2020 PGA Tour

Clears Cleaver

Lil' Bill
SoSH Member
Aug 1, 2001
11,370
Seminole looks like an amazingly hard course as much as it looks good as well. Those greens are like putting on concrete and everything runs away from the hole.
Beerabelli and I played there about 10 years ago. Caddie bet us all on first tee there'd be at least one four putt in our group. On #2 our buddy was 30 feet above the hole. putted it into the bunker. I think he made 8 from being on in two. LOL

Here's the thing, I cannot remember much about any of these holes. And we were sober, unlike our rounds at Sawgrass and Dye Preserve. The greens were hard and you had tiny landing areas on greens or else it was a mess. But tee to green I didn't think it was that challenging. but it wasn't windy day we played (March), either
 

RedOctober3829

Member
SoSH Member
Jul 19, 2005
55,298
deep inside Guido territory
Beerabelli and I played there about 10 years ago. Caddie bet us all on first tee there'd be at least one four putt in our group. On #2 our buddy was 30 feet above the hole. putted it into the bunker. I think he made 8 from being on in two. LOL

Here's the thing, I cannot remember much about any of these holes. And we were sober, unlike our rounds at Sawgrass and Dye Preserve. The greens were hard and you had tiny landing areas on greens or else it was a mess. But tee to green I didn't think it was that challenging. but it wasn't windy day we played (March), either
I think the way they lengthened this out for them makes it harder too. There's certainly not much penalty for being wayward off the tees, but the greens make up for that.
 

BigMike

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Sep 26, 2000
23,244
Funny they keep talking about how fast they are playing, and how seminole is all about speed play, just said something on how they are pushing members to be around in 3:30. Yet this is heading for about a 4:30 round
 

Deathofthebambino

Drive Carefully
SoSH Member
Apr 12, 2005
41,948
Funny they keep talking about how fast they are playing, and how seminole is all about speed play, just said something on how they are pushing members to be around in 3:30. Yet this is heading for about a 4:30 round
I thought the most interesting thing they said about Seminole yesterday was that there was no breakfast and no dinner and everyone has to be off the premises by like 6:00 or 7:00 p.m. every day. It is a golf club, and pretty much nothing else. I don't know if I'd enjoy that. The most enjoyable part of being a member of a club, IMO, is hanging with other members/friends before/after a round, having drinks, talking shit, etc. I guess I'm not surprised that all of my friends that live down there in the winter are members at PGA National, Dye, Old Marsh, etc. instead of Seminole.
 

BigMike

Moderator
Moderator
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Sep 26, 2000
23,244
Well it won't matter as we will be back to real golf soon. But they need to figure out how to do one of these charity events where the guys are allowed to really go nuts, and throw down some gambling challenges out on the course
 

cshea

Member
SoSH Member
Nov 15, 2006
36,047
306, row 14
They also need to have more than 1 group on the course. Maybe it’s not feasible with the current conditions, but there’s too much dead air when it’s just one group playing. 4 guys hit shots in a minute, then it’s a 10 minute wait as they walk to their ball. The networks think they need to fill dead air so they bring on Bill Murray and Trump, easily the two worst parts of the whole thing yesterday. The commentators also just need to stop talking and use the player sound. I’m not even really talking about some of the fake/forced trash talk, but stuff where the players discuss and react to their shots in real time. That is a million times more informative and interesting than Paul Azinger interjecting his thoughts from a studio a hundred miles away. Or the on course guy who can’t see a damned thing because he is distancing himself telling us that a shot is good while the camera pans to the rough or bunker.

I’ll still tune in for Match 2 this weekend, but they could make these one off events so much better.
 

TFP

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Dec 10, 2007
20,380
The most interesting parts of the whole match was when Wolff was complaining about his putt breaking too much and DJ told him he started it way left of where he thought. Then Wolff and Rickie lining up the final putt on 18 was awesome too. That's the kind of stuff I want to hear, not the forced trash talk and jokes.
 
I thought the most interesting thing they said about Seminole yesterday was that there was no breakfast and no dinner and everyone has to be off the premises by like 6:00 or 7:00 p.m. every day. It is a golf club, and pretty much nothing else. I don't know if I'd enjoy that. The most enjoyable part of being a member of a club, IMO, is hanging with other members/friends before/after a round, having drinks, talking shit, etc. I guess I'm not surprised that all of my friends that live down there in the winter are members at PGA National, Dye, Old Marsh, etc. instead of Seminole.
The No Laying Up guys were joking (on today's podcast) that Seminole kicking Rory/DJ et al. off the course at 6 p.m. would have been the golfiest thing ever.

