Notes and Quotes from Bridgestone:
Chopra lives a history lesson at Firestone – WGC - Bridgestone Invitational
AKRON, Ohio - This is a crash course in golf and the impact of technology, courtesy of Daniel Chopra, two-time winner on the PGA Tour and playing for the first time in the World Golf Championships-Bridgestone Invitational. And not a bad start Thursday, shooting a 3-under-par 67 at the long, tough Firestone South.Firestone South is a Robert Trent Jones masterpiece of renovation, dating to 1960, when Arnie Palmer, Billy Casper and Gary Player stalked the land. It's always been a long, hard slugger's course, a par 70 now measuring 7,400 yards, and still nobody's pushover. And Chopra gave a history lesson and an explanation of why it's still so demanding.
“Well, the length for one thing,” Chopra said. “The awkwardness of trying to get the ball in the fairway. You can see how the course was built for a ball that went about 30 yards shorter. It's very difficult to put the ball in the fairway for the longer hitters.”
He used No. 4, a par-4 of 471 yards, for an object lesson.
“It's a dead bowling-alley straight hole up to about 270 yards, and then all of a sudden the fairway leans to a 45-degree angle,” he said, which meant that the fairway would kick the ball into the left rough. “But with the old persimmon-headed driver and the old balata [ball], 270, 280 [yards], you will reach the beginning of where it starts to slope right to left, so it [wasn't] an issue. For us, now, it is.”
Multiply that by about the other 13 driving holes, and you have a live, working model of the advance of technology.
LEADER PLEASED -- Retief Goosen, the leader with a 4-under 66, found Firestone much to his liking. “It's playing long, probably the longest I've seen it play,” he said. “There's no roll-out on the fairways, and the greens are soft, so you're coming in with a longer iron but you know the greens are softer.” It also helps, he noted, that the rough is a bit shorter than previously, so at least a guy can advance the ball.
MIRACLE BIRDIE -- Phil Mickelson (68) made no bogeys and just two birdies, the easy par-5 No. 2 and the tough 18th - the hard way. He drove into the left rough, from where par is a triumph and a birdie a near-miracle. “I was looking to go up over the trees left, and was looking to go out directly right, and I saw a little bit of a gap,” Mickelson said. “It was a risky play, though, because I couldn't hit it very high or it would hit the trees, and if I hit it low it catches the rough and stays there. So it was risky, but it paid off … I ended up making a birdie.”
P.S. - He had 169 yards to the green, and hit a 4-iron low. The ball came down short and ran up on the green, leaving him a 14-foot putt.
ROUND OF THE DAY - You couldn't tell from Stuart Appleby's par 70, but he authored the round of the day. Starting on the back nine, he shot a 5-over 40, without a birdie, then came home in 30, a five-birdie sprint that included three straight from No. 6.
OTHER ROUNDS OF THE DAY - Aaron Baddeley ground out a 9-over 79, with no birdies and two double bogeys. New Zealand's Mark Brown got a brutal introduction to Firestone. He did make two birdies, but shot a bottom-feeding 80. The good news is, there's no cut.
DAMAGE REPORT -- No. 8, a par-4 of 482 yards, was the toughest hole in the first round, playing at an average of 4.175, just a tad over par. No. 2, the cushy 526-yard par-5, was the easiest at 4.563. "The Monster," the 667-yard, par-5 16th (it played at 656 yards), ranked 16th at 4.9.
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