Nervous, cruel stretch, PGA Tour professionals embrace 1 big change: low score

Back in March, Min Woo Lee got a career-changing victory at the Texas Children’s Houston Open. How has things been going since then?

“To be honest, it’s so bad,” Lee said Thursday after the first round of Rocket Classic. It’s a straightforward assessment, but fair: His best in seven games since his victory ranks 49th in the Masters. Lee has unlimited firepower, but can get rid of the tee, which is a rigorous test of the ruthless weakness of the tours over the past few months.

“I didn’t feel good on the course, especially in one course, when you hit it in a rough situation, you can actually cut it off,” he continued. “Oakmont, the memorial, most signature events are very, very tough. More Professional is because they try to make it as difficult as possible. ”

That can also be checked. Lee’s seven games have started two professional and five autograph events since Houston. In a more tolerant setup, the Big Bomb Lee is used to using his driver as a weapon—but has been neutralized in recent weeks, and the Willful Drive has negated his length advantage. It also has to do with the setting of the biggest events of this tour: they are very difficult.

A month ago, only 11 players ended the week in the memorial tournament. Two weeks ago, only one player, JJ Spaun, completed his week at the U.S. Open. We have seen a lot of long rounds, tough rounds, frustrated players, nervous communication. But Thursday on Rocket Classic? Things look, feel, and play very differently. and 129 players shot under par.

“I’m really excited this week, I want to play in a tough place and actually get hit into the green,” Lee said. He hit only seven of 14 fairways, but 13 of 13 of 18 greens and nine with 63, leaving behind a T3 after the first round. “I don’t even think I’m doing a big deal today and I’m 10 times better than the score.”

“More fun, less stressful”

The tour continued to the top player. Oakmont missed the layoffs two weeks ago, one of the toughest golf courses in the world and played for the U.S. Open. Players averaged 4.18 on par this week, the most of the season. Masters and PGA also ranked second in the top six toughest courses of the year, with Quail Hollow (+1.51) and Augusta National (+.81) beating the big participants.

and commemorative host Muirfield Village, even for 72, averaged +1.38 at par. Thick, fast, landslide green is a tough combination at any level. So when Lee is like many top professionals and then plays as a PGA, then a memorial, and then the United States opens, it feels like playing three majors in a row.

The toughest courses on the PGA Tour (2025)

1. Oakmont (Open for the United States): +4.18
2. TorreyPines South (Farmer Insurance Open): +1.69
3. Quail Valley (PGA Champion): +1.51
4. Muirfield Village (Memorial Competition) +1.38
5. Innisbrook (Valspar Champion) +.87
6. Augusta Country (Masters) +.81

Players usually expect a breath-taking gasp in TPC River Heights a week after the U.S. Open, but even there, they were subjected to a rougher concentration, while a winning score of 15 under PAR proved to be a surprisingly tough test.

This brings us to this week’s Rocket Classic, hosted by the Detroit Golf Club, a tough golf course for you or me, but as the Socors proved on Thursday, it’s even more passionate for the best in the world. On Thursday, the field averaged 2.9 strokes. If for the rest of the week, that number will be the easiest race of the year since the first 73-pole plantation course held in Kapalua.

It is no surprise that Lee feels relieved to compete in a friendly field.

“In the long run, you want to attend signature events, you want to attend these events and want to be as accurate as possible, but, yes, still trying to find out the driver,” he said, and then he laughed, “Yes, hopefully there will be more classes like this in the PGA Tour, which will be more fun and less stressful.”

He is not the only one. Wyndham Clark was on Lee’s team Thursday and shot six people under par. He has also been playing autograph activities and professionalism, and he has also been struggling during an incident in Oakmont. Clark finished T5 in Houston and didn’t make it to the top 25 again until last week in the Travelers. His statistics show that the missed T-shirts also eliminate his distance advantage.

“I’ll tell you that the weather and courses this year are a grinding weather,” Clark said. “You know, every major course is very difficult…every signature activity is very difficult. It’s nice to have a course that is more likely to be a little bird, and the 2-point, under 3-years-old isn’t necessarily a good score, and it’s a good score lately. So it’s nice to see some birds, it’s nice to see some people, it’s nice to see them there because you know they’re good because you can shoot a few players well, sometimes at low prices.”

“Many wedges”

Two players, Aldrich Potgieter and Kevin Roy, shot 62 from the field on Thursday. While Potgieter is arguably the longest player on the tour, the low score is not reserved specifically for the bombers: Another low post is 49-year-old Zach Johnson, one of the shorter drivers on the tour. He found many fairways – and many short clubs.

“I mean, a lot of wedges. A lot of similar wedges. This is my scoring club, so I have to use it,” he said.

Johnson describes his bogey-free 65 as a pleasant drama.

“Again, it’s boring,” he said. “Put the ball on the fairway, lean against the wedge, and hopefully control your spin and make a good putt.”

Here, if you are a self-righteous golf fan, then your feelings of right and wrong and the “proper game golf” come in. When Johnson said “boring”, he certainly was not any statement of any kind of Rocket Classic as an entertainment product. But it’s interesting to consider all these cruel tests and how this friendly test fits the structure of the tour. A recent fan survey found that viewers prefer scores closer to PAR, which is the goal of the new look tour champion. (Signature events are indeed more difficult; if you throw out the outlier sentinels, their rounds are about half a stretch higher than non-signature travel events, and closer to stroke if you include professionals.) However, if you include the Grand Slam. As a result, you can wrap a lot of golf survival problems in a low-score circle in Rocket Classic. How important is PAR? We want to see how much players struggle? How do you defend your course without our open style? Will you use hard settings to break the gameplay rhythm? Did the ball go too far? How long does these courses take? Anyway, what is the most interesting version of professional golf?

You can think about those people carefully. Alternatively, you can sit down, open your mouth, enjoy the birds, know that the breed is the spice of life, and have to do a harder test.

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