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Golf Equipment Chronicles 2004 (Part 11)

The Lure of Links Golf

I soon became enchanted. Links golf is so very different from all other forms of golf. A good links course grabs your attention and challenges you from the outset. It compels you to play an enormous range and variety of shots. It makes you think; it invites you to use your imagination. Above all, it is about “conditions” rather than “conditioning.” -- Nick Faldo

In my second career as a high tech executive, I traveled all over the world selling software. Whenever possible, my golf clubs made the trip with me. On weekends I tried to find my way to the seaside links courses that are common in England, Scotland, Ireland and Australia. That was the beginning of my own love affair with links golf.

There are two reasons to take a long airplane ride to play golf on classic links courses.

You get to play good golf courses.
You test your game on difficult courses under harsh conditions.

Playing the Good Courses
One of the sad truths about American golf is that practically all of the good golf courses are very private. Alas, we all know that we have about the same chance to get an invitation to Shinnecock Hills, Augusta, Cypress Point, Oakland Hills, Oakmont and so on, as winning the lottery. Most of us only see those courses on television. If you’re really lucky you might get a ticket inside the gates -- but never inside the ropes. For the most part, the good courses are off limits. We play them in our dreams.

There are a few great courses you can play, if you have the money. Pebble Beach, Bandon Dunes and Whistling Straits are the entrepreneurs’ response to players who want to play great courses. But they come at a price. With greens fees over $300, a caddy at $100, your room at the lodge and travel expenses, three rounds of golf can easily cost you north of $4000. If you’re not careful in the dining room and like a cocktail and a bottle of wine with your dinner, check the limit on your credit card.

It’s not the same in Europe. In Europe, even the most famous clubs make times available for traveling golfers who want the experience of playing the top tournament courses. Greens fees are usually around $150. I know several players who made it a project to play all of the British Open Rota courses and got in done in two or three years. Someday, I plan to “check the boxes” myself. But for now I’m content learning how to play links golf. When I finally get to St. Andrews, Carnoustie, Muirfield, Turnberrry and Royal Troon, I’ll be able to savor the experience.

To start, I like a bargain. And when I travel, I hate being surrounded by tour buses. For the last couple of years, I’ve been poking around northwest Ireland with small groups of golfers who wanted the true links experience without breaking the bank. If you want to learn to play the links before you check the boxes for yourself, northwest Ireland is a good way to go.

This year our foursome flew into Shannon, Ireland and headed north to Sligo. That’s home to Rosses’ Point, a fabulous and well-regarded links course that has hosted dozens of tournaments. From there we moved on to Letterkenny where we made day trips to Port Salon, Rosapenna and Royal Portrush. On the way back we stopped by Enniscrone, our favorite course from last year but it was raining and the wind was blowing hard so we downed a couple of Guiness and headed for the hotel.

These are fabulous links courses. I’ll save a detailed review for another article. For now, I’ll stick to understanding the unique challenge of links golf and how to make sure you have the right game and right equipment when you go.

Test Your Game
After playing dozens of rounds on some great links courses in Scotland, England and Ireland, I think that my three handicap would be eight strokes higher if I lived in Ireland. A typical American game does not travel well. That’s how hard these courses are.

The first problem is the rough. You’ve seen it on television. It’s the same rough that gobbled up Tiger Woods’ ball off the first tee in the 2002 British Open with 50 people watching closely. Some places it’s knee high, some places only ankle high. If you hit a wild shot into the deep stuff, your chances of finding the ball are no better than one in four. I brag about my prowess finding golf balls. It’s almost a hobby. In four years as a caddy at the Hinsdale (IL) Golf Club when I was a kid, I never lost my player’s ball. (I was motivated; a lost ball meant no hot dog and coke at the turn and no tip.)

On a links course, it’s pretty common for an average player to lose a dozen balls in a single round. I’ve only finished one links round with the same ball. That was an unusually sunny and calm day at Lahinch. The American style of play, taking a driver and blasting for maximum distance leads to disaster.

The “rub of the green” is always against you. Americans can’t stand it when they get a bad bounce. In Europe, designers get a laugh out of features that go against the player. Links courses design bad bounces into play. For example: bunkers in America have shoulders. A drive that’s on the edge tends to hold its line and sneak by. On the links, bunkers don’t have shoulders; they’re like craters. They gather in shots that just get close.

