NEW GOLF COLUMN ON VSP!

Mike Firpo, Executive Director of the First Tee of Fresno and one of the pros at Riverside Golf Course, will be a regular contributor to the site.

THE OPEN CHAMPIONSHIP

By Mike Firpo
VSP Golf Columnist:

Ahhh, The British Open Golf Championship has come and gone once again. To those of us who are golfaholics, it is simply The Open, because it is the original Open Golf Championship and it pre-dates the US Open by 29 years.

Now, I want to keep a local theme to this article, but considering Scotland is 5,161 miles away (give or take a few) all Americans could be considered local. There are a total of 44 Americans playing, which is 28% of the field. Nick Watney and Kevin Sutherland are the only truly local connections to this year’s tournament. Let’s back up for a minute.

This was the 138th Open Championship and was played at the Ailsa Championship Course at Turnberry Resort in Scotland. Open courses, including this year’s, are completely different than US Open courses. Open courses rely on weather and natural terrain for the most part to create the challenge. US Open courses are “tricked up” or should I say “set up” to create the challenge.

You will notice when watching The Open that the golf course is relatively boring in its design, compared to what we (Americans) are used to seeing. Ailsa is known as a links course, which by definition is a seaside course with little or no alteration to the natural terrain. There are very few, if any, trees and the bunkers are deep. Most people think the bunkers are deep in order to make the course play tougher, but they are actually deep in order to keep the seaside winds from blowing the sand away. The fairways of a links course are not watered on a regular basis and they are usually very hard and fast. A true links course routes out and back. The first hole begins at the clubhouse and the front nine plays straight out so that the ninth is farthest hole from the clubhouse; the direction turns back in at #10 and the course ends with #18 back at the clubhouse.

Now, I will get to our local boys in a minute, but how can we talk about The Open without mentioning Tom Watson? He said after Sunday’s loss in a playoff to Stewart Cink that it could have been a great story. Correction, it was a great story. Not all great stories have to have a historical ending. Tom was phenomenal for 72 holes, except for one putt on eighteen Sunday. That 10-footer 30 years ago would have gone in or four feet by if he missed, but at 59 years old and after four days of build-up, Tom succumbed to the moment and let it affect his stroke. But, let’s not forget that Cink shot two under par for the four-hole playoff and he earned the victory. Well done Tom. You know you have done something special when Jack Nicklaus is glued to his set and admits to becoming emotional watching you do more than just turn back time.

Okay, back to Nick and Kevin. They both spent their college career at Fresno State so we like to call them locals. This was Nick’s second trip across the pond to play in The Open and it was only Kevin’s third. This is an event that is best played after you have some experience with what is a very different style of play. When was the last time you saw a player in a US tournament land a shot 50 yards short of a green on purpose; not because the green is a long way away but because it is the best way to end up on the green.

Nick is a very intelligent golfer and he knows how to make adjustments without letting the conditions get to him. Watney (71, 72, 71, 70) was very consistent and patient, which is a good thing in an Open format. After being in a tie for 53rd place after Friday’s second round, Nick shot a combined +1 on the final two days and moved up to finish in a tie for 27th and earn $47,793.63. Unlike most PGA tournaments, shooting +1 is a good thing in The Open. He did this by making par or birdie on 29 of the final 36 holes and not allowing mistakes to lead to a big number on any given hole. It is safe to say that Nick has a lot of Open Championships in his future and each round will help as he becomes a contender more and more often.

Kevin is a veteran of a couple decades of professional golf so he has learned how to manage a tournament. The Open is not your ordinary event, but when you have played as much as Kevin has, you can draw on experience when you are faced with new challenges. Sutherland was in good shape after two rounds. He was tied for 41st place at +2, but ran into a few bad holes on the weekend that knocked him out of contention. In round three Kevin went +4 on a stretch of six holes on the front nine and still managed to shoot +3 for the day. Round four was a matter of one hole. A very rare quintuple bogey, nine, on the par 4 fourteenth hole was the only significant blemish on his final round, but it cost him 26 places on the leaderboard and he finished in a tie for 60th place. Sutherland shot 69, 73, 73, 75 and earned $17,012.67.

Both players represented Fresno State and the community well considering only 73 players from all over the world made the cut and we can claim two of them.

Nick (10th on the season in earnings with $2,647,480) is taking this week off, but Kevin (77th with $774,758) is back at it in Canada at The Canadian Open.

MIKE’S BIO:

Mike Firpo is a Fresno native and he has been a golf professional since 1993. Currently Mike’s full-time job is as the Executive Director of The First Tee of Fresno, a youth development non-profit. He is also an assistant coach for the Bullard High School Boys Golf Team and a staff golf pro at Riverside golf course. Growing up in the junior golf scene here in Fresno and now working in the golf industry as a professional, Mike has a good feel for what is going on in the golf community.

Prior to working as a golf professional, Mike played many regional amateur events and then joined the Golden State and Texas Mini-Tours in 1993. He was named Ping Club-Fitter of the Year in 1997, and in 2003 our local PGA chapter honored him for his work with junior golf.

Check out the First Tee’s website here:
www.thefirstteefresno.org

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