Day: October 17, 2018

David Leadbetter’s Keys to ChippingDavid Leadbetter’s Keys to Chipping

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The short game is a tall task at CJ CUPThe short game is a tall task at CJ CUP

The Club at Nine Bridges, site of this week’s THE CJ CUP @ NINE BRIDGES, was the fourth-toughest venue on TOUR last season. High winds played a large part in the course’s difficulty, but so did its large, sloping greens and deep bunkers. According to several metrics, this week’s venue was the TOUR’s toughest on and around the greens. Players got up-and-down less than half the time at last year’s CJ CUP. The scrambling percentage at Nine Bridges (48.2 percent) was the lowest on TOUR last season. Nine Bridges also had the TOUR’s third-lowest sand-save percentage (39.3). “The ball, it has a tendency to not sit in great spots around the greens. You know, it always seems to kind of fall away or seems to go down into a bunker,â€� said last year’s champion, Justin Thomas. Nine Bridges also had last season’s highest average putts per round (31.3) – that’s almost 0.5 putts more than second-place Monterey Peninsula Country Club — as well as the lowest one-putt percentage (31 percent) and highest three-putt percentage (6.9 percent). The locals speak of the “Halla Mountain break,â€� a reference to the large mountain at the center of Jeju Island that influences the flow of the greens. “The whole golf course is on this side of the big mountain. Sometimes it can look flat but really everything is still going down the mountain,â€� said Adam Scott. Nine Bridges’ 73.2 scoring average was the second-toughest at a non-major last season (only PGA National, the site of The Honda Classic, was harder). Thomas also won The Honda, giving him victories at last season’s two toughest non-major venues. He opened last year’s CJ CUP with a 9-under 63. Then the winds, and harder hole locations, came and Thomas won by shooting even par over the final 54 holes (74-70-72). “Putting is so hard in this wind. You can have a 2- or 3-footer and if the wind picks up, you’re not going to make it and that’s just the fact of the matter,â€� Thomas said. “So that also goes into the statistics because you’re not making as many putts, percentages aren’t going to be as high. A lot goes into it, but the wind is definitely a huge factor, but the design of the golf course and the greens are also very influential.â€� Nine Bridges gets harder the closer a player gets to the hole. Many South Korean courses are claustrophobic, but Nine Bridges’ wide fairways were the third-easiest to hit last season (72.4 percent). Players hit nearly 70 percent of the greens last year, as well. Only 12 courses had a higher greens-in-regulation-percentage. The high winds and large greens impact the putting statistics because players who don’t hit it close are left with long, difficult birdie putts instead of chips and pitches from off the green. The rough is lower this year but the greens are firmer. And it’s going to be cool and windy once again. The temperature isn’t expected to exceed 62, and the winds could blow over 20 mph in the first two rounds. “It’s always windy here. It’s just a matter of how windy,â€� Thomas said. That means players will need to be precise with their ball-striking if they want to win this week. Saving par is no easy task at Nine Bridges.

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Johnny Miller called it like he saw it for 29 yearsJohnny Miller called it like he saw it for 29 years