When you find yourself in a bunker, it might not be possible to advance the ball. Links courses are famous for deep bunkers with steep faces. Remember when David Duval refused to accept his fate in the Road Bunker at St. Andrews and wound up with a quadruple-bogey eight when he was chasing Tiger? Americans hate to play backwards.

Fairways have all kinds of bumps. A drive that you think is perfect is likely to bounce sideways and roll into the rough. There is usually a wide spot but it is never set at maximum distance. The American style where “longer is always better” does not work on the links. If you can put your drive through the eye of a needle, you’re OK. If not, you need to learn how to tiptoe around the course.

Some features are just plain diabolical. One of the recurring designs is to pinch in the waist of a par 3 green and locate two nice deep bunkers at the belt line. Perfect shots run up on the green and then get sucked into the bunkers. Then you have one of those shots that blew Thomas Bjorn out of the British Open in 2003. You expected a birdie putt and now you’ve played three shots and the ball is still at your feet. I’ve seen American players threaten to walk off the course when perfect shots get bunkered. How do you feel when a par turns into a triple?

You have to play shots you never practice in America. Most greens are hard. False fronts and dramatic mounds are a common feature. You have to run the ball up. But that’s easier said than done. With steep slopes and greens that run away from you, you almost always chip too strong, trying to avoid coming up short and finding your ball back at your feet. You can leave your lob wedge at home. Fairways are hard and cut short. Trying to nip a lob wedge from a tight lie to a hard green is a shot most of us don’t have.

The wind is unbelievable. Seaside links courses are exposed to the elements. Forty to 50 MPH winds are relatively common. When the wind is with you and the fairways are hard, you can drive it 400 yards. When it’s against you, you might make 180. You will find yourself playing in five club winds. At Rosses’ Point, I hit a hard knockdown five irons from 100 yards and came up short. And then it rains . . .

Hitting the ball low is imperative. In America, we have adopted a sky-high launch angle for drivers. If you try that on a links course in the wind it will blow a hundred yards sideways. Low off the tee, low off the fairway and low into the greens is the style that works. On windy days, every shot is a knockdown shot.

You never know the course. It’s impossible to play any golf course once and have much of an idea of how you should play it. Most Americans are golf tourists. You get six different courses in a week’s play. Face facts, you’re not really there to play golf. You’re taking kind of a scenic hike with a little diversion hitting a ball around. That is a fair description of most of my links rounds. If you want to really play any golf course, you have to study it, practice the shots, know the yardages and certainly play it more than once. That’s a good argument for finding one course you really like and spending and entire week playing it.

Caddies are generally available at well-known courses, but scarce out in the countryside. The danger of lost balls is a good reason to try to hire a caddy. On an unfamiliar course a caddy will find most of your errant drives and help you avoid stupid aiming mistakes. But if you’re on a budget, you’ll probably hire a “trolly” (pull cart) and try to find your own way around the course. At $50 to $75 per round, a caddy can add quite a bit to the cost of a trip. Finding a good caddy is also unpredictable. The more competent caddies are usually lined up well in advance. If you take pot luck, you might find yourself with a dull porter who provides little amusement for his fee.

Finally, you have to learn a new scoring system.

Playing Stableford
In America, we think that Stableford scoring if for wimps. In Europe, Stableford is the only scoring system for most amateur competitions. This is because of all of the challenges that I just discussed. An average amateur player simply will not finish a round without losing a ball or two, sometimes many more. An average player will find himself in an impossible position in every round. If you play by the rules, you’re going to make eights and higher. Stableford is meant to let a player have a “blowup hole” or two in a round and still have a chance to get in the money. This is perfectly appropriate for the kind of courses that think it’s funny if you make eight when you deserved par. As a player, Stableford lets you keep your sense of humor intact. If you get into a spot you can’t get out of, you just whack it a few times and then put the ball in your pocket. One or two bad holes don’t spoil a round.

In Europe, Stableford scoring is one point for a bogey, two points for a par, three for a birdie and four for an eagle. A double bogey is no points and anything higher is also no points. Overall, it’s a pretty friendly system. You make 18 net pars and you score 36 points. That’s the American equivalent of shooting your handicap.

