The trials and tribulations of learning new golf courses

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Aug. 13, 2008
By John Maginnes, PGATOUR.COM Contributor

GREENSBORO, N.C. -- Have you ever wondered why that assistant pro at your club who shoots 68 or better every time he tees it up can't make it through q-school even though he has the best swing you have ever seen?

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For golfers like Paul Casey, who play more in Europe, a good amount of time needs to be spent learning the courses on the PGA TOUR before play begins.

There might be a list of reasons. The obvious is that playing with you isn't exactly like playing with Tiger. (Unless of course you are Tiger -- and if so, thanks for reading and get well soon.) But the most likely reason that players do or don't ascend to the lofty heights of PGA TOUR golf has to do with their ability to learn, adapt to and gain confidence on new courses in a few short days.

The only way to do this is through experience. Most players have to learn what works best for them. There is no general formula. Paul Casey, who is playing his second straight week on unfamiliar terrain, opted to walk Sedgefield rather than play a practice round Tuesday. He felt that he would gain more from seeing the golf course without the added clutter of swing worries and mechanics. The plan was to walk it sans clubs once and then play the next day.

Often at major championships, you will see a player and his caddie walk the golf course with a couple of wedges and a putter and concentrate all of their efforts on the greens. This is a tidy way of learning a golf course and working on your short game at the same time. Payne Stewart and Mike Hicks walked Pinehurst No. 2 with just a few clubs early in the week at the 1999 U.S. Open, and that worked out pretty well.

Last week at the PGA Championship, the players faced diabolical putting surfaces that sprang to life from the imagination of Donald Ross long before Steven King started writing novels. I make that comparison because in this case, both sod and word provoke sleep-shattering nightmares. The same could be true of the greens at Sedgefield this week during the Wyndham Championship.

What makes the greens at both places so tough is that they are at once dramatic and subtle. Large slopes lead up to or down from more level pin placements. Players who do their homework will be able to use these large slopes to feed their approach shots to tucked pin placements. While most of the greens are elevated and attacked from well below the putting surface, often the players won't be able to see the slopes from the fairway. To utilize the slopes effectively, you have to know they are there. Call it local knowledge if you want, but any TOUR player will tell you that after a couple of days on a course, they know more than most locals.

Fortunately for the players competing in the Wyndham Championship, the greens should not be frighteningly fast. They are in perfect condition, which is amazing for bent grass in the South in August. Compound the necessity to keep the greens hand-watered in the oppressive heat with an overcast and rainy Wednesday leading up to the tournament, and the greens should be quite receptive. However, changing conditions can also alter a game plan and require a player to take decisive action. Most of the field at the Wyndham Championship practiced early in the week under sunny skies and a firming golf course. What they are likely to find on Thursday is a much more receptive course. And the common Bermuda rough that lines these hallowed old fairways is going to grow over the next four days as much as an inch-and-a-half in spots.

When I played a tournament on a new course, I would continually play it over and over in my head in the shower or lying in bed at night. This exercise was one of my own invention to visualize and keep me familiar with the course. It is amazing how many decisions about how to play a particular shot or a certain hole were made miles from the course in my imagination.

For the players in the field this week at the Wyndham Championship -- and next week at The Barclays -- the challenge of learning a new course is as much fun as it is daunting. However they go about their preparation, each player quickly forms an idea about how to play every hole. There has been considerable speculation about pin placements and course setup at Sedgefield this week because no one has ever played a professional event under this configuration.

Although the most prepared guy doesn't always win in professional golf, the least prepared guy never does. The players and caddies have done their work and taken their notes in their yardage books. When the bell goes off on Thursday, inevitably shots will be hit and questions like, "What is over there?" will be asked. The answer that you never hear the caddie say but would be most appropriate is "you should know." In the end, you can't learn all there is to know in a couple of days. But as professional golfers, we try to convince ourselves that we have. And if you hit it in the middle of every fairway and every green, you have probably learned enough -- but where is the fun in that?