The 2023 U.S. Open
Los Angeles Country Club
We made it.
The opening tee shot of the 2023 U.S. Open will be hit in just a few short hours. This is the most excited I have been to watch a major championship in a long time due in large part to the brilliance of the golf course design. Elegant design and presentation elevate a golf tournament. It will be a true pleasure to watch the best golfers in the world tackle Los Angeles Country Club, a picturesque masterpiece designed by the esteemed George C. Thomas Jr.
Let’s get into it.
A Different Test
Statistics like Fairway Percentage, Greens in Regulation, and Strokes Gained leave a reasonably informative trail of where golfers’ shots end up. However, those stats don’t tell you how the ball got there. Most weeks in professional golf, players’ shots arrive at their final destination in a similar fashion: through the air. With rare exception, PGA Tour events are aerial tests. Generally once the ball hits the ground, you know where it is going to end up. The suspense is over.
Golf is much more compelling when the ground is a strategic factor. This week, Los Angeles Country Club will be a refreshing departure from the typical, relatively flat golf courses we are accustomed to watching on the PGA Tour. The firm, wide, contoured fairways demand precise and creative shotmaking.
Let’s look at an example.
Hole 5 is a long uphill par 4 lined with trees on each side. Though the playing corridor is wide, finding the fairway is not a foregone conclusion. The land slopes from left to right, shrinking the effective size of the fairway. Tee shots that leak too far right will bound off the fairway, leaving a difficult approach shot obstructed by trees.
Most professional golfers play a left-to-right ball flight off the tee. It will interesting to observe which golfers try to thread their predominant shot shape down the left side of the fairway versus which players attempt to play a right-to-left ball flight into the slope, giving themselves a better chance of keeping their ball in the fairway.
Like many other holes at LACC, Hole 5 is a prime example of clever architecture and wonderful land working in conjunction to reward shotmaking.
I could highlight every hole on this golf course, but I’ll just point out one more: Hole 6. I expect the sixth hole to be the best short par 4 in recent memory. More times than not, when players are torn between laying up or sending a tee shot up near the green, going for the green is the better option. To deter players from firing at a green, a short 4 must have significant penalties positioned around the green. Otherwise, the reward for being close to the hole far exceeds the risk.
Hole 6 is an example of where there is significant risk to hitting an aggressive tee shot. The sixth is a neat example of a hole that requires players to consider multiple options. John Wood talks through the options here:
Note: As a quick aside, I’m already dreading some of the Hole 6 discourse. Both on the broadcast and on social media, there will be sentiment expressed about how data-driven golfers (or their staff) cannot possibly formulate a strategy for a hole like the sixth. They’ll make comments like “Well, the data says you want to be as close as possible to the hole.” Please keep in mind that data never says anything. Insights drawn from data are only as valuable as the person drawing the insights. It’s reasonable to voice opposition to bad insights sloppily drawn from data. It’s not smart to be “anti-data.” The anti-data takes will be out in full force this week. And they are not accurate takes.
The style of golf on display at LACC cannot be replicated everywhere. Amazing architecture requires not only thoughtful design but also a piece of land with topography conducive to interesting golf. This golf course is a tremendous combination of brilliant architecture, engaging natural features, and history.
It is hard to believe such a place exists in the middle of Los Angeles. For the next four days, we get to watch the best golfers in the world compete at a world-class venue.
The golf is going to be exceptional.
Scheffler
Professional golfers don’t execute every shot perfectly.
Much like Instagram is a highlight reel of everyone’s lives, professional golf broadcasts tend to overrepresent high-quality shots. It creates a disconnect between fans’ perception of golfers’ expectations versus reality.
