00:00It has surprised me in a way that I wasn't expecting.
00:04It's much more difficult than I expected.
00:08There's much more un-level-wise.
00:12So there's just the fairways kind of have all these humps and bumps kind of going through them.
00:18But up around the greens, there's way more slope than I anticipated.
00:22When I think about some of the last couple Open championships,
00:25we go back to Liverpool and Troon, only a few holes can really compare to what I really saw over consistent 18 holes here.
00:36There's some really, really steep edges on just about every hole,
00:40whether it's on the green side where everything's kind of working away into collection areas,
00:46or the other side of the green has the side to miss, but also there's mounds that you can use.
00:54But those are also really steep.
00:56So that was the big surprise.
00:59Like elevated greens with runoffs, like that type of a – yeah.
01:01Yes, that would be, I would say, a majority of the theme.
01:07But the runoffs sometimes are into the rough area, and then sometimes the runoff is into the fairway area.
01:14And there's really – you know, I found it kind of tricky and difficult to really figure out where exactly to chip from
01:23because, like, you can get so many weird bounces out there to where, you know,
01:28a lot of times these guys go throw balls down and chip from areas that they know they'll be getting up and down from.
01:34But it's like a box of chocolates out there.
01:36There's no telling where your golf ball is going to end up on some of these holes and some of the lies that you may get
01:44because I found that the fescue indigenous grasses that you kind of just referred to to be, I think, a bit of a problem.
01:53I think there are some thick areas that you can lose some golf balls.
01:57If not, you know, just kind of advancing it down the fairway.
02:01But I would say that would be the big surprise to me was that it really, you know, around the greens,
02:09the amount of slope definitely was something that I wasn't expecting.
02:13And then also – and I kind of knew this going into it just listening to some interviews from Rory and Shane,
02:19and they kind of talked about how well-bunkered the golf course is on the tee
02:22and the fact that you can't really take out the bunkers on certain holes.
02:29You know, a lot of places that Rory can go, he can find a way to take the bunkers out of play.
02:34Well, for the majority of this golf course, so the par fours and fives, there are bunkers that are at every single step.
02:43So let's just say that there's a two-iron bunker, a three-wood bunker, and a driver bunker.
02:47And so you're having to make a decision based off the changing wind directions and conditions
02:53on what bunker you're going to be taking out of play.
02:55And sometimes you can't take any of them out of play.
02:58You just have to make a decision.
02:59All right, this is the bunker we're going to have to avoid, the middle bunker.
03:03We're going to hit this club, and we've got to keep it left of it, or we've got to keep it right of it.
03:06And these bunkers, too, I'll say, are different than like Troon, where Troon's, the ball would run into a very flat bunker.
03:17These bunkers, I would say, are pitched up a little bit more to where the sand is kind of built up to where everything will kind of work back into the bottom.
03:25And then the backside, as the ball is rolling in, is kind of downsloped to where everything is going to end up in the bottom versus other events like Troon,
03:35where the ball would run all the way into a grass-revetted steep face where it's up against the lips.
03:43I don't think it's going to be a week where you're going to be able to advance too much from the fairway bunkers.
03:48I'm not saying it's just a different contrast, like one being, you know, the way they look is much more built up.
03:55From the fairway bunker standpoint, where you would just be able to see the grass-revetted faces from tee boxes.
04:03And these, you can kind of see some sand to be able to give you a little bit of a visual of kind of what you're looking at.
04:10So I would say that is kind of the nuts and bolts of what I kind of just saw.
04:17So a bunch of slope, uneven lies, I think some crazy bounces, and then bunkers that are kind of well-positioned off the tee.
