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Those fairways were pretty darn hard to hit....55% seems like a reasonable percentage.....wonder how many of his missed fairways were balls that rolled off the fairway into the first cut.

Advancing the ball to the green from the rough was often causing more problems with the way things were set up around the greens also....lots of run offs etc..

I thought the course set up was ideal.

I remember in 88 Scott Simpson spinning the ball out of the right rough over the bunker on 16 (started the whole square groove controversy) and stopping it. Good luck doing that this year.....guys could barely get it to hold over those traps from the fairway.

It's easy to hark back to years gone by and lament the state of the game now....I prefer the older gear and especially the older balls....but we have to remember ACCURATELY....this years open had it's fair share of difficulty for the current state of the game and the winner was determined in the same way. A stern test and the best player won....he handled it the best.

No argument from me that it wasn't a stern test, and better than last year for sure. But I do like a tournament that just demands you to hit the fairway. It will be real interesting to see what they do with Merion next year.