There might not be a bigger edge in golf than players understanding & leveraging the uncertainty baked into the sport. Some players attempt shots with perfect execution in mind; Rory McIlroy is one of those players. Other players leverage the uncertainty of results; Scottie Scheffler epitomizes this concept. He chooses shot shapes that minimize his dispersion, then he chooses a target that leverages his dispersion pattern to optimize his score. He doesn’t try to hit long irons with 30 yards of curve directly at the flag. The strategy I am describing might sound technical and confusing, but it’s simple and wise in implementation. The hardest part of adhering to this philosophy is putting aside your pride and hitting shots that are more effective than they are sexy.
Scottie Scheffler is a generational ball-striker, yet he doesn’t strategize around the expectation he’ll hit every shot perfectly. The strategy works. When you’re playing against someone as talented as Scottie who plays with optimal strategy, you’re fighting an uphill battle.
Scottie has been faring pretty well in those battles.
The biggest question mark for Scottie this week is his putter. He’s lost strokes putting in five of his last six tournaments, including an egregiously poor putting performance at his most recent start two weeks ago. He’s registering historic numbers tee-to-green while struggling on the greens.
Fortunately for Scheffler, putters can flip from cold to hot faster than any other club in the bag. He doesn’t need to have a spectacular week on the greens to win. He can be just a little above average and still win. Scottie Scheffler knows this. He’s familiar enough with golf data to know that he can just stick to his process and results will follow. In his press conference, Scottie spoke to the importance of process:
Putting has that kind of finality attached to it where the ball either goes in or it doesn’t and you’re kind of judged by that, and I’m trying to get more and more away from that. To where if I hit a really good putt I’m happy. If I hit a really good 7-iron into a green and I think it’s going to go to two feet and it comes up 25 feet short I’m not overly pissed off because I’m like ‘Wow, I hit a great shot.’ And so if I’m sitting on the greens and I can hit really good putts, it’s a lot easier to live with the results.
Per usual, Scheffler delivered some of the wisest golf commentary of any player in the field. Serious recommendation for every ambitious young golfer: watch Scottie Scheffler’s press conferences each week. Get inside the head of one of the great golf minds of this generation.
Scottie has the best combination of skill, strategy, and mentality in the field, and he’s my pick to win the tournament. There’s a legitimate chance he wins by multiple shots. Picking Scheffler isn’t sneaky; he’s the favorite, priced around 6/1 on most sportsbooks.
Major championships are difficult to win, but I like Scottie’s chances.
Smith & Spieth
Few golf courses should be compared to Los Angeles Country Club, but Augusta National is a reasonable comparison. Like Augusta, LACC has firm, contoured terrain. The golf course gives players ample room off the tee to find the fairway, but off-line tee shots are penalized proportionally to their width of miss. Precise shots will yield scoring opportunities. A shot a little bit off target will require a tactful recovery for players to save par. Shots well off target will often result in bogeys. For all of those reasons, LACC shares some characteristics with Augusta. If you’re looking for golfers who can succeed at LACC, I’d reference past Masters leaderboards.
Cameron Smith and Jordan Spieth are two players with strong track records at Augusta and skill sets well-suited for LACC. Each player is comfortable navigating and utilizing slopes in firm conditions. Smith and Spieth are elite shotmakers, adept at hitting creative shots that aren’t required on typical PGA Tour courses.
I think LACC also has a little bit of Chambers Bay in it. Chambers Bay hosted the 2015 U.S. Open, which Jordan Spieth won. A young, much less polished Cam Smith finished tied for fourth.
I wouldn’t be surprised if either player is in contention on Sunday.
U.S. Open Resources
A few other resources to get you prepared and excited for the U.S. Open:
I previewed the tournament with Andy Lack on the Inside Golf Podcast
If you haven’t yet seen The Fried Egg video of LACC, I cannot recommend it enough:
No person is better equipped to talk about Los Angeles Country Club than Geoff Shackelford. He previewed the event with Andy Johnson on The Fried Egg Golf Podcast
Contact/Feedback
Twitter: @JosephLaMagna - I’ll be pretty Twitter active through the weekend
Email: Joseph.LaMagnaGolf@gmail.com
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Enjoy the U.S. Open!