If we had been to set out the rules for this let’s decide on what the taking part in circumstances are. It’s a sunny day in March, there’s not sufficient wind for it to be an element, there aren’t any crowds to take care of BUT you do need to play the course off the match tees.
To present us some type of concept, in case your Handicap Index is 10.0 then you’ll obtain 19 pictures off the again tees at Sawgrass. For Augusta Nationwide that determine can be 17, for the Previous Course at St Andrews it will be 12.
So we’re already speaking a few spherical which may add as much as 91 strokes and that’s earlier than we take note of the potential of one thing horrific taking place. Everyone knows in regards to the water on 17 however the dangerous information is that additionally, you will face water on all of the remaining holes.
And on greens that shall be Stimping at one thing like 13 which is to date faraway from greens that almost all of us putt on each week.
From the opening tee shot you’ll be doubtless hitting away out of your most well-liked line and subsequently taking part in your self into hassle. For those who do maintain your ball dry you then gained’t lose too many balls however you is likely to be spending a variety of your day within the Bermuda tough, pine straw or within the penal sand.
You can be introduced with simply two par 4s below 400 yards with the primary of these coming on the sixth. If in case you have come by means of the opening stretch of holes comparatively unscathed then this can actually catch your consideration.
A brand new slanted oak tree has been put in this yr to enchantment to Pete Dye’s imaginative and prescient of deception and the quirky. Right here the tree was planted first, at a price of one thing like £500,000, and the tee field got here second.
It has a excessive level of 30 ft so you’ll be pressured into taking part in the proper shot which is all nicely and good for the Tour execs who can flight the ball this fashion and that – however is so much more durable for the 10-handicapper who will doubtless be closely reliant on their driver and who won’t fancy a 3-wood.
The place we most likely don’t admire the Tour gamers’ abilities is their potential to get the membership on the ball from across the inexperienced. In case you are a 10-handicapper as a result of you possibly can’t chip very nicely then you’ll be toast right here.
There are limitless swales and false fronts across the greens which is able to make you look very foolish as chips shall be repeatedly fluffed and flubbed, solely to depart an analogous shot once more.
The 18th at Sawgrass. Take a look at all that water!
I do know this as a result of I’ve no brief sport and I performed Sawgrass in 2007, when my handicap would have been 10. I wasn’t taking part in a variety of constant golf on the time and was subsequently streaky – which is one other phrase for sometimes dreadful.
We had been off the tees of the day so across the 6500-yard mark so already we had been getting the advantage of taking part in a course round 800 yards shorter than what The Gamers is.
I do bear in mind with the ability to get alongside the par-5 ninth in two, and writing down a six, and having a wedge into the brief thirteenth however many of the day was a succession of mid irons and hybrids.
So, off the ideas, you’d be hitting a variety of membership in and/or struggling to succeed in a variety of the 4s. The sixth and seventh may make an actual mess of your scorecard and far of your day would most likely be spent hitting away from the water/hassle and subsequently then chipping in the direction of it.
Aussie Marc Leishman was as soon as requested how a 10-handicapper may fare and he replied: “120 – my dad’s a scratch and he couldn’t break 95 right here.”
For those who had been taking part in right here with a handicap of 10 then you’ll spend a very long time pondering and obsessing in regards to the seventeenth gap.
I had six weeks to construct as much as it and I frolicked with a golf psychologist, hit a variety of 9-irons and wedges on the native driving vary and, for some cause, purchased a whole new outfit for the event.
The look throughout to the island inexperienced is one that may by no means go away me, the placing floor first coming into view midway up the sixteenth.
Standing on the seventeenth tee I used to be on a pleasant run of three pars in 4 holes having spent many of the early a part of the morning chipping out sideways after which not getting inside 20 ft with something from off the inexperienced.
I didn’t have a single birdie, spent far an excessive amount of time with my head within the packed lunch that the membership had given us after which let myself down terribly in my massive second.
My first shot at 17 hit the bleachers, not a horrible reference to my wedge (it was skinny) earlier than rebounding 30 yards again in my route, nearly sticking a metaphorical two finger again at me.
Now freaked out I by some means missed the inexperienced left which, regardless of it sitting clearly on the financial institution, I declared misplaced as a) I needed one other go on the tee shot and b) I genuinely don’t suppose I had the skillset to maintain a chip on the inexperienced.
My subsequent try did discover the placing floor, from the place I took probably the most predictable three putts.
I knew I may take a double-bogey six on the final and nearly break 90 so I did simply that, pathetically advancing the ball up the right-hand facet of the outlet and by no means as soon as getting the ball again into play.
The 18th, for my cash, was the toughest gap on the property and the considered needing to make two strong swings and safe a par 4 to win the match is sort of unthinkable.
So, to reply the query: what would a 10-handicapper shoot?
Throw within the again tees, the following tweaks to the course and the enormity of the entire thing and I’d go along with not less than 105, most likely extra.
I’ll nicely have elevated the entire expertise in my fragile thoughts again in 2007 however even I may sq. it away that this was a really boozy press journey and, whether or not you scored 12 or 32 Stableford factors, no person may care much less.
READ MORE: The Gamers Championship at iconic TPC Sawgrass: 5 jaw-dropping information in regards to the coveted ‘Fifth Main’
