It was a question tackled admirably by colleague Will Swanton last week after watching Belgian Dominic Thiem fight his way back from a two-set deficit to defeat Alexander Zverev in the US Open final.
Thiem collapsed in a heap exhausted. Something you’d never see on a golf course. Will’s conclusion? A tennis major is “harder” to win based on the physical effort required; golf majors are “more difficult” to win because missing a putt by half an inch can be the difference between winning and losing — the sort of high-stakes tension tennis, with its second serves and plethora of unpunished errors, doesn’t offer.
Good call, Will.
Both sports have their unique challenges. A tennis ball zings at 200km/h with topspin that makes it drop on a dime and then spit past your outstretched racquet.
A golf ball just sits there, daring you to hit it straight. But the target area is never the same size or shape as it is in tennis.
After watching American Bryson DeChambeau win golf’s US Open this week, our conclusion is this — golf is chess and tennis is checkers.
DeChambeau is getting plenty of attention this week, the mad scientist of the sport who has bulked up from 87kg to 107kg using a 6000-calorie-a-day diet and weights program while changing his swing to make himself the longest hitter in golf.
That has been the focus of coverage in the wake of the 27-year-old’s victory at Winged Foot but it is only part of his secret.
DeChambeau wasn’t supposed to win at a course with narrow fairways, punishing rough and diabolically tough greens but he did. He’d worked out that the fairways were so skinny nobody would be able to stay on them. If he was going to be in the rough anyway, why not hit it as far as he could? He’d be hitting a steep wedge next shot rather than an 8-iron which could slide off the back of a green.
Bryson practised his iron shots at night, asking the course attendants to keep the lights on at the driving range. He wanted to see how the cooler temperature would affect his shots. He often wets his Bridgestone balls on the range to prepare for inclement or dewy conditions.
He has also started practising his putts using a laser to guide his stroke. He measures putting speed to such an extent that he knows 10.1 miles per hour on a 40-footer is about right, depending on the slope and green. His putting stroke utilises an ugly but effective arm-lock technique that takes the wrists out of play.
This guy is changing golf, and while he may not win every week as the pro tour moves to a different course with a different challenge, he has ensured every other player must start thinking about their game the same way.
Tennis? AWAAT once sat at a US Open with an Australian tennis coach who was employed by Novak Djokovic to study his rivals and come up with game plans to defeat them. The coach had boiled tennis down to one simple strategy — keep hitting the ball as deep as you could over the centre of the net — its lowest point. The first player to stray from that strategy was losing the rally. And as we watched Juan Martin del Potro dismantle his opponent in an early round at Flushing Meadows, the coach’s theory played out point after point.
Del Potro hit harder and closer to the baseline. He played over the centre of the net and made his opponent take risks.
Simple. Effective. Brilliant. No lasers, high-calorie diets or swing changes.
Golf is chess and tennis is checkers.
Plenty of drink at 19th
Outside DeChambeau’s wizardry at Winged Foot, golf added another piece of magic this week when a new Tiger Woods-designed golf course was unveiled, with a spectacular final act.
The island green at TPC Sawgrass in Florida is perhaps golf’s most notorious green. Now we have another thanks to the first Woods-designed course to be open to the public.
Payne’s Valley Golf Course in Missouri — once home to the late, great Payne Stewart — is located in the Ozarks, an area made globally famous by a gritty Netflix show of the same name.
The course played host to the inaugural Payne’s Valley Cup, an exhibition event featuring a miked-up Woods and Justin Thomas, who took on Justin Rose and Rory McIlroy.
While the Americans won on the leaderboard, the real winner was the course’s eye-opening par-three 19th hole.
The 19th is usually golf parlance for the clubhouse but not at Payne’s Valley where an island green is surrounded by spectacular rocky cliff faces and waterfalls that fill an intimidating moat. The clubhouse sits at the top of the cliffs offering a bird’s eye view of the action below on what is referred to as a “bonus hole”.
Octogenarians Jack Nicklaus and Gary Player joined the four pros this week for a closest-to-pin challenge at the hole nicknamed The Big Rock. Even the old blokes managed to keep it on the green but Thomas’s tee shot was closest, also giving Team USA the win.
A 19th hole? It’s not just DeChambeau changing the face of golf.
Barnes seals the deal
In case you were wondering, having a former Wallabies playmaker in the side worked wonders for the Lennox Head Trojans in the Far North Coast Rugby Union grand final last weekend.
With Berrick Barnes calling the shots, the Trojans walloped Wollongbar-Alstonsville, ending the Pioneers’ six-year run of first-grade premierships.
It was 32-0 at halftime and after a dour and scoreless second half, featuring about six yellow cards, that’s the way it stayed.
Barnes is now the toast of Lennox Head. Meanwhile, AWAAT’s correspondent, a Pioneers tragic known only as Big H, is shattered.
BC’s tip of the week
From Brendan Cormick this week: “Winners win. It is a truism in racing. At Caulfield, the fillies line up in the Thousand Guineas Prelude and Adelaide visitor Instant Celebrity (Race 7, No 4) is unbeaten and untapped. With clear running in the home straight look for her to be thundering late.
“At Rosehill, Haut Brion Her (Race 8, No 2) has won six of her nine starts and finished second at the other three. The stable has greater and exciting targets ahead and she will likely monster this lot.”
mcloughlins@theaustralian.com.au
Twitter: @simmomac
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