Rome (Italy)

Subterms

    Latest story

    100 Shares119 Views

    Ryder Cup: Home Team Gets a Course Advantage

    by

    This year the competition is in Rome, which means the European team controls the course setup and can adjust it to its players’ strengths.Max Homa returned from a scouting trip to the site of this week’s Ryder Cup in Rome incredulous with how the course had been set up.Not only were the fairways reduced in width where a tee shot might land, but the rough was grown so thick, high and gnarly that slightly errant shots could disappear.“One day someone hit it over a bunker, and we just lost it in the regular rough,” Homa said. “The whole first day I didn’t see a single ball from the rough hit the green.”The one exception: Justin Thomas hit a ball in the rough onto the green from 100 yards away, a distance where touring pros are thinking about getting the ball to within a few feet from the hole, not just on the putting surface.“The rough is borderline unplayable,” Homa said. “There’s going to be the highest, highest premium placed on being in the fairway, but they’re narrow.”In other words, this sounds like a typical setup for a Ryder Cup played in Europe, where the home team hasn’t lost the biennial competition in 30 years.Luke Donald playing his way out of a bunker at Marco Simone Golf & Country Club during the Italian Open in May.Andrew Redington/Getty ImagesThe Ryder Cup, which alternates between Europe and the United States, is the rare event in elite golf where the home team has an advantage, given that it gets to determine how the course will be played. At regular professional events, the PGA Tour and the DP World Tour work with local tournament directors to bring consistency from week to week. For the major championships, the governing bodies dictate how the courses will be set up, and typically lay them out in predictably difficult ways.But the Ryder Cup is different: What the captain of the home team says goes, right up until Sunday night of tournament week. And it’s codified in the Captains’ Agreement, which starts: “It is recognized that the home side has the opportunity to influence and direct the setup and preparation of the course for the Ryder Cup. It is hereby agreed that any such influence, direction and/or preparation will be limited to course architecture/course design, fairway widths, rough heights, green speed and firmness.”This year, there’s an added bit of home team advantage at Marco Simone Golf & Country Club, because very few of the U.S. players are familiar with the course under any conditions. Several players on the European squad have at least played the course when it hosted the Italian Open on the DP World Tour.In the hope of getting an understanding of how the course would be set up for the Ryder Cup, Zach Johnson, the U.S. captain, took the team on a scouting trip earlier this month.“This is a course that most if not all of our guys have not played,” Johnson said in an interview. “To get their feet on the ground of Marco Simone ahead of the Cup is very important. Having some practice time there can only make a very trying, different, sometimes difficult week of the Cup that much more manageable and comfortable.”Johnson, a five-time Ryder Cup player, knows the setup gambits both sides play. “Because it’s in Europe, there are tendencies their team seems to employ, with regard to course setup among other things,” he said. “We will utilize past experiences and data to make decisions.”The setup shenanigans ultimately equal out. One of the most famous setup tweaks came when Paul Azinger, captain of the 2008 U.S. squad, set up the course at Valhalla Golf Club in Louisville, Ky., to take advantage of his players’ ability to drive the ball farther off the tee than their European opponents.All the hazards — bunkers, much thicker rough — were in the areas where the shorter-hitting Europeans were likely to land the ball, while the rough past the bunkers was cut shorter to make it easier for the American side to escape from wayward drives.A view of the first tee grandstand for the 2023 Ryder Cup. After visiting Marco Simone, Max Homa noted that the rough on the course was so thick and high, errant shots could disappear. Naomi Baker/Getty ImagesIn 2016, at Hazeltine National Golf Club in Chaska, Minn., Davis Love III, the U.S. captain, put many pins in the middle of the greens, making it easy for the player, but less exciting to watch.The European side has historically gone with a setup that features narrow fairways and higher rough, under the premise that American golfers are less accurate, along with greens that are much slower than those typically found on the PGA Tour. This year was no different, Homa said.That leaves an obvious question: Why do the officials allow this?The Ryder Cup is jointly sanctioned by the P.G.A. of America and Ryder Cup Europe, which is a blend of three organizations in Britain and Europe. Officials at the P.G.A. of America and Ryder Cup Europe said the setup was fair and it could reward or penalize players on either team.Zach Johnson, the United States team captain, talking with reporters in Rome earlier this month. Johnson took his team on a scouting trip to the course to increase their familiarity with it. Andrew Medichini/Associated Press“You are looking for it to be tough, but fair, and provide an exciting challenge,” said David Garland, director of tour operations for Ryder Cup Europe.Kerry Haigh, chief championships officer at the P.G.A. of America, said: “The Ryder Cup is unlike our other championships in that the home captain has a lot of influence as to how the golf course is set up. Our aim is to make any Ryder Cup golf course setup fair for both teams.”Once play starts, it’s up to the officials to maintain the course as it was at the outset. “If you want six-inch rough, four-inch rough or two-inch rough, that’s what we’re trying to do,” Haigh said.Setup aside, both officials emphasized that this year’s course has some shorter holes that are meant to increase the excitement of the matches.“There are a couple of drivable par 4s, the fifth and the 16th, which are both over water,” Garland said. “The course was completely rebuilt a few years ago for the Ryder Cup with the drama of match play in mind.” More