Even before winning 25 times on the PGA TOUR, including his signature victory at the 1973 U.S. Open at Oakmont, Johnny Miller was training for a TV career.  He just didn’t know it. “He grew up with colorful guys,â€� said Todd Miller, one of Johnny’s six kids and now the Director of Golf at Brigham Young University. “He had two guys he was really good friends with in San Francisco where he grew up, Steve Gregoire and Ron O’Connor, and they were always needling each other. They never stopped talking. For my dad, when he got to the (broadcast) booth, it came pretty natural just to come up with something really quick.â€� Miller’s second act calling golf for NBC, a career marked by insights, candor and sometimes controversy, is coming to an end after 29 years. Miller, 71, and NBC announced this week that when he calls the Waste Management Phoenix Open, Jan. 31-Feb. 3, it will mark the end of a three-decade run as one of the most iconic soundtracks on TOUR. “Soon, it will officially be Miller time,â€� Miller quipped in a press release. He was more emotional in aconference call with reporters Tuesday that also included NBC Golf Lead Producer Tommy Roy and NBC Golf President Mike McCarley. Miller seemed to choke back tears as he spoke of the highlight of his playing career, his final-round 63 at the 1973 U.S. Open—a tournament, he said, his dad groomed him to win. He said the highlight of his TV career was the relationships with his NBC Golf family like Dan Hicks and Roger Maltbie. “A lot of things going on not only in my mind but my heart, stomach,â€� Miller said.  One thing he didn’t have was a filter, and his microphone was always on. Monday-morning water-cooler talk came to include some version of: Did you hear what Johnny said? Miller once said of a fat pro that his back problems were “perhaps a result of his front problems.â€� He talked especially about choking, or gagging, under pressure on the back nine on Sunday, taking a blowtorch to the heretofore chummy, banal pleasantries of televised golf. “We all choke,â€� Miller said. “For me, I would choke at putting and I would admit that I did.â€� Of Phil Mickelson, Miller said: “If he couldn’t chip, he’d be selling cars in San Diego.â€� Of the stocky Australian Craig Parry, Miller said his swing was so unorthodox as to make Ben Hogan “puke.â€� (This, as Parry was winning the 2004 Ford Championship at Doral.)  He said Tiger Woods “gagged just a little bit because he wanted it so badâ€� at the 2012 Masters. Perhaps most famously, Miller said Justin Leonard should’ve stayed home instead of play in the 1999 Ryder Cup at Brookline—before Leonard made the clinching putt for the U.S. “He’s just an honest guy,â€� Todd Miller said of his father. “Even with his kids, my brothers and our families, he’s not going to dance around the truth. He’s going to be honest with you. And he’s insightful. He’ll pick things up that other people just don’t see.â€� And Johnny Miller was not above admitting his mistakes, like his Leonard comment in ’99. “I did say he should be home, but I meant the motel room,â€� Miller said. “Even then I probably shouldn’t have said that. I get so into these matches, these Ryder Cup matches. “I apologized to him literally the next day,â€� Miller added.  That was his policy, he said, when he went over the line. Producer Roy praised 99.5 percent of his work. “And .5 percent of the time it was a little bit of a problem for me and our PR department,â€� Roy said. “But that was fine. The great way outweighed the bad.â€� Miller said it came naturally to call it like he saw it, and laughed when reminded of his boyhood friends Gregoire and O’Connor and their formative give-and-take at The Olympic Club. “I remember one of the first tournaments I played, I was walking up to the practice tee and (Lee) Trevino was there,â€� Miller said. “When I walked in, he started razzing me. He didn’t realize that even though he was pretty quick with words, I sort of gave it back to him. He never bothered me again after that in front of all those people. “… I think the one thing I did have that was sort of God-given,â€� Miller added, “was sort of a quickness of spotting things in the swing and a quickness in response.â€� Nicknamed the Desert Fox as a player, Miller was at times dominant, winning 15 times in a three-year span in the mid-1970s. He captured the 1975 Phoenix Open by 14 shots and the Dean Martin Tucson Open, a week later, by nine. He was 49 under par in those eight rounds. He could be just as devastating as an analyst, starting with his first tournament, the 1990 Bob Hope Chrysler Classic. At crunch time, Peter Jacobsen, a friend, was sitting on a thin lead and assessing a tricky shot from a downhill lie over water. Miller came in hot. “I said, ‘He’s got this downhill lie. Easiest shot in golf to choke on,’â€� Miller said Tuesday. “I didn’t say he was going to choke. I was just saying if he did, this is the easiest one. Downhill lie over water and you have a tendency to hit it fat or thin like guys do on 15 at Augusta.â€� Jacobsen did not choke, won the tournament, and didn’t talk to Miller for months. (Ironically, he and Leonard both now work with Miller at Golf Channel on NBC.) In retirement, Miller will antagonize only the trout. He will bounce back and forth between his home at Napa’s Silverado Resort & Spa, where he is part of the ownership group, and Heber City, Utah. His 24 grandkids are ready for fishing and golf lessons, and Miller is anxious to provide. He’ll get on more airplanes, son Todd said, but his destinations will be places like Belize, to go bonefishing. Miller is nostalgic, he said, but also excited. “I just figure 50 years on the road, it’s been a great run,â€� he said. “… I’m feeling good. I’m emotional, but feeling good.â€�

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