Mike Clayton Archives - Golf Digest Middle East

How a former U.S. Open champ got four iconic