Colonial Observations (2008)

[Sam-Tee-Time]

comments from a fan........

In my tradition, here are my observations from the Colonial Tournament this last weekend. I hope you enjoy!

GENERAL OBSERVATIONS
- As the major sponsor was Crowne Plaza Hotels, the teebox markers were small Pillows, about the size of a small brick. cute.
- Weather was hot & muggy all week. I saw far too much man-@ss sweating (especially K. Stadler). Ugh.
- The marshals and people at the front gates were not closely inspecting for Cell Phones and Cameras, which I thought was unusual. When Mickelson was coming onto a teebox, they would announce "no Cameras" before he got there, but I found it strange they didn't police them very well. thankfully I only heard 1 interruption to a player all week.
- I found it unusual that EACH player's caddy paces off the yardage on the Teeboxes (especially Par3's). Each player's caddy would pace it off, and they would all end the same. Is a yard different for each person? I would think ONE person would pace off the yards, the other players/caddies would simply watch (and count) the steps of the 1st one.
- I wached 2 players slam their Sand Wedge (clubhead first) into the ground, then use it to climb out of the bunker, by pulling on the handle of the club. Odd - couldn't you just walk around to the less-steep part of the bunker?
- "GOOD BALL" is the accepted and appropriate saying on Tour, for a nice shot. I noticed that each Pro or Caddy would always say "Good Ball" to reward a nice shot, never "get-in-da-hole", or "u-da-man". Let's adopt this saying, shall we?
- the Caddy/Caddy relationship is a good one on tour. They all seem to get along, and it's impressive how they trade jobs each other. For example….if one player's caddy is raking the bunker, the other caddy will clean the balls of each player still on the green. Seems like teamwork and mutual cooperation is with the caddies.
- SLOW Play? Blame it on the putting! It's crazy how fussy the pros are about short putts, not stepping in someone's thru-line, and obsessively marking, cleaning, analyzing, and putting out short putts.


PLAYER OBSERVATIONS
-Tommy Armour III - still has that 'cachet', and super "cool" attitude. He's glacial and very slow around the greens, but oddly very quick on the teeboxes and iron shots. Fans were noticing his 'cowboy cut' pants with the slits on each side. However…oddly his pants were cut so low they were dragging underneath his golf shoes! Odd for a guy known for his fashion sense. Some major babes and hoochies following him. Must be fun to be TAIII!
-Glen Day - Uses eyeglasses only around the Green. Someone mentioned he started doing this to read greens better. I've never seen this before, most guys wear contacts, or get lasik, yes?
-Jason Day - Reminds me of young Sergio Garcia. Small guy, similar stature and swing somehow. He looked a little rough, but definitely has some major game. If his wrist is healthy, I'm expecting this kid to contend.
-David Frost - Tried to blame a water sprinkler when he sliced a tee shot on the last group on Friday. It's not the water's fault, David.
- Robert Garrigus -had a very nice little interchange between himself and a (cute) female police officer on the #15 teebox. Good Mojo, my friend!
- Brian Gay - like Laura Davies, use a bashed-up portion of the teebox for teeing the ball with his fairway wood. It didn't work the last time I saw him do that, as he sliced his tee shot badly.
-Anthony Kim - The future of young golf. Powerful swing, and his gallery is FULL of younger 20-ish fans, and hotties. This guy is the new demographic model for younger golfers, me thinks. Amazingly on Sunday, he pushed a tee shot on #2 STRAIGHT into a TREE! Amazingly, his composure was good, and he punched out (the ball bounced near the #1 green), and continued onward with a chuckle on his face. The young man seems to be maturing nicely.
-Colt Knost - Hits some very nice shots, but should have stayed Amateur for another year, and played the Masters. I think he'll gave a Pro career, but his game needed sharpening to compete on the PGA Tour.
-Lee Janzen - Looked terrible and very sloppy. Bogeys everywhere. Has he lost it?
-Frank Lickliter - getting smoker's "Hacker's Cough" badly. His lungs sound full of crap from smoking.
-Steve Lowery - poor dude ended up in the drainage ditch on #11, made a mess of the hold hitting the ball out of the drainage, then taking another punchout to finally making it to the green. Rare to see a pro make such a mess out of a hole, but I did admire his creativity.
-Jon Mills - Gave a ball to a kid, and when the kid and his Mom chased him down for about 2- 3 holes, he signed the ball while he was waiting on a teebox. I had a nice conversation with the mother, she was thrilled, and the kid looked super happy. Nice to see this stuff on tour.
-Kevin Na - What a Temper! Wow, this guy needs to calm down and not be so hard on himself. I think if he matures like Anthony Kim did, he might be a winner on tour. He's SO sensitive, everything seems to bother him, and he's oppressively picky and over-analytical on the greens.
-George McNeill - You guys have to check this dude out. A superb driver of the ball, incredible swingspeed, and a pretty good tee-to-green game. I love his driver swing, and truly was impressed by this guy.
-Joe Ogilvie -you're "cool", man! So relaxed, so confident, so poised and professional. He almost has the demeanor he knows he'll be PGA Tour Commissioner someday.
-Pat Perez - uses a Boxing Glove for his driver headcover. How appropriate given his hot temper. His swing looked VERY good this week, if his short game is sharp, I suspect he'll contend or win soon.
- Rory Sabbatini - Local guy with a huge gallery with "Team Sabo" T-shirts. Watched him hole-out for Eagle on #5 (a very difficult hole).
-Kevin Stadler - Is this guy EVER happy? He <SCOWLS> at everything, throws clubs, cussed, and never seems happy with any shot. What a miserable person he seems to be. Even worse, has @ss sweat badly.
-Bo Van Pelt - Grow your hair out longer again dude. He cut it too short, looks funny now.
-Bubba Watson - impressive to watch his drives and how he curves the ball both left and right. Very temperamental, slammed and threw clubs around when he duffed a bunker shot.
-Mark Wilson - I'm very, very impressed with this guy's driver and iron swing. Pretty impressive player.


