Firm and fast course conditions could make for some eye-popping scores.
Good morning, I’m Dan Gartland. This is one of my favorite weeks in golf.
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“Firm and fast” is the phrase on everyone’s mind
The 150th Open Championship at St. Andrews, which begins tomorrow, is shaping up to be a doozy.
The R&A (British golf’s governing body) picked the world’s oldest golf course to host this anniversary edition of the tournament and while much will be made throughout the week about the history of the Old Course (this will be the 30th Open held there), the door is open for players to make their own history this year.
Course conditions and weather are always a major topic of discussion at The Open, and this year is no exception. After record-setting heat last weekend (the temperature on Sunday reached 84.7 degrees fahrenheit, the warmest July day at St. Andrews on record) and very little rain, players keep using that famous three-word Open phrase: “firm and fast.” Just how fast is the course? Check out this video of Rory McIlroy rolling what looks like an 80-foot putt from the rough.
So what does a firm and fast course mean for the tournament itself? In simplest terms, low scores. Here’s why:
- Endless rolls off the tee: St. Andrews is as flat as a pancake. Well, mostly. While the fairways are dotted with little mounds, there are no real hills to speak of. Hit your drive in the fairway and there’s nothing to stop it. That’s especially true when the fairways are as hard as a parking lot.
- Course length: St. Andrews isn’t a particularly long course to begin with and the conditions will make it play even shorter. It clocks in at 7,297 yards, playing to a par 72. By comparison, the par-70 course for the PGA Championship at Southern Hills in May was 7,556 yards.
- Calm winds: The wind blowing off the water is one of the things that can make links golf challenging, but the forecast for the next few days calls for nothing more than a gentle breeze. Players may be able to attack pins with their irons without having to worry about the wind seizing their ball.
Players past and present have said that those factors could result in some really low scores.
“Poor old St. Andrews really is at the mercy of these longer hitters,” Nick Faldo said last week. “You could start taking it to ridiculous levels if the conditions were right. Somebody could shoot 60 or 59.”
Jordan Spieth said, after Cameron Tringale’s 61 in the first round at the Scottish Open, that St. Andrews could be “just a wedge contest.”
Jack Nicklaus isn’t worried about that, though.
“Might shoot low, so what?” Nicklaus told reporters on Monday. “They’re shooting low now compared to what they shot 100 years ago. Times change and golfers get better, equipment gets better, conditions get better.”
As for who could take advantage of those conditions, the betting favorite is McIlroy. Xander Schauffele, Jon Rahm, Spieth and Scottie Scheffler round out the top five.
TV coverage of The Open starts in the dead of night on this side of the pond. Peacock’s streaming coverage begins tomorrow and Friday at 1:30 a.m. ET, with USA Network’s TV broadcast on the air from 4 a.m. to 3 p.m. ET. On Saturday, streaming coverage starts at 6 a.m., continuing into the early afternoon. USA has the television broadcast at 5 a.m. before it switches to NBC at 7 a.m. On Sunday, streaming starts at 5 a.m., USA also goes live at 5 a.m. and NBC will have the end of the final round, starting at 7 a.m.
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The best of Sports Illustrated
Today’s Daily Cover is another “Where Are They Now?” story, with Alex Prewitt writing about Seri Pak, the woman who launched South Korea’s dominance of women’s golf.
There’s also a guy named Tiger Woods who will be playing at St. Andrews. Michael Rosenberg wrote about why he’s still worth admiring. … With Kevin Durant and Damian Lillard in mind, Chris Mannix breaks down the recent trend in the NBA that shows how little contracts matter in the league. … Michael Pina has a few NBA trade ideas that do not include KD. … Conor Orr has taken stock of the NFL’s second-year quarterbacks and come up with some reasonable expectations for them.
Around the sports world
The Knicks are reportedly trying to put together a trade package to try to land Donovan Mitchell. … Adam Silver spoke disapprovingly of Kevin Durant’s trade request. … I really enjoyed Ben Strauss’s profile of Adam Schefter in the Washington Post. … Derek Jeter opened up about the reason behind his strained relationship with Alex Rodriguez. … Evgeni Malkin will re-sign with the Penguins after initially saying he’d test the free agent market. … The Orioles won their ninth in a row to get to .500 for the first time since 2017.
The top five...
… things I saw yesterday:
5. Miguel Cabrera stealing third base.
4. Javier Báez’s game-ending defensive play.
3. Shane Bieber’s 95-pitch complete game for the Guardians.
2. This utterly chaotic play in the Rays–Red Sox game.
1. This pesäpallo (think “Finnish baseball”) player sliding head-first into a river after trying to make a play.
SIQ
The first FIFA World Cup began on this day in 1930. Where was the tournament held?
