Former professional golfer and current golf course architect, Mike Clayton, discusses some of best rounds of tournament golf he’s witnessed on Alister MacKenzie’s Royal Melbourne Composite Course. He recalls notable rounds from Seve Ballesteros, Hale Irwin, Lydia Ko, and Tiger Woods.
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https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/michael-clayton-talks-royal-melbourne-great-courses-4/id1131723994?i=1000641016090
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I’m curious since you’ve seen so much golf at Ro Melbourne I mean you’ve played a lot of golf there there as well uh but but you’ve seen a lot of tournaments there including fairly recently does a particular round come to mind as the best do you’ve ever seen
Someone play at Royal Melbourne somebody who just like unlocked the course and really for for 18 holes really had Mastery of it I played the day ear shot 60 so I guess that was pretty good um he was he was pretty good at golf yeah for for a few years there I
Mean watching sevie I watched sevie play pretty much every ho of the 78 PGA and that was beautiful to watch because that was McKenzie built that course for McKenzie loved the way Hagen played golf and that was a sort of you know he wanted players to have room space he
Didn’t like you know tight constricted Golf and he loved Hagen loved the way he played so he was designed for Hagen in a way and sery was Hagen you know he came you know 40 50 years later Here Comes here’s a guy who needs some space to
Show how creative he is but that was seie at his best so watching sevie play was amazing and so I would say the best golf i’ I’ve seen there was sevy and Lydia Co Lydia Co won the Women’s Open there by I don’t know seven shots and it
Was just genius stuff I mean she took that place apart it was amazing how well she played she she’d figured out the Angles and people say angles don’t matter Ral M when they matter because the shot from one side of the Fairway can be way easier than the shot from the other
Side and she just it was genius she played beautifully and just picked it aart the the third on the East course which was I I don’t know what number it was cuz it was there have been so many ridiculous routings of the composite course people
Just lose track of so so the third on the East she the first day she hit left off the tea a little bit was into the wind I think it was she had unusually for that hole she had quite a long second shot down the hill to a back right pin and
She cut this hybrid thing into about six or eight feet and the next day she HED a n IR on the same hole it was like she just and she won by seven shots it was just she made and Stacy Lewis was a famous not famous qu but she said you
Know Roy Melvin doesn’t um reward good shots and she was right it rewards great shots and you know whilst the rest of fil were complaining about how difficult the course was Lydia was just putting a clinic on so you know in terms of two not specific rounds but two tournaments
Played that was amazing and I saw Halen play the last six holes in 1978 when he shot 64 in I think the first round and I you know I watched him play from the top of the hill on the fourth West which was the 14th hole and
He just you know he had a string of amazing shots from there to the Finish just like flushed it it was when that was the first time I saw someone play golf that was like my God that’s in that’s I didn’t know anyone could play golf that
Well H was he just flushed it from the top of the hill it was a two on he a beautiful a great shot into the the the hole where lyd hold the n on that was the next hole he had a beautiful seven on in there then the path three up the
Hill the fourth he had a beautiful shot in there and just he shot 64 it was obviously and he won the toour but yeah yeah that was that was kind of memorable um yeah the the long clubs off the Fairway hawi I me unbelievable with
A two iron and a fairway wood yeah he was a yeah you could see him hit that well it was four years earlier we hit that two on the last hole at Wing foot to win the US Open yeah you know it was like right yeah you know when when you
See it in person it’s like well that guy can really hit it and and and the other great the other great round of course was um I watched tiger play Abraham aner in the singles in the President’s Cup and that was um that was he he was
Clearly the best player there that week it was you know 2019 it was just it was you know that’s why you want that’s why golf is better when it’s on proper golf courses because it brings out the genius and the best players and that was you
Know that was a again it was it was McKenzie designing for Tiger it was a perfect golf course for Tiger WS it was to think about where you were going to hit it you know and you had to hit it there you had to control
The Elvis you know I I C for Elvis Smiley in the New Zealand open the started last year and we’re out with Steve Williams the last day and Elvis asked Steve you know what what was your favorite Tor to cadan he said Augusta because you know most courses you’ve got
Four or five yards to play with with Augusta you’ve got one yard that might have been an exaggeration but not by much and Ro melin you’ve got you know some holes you’ve got one or two yards to play with and you’ve you know and which was goes back to the Stacy Lewis
Point was you know it doesn’t reward good shots no you’ve got a yard to play with if and if you miss that yard or two yards by by three yards instead of being 8T away you can be 40 ft away and you think you’ve hit a good shot and you’re
40 ft away but no you missed it by two yards not good enough you know which is why which is why it’s such a genius golf course and why it still holds up in in torment and why there aren’t so many crazy rounds because it’s so difficult
To get the ball near the hole especially when it’s windy because the little undulations in the greens and you get the wrong you hit the wrong shape and get the wrong bounce and get on the wrong side of the slope and it shot it on most courses in the
World would be 15 or 20 feet away it’s 50 feet away and now you’re going to three P or or you’re going to struggle to two So that’s its genius really yeah you know so when you see someone like tiger or sevy or Lydia Co play that or H and
Play that course well it’s brilliant to watch and it’s memorable I can I can still see those shots an hit and sebie hit and L you can still see them how how why they were so Lydia played the 18th on the west course with Charlie Hull the
Pimp was in the front right corner dog leg right and she hit it down the tree line over the bunker into the right half of the fway the right corner of the fway and Charlie hit a three-wood into the middle of the Fairway but now she’s back with a five
On into the green off the right to left slope to a right pin With the Wind off the right and she hit it a decent shot but it was 40 foot left of the hole but Lydia was 30 yards closer down with a better angle and she hit it in under the
Hole with an eight ey and sort of 12 15 ft away Chie puted it down six foot short because it was a really fast part Lydia missed Chie missed Chie made five and I’m sure she walked off the green thinking I didn’t hit a bad shot there I
Made five well you didn’t hit a bad shot but you didn’t really ever have it in the same position L had it in and Lydia made an a really easy fall and Charlie was middle of the F middle of the ground but but walked off of the five kind of presumably like I
Didn’t do much wrong there wer but but there aren’t many holes in the world where she have made a bogey off the two shots she hit but she did because neither of them were she didn’t take on what they took on
1 Comment
What an absolute treasure Mike Clayton is! I could listen to him talk about golf all day long.