In America, we usually play the “modified Stableford” system. It reflects the American “high risk, high reward” psyche. Pars still get two points, bogeys one and birdies three. But we can’t resist rewarding heroic efforts so eagles get five points and double eagles get eight. We also can’t resist penalizing failures so double bogeys and “others” get a minus three points. It’s a harsh system and is not showing any signs of gaining acceptance.

Americans and Europeans have very different attitudes about scoring. Americans value consistency. We play against ourselves. We expect to shoot our best score every day, regardless of the weather. If we shoot a high score, we’re embarrassed, never amused. Europeans are much more into match play and high scores are not embarrassing. The struggle against other players and nature takes precedence. If conditions are horrible and they shoot 90, they get a kick out of it.

On this trip we were hanging around the pro shop at Royal Portrush after a great day. The day before was a members’ tournament. We knew that the conditions had to be awful at Portrush because we were nearby playing in awful conditions. We couldn’t resist asking how the scores came out. The pro chuckled and told us that the winning score was a Stableford 25 points. Second place went to a 10. That’s something to contemplate. When the weather is bad, 10 net bogeys will get you into the money. The same pro told us that he’s played “great” and shot 95 in difficult Irish weather. How many times have you had fun shooting 95?

A Suggestion on Scoring Links Rounds
If you’re planning to play the links for the first time with a group of friends, I suggest that you play Stableford and apply a “local” American modification to the rules. In America many courses have “nature areas” that are more or less equivalent to the deep rough on links courses. In America, we usually play nature areas as a lateral hazard. I recommend that if you travel to Ireland to play the links, you play the rough as a lateral hazard. That will keep you in the hole a little while longer, and will help your playing partners who get very tired of looking for balls they never find.

Equipment Considerations for Links Courses
If you take your standard California bag to Ireland, Scotland or England, you’re likely to run into some surprises that won’t be pleasant. Making sure you have the right equipment and are prepared to hit the required shots is necessary preparation. These might also be good precautions for tournament players who find themselves playing in bad weather in America.

Preparing for the Weather
The first problem is making sure you can play in the rain. Odds are 99.9% that it will rain on a trip to Ireland. Most seaside links courses are in areas where storms blow by very fast. It’s not unusual to have three or four rain squalls in a single round. Rain is frequently accompanied by high winds. You need to bring an umbrella as a talisman but you may never open it up.

A good rain suit is a necessity. I prefer Gore Tex. I think that Zero Restriction is a great brand. But just as important as your suit is your hat. In America, we don’t pay too much attention to rain hats. Your standard baseball style usually does OK. In heavy rain, water drips off the bill of a baseball style hat like a river. The river is distracting in front of your eyes. In Ireland and Scotland, where it really rains, it’s a much better choice to choose a “bucket” style that will stay on in the wind and channel the rain away from your eyes and off your neck. If you have a big head, like I do, you should buy your hat before you leave.

Grips are a major concern. There are two good choices. You can pick any cord grip you like. They do well soaking wet. You can play them with bare hands if your gloves get wet. Stay away from Winns and Whispers. When they get wet, it’s like trying to hold on to a piece of cooked spaghetti. My favorite grip for the rain is leather. That might sound crazy, but leather is great in the rain. I chose the perforated model from Gripmaster. To make sure you can hang on to your club, the glove you choose is important. The best choice when it rains is an all weather glove. You can play the all weather gloves soaking wet. Leather gloves just don’t do well when it gets really wet. If you insist on leather, you might need a dozen gloves in your bag.

Off The Tee
You’re going to be playing in winds stronger than you’ve ever played in before. Your standard driver is dangerous to your score. The high drive that works in America is death on the links. On our trip, Heather got the best results with a “2 wood.” It was an Advanced Golf Technology Super Nova 12 degree 3 wood. She teed it up low and managed to keep it under the wind. It was reliable. She finished her round at Royal Portrush with the same ball -- shooting an impressive 36 on the front nine.

