DeChambeau came in to the Tour with some controversy with his swing philosophies and the Single Length irons concept. There has been a lot of attacking the Single Length iron concept, but here's Bryson's current rankings of key performance metrics:
(out of 202 golfers)
Driving Effectiveness: 21st
Green Zone (75-125 yds): 200th
Yellow Zone (125-175 yds): 61st
Red Zone (175-225 yds): 31st
Short Game (<30 b="" yards="">82nd
Putts Gained: 173rd
As we can see, ballstriking has not been the major issue for Bryson. He has struggled from the Green Zone (75-125 yds), but that is a fairly volatile metric where players often perform well there one season and struggle from there the next season. In fact, Bryson ranked 44th from the Green Zone in 2016.
Having hit the Sterling Single Length irons and Cobra One Length irons I have been amazed how easy it is to hit the long irons straight. I generally don't have an issue hitting long irons given how much of my practice is focused on the long irons, but the ability to hit them straight has been impressive.
In the end, when it comes to distance with irons it's about proper gapping, the landing angle of the ball and the spin rate. The claim 'they've tried this before and it didn't work' neglects the changes in technology and the more advanced engineering concepts that exist today. Engineers like Tom Wishon, David Edel and the people from Cobra have been able find ways to allow their irons to properly yardage gap, get the proper amount of spin and compatible landing angles.
Single length irons won't be for everybody but neither will variable length irons. It's just something to keep an open mind about when looking for a set of irons.
***
Royal Birkdale was built in 1889 and received 'Royal' status in 1951. The Clubhouse to Birkdale is unusual in the sense it looks like it was from 1970's architectures with it's clean lines and boxy design, but it was actually built in 1935 which makes me think they were 35 years ahead of time on a very fad-ish design concept.
The course is more appealing for TV than your typical Open course although you probably won't see the great views like you will see at Royal St. George or Royal Liverpool. But the course is well received because the tee shots are more 'fair' and it is supposed to be in great condition.
Looking at the past two championships at Birkdale the common theme of the top finishers tends to be Red Zone (175-225 yds) play, short game performance and putting. Typically, I don't focus on good putters when making picks for an event because usually putting is too unpredictable on almost all of the courses on Tour.
Years ago, I asked Aimpoint creater (www.aimpointgolf.com), Mark Sweeney, about what the most difficult courses where to read the greens. I thought he would reply with Augusta National, but instead he said that Augusta's greens are not all that difficult to read. Instead, he mentioned the various courses in the Open cycle because they often feature odd locations for anchor points (lowest point of the green) and that makes the reads very difficult to accurately see.
Therefore, given this information and Royal Birkdale's past history of favoring good putters, I will consider putting more here in these picks:
3JACK'S FAVORITES
Rickie Fowler +1,600
Jon Rahm +1,600
Louis Oosthuizen +4,500
Thomas Pieters +5,000
Marc Leishman +5,000
Justin Thomas +5,000
3JACK'S DARK HORSE PICKS
Ian Poulter +6,600
Daniel Berger +8,000
Matthew Fitzpatrick +8,000
Bernd Wiesberger +10,000
Kevin Na +25,000
3JACK
2 comments:
Riche, what are points next to your picks derived from?
Thanks,
Miles
Hey Miles,
Those are the betting odds.
For example, Fowler is at +1,600. Which essentially means he is at 16/1 odds to win. So, for every $1 put on Fowler to win, you get a return of $16 if he wins. Thus, a $10 bet would return $160 if he won.
The +1,600 is just a way to base it on a $100 bet. In that case, if Fowler won he would pay off $1,600.
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