The finals of the Publinx, played yesterday on Old Macdonald, at Bandon Dunes, in Oregon, were classic match play nail-biters, filled with twists and turns, thrusts and parries, with tension building over the course of 36 holes. For the first time, the USGA decided to play both the men’s and women’s Publinx (officially, the USGA Public Links Amateur Championship) at the same time and on the same course. Also for the first time, the USGA selected a site that offered a true links course, Old Macdonald. Both the men’s and women’s matches, replete with brilliant shotmaking and displays of tenacity and fortitude, provided a perfect demonstration of why links aficionados believe that links golf is the true, ultimate version of the game.
Corbin Mills, winner of the 2011 Publinx
In the men’s final, Corbin Mills, of Easley, SC, beat Derek Ernst with a par on the 37th hole after the 36th hole match ended all square. The topsy-turvy match had more than its share of birdies and bogeys; only 10 of the 37 holes were halved. After 26 holes, Mills had built a 4-up lead, then saw it erased when Ernst won the next four holes (including the infernal 12th hole, the 30th of the match, with a pluperfect 5-iron from 240 yards that he nearly aced). Mills hung on, though, and hit ballsy, crafty shots down the stretch — the kind of shots that made you stand up and cheer — and when Ernst three-putted on the 37th green, Mills closed out the match with a short putt for his par 4.
Brianna Do won the women’s title in a match against Marissa Dodd that was every bit as hard-fought. Five times Do managed to claw her way back after Dodd had taken a lead; Dodd’s largest lead, after 22 holes, was 3-up. In fact, Do led the match for only three holes, but one of those three was the one that counted most — the 36th and final hole. After watching Dodd’s approach run to the back of the green, Do played a lovely wedge shot, precisely judged and precisely struck, that landed short of the green, threaded its way between two mounds, and finished about 12 feet from the hole. She didn’t birdie, but she didn’t have to. Dodd ran her long approach putt well past the hole, missed the par effort, and that was that.
It’s hard to do justice to the kind of grit that all four of the finalists displayed. The 36 holes finals matches were their 8th and 9th rounds of the week, and they were all playing a style of golf that was mostly unfamiliar. Corbin Mills was taking an antibiotic all week because of an eye infection, and he summed up the week this way: “It’s not like okay, let’s go out and play golf. It’s like okay, let’s battle against the wind and stuff . . .I’m exhausted. I was waiting to collapse with four holes to play: My legs are killing me, my feet are killing me. I mean, it feels like I’ve had such a tough match with everybody, so I’m just mentally drained, physically drained.”
Mills worked out a strategy for playing links golf, but like all the other competitors he found himself having to create shots throughout the week. During the first qualifying round, the players went out in rainy conditions and a south wind; on the last two days, with a 20 mph wind out of the north raking Old Macdonald and the turf running firm and fast, conditions were ideal for links golf. Indeed, the fairways were rolling at 10 on the Stimpmeter, and the greens were only a fraction faster.
Brianna Do, winner of the 2011 Women's Publinx
Under these conditions, on a course like Old Macdonald — with its rumpled fairways and massive, undulating greens — there is no such thing as a standard shot, or a “comfort zone.” Every time the player stands over the ball, including on the tees and greens, he or she has to conjure up a shot to fit the situation. During his run on the final holes, Ernst came through with several superb punched irons that bored low through the wind. It isn’t a shot he’s used to, and even when it seemed to come off exactly as planned, he didn’t always get the result he wanted; on the 28th hole, for example, he ripped an iron shot that almost held the narrow green before trickling off the back and rolling down, down, down. He was 50 feet off the green, but he had to suck it up and get the ball back up on the putting surface — which he did, using his putter to roll it back up the slope and win the hole.
All four finalists showed that kind of touch, andperseverance, throughout the final days. They displayed a resilience that seemed beyond their years. Dodd, who enters Wake Forest this fall, described the early reversals in her round without complaining, “It was a couple of unlucky kicks,” she said. “But that’s the way the course works and you’ve got to come back from them.” With her father caddying for her, Dodd didnt let anything rattle her until the last couple of holes, when a couple of lag putts got away from her.