EQUIPMENT OBSERVATIONS
- Matt Kuchar's Bridgestone cavity backs were a super neat black matte finish. they looked like J36 Cavity backs, but I couldn't get a close enough look.
- Hybrids were plentiful off the teeboxes, and going for the green. I only saw a few long irons off the tee the entire week.
-Cleveland HiBore XLS Driver & fairway wood are getting good tour usage, but I hate their Clanky/metallic sound at impact. I demoed them in the the PGA Superstore tent, they do feel pretty forgiving, and much 'hotter' than the original Hibore.
- Ping Drivers definitely hit the ball HIGH. Every player using a Ping drive was hitting very nice, high trajectory drives.
- Scotty Cameron Newport / Newport 2's were out in force, especially the newer Studio Select models. No Detours whatsoever, and only 1 Futura (Tom Pernice)
- Much fewer Long putters were in the field. Mostly normal length, "anser" style putters seemed most prevalent.
- Taylormade staff bags (the off-white color) look very dated & old to me. Most others (Ping, Titleist, Srixon, etc.) staff bags look terrific, but the Taylor Staff bags looked old and 70's-ish.
- Trackman radar system on #11 was awesome. Most pros seem to average 113-117 mph swingspeed, and some are much higher 125-127 mph (Bubba Watson 127mph, Anthony Kim 124 mph, George McNeill 121mph, etc.) the guy running the machine noticed a very big difference between the older vs. younger players. Bubba's numbers ruled, someone mentioned he hit it 411 yards on Pro-Am day.
- Demoed the new Adams Driver. It felt great, forgiving and hot. Looking to test it in real-world, outside conditions.
- Visors vs. Ball Caps - which one is cooler (temperature wise I mean)? I got a free Cadillac visor, and my head did seem cooler than a hat. Who knows?
-while Putting, I noticed some pros setup with the toe-down/heel-up on their putters. I would think their instructors would notice and correct this bad habit. On the other hand……I NEVER saw any pros putt with toe-up/heel-down (ex: Isao Aoki). A lesson for us all to get properly fit to your putter.
-UST has a new version of the V2 shaft. The graphics are somewhat different, and the bands of color (black/silver/yellow) only have a very narrow silver band. Does anyone know what it is, as it's not showing on the UST homepage. Many pros were using it.
-Seersucker pants are IN this year. A little "NY Hamptons" looking, but quite a few of them were out there.

[Spectrums]

Excellent post. The UST shaft you are thinking of is the AXIV Core.

[iuryan]

GREAT post

[mr_divots]

Nice post Sam. I enjoyed it. :)

[ManagerArmstrong]

Most thorough post I've seen here. Great job - post of the year quality.

[bigeasy]

Great observations! What Adams driver did you demo?

[bulldog8b]

-Tommy Armour III - still has that 'cachet', and super "cool" attitude. He's glacial and very slow around the greens, but oddly very quick on the teeboxes and iron shots. Fans were noticing his 'cowboy cut' pants with the slits on each side. However…oddly his pants were cut so low they were dragging underneath his golf shoes! Odd for a guy known for his fashion sense. Some major babes and hoochies following him. Must be fun to be TAIII!

 

Seriously? Tommy Armour? In 2008? Wow, just goes to show what a little celebrity and some cashola will do for ya :clapping:

 

-Glen Day - Uses eyeglasses only around the Green. Someone mentioned he started doing this to read greens better. I've never seen this before, most guys wear contacts, or get lasik, yes?

 

 

They are READING glasses :)

 

-David Frost - Tried to blame a water sprinkler when he sliced a tee shot on the last group on Friday. It's not the water's fault,

 

 

Can you explain this further? I love these stories!!

 

 

-Frank Lickliter - getting smoker's "Hacker's Cough" badly. His lungs sound full of crap from smoking.

 

Maybe he was sick. Just sayin'.

 

Great report, thanks.

[ebs1]

Man, great stuff, love this kind of post.

You are observant - neat to see what others watch at a tour event.

 

ebs

[cavemeister]

Great report...except now I have to get to sleep without thinking about stadler's sweaty butt...

[Sam-Tee-Time]

........................

