Course owner Herb Kohler tried to be diplomatic but found it hard to hide his disappointment.
He watched as the players turned his vaunted Whistling Straits into Whispering Straits on Thursday. The expected blood-letting became an unexpected birdie fest.
Reacting to players’ fears that the course was too difficult, tournament officials drastically scaled back the setup. The end result had the opposite effect, hardly producing the intense stress Kohler predicted Whistling Straits would inflict on the field.
“I still want them to be stressed and I think they will be,” Kohler said. “They weren’t that stressed [Thursday].”
Darren Clarke enjoyed a stress-free round, shooting a 7-under-par 65 to lead after the first round of the PGA Championship. Justin Leonard and Ernie Els followed with 66s and former Northwestern star Luke Donald was among a foursome at 67.
All told, 39 players broke par on a course that was supposed to break their spirit, if not a few clubs. The glut of low scores had the PGA Championship looking like the Greater Milwaukee Open.
K.J. Choi opened with five straight birdies. Clarke, his partner, bettered him with birdies on six of the first eight holes. The threesome of Clarke, Leonard and Choi, who had a 68, was a combined 17 under.
All week the players had complained that Whistling Straits was the hardest course they had ever seen. After Thursday’s showing, their pre-tournament statements had all the credibility of former Notre Dame coach Lou Holtz fearing “the University of Navy.”
“They always overreact,” said course designer Pete Dye, who earlier in the week maintained the course was playable. “They think about this and that. They play when it’s cloudy and in the 50s, and they don’t think the sun will ever shine. They’re golf pros.”
The PGA of America, though, bought the tale of woe. With a forecast of Northwest wind gusts of 20 m.p.h., officials moved up the tees at Nos. 8, 11 and 18, knocking 145 yards off the layout.
Pins then also were placed mostly in the middle of greens, making them extremely reachable for a major.
“I play tougher pins every time I play it,” Kohler said. “On 18, you can’t put that pin in an easier position.”
The PGA’s strategy backfired when the wind failed to be much of a factor. Instead, the players played in favorable conditions on a course that had some of its teeth removed.
“I think they kind of went a little too easy,” said Vijay Singh, who had a 67. “[Two of the par 5s] were playing downwind, and you’re hitting irons to the greens. On some of the par 4s you could hit a decent drive and a 6-iron instead of hitting 3-irons and 2-irons. I think they misjudged those holes.”
The 18th was a case in point. With it playing at 500 yards before the tournament, the pros had predicted the par 4 would be a brutal hole. Hitting into the wind during a practice round Tuesday, Els needed a driver and 3-wood to reach the green.
Thursday, the hole was cut back to 449 yards. Without much wind, Els knocked a 3-wood through the fairway and hit the green with an 8-iron.
Kohler, an 18-handicapper, lamented that the pros played from the same tee he uses.
“[Tiger Woods] gets there with a 2-iron, 9-iron,” Kohler said. “That’s not how the 18th was designed.”
The players weren’t about to complain. The easy setup was like getting Christmas in August.
“Yeah, it was fair,” said Scott Verplank, who had a 67. “Anytime you have guys shooting 7 under, they’re going to say it’s fair.”
Els admitted that the PGA probably reacted to the players’ predictions of doom. He thought they had little choice given the possibility of windy conditions.
“If you’re going to play this golf course off the tips the first two rounds with such a big field and we have bad weather, you’re going to have a hard time finishing in 5 1/2 hours,” Els said. “There’s still a lot of teeth left in this golf course. But for the first and second round, to get the field moving, they did the right thing.”
Dye agreed. The designer the players love to hate wasn’t upset that many players got the best of his design Thursday. He knows that if the weather forecast had been different, the PGA would have altered its setup.
“The golf course is in great shape. It’s immaculate,” Dye said. “When you get conditions like this, it’s going to produce good scores. The PGA didn’t want it to be a disaster. The scores were just fine.”
Kohler said he also understood why the PGA veered on “the conservative side.” He, like the players, anticipates a much tougher setup Friday.
When Kohler was asked if he planned to pressure the PGA to toughen the course, the head of Kohler Co., a $3.5 billion per year company, maintained he had no influence in that department this week. Still, he expects that the PGA will make sure that Whistling Straits lives up to its billing.
“The scores were logical out there [Thursday],” Kohler said. “But I don’t think it makes a definitive statement about this course.”
HOW THE SIGNATURE HOLES PLAYED
17
PAR 3, 223 YARDS
Comment: The hole played much easier with the help of the wind Thursday. It didn’t yield many birdies, but most of the field was able to walk away with a par.
BIRDIES: 5
PARS: 118
BOGEYS: 28
DOUBLE BOGEYS: 4
AVERAGE: 3.20
RANKING: 6th
18
PAR 4, 449 YARDS
Comment: Officials moved up the tee 51 yards, thinking the hole would play into the wind. It turned out the wind wasn’t much of a factor, and an easy pin made the hole playable.
BIRDIES: 10
PARS: 101
BOGEYS: 36
DOUBLE BOGEYS OR WORSE: 8
AVERAGE: 4.303
RANKING: 3rd
