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player ready...By noon you could have sworn that every white flag on every green at Cog Hill’s Dubsdread was already waving in surrender–in unison.
“The course played pretty easy,” Stuart Appleby said after a second-round 68.
Easy for him to say. Easy for almost everybody to say Friday.
Take a calm and gorgeous summer day, throw in large and inviting greens–still soft and cushy from a Sunday night rain–add rough cut shorter than usual by PGA Tour decree and the Advil Western Open scoreboard bled more red than Mel Gibson’s new movie, “The Patriot.”
Dubsdread no longer holds much dread for the world’s greatest players. Eighty-five of them broke par.
“This is the easiest I’ve ever seen it play,” said Brian Henninger, in his seventh straight Western at Cog Hill.
With a 9-under-par 63 in the morning, including a string of six birdies from the fifth through the 10th holes, Stephen Ames became the second player in two days to tie the course record.
A few hours later, Henninger matched him. Henninger, whose last victory was the ’99 Southern Farm Bureau Classic and whose greatest claim to fame is that he shared the 54-hole lead in the 1995 Masters, had eight birdies and an eagle en route to his 63.
Counting Nick Price’s 63 in the opening round, Ames and Henninger became the fifth and sixth players in the last nine years to shoot 63 at Dubsdread, following Jeff Sluman in 1992, John Adams in 1993 and Dudley Hart in 1998.
At 11-under 133, Henninger is one shot ahead of Franklin Langham, who shot 65. Price, Appleby, Fred Couples and Steve Flesch joined Ames at 9-under 135. An obscure second-year PGA Tour player named David Morland IV is three shots back after a 66.
Dubsdread was no Carnoustie last year when Woods and Appleby shared the second-round lead at 10 under. But there was only one player at 9 under (Mike Brisky), one at 7 under (Vijay Singh) and one at 6 under (Brent Geiberger).
Still not convinced? Couples has birdied all four par-5s both days. “Because it’s soft, you’re able to shoot some pretty good scores,” Couples said. “Now, 63, I’m not too sure that’s going to happen too many times here. But to shoot 9 under, you’re not making too many blunders, you’re not missing many putts.”
Cog Hill owner Frank Jemsek’s fears are coming true: The players are taking his course apart.
“Does it bother me? Yeah, but it’s pretty nice too,” Jemsek said. “It bothers me, and it doesn’t bother me. These guys just hit it so flat-out good. I’ve been watching people play for a long time, but players now are so much better than they used to be. We can still try to make some changes. We were going to try to make it more difficult this year, but we had some maintenance things to take care of first.”
Tour courses traditionally get tougher on the weekend, when the pressure’s on and blood pressures rise. But if more rain falls, as predicted, the greens will remain cushy. Jemsek’s prediction of a winning score of 20 under or lower easily could come true.
Jemsek has talked about adding more trees or moving a bunker or two next year to make Dubs play tougher. He might start with the right-side fairway bunker on No. 9, a 568-yard par-5.
“That’s an aiming trap,” Jemsek said. “It’s 300 yards out. When we built No. 9 we really didn’t think players would hit golf balls into it. Players are stronger and fitter now. They have better swings. So many look like they came out of a cookie cutter. Equipment is at least as good as it used to be. Balls are more consistent. These guys hit shots like radar. As players get better and better, courses are just going to have to play catch-up.”
After a 2-under 70, Jeff Sluman, who lives only a few miles from the course in Hinsdale, shed no tears for Dubs.
“It doesn’t bother me at all that players are tearing it up,” Sluman said. “I just wish I was tearing it up. It’s fine with me if the scores are low. The wind is going to come up eventually.
“If they want to see it play tougher they’ve got to sit down with the Tour [officials] and not allow guys to have 30- and 40-foot-wide fairways to hit to. The greens are huge here, and the fairways are soft. The scores should be low. But you can’t just add 20 yards to every hole either. That doesn’t do anything. It actually makes it easier for the bombers.”
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Like Tiger Woods, who had an unspectacular 69 Friday. The duffer.