Ah, the lag putt! The TV announcers did a first-rate job throughout the broadcast, trying to convey the challenges and the allure of links golf, and they had a lot say about lag putting, an essential skill on a links course like Old Macdonald, where the greens average over 13,000 square feet. Collectively, the greens cover 6.3 acres, more than any other set of greens in the world, including those at St. Andrews, which cover 6.1 acres. Moreover, the greens at Old Macdonald have mind-blowing contours, and a long putt can easily have 3 or 4 breaks. At one point on Saturday, when Dodd’s approach ran through the 1oth green and onto the adjoining 5th green (not a true double green since the two are connected by a narrow isthmus), she found herself facing a putt estimated at 225 feet — and with something like 6 breaks in it. During the Sunday round, Mills found himself in a similar position, but was permitted to drop off the edge of the 5th green; he then played a fearless wedge back into the wind, and dropped it gently over a gaping, bearded bunker to give himself a chance to save par. That was one of the shots that made me leap from the chair and let out a whoop.
Derek Ernst plays from the rough at Old Macdonald
Another was Ernst’ tee shot at the Redan hole, the 12th at Old Macdonald and the 30th in his final match. Here I have to say that I’ve played the hole several times with the north wind at my back, and I know that this green can be damn near unhittable. In the semis, in fact, the TV commentators more or less agreed that it was too risky to try to hit and hold the green, given the likelihood of running right through the green. From behind the green, salvaging par was next to impossible. On this hole, I had to agree with the TV folks — the smart play was short and left, leaving an uphill chip.
But Ernst proved that even in the most daunting wind conditions, the hole could be played as designed. His tee shot came in on the high right side of the green, made a big fishhook turn and curled down to the hole. I could hardly believe my eyes.
That’s the way the Publinx went. Over the course of the tournament, I saw more shots that made me want to cheer — and to get out and play some links golf — than I saw during a week of watching the U. S. Open. If that sounds like hyperbole, it’s not. Rory McIlory et. al. are the best golfers in the world, but at most tournaments, including the U. S. Open, they don’t have to produce anything like the array of shots that the young competitors at the Publinx had to produce. Nor do they have to show the same stamina as the Publinx finalists who played close to 150 holes of golf over 5 days.
An idle daydream: the Open Championship is being played at Carnoustie, 36 holes a day instead of 18, with some wet weather and gusting winds . . . can you hear the pros howling?
I know, I know. Not everyone is crazy about links golf. Some find it arbitrary and “goofy.” The pros dislike it because they want predictable outcomes, not crazy bounces. But during the telecast yesterday,when Golf Channel went to one of the many commercial, the scene changed from Old Macdonald with its rugged windswept terrain, with its tawny fescue and prickly gorse and gnarly bunkers and fairways that were
On the 7th green at Old Macdonald
every shade from green to tan to ivory to ochre, a place without carts or roads or buildings, a place where the backdrop was the surf and the horizon of the gleaming Pacific Ocean . . . in a heartbeat the viewer was transported from from this wild and magnificent setting and plunked down in a scene where a guy was sitting in a golf cart with a woman at a golf course where the grass was a bright, uniform, manicured, overwatered and overfertilized shade of green, and the whole commerical turned on the guy spilling a drink on his shirt . . .
This viewer didn’t get the point of the commercial because the sudden change of scene was too jolting. I’d gone from watching golf, an outdoor game that required pluck and heart and imagination, to a whiny guy in a cart in a landscape that looked unnatural. The kind of golf represented is that commercial was as different from links golf as Ronald McDonald is from Old Macdonald.
Here’s to the USGA for conducting a pair of eye-opening championships on an eye-opening golf course. And to Corbin Mills and Brianna Do, for the gritty, gamy performances that left do doubt that they were worthy champions.