I brought a Makser 400 cc, 10-degree driver on a Harrison 2.5 Pro shaft. The Makser heads have a high center of gravity and keep the ball lower than stated loft. Mine was 45”. As the week went on, I found myself wishing that I was closer to home so I could take it into the shop and trim off at least 1/2”. When the wind blew, I found myself choking up, playing the ball back in my stance and trying to “bunt” it into the fairway. Whatever driver you choose, you will find yourself playing it back in your stance and trying to drill it low into the wind. I bet you don’t practice that shot frequently.

In the off season, I’m going to experiment with alternative drivers. I’m thinking of reworking an old Titleist 975 D in about 10.5¡ loft, head weighted up to 215 grams so it will be good and heavy on a 43.5” shaft. I might go with a Nippon lightweight steel shaft. The takeaway is that you should forget about maximum distance. Maximum distance into the deep rough means you go back to the tee and hit it again. You won’t get maximum distance the same way you do at your home course. The shot you need is a controlled low running shot, preferably one that you can work left or right. Keeping the ball in play will be your highest priority. That shot might require a different driver.

The biggest mistake that I made was leaving my long irons at home. The longest iron I brought was a 4 iron. It was a Ping O-Size, offset blade. I wished that I had finished out my set of Ping I-3 blades. When the wind is blowing you absolutely need a “stinger” off the tee. It is difficult to hit a long iron knockdown shot with an offset blade. I think that a 2 or 3 iron for the “stingers” is an absolutely crucial club. If you can handle it, your stinger iron should be non-offset because you’re going to have to hit knock downs most of the time. If you’ve given up long irons for high loft utility clubs and won’t look back, you should book your next golf vacation to Myrtle Beach.

Your stinger club will also be useful when you’re playing a dogleg that bends at around 220 yards, which is pretty common on links courses. If you try to work a driver around the bend, you’re likely to run out of room and end up in the long grass. When the penalty is high rough, you just can’t afford taking a chance with a driver. Repeat: for players who have convinced themselves that they need oversize offset irons, pick up a standard straight hosel 3 iron and practice with it. You might find it’s not as hard as you remember. Knockdown shots are incompatible with offset hosels.

From the Fairway
You might find that your current irons are wrong for links courses. The turf on links courses appears to be very thin. Luckily, there is a lot of sand in the dirt so the turf is softer than it looks and you can usually get a little divot under the ball. The unique sandy turf and the tight lie are two of the attractions of links golf. If you’re used to taking monster divots, you’ll have to learn a new method. In America, most courses have thick, soft turf that lets you dig out a big divot. Your irons probably have a good deal of bounce, which lets you take a divot without digging all the way to China. On links courses, you will find that a sharper leading edge with less bounce will work a lot better. If you have a steep angle of attack and high bounce soles on your irons, you will have a miserable experience on links turf.

It turns out that the Pin High driving range at 237 and First Street in north San Jose offers a pretty good tune up to test irons for links conditions. The grass is usually pretty bare and there’s a lot of sand in the dirt. That’s a pretty common situation at a lot of driving ranges and pretty close to links turf. You might find that you have a range near you that will give you a good links style experience.

On this trip, I was playing with Ping Eye-3 blades. In their normal state, Eye 3’s have a pretty sharp leading edge with quite a bit of metal on the back of the sole. I ground my set down on the leading edge to get the ball a little higher on the clubface. I also took a little material off of the heel to keep the blade from twisting closed in the rough. The grind turned out to work very well on tight lies. By accident, I got the gap wedge absolutely perfect. The sound of a perfect sole shape striking the turf is a solid “thunk” that is unmistakable. It gives me goosebumps. If you’re wondering how your clubs will do on links turf, you’re going to have to demo irons with different sole grinds. And, don’t plan on testing on mats. You have to find the right kind of dirt.

Around the Greens
If you chip and pitch with a sand or lob wedge, you’re going to have change your style. Even a relatively small 8¡ or 10¡ bounce on a sand wedge is too much for the tight links lies. You will blade too many chips. The lob wedge was almost useless for me but I think that was more due to the high winds than inability to hit it. A low bounce lob wedge might be useful, doubling as a bunker club when you have to contend with a steep face.