Yesterday’s SIQ: Who came up with the idea for the White Sox’ Disco Demolition Night?
Answer: Mike Veeck. No, it wasn’t his dad, Bill, the White Sox owner famous for pulling all sorts of outlandish stunts.
The younger Veeck was the team’s promotions director. With attendance lagging, rarely surpassing 20,000 for weeknight games, Veeck tried to come up with a way to make a big splash and get fans out to the ballpark. Meanwhile, Chicago DJ Steve Dahl was making a name for himself as a staunch opponent of disco music. Dahl had been fired by his previous radio station when it switched from playing rock to an all-disco format and while Dahl had gotten a new job at rock station WLUP, he retained his animosity toward disco music.
Dahl had backup in his battle against disco, rousing an army that he called the Insane Coho Lips. (Dahl wrote in 2009 that he came up with the name by combining the name of a ’70s Chicago street gang—the Insane Unknowns—with a type of salmon commonly found in Lake Michigan—the Coho. Silly, I know.) The Cohos caused all kinds of trouble in the Chicagoland area, “invading suburban discos, pelting dancers with marshmallows and planting antidisco bumper stickers,” Los Angeles Times columnist Patrick Goldstein wrote in October 1979.
Veeck, seeking to capitalize on Dahl’s movement, worked with WLUP, the station Dahl worked at, to propose holding an anti-disco display at Comiskey Park. Disco Demolition Night was scheduled for the night of a doubleheader against the Tigers. Any fan who brought a disco record to the ballpark could get a ticket for 98 cents. (Face value for an upper-deck ticket was $6.) Tens of thousands of fans obliged. The official attendance was 47,795, with an estimated 20,000 additional fans outside the stadium. Veeck told Boston NPR affiliate WBUR in 2019 that he thought they’d draw 35,000 fans.
Every sports fan knows what happened next. The massive crowd outside the stadium meant fewer security guards inside and, after Dahl detonated a crate full of records between games of the doubleheader, fans rushed the field. The explosion and the ensuing riot rendered the field unplayable and the White Sox were forced to forfeit.
In 2019, the White Sox commemorated the 40th anniversary of the event in a move that was widely criticized. Disco Demolition Night was not a wacky episode during the franchise’s Wild West days under the leadership of the eccentric Bill Veeck. It was a riot sparked by largely white animosity toward music created by Black artists.
From the Vault: July 13, 1970
James Drake/Sports Illustrated
The 1970 season was when the Reds really became the Big Red Machine. Though Cincinnati sportswriter Bob Hertzel coined the term in ’69, that year’s squad finished third in the NL West and faded into obscurity. In ’70, though, the Reds lived up to the nickname. They were 62–26 at the All-Star break, 10 games clear of their nearest competition in the division.
“Most of baseball was in awe of the machine, and well it should be,” William Leggett wrote in his cover story. “At a time when expansion has obviously thinned out the talent in the majors the Reds have arrived with a busload of stars.”
The Reds were a balanced team—“I’ve said for a number of years that they have had one of the best-balanced teams in baseball, and this year they have finally put it all together,” Henry Aaron told Leggett—combining strong offense with stingy pitch. But if you want to single out one player to credit for their success, it’s easy to start with Johnny Bench. He had hit the ground running since being called up to the majors, winning the Rookie of the Year in 1968, but he took his offensive game to the next level in ’70. Bench finished with an MLB-high 45 homers and 148 RBIs while batting .293 with a .932 OPS, earning him 22 of 24 first-place MVP votes.
Bench, 22, was one of several young players leading the way for the Reds.
“But the thing about Cincinnati is the kids,” Aaron said. “It’s real unusual for a team to come up with three pitchers in one season that can help them as much as [22-year-old Wayne] Simpson, [26-year-old Jim] McGlothlin and Don Gullett have helped the Reds.”
At 19, Gullett was the youngest of them all. He was picked in the first round of the draft in 1969 and pitched 11 games for Class A Sioux Falls that summer before making the opening day roster in ’70, less than a year after his last high school game. He recorded a 2.43 ERA in 44 appearances (mostly in relief) as a rookie.
The Reds finished the regular season at 102–60, 14½ games ahead of the Dodgers, and beat the Pirates 3–0 in the NLCS before losing the World Series against the Orioles in five games. But 1970 was the start of something great for the Reds. They won at least 95 games in five of the next six years and won two championships.
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