    More stories

    • 100 Shares159 Views

      in Tennis

      Serena Williams Loses First Match at Italian Open

      by

      Her 1,000th career singles match, against Nadia Podoroska at the Italian Open, was a frustrating reminder of what is left to accomplish, and how hard it will be.Serena Williams has come a historically long way since she made her WTA Tour debut at age 14. She has won 23 Grand Slam singles titles and 50 other tour titles; occupied the No. 1 ranking for 319 weeks; and become one of the cultural touchstones of her time and one of the greatest athletes of any time.There is, at this advanced stage, much to celebrate in her singular journey. But her 1,000th career singles match, played on Wednesday on a breezy afternoon at the Italian Open, was an often-frustrating reminder of just how far she has to go to resume winning the game’s biggest prizes, against the odds, at age 39.Seeded and ranked eighth, Williams has turned into a part-time tennis pro. She makes intermittent appearances on the circuit while her younger rivals continue to grind away and improve day by day and round by round, even in the midst of a pandemic.Wednesday’s loss in Rome against Nadia Podoroska was Williams’s first match in nearly three months. Her desire has not dimmed, as her shrieks, grunts and clenched fists made clear. But her power to intimidate has diminished, and though Podoroska had never faced Williams, she stared down the challenge to win, 7-6 (6), 7-5, in the round of 32.“It’s an honor to play against her,” Podoroska said. “I saw her playing since I was a child.”She missed Williams’s first match on tour, however. Podoroska, an unseeded 24-year-old Argentine, was not yet born when Williams played in the qualifying tournament in Quebec City, Canada, on Oct. 28, 1995, losing to another American teenager, Annie Miller.Miller won, 6-1, 6-1, in less than an hour.“I didn’t play like I meant to play,” Williams said then.More than 25 years later, the same sentiment surfaced in Rome, one of Williams’s favorite cities. Her signature shot — her fearsome first serve — failed her repeatedly. She put only 48 percent of her first serves in play, forcing the issue under pressure and casting increasingly exasperated looks at her coach, Patrick Mouratoglou, and her husband, Alexis Ohanian, in the nearly empty stands on center court.Even when Williams did make a first serve, she won just 62 percent of the points — an ominously low figure for her and a tribute to Podoroska’s solid returns and remarkable defensive skills on clay.“It was definitely kind of good to go the distance and try to be out there, but clearly I can do legions better,” Williams said.Podoroska grew up playing on clay in Argentina, and it showed as she slid expertly into groundstrokes and changed direction quickly. She understands how to construct points on clay, and her kick serve and heavy topspin forehand are well suited to the game’s grittiest surface, as she proved last year with a surprise run to the semifinals at the French Open.“Of course, that helps me,” Podoroska said of that breakthrough. “I feel a lot of confidence playing on clay courts.”But Williams, in her prime, overwhelmed many a clay-court specialist, breaching defenses with full-cut forehands off short returns and juicy second serves. She could not get the timing or formula quite right on Wednesday, even if Podoroska dropped hints that she might not be ready to beat the best women’s player of the 21st century.Podoroska served for the first set at 5-4 and was broken. She then lost a 6-3 lead in the tiebreaker as Williams saved three set points, but at 6-6, Williams steered an edgy, off-balance forehand just wide down the line. Podoroska closed out the set with a good serve and a forehand winner.In the second set, Podoroska served for the match at 5-3 and was broken at love, making three unforced errors. Williams then held at love to 5-5. Those who have followed her know what this sort of scenario typically means: a ferocious fight back to a three-set victory.Podoroska, right, grew up playing on clay, and it showed against Williams.Clive Brunskill/Getty ImagesBut these are different days. Podoroska won a great scrambling point with a backhand reflex volley and went on to hold serve. With Williams serving to stay in the match, Podoroska hit a bold and precise forehand inside-out winner from deep to go up by 0-30. Williams lost the next two points with glaring errors: an ill-judged low forehand swing volley and a tentative forehand unforced error.How often has Williams been broken at love in the final game of a match?Answer: Not often.“I’ve been training for months, but it feels different on clay to make that last adjustment,” she said. “Finding the rhythm, even sliding and confidence with that, with movement, and just not wanting to break my ankle when I moved. That’s always like a little struggle in the first two matches, and then I’m raring to go.”The trouble is, she played only one match in Rome. A bigger problem is that there are so many hungry young players full of talent and dreams who no longer wilt in the face of Williams’s power and presence.She last competed in February, losing to a 23-year-old Naomi Osaka in a semifinal of the Australian Open, another match in which Williams’s first-serve percentage dipped precipitously.She had expected to play more on hardcourts in March. But the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells, Calif., was postponed, and she withdrew from the Miami Open, citing unplanned dental surgery.“Maybe I do need a few more matches,” Williams said. “I’m going to try and figure that out with my team and my coach and see what we would like to do.”Her next move is probably accepting a wild card into the WTA event in Parma, Italy, next week, which would give her more competition before the French Open, which begins May 30 in Paris. For now, she has played just three tournaments in the past eight months.That might have been enough at one stage, given the gap between Williams and the field. But the gap is gone, and a busier tennis schedule is essential if she is truly committed to playing (and winning) into her 40s. It took her less than two years to get from 800 career singles matches to 900. It took nearly five years to get from 900 to 1,000.Her 851-149 career record remains a work of art, but nothing in sports is eternal, even in Rome, the Eternal City. More