-5. You noticed some on 18 yesterday, as properly. That’s the place you’re attempting to hit it. I used to be 270-something yards away right now and I hit a 4-iron 5 yards left of the entrance fringe of the inexperienced, after which I can’t advance my ball greater than a few ft out of the bunker, however that’s the Open Championship, and these bunkers make this golf course.
Spieth, who’s at two underneath at the midway level, eight again of Brian Harman, characterised the raking adjustment as “a good move,” and added that “the rain will make a big difference tomorrow. I think it’ll make it more playable. Balls will bounce off and move more towards the middle ever so slightly and you’ll be able to get more club on the ball.”
Padraig Harrington, who made the three-over lower on the quantity and is enjoying in his twenty sixth Open, additionally accredited of the resolution.
“The bunkers are still severe without them being absolute penalties,” he mentioned. “Every fairway bunker is a chip out. A lot of the greenside bunkers now with the change you can get out of them but you’re not necessarily getting up-and-down. They’re still not a great place to be.”
Nor ought to they be. Bunkers are, in spite of everything, designed to be averted.
As Ramsay mentioned, “At some courses we play, you’re actually looking to be in the bunker, and it’s a free swing and you can get the control. I don’t think that’s the way things should be.”
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