At least one of the NLU guys said he was a bit underwhelmed by the course at Seminole...and I can sort of see where he was coming from. For the most part, it didn't seem like a particularly interesting course from tee to fairway - very open, mostly flat - and there were a few green complexes that I'll just say were maybe a bit too subtle to come across well on TV. I mean, I have few doubts that it's the best course in southern Florida, but while I really enjoyed watching it, I wasn't bedazzled by it to the point that it's now on my list of the 20 courses I haven't played yet in the US that I'm dying to play. Mind you, I did wind up fast-forwarding between shots for a lot of the broadcast, having watched it mostly on tape delay, so even though I was trying to focus on the course as much as the golf, maybe I missed some of the architectural substance? (I'm sure the course is also much more interesting when it's playing firmer and faster than it was yesterday; that was not the ideal setting to show off the best of what makes Seminole great.)
 

jercra

No longer respects DeChambeau
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Jul 31, 2006
3,147
Arvada, Co
A lot of the coverage was just based on what they could do. Normally there are cameras all over the course. They had 6 for this and had to wait for them to get into position before hitting shots. That caused a lot of down time between shots than even a normal broadcast with 4 guys. I totally agree on the commentators shutting the hell up but the NLU guys had a good point when they mentioned that because this was the first "real" sporting event in months that there were likely a lot of non-golf watchers tuning in so they were more vociferous than they should have been. As for the players, yeah I agree that it would have been amazing to ask the players to talk a lot about what they were trying to do, how they were setting up, what they were reading, etc. before their shots. Mostly the players don't like being mic'ed up though. All they can do is cost themselves money or make their sponsors look bad by saying the wrong things. It's a no win situation for them.
 

Comfortably Lomb

Koko the Monkey
SoSH Member
Feb 22, 2004
12,959
The Paris of the 80s
At least one of the NLU guys said he was a bit underwhelmed by the course at Seminole...and I can sort of see where he was coming from. For the most part, it didn't seem like a particularly interesting course from tee to fairway - very open, mostly flat - and there were a few green complexes that I'll just say were maybe a bit too subtle to come across well on TV. I mean, I have few doubts that it's the best course in southern Florida, but while I really enjoyed watching it, I wasn't bedazzled by it to the point that it's now on my list of the 20 courses I haven't played yet in the US that I'm dying to play. Mind you, I did wind up fast-forwarding between shots for a lot of the broadcast, having watched it mostly on tape delay, so even though I was trying to focus on the course as much as the golf, maybe I missed some of the architectural substance? (I'm sure the course is also much more interesting when it's playing firmer and faster than it was yesterday; that was not the ideal setting to show off the best of what makes Seminole great.)
It's on a flat property but looks to have uneven lies all over the place, especially around greens. Lots of doglegs, waste areas, bunkers, out of bounds, and water features too. Seems like the type of course you can put up a big number on and walk away wondering how you did it... basically, a Ross course.
 

Doug Beerabelli

Killer Threads
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Maybe flatter than most Ross courses, but like most of them - it's all about the greens and approaches. The par 5s are short, but the greens/bunkering are ferocious, so going for it in two makes you think ---at least for those of us not hitting driver/7 iron on a 550 yd hole. Seems all the greens were raised above the level of the approach shot (or above the level just before the green), and anything wayward was likely slipping off the green into a deep bunker. These bunkers are made more difficult due to fact the greens are quick and slope back toward the bunker you are in, so getting a bunker shot out of the bunker but onto the green short--a shot that is fine at most courses-- might end up with the ball back at your feet in the bunker. So you're thinking a) I have to hit this far enough to not roll back to me, and b) but not too far that it rolls off green into the bunker on the other side.

Turtelback style greens mean they are smaller than they look, and thus effective landing area is smaller than it appears (another Ross standard design feature). Wind kicks up, it's hard to find those spots, bringing bunkers more into play.

I think one great aspect of it is it's not traditional Florida target golf, where you are contantly navigating around water hazards on side of fairways or carry over on approach shots. The bunker remind of Bethpage Black (not a Ross course) in style and shape, but I think they are more difficult due the green rolloff factor (no line of rough between bunker and green). It's linksy in look and from tee to green--lacking the rolling undulations and pot bunkers of the Irish and Scottish courses-- but the green complexes are decidedly kick your arse NE parkland style. The only other course in Florida I can recall that had a similar look and feel was Streamsong, but this is less gimmicky in it's look.

LIke Lomb said, it doesn't look impressive at first, but it can kick your ass.
 

Deathofthebambino

Drive Carefully
SoSH Member
Apr 12, 2005
41,948
Yeah, my course is an old Donald Ross from the 1920's, and until about 5 years ago, the course record of 64 was still held by Walter Hagen (then Rob Oppenheim shot 62 on back to back days). From the tips, it plays about 6,700 yards, but getting off the tee isn't the problem, it's holding the greens with approaches and making putts/getting out of bunkers, etc. It's a course that long hitters think they can chew up and spit out, but it's so, so fucking hard to score around the greens. When they double cut and then roll them for tournaments, 4 putts become a common theme depending on pin locations.
 

johnmd20

mad dog
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Dec 30, 2003
61,996
New York City
Pouring in S Florida. Mother*****. 2020 just sucks every which way. Toying with us.
If we were living in a simulation, and the evidence suggests we are, pouring rain in Florida today, a day after Donald Trump took a sojourn to golf while we crossed 100k dead in Covid, is exactly what you would expect to happen.

Fuck. Hobbes was wrong, there is no free will.
 

Ale Xander

Hamilton
SoSH Member
Oct 31, 2013
72,436
If we were living in a simulation, and the evidence suggests we are, pouring rain in Florida today, a day after Donald Trump took a sojourn to golf while we crossed 100k dead in Covid, is exactly what you would expect to happen.

Fuck. Hobbes was wrong, there is no free will.
It's hard to tell if we're living in a tragedy or a farce. Oh wait, wrong Hobbes.
 

Ale Xander

Hamilton
SoSH Member
Oct 31, 2013
72,436
Looking like 90 and 100% chance of rain all day tomorrow. I think it's today (or Tuesday perhaps)