Reigning U.S. Open champion Jordan Spieth believes the key to defending his title will be to stay on the fairway as much as possible, even if it means keeping his driver in the bag.
He’s not alone. Spieth and a number of his peers have said they plan to ditch the driver on several holes to try to avoid Oakmont Country Club’s thick rough and deep bunkers.
It’s a peculiar strategy for a young generation of golfers that has risen to the top of the world rankings with their power game.
“We always say each and every week, it’s a bomber’s course,” Jason Day, currently the top-ranked golfer in the world, said. “For the most part, it’s a bomber’s game, our generation. It’s not like that this week.”
Day said golfers who dial it back, perhaps by teeing off with an iron, will put themselves in better position. Day, who currently ranks 20th in the world in average driving distance, said he planned on limiting himself to using a driver only four or five times in a round.
Several other powerful golfers, such as reigning Masters champion Danny Willett, four-time major winner Rory McIlroy and 2013 Masters champion Adam Scott, echoed Spieth and Day’s assessments.
“With the caliber of players here and whoever’s in form this week, I think the guy Sunday who goes out and hits the fairways is going to give himself the best chance for the most birdies,” Scott said. “You’re going to make some errors, but you’re going to have to be in the short grass to make enough birdies.”
But this strategy has not always paid off at Oakmont. Spieth noted that in 2007, golfers who hit the fairway were not as successful as he expected. Of the fifteen golfers who hit the fairway at a frequency greater than 60 percent, only two also finished in the top 10 in the tournament — a statistic, he said, that “shocked” him.
“I mean, that goes against everything I’ve been saying, which is you’ve got to put the ball in the fairway off the tee here, or else it’s so hard to just hit it around the green, let alone on the green,” he said.
And in the 1994 U.S. Open at Oakmont, Ernie Els hit only six fairways in the 20-hole playoff yet still walked away the champion.
Still, 2007 U.S. Open champion Angel Cabrera — who hit just 48 percent of fairways in his winning effort — maintained Wednesday that “it’s all about putting the ball in the fairway.”
“It’s such a tough golf course that sometimes you hit a good shot and you end up with a bogey,” he said through translator Manuel Tagle, his manager and agent. “So you just have to try to hit the fairways and try to hit the greens on the right side of the greens so you make it easier for yourself.”
Willett pointed out the risk inherent to a more conservative approach, saying that missing the fairway with an iron makes it even more difficult to get to the green.
“I think there are some holes around here have you have to hit driver and take the risk on,” he said. “There are quite a few where, because of the elevation change, because of how firm the golf course is playing, even if you’ve got a 9-iron in your hands, you’re still not going to be able to get it massively close to a few of the flag positions they can potentially put out.”
Branden Grace, who picked up his first PGA Tour win at the RBC Heritage Classic in April, said the mental challenge of reaching the green after missing the fairway with an iron was sizable.
But despite the challenges created by teeing off with an iron, Willett and Grace said they plan on using irons at the box unless weather conditions turn bad. Should it rain today, as the forecast currently predicts, Grace said he will be more aggressive on his first shot.
Even without golfers forced to make adjustments due to weather, McIlroy said he still expected to see immense amounts of club variation on the tee box.
“I think the great thing about this golf course is it does give you options,” he said. “You’ll see some guys hit iron off a tee, where some other guys will hit driver. Some other guys will hit a fairway wood. It really just depends how comfortable you are on that tee box individually because there’s so many different ways to play this golf course.”
Maya Sweedler: msweedler@post-gazette.com and Twitter @mayasweedler.
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