The main hurdle is practicing your chipping. Over the years, Americans have adopted a style that flies the ball to the hole. That won’t work on the links because the hard greens don’t let the ball stop quickly. You’re going to have to practice running chip shots. You’re going to have to get reacquainted with your six or seven iron for chipping. Remember the “old” style of chipping where you picked the club that would just reach the edge of the green and then run out to the hole. That’s the style you’re going to need.

Putters
I’ve been an enthusiastic proponent of belly putters. OOPS!! The belly putter is fine up to about 40 or 50 feet. On the links, you’re going to want to use your putter from the fairway, sometimes 100 feet and more. From that distance, the belly putter is unreliable. After I stubbed my second or third putt from off the green, Heather suggested that I should be carrying two putters: the belly for close in and a high loft blade style putter for off the green. I could have done it. No one was counting clubs.

You should have a look at the loft on your putter. On average, links greens play pretty fast but the grass is not cut as close as in America. Combined with the high probability that you’re going to use your putter frequently from off the green, it would be a good idea to carry a putter with at least 4¡ and possibly 5¡ of loft. Todd Hamilton won the British Open by relying on a 14¡ Sonartec MD (17¡ bent to 14¡) from the fairway and as a surrogate putter. It closed the deal for him on the 72nd hole. I have concentrated on higher loft Sonartec MDs but plan to see if the Todd Hamilton method will work for an amateur.

Back to Blades
This falls into the “you believe the facts you want to believe” category. I love my Ping Eye 3 blades with Project X 5.0 shafts. It’s the best set of irons that I’ve got. They’re LOOOONG.

Following up on my theory that a sharper leading edge promotes better contact from “links lies” (and hard fairways), I tried to knock the Pings out of the bag with a set of true blades. I’m also testing the theory that forged muscle back blades aren’t really much harder to hit than “game improvement” clubs. So I dug out a set of the Japanese blades that we had custom made in Japan. The heads were a little heavy so I matched them up with lightweight shafts - this time the Steel Fiber 90 gram iron shafts from Aerotech. That also gave me the chance to explore another interesting question -- changing the ratio between head weight and shaft weight. I’ll discuss that project in detail next month, but suffice it to say that the early indicators are good.

I took the Japanese blades to the course and hit two perfect shots. One was a 4 iron on my “hole in one hole,” the 8th at Palo Alto Muni. For a moment, I thought I might get two in the same season. The second was a knockdown 9 iron on the 16th. Two perfect shots with a new set of clubs in the first round is a pretty good record.

So I took them to the range and tested them head on head against the in-the-bag Pings. I loved the solid contact with the turf that I got with the Japanese blades. But they were SHORRRT. I can’t stand that.

I took both sets back to the shop to see if I could figure out why. It turns out that wasn’t too hard. The Pings were 4¡ strong. That pitching wedge that went 135 yards (which I wrote down to improved technique) was actually a 44¡ nine iron.

Every player I have ever worked with insisted on playing whatever irons deliver the best distance. Here’s the takeaway: check your lofts. Then face reality. You need to decide what your loft progression is going to be and make sure the playing field is level when you’re comparing two sets of clubs. I’m sticking with the Japanese blades for a little while longer and accepting the fact that I don’t hit an eight iron 160 yards. I’m going to give the Japanese blades their second outing in the “Beat the Pro” this Saturday. I’ll let you know how that came out.

The Ultimate Challenge -- Competition on the Links
Next May, the Irish Tourist Board has worked out a tournament designed to promote the great links courses in northwest Ireland. It will be four or five rounds under tournament conditions on some of the courses I know, and one or two that I don’t know. It’s a bona-fide competition (Stableford, of course). I’m going to enter. I want to see how I will do in competition on links courses. It will be a first for me.

I’d like a little company. I’m looking for three players who are up for the challenge. If you want to test your game on the links, give me a call. I’m thinking we’ll go over a couple of days early and find a place to “tune up.” I’m getting a little nervous just thinking about it. The greatest pressure in golf for most amateurs is posting your score on the wall for your friends to see.

Next month I’m going to do a “Best of 2004” article, so that should be interesting.

Leith Anderson is a partner in the Golf Lab in Palo Alto. He will answer all questions related to clubmaking and clubfitting personally. Contact Leith Anderson by email: Leith@calgolftech.com. Cell phone 650-743-2816.