The password is: Birdies

    Writing from Lake Forest, Illinois
    Wednesday, September 11, 2013

    Professional golfers often talk in code.
    Rarely do they criticize a course outright – though Cog Hill’s Dubsdread layout was an exception after Rees Jones’ redo of the Dick Wilson original. Even Steve Stricker had harsh words.
    So it was interesting to hear Stricker comment on Conway Farms Golf Club after his pro-am round on Wednesday, a day in advance of the commencement of hostilities in the BMW Championship – the 110th Western Open, as it were – on the Tom Fazio layout.
    The key phrase from Stricker’s dissertation: “I think this venue is – I think the scoring is going to be a little bit better here than what we’ve seen at Cog Hill.”
    That’s code for: Birdies, baby. We’re going to shoot the lights out this weekend.
    As in the course record 11-under-par 60s Harris English and Patrick Reed fired during Wednesday’s pro-am. That wasn’t their team score. That was their individual scores. Sixty.
    Stricker didn’t know that, but he knew why low, low numbers are possible.
    “Conway Farms is, I think, a little bit more generous off the tees,” he explained. “The green complexes here are a little bit more old school, even though the course is not that old.
    “Cog Hill (has) a little bit harder green complexes, a little bit more manufactured, tougher to get to some of the pin locations. Here I think you can get to a lot of them.”
    Getting to the pins means putting for birdies, and Conway Farms’ greens were, even before Jones put Dubsdread’s greens on steroids, much flatter, built for the 11-foot Stimpmeter readings the club commonly boasts.
    Pros can sink straight putts all day long, even if they’re putting on marble.
    Stricker is not alone in his assessment. Henrik Stenson, leader in the PGA Tour’s playoff derby that concludes next week at East Lake, sees players able to be aggressive or conservative.
    “It gives you quite a few different opportunities and tactics,” Stenson said.
    “Par is not going to be a great score come four days, but we’re used to that,” Zach Johnson said, adding that he prefers it to Cog Hill. “Making birdies is part of it. This has got some teeth; it’s going to be based on wind.”
    Then there’s Jordan Spieth, the rookie sensation who won the John Deere Classic on TPC Deere Run, the birdie and eagle sanctuary in Silvis two months ago. Even though most of the fairways at Conway Farms are at least as wide as those at Deere Run, he sees challenges.
    “I think when the pins start getting put onto ledges, these greens are pretty funky on the back nine,” Spieth said. “If you’re attacking with an 8-iron, it’s going to make you think.”
    Tiger Woods, seeking his eighth victory in the Chicago area – five Western Opens and a pair of PGAs – has already thought it out.
    “We know we’ve got some easier holes out there, and if you drive the ball well, you’re going to have a lot of 8-iron on down, and those are some scoring clubs,” Woods said. “There’s a lot of funneling where you can get to some of these pins. You don’t have to fire right at the flag, you can funnel it in there.
    “You can get the ball pretty stiff. Yeah, the scores are going to be low.”
    Woods noted the weather is supposed to change on Friday – a 64-degree high, compared to the 90s of Tuesday and Wednesday – which would make things completely different, from wind direction to the distance a ball would carry.

    The Numbers Game

    Some of the numbers this week are obvious: the top 30 in the standings advance to East Lake and the Tour Championship, leaving 40 players to slam their trunks on Sunday, rather than Friday. There’s $8 million on offer, with $1.44 million shoved in the winner’s pockets.
    But there are also less obvious numbers, including five. Squeeze into the top five in the standings, and you can win the FedEx Cup and the $10 million bonus that goes with it if you win at East Lake. Arrive in Atlanta sitting from sixth to 30th, and other things have to happen besides a victory to bag the extra boodle.
    The other number of interest this week will be the attendance. Galleries at Cog Hill never warmed to a Western Open / BMW in September. The week’s attendance two years ago was only 49,000. Moving to Conway Farms, almost a different market given the 40-mile difference as the Titleist flies, and in the middle of the high-income district, has coaxed more corporate support from Chicago firms than the WGA has seen in years. Ticket sales are also up. The net may approach the $3 million earned at Bellerive near St. Louis in 2007, which will boost the Evans Scholars Foundation, the WGA’s caddies-to-college charity wing.

    Around Conway Farms

    A pair of brief showers cooled down the atmosphere in the early afternoon, but didn’t stop play. Had this tournament been played at Cog Hill, play would have been halted at mid-afternoon, when a severe thunderstorm rolled through the Lemont area, including 56-mile per hour winds. ... Golf Channel and NBC are combining for 22 1/2 hours of coverage, some of which will overlap on the weekend. Golf Channel will present “complementary coverage” of the final four holes for 5 1/2 hours while NBC is covering the whole tournament on Saturday and Sunday. Thursday and Friday, GC is on from 2-5 p.m. Chicago time.

    – Tim Cronin