Day 2: Touring the course.

Another glorious day here in Akron, Ohio with the day set to reach around 83 degrees Fahrenheit or high 20s for centigrade people.

There are no pro-ams here at this tournament and so many of the players take full advantage of getting out on the course to have a look around or utilise the awesome practice facilities that they have here.

I arranged with Mark Dusbabek from the PGA TOUR to go around the front nine with him this morning and look at possible hole locations.

I love doing this at other people’s tournaments as I like to gauge how they select their pin positions, especially in terms of degrees of slope and tightness in relation to bunkers etc. as this only helps to develop your own thinking when it comes to setting up for tournaments.

This week sees Firestone at its firmest for some years and so players will have to manage their way around this classic golf course.

For example, the fourth hole has a flat landing plateau just short of the right side fairway bunker and this was where the architect planned to have players hit their second shots from.

However, if players hit through this landing area with driver the fairway slopes reasonably steeply to the left and can carry the ball down into the left rough and tree line. This can make for a tricky second shot, particularly with the ball landing firm on the greens rather than pulling up.

The third hole can also play in a similar way with the fairway sloping left to right and the right rough is certainly not where the guys want to finish up.

Before anything else this morning my first job was to catch up with Matt Kuchar for a chat and, while this may sound a simple task, trying to fit in with the other obligations that these high profile players have means that you have to grab your chance while you can or join the entourage for a while
until a suitable space opens up. Kuch is a great guy and it is easy to see why he is so popular out on Tour.

With my morning’s plans already out of sync I headed to the Rules Trailer for our regular meeting with everyone involved in the tournament.

This allows everyone to be updated on the tournament with a chance to ask any questions on specifics.

Great news is that the weather looks good for the week with only late afternoon on Sunday showing any possibility of a storm.Little or no wind and pleasant temperatures should make for good scoring and a great week of golf.

After grabbing a quick bite to eat we finally get the chance to head out on to the course and have a final look around.

Before we get to the first green I bump into Danny Lee. Danny and I go back to his days as a young amateur breaking into the international scene at NZ Golf.

He is having a fantastic season and it is nice to be able to say hi and congratulate him on his efforts. Hopefully I will catch up again in the next two weeks.

The maintenance crew are out working hard as some hot spots are starting to reveal themselves on a few of the greens and fringes. Hand watering to keep the turf alive is essential and the men and women on the team are doing an awesome job.

The greens are rolling nicely and it is really interesting to roll some balls to potential positions for round one. This is a narrow golf course in terms of fairways and there is enough rough out there to get between ball and club face should a player be errant from the tee. Losing bite on the greens
will certainly make scoring tricky.

Having finished with the pins we do a final sweep of the course to ensure that nothing has been introduced that could affect play and that everything that needs to be is covered by the Local Rules.

A visit back to the Rules Trailer to report back on our sweep and then it is time to retire for the day and start preparing for Round One.

I will be down around holes 4, 5 and 6 and so I will read through relative Rules and Decisions this evening before getting a solid night’s sleep.

Can’t wait for the first ball to be struck at 9.25am

Related Links

19th Blog / Scotty on Tour: Bridgestone Invitational Day 1
19th Blog / Scotty on Tour: Bridgestone Invitational Day 2
19th Blog / Scotty on Tour: Bridgestone Invitational Round 1
19th Blog / Scotty on Tour: Bridgestone Invitational Round 2
19th Blog / Scotty on Tour: Bridgestone Invitational Round 3
19th Blog / Scotty on Tour: Bridgestone Invitational Round 4