It’s not so tough without a rough

Adam Candee

Thursday, Oct. 7, 2004 | 10:39 a.m.

It's kind of like Mark McGwire hitting at a Little League field or Picabo Street shredding down the bunny slopes.

That's not to say that the three courses of the Michelin Championship at Las Vegas are easy. But when the tracks are muted to accommodate the three amateurs in every group with a tour pro, the result is a tournament that traditionally provides some the lowest winning scores of the year.

Yes, as golf ambles into its "silly season," it's time to play a little silly golf.

The first of four rounds of the Michelin was scheduled to get under way this morning at TPC at Summerlin, TPC at the Canyons and Bear's Best. The choice of courses does not seem to matter when it comes to the low scoring that the Las Vegas tour stop sees, though, as a handful of PGA tour scoring records have been set here in the 21-year history of this event.

Among the notable marks reached in Las Vegas:

A combination of factors leads to the glut of red numbers in the desert. Las Vegas usually provides serene weather -- except for occasional wind -- to complement courses with pedestrian rough and speed-controlled greens.

"Because of the amateurs, you can't put any rough out on the golf courses," said Robert Gamez, a Clark High graduate and tour veteran. "The greens are soft and usually in pretty good shape, so you give these (pros) soft greens that roll pretty well, we're going to shoot low scores. And you usually don't have a lot of wind."

Steve Flesch also knows a bit about burning up Las Vegas. Last year, Flesch came within three strokes of tying the Tour record for 54 holes by shooting a combined 192 (62-64-66). He led each of the first three days of the tournament before giving way to defending champion Stuart Appleby during the weekend.

Flesch said many players "freewheel it off the tee" because there is no rough to scare them from hitting errant drives.

"We're used to playing 4- and 5-inch rough each week and when you play these pro-am type events, you can't have grass like that," Flesch said. "First of all, you'd never finish because it'd just take forever. There's less premium placed on driving the ball in the fairway."

None of the three courses is exceptionally long, led by the 7,243-yard layout at Summerlin. Many players said the Summerlin course is playing longer than normal this week because of soft fairways.

But factor in the city's 2,179-foot altitude and the big drivers do not lose much of their edge unless the wind becomes an issue. The forecast calls for the wind to kick up to 15 mph Saturday and possibly Sunday, but that is not likely enough to significantly affect scores.

"Wind is the only defense against the PGA tour," Paul Azinger said.

Azinger, the 1987 champion in the former Panasonic Las Vegas Invitational, owns five top-10 finishes in Las Vegas. He sees the short game as the key to playing well on courses that give plenty of opportunities to play target golf. At Summerlin, Azinger counts 10 holes where it is possible to hit driver-wedge to the green.

"The par 5s are reachable and you can hit a lot of wedges," Azinger said. "There are three things you've got to do well on this tour: You've got to drive it, wedge it and putt it."

"And the best players, I think, this week will be the best wedgers and putters because driving the ball in the fairway isn't going to be much of a problem for anybody here. But when you're hot with your wedges, that's when the guys shoot lights out."

Canyons generally receives the label as the hardest of the three courses because it requires more accurate drives than the other two. As for the new entry at Bear's Best, a Jack Nicklaus design that plays 7,194 yards at a par 72, both Azinger and Gamez said the course looks good and could allow for very low scores.

That's a familiar storyline in Las Vegas.