In this year 2023 that is already leaving us, a total of 1,647 rounds of golf were played in the Majors. Surely each one of them holds a story, at least one particularly interesting moment, some anecdote, peculiarity, rarity, a few superb shots, some bad decisions, perhaps a blushing blunder and certainly a final record that each one signed.
Of those 1,647 competition rounds in the majors, 277 were played in the Masters, 464 in the PGA, 442 in the US Open and 464 in the Open. And, what things, only 384 yielded a final result below par: 85 of them were at Augusta National, only 78 at Oak Hill, where a very tough PGA was contested, 103 at the US Open in Los Angeles and 118 at the British at Royal Liverpool. Joys are expensive in these tournaments, as you can see: only 384 rounds below par, which leads us to a scarce 23.31 percent.
Needless to say, because of their weight or significance, some of those 1,647 rounds soon appear to us. Surely, those four with which Jon Rahm, Brooks Koepka, Wyndham Clark and Brian Harman were able to close the tournament with victory. But also that 65 Sunday of Phil Mickelson in Augusta, that 62 with which Fowler opened the US Open, or the 63 of Fleetwood on Sunday, also in Los Angeles, or that 63 of Rahm in the third round of the Open…
However, of the 1,647 rounds we are going to stick with that impossible 69 that Pablo Larrazábal delivered on the first day of the PGA, at an Oak Hill that was a real ogre, and on a Thursday in which it barely stopped raining and even blowing the wind, at times with great force, complicating everything much more. In fact, only 16 players, with all the cream of the crop of world golf present, managed to play below par that day. Among them, guys of the stature of Viktor Hovland, Scottie Scheffler, Dustin Johnson, Justin Rose, Corey Conners, Bryson DeChambeau, Sepp Straka or Adam Scott.
However, as could not be otherwise, the Spaniard left his special mark, since he was only able to take three of the fourteen streets in the brave route of Rochester, a circumstance that, as the field was being played, with a tremendously penalizing rough and even heavier due to the water, simply made a result below par impossible. That day guys like Scheffler, DeChambeau, Johnson or Straka took eight or nine streets, and only Rose ‘approached’ Pablo’s bad record, with six fairways taken, twice as many as the Spaniard…
“If we analyse it from the mental, emotional aspect, it is by far the best round of golf I have played in my entire career, without discussion, I have that very clear”, explains the Barcelona player. “It’s not that I only took three streets, which also, it’s that you have to think that most of the time my ball ended up from the tee in very, very complicated positions”.
A few months have passed, but it doesn’t cost Larrazábal too much to stand up some truly crazy situations. He had gone out to play through hole 10 and, for example, on 12 he was in a very delicate position… “I missed the street on the right, I was in the rough and with a big tree blocking my line. I had to hit an 8 iron to the top, very strong, but opening a lot, looking for a pronounced fade from the rough and also making sure it flew a lot, that it made the meters… It was a miraculous shot, let’s not fool ourselves, because I left the ball on the green and made the two putts. Par and on to the next one”, he recalls.
There were situations for all tastes and only one bogey fell on him, on the 8th, the penultimate of his round, where not to vary he had missed the street about thirty meters to the left. “That single bogey hurt me a lot because I also had a putt of about three meters to make the par”. Just before, of course, on the 7th, the great moment of an absolutely thrilling round of golf had been lived. “I had missed the street and the ball was simply unplayable in the rough, there was no way to put the club in there. But I took my 5 wood, which I had already used that day from the rough on several occasions, and I risked it…”. He was about 175 meters from the flag and that ball came out just over two meters high, just clearing a river that crossed the hole, then, rolling, rolling, crossing the entire green and staying behind, in a high and thick rough… From there, with a chip that only certain hands can undertake, he was about to hole for birdie (the ball was literally peeping at the hole). “Without a doubt, I highlight that 5 wood from the rough as the best shot of the day, the most valuable, because that ball really couldn’t be played and also had to pass the river, which would be about a hundred meters from my position”, he points out.
On the 9th, his last hole, the great final touch, precisely to finish with birdie and win the arm wrestle with the course. “I missed to the left, but this time I was luckier, because I had a line to green and also the ball was in the rough, but in a somewhat more trodden area and good contact could be made”, Pablo acknowledges. Otherwise, it should be added that he was in a hollow, with a very pronounced slope compared to the green, which was up there, and with a strong wind blowing from the right and rather against. “The 5 wood from the 7th was the most valuable shot, but the highest quality one was that 5 iron, hitting from down there and about 180 meters from the flag”, he assures. The ball was left just over a meter away and the Spaniard did not forgive a birdie that at the end of the day was going to leave him placed inside the top ten of the tournament.
It’s another story, of course, of the 1,647 that could be told in more or less detail, but it’s certainly not just any one.