-David Frost - Tried to blame a water sprinkler when he sliced a tee shot on the last group on Friday. It's not the water's fault,

 

Can you explain this further? I love these stories!!

 

........................

 

Thanks for the comments, guys! As you can tell, I LOVE attending tour events, and sharing my thoughts.....Here's more on the frost situation...............

 

:clapping:

 

 

 

So on Friday, I encountered Frostie (www.frostwines.com) on the 6th hole, which is a kind of dogleg right par4 that requires a very well placed tee shot. They were the last group of the day, and the course workers and maintenance people were milling around.

 

what happened is a course worker plugged in a water hose into a faucet/water connection about 5' left of the teebox BEFORE the Frost group came up on the teebox. He was watering plants and flowers about 25-30 yards away. It was NOT right next to the teebox, but the faucet/hose connection was making a gurgling sound.

 

When Frostie sliced his tee shot, he started arguing with one of the Volunteers, and commenting how "Can't they do this some other time"? and so on. His point was valid.......they were still playing, the guy should have waited until AFTER his group to start the watering. OTOH.........the gurgling really wasn't that loud whatsoever. Sensitive!

 

:)

[Sam-Tee-Time]

Great observations! What Adams driver did you demo?

 

their new XTD series, most of the time I spent hitting the XTD a3, which I believe is Neutral bias, low spin. There are 3 versions of this driver for various players. It felt pretty good, and the squarish look didn't look so "wrong" on this driver compared to others (ex: FT-i, Sumo2).

 

http://www.adamsgolf.com/drivers.htm

[dolleris]

Great post :) I love to read these observations - good job!

cheers,

Soeren

[CowtownTexas]

That was a great post and I'm glad you had a good time. We (folks from Cowtown) love hearing nice comments about our tournament.

 

This was one of the better tournaments we've had in a while. The crowds were great every day and though it was hot and muggy, it wasn't too bad if you found some shade and breeze. I knew it was going to be a specticle when I heard that the public parking lots at TCU were full by noon on Saturday.

 

We hope you'll keep coming back.

[Captain Nimrod]

I got to see Stadler throw his wedge on 13 after blooping a sand shot. He has serious temper issues.

 

Phil looked to be in great shape. He has lost most of his gut and has really buffed up to compete with Tiger. Got to see him hit out of the sand at least 5 times on Friday; man, he has an awesome short game. On the other hand, I also saw him chunk a shot from the rough about 3 feet on 15, but he recovered nicely. The second shot on the final 18th was spectacular.

 

The caddie races on 13 were a lot of fun. The caddies were very aware of them and frequently would intentionally tie the first to step on the green, but a few guys dropped their bags and sprinted all out for it.

[vanla01]

Great post!!

[PurePursuit]

Excellent post, thanks for taking the time to share your observations with us.

[art_vandaley]

Thanks for taking the time to post. Made for a nice little read during my break. Now back to the salt mines !!

[Croddad]

FANTASTIC post...I can't wait to attend my first PGA event and believe you me, I'll have a very similar topic started. It's the only bummer about living in Seattle, we don't have ANY PGA events. And I don't think I can wait until 2015 US Open :clapping:

 

Maybe I can get clearance from the Tower to take a bros trip to the FBR next year?

 

:)

[BigD]

Great Post. Question about the XLS Fairways. Are a lot of non staffers playing them or just the Cleveland guys?

[A-Train]

The caddie races on 13 were a lot of fun. The caddies were very aware of them and frequently would intentionally tie the first to step on the green, but a few guys dropped their bags and sprinted all out for it.

 

Caddie races? Huh? This is a new one for me so please 'splain.

[bulldog8b]

The caddie races on 13 were a lot of fun. The caddies were very aware of them and frequently would intentionally tie the first to step on the green, but a few guys dropped their bags and sprinted all out for it.

 

Caddie races? Huh? This is a new one for me so please 'splain.

 

 

I was going to ask the same thing. And what kind of a sissy ties on purpose? Talk about kissing your sister.

[Sam-Tee-Time]

Caddie races? Huh? This is a new one for me so please 'splain.

 

 

Well, you know how the 16th (?) hole at the TPC Scottsdale is where all the Rowdy & Drunk :) fans hang out, right? AT the Colonial, this is the 13th hole, which is a very tricky little par3.

 

The "Caddy Races" are where the crowds will wager & bet on which caddy reaches the green first. It can get VERY rowdy at times, and it's always interesting to see the player's reactions. Some think it's silly/stupid, others join in the fun. Here's a couple of links with more info:

 

http://directory.leadmaverick.com/Colonial...2109/index.aspx

http://startelegramsports.typepad.com/golf...n-caddie-r.html

 

 

Colonial's Homepage: http://www.colonialfw.com

[Sam-Tee-Time]

Great Post. Question about the XLS Fairways. Are a lot of non staffers playing them or just the Cleveland guys?

 

Just the Cleveland guys. Other staffers seem to play their own brand. Some Nickent and Adams F/W and Hybrids scattered in non-staffers bags.

[finalist]

Man, great stuff, love this kind of post.

You are observant - neat to see what others watch at a tour event.

 

ebs

my thoughts exactly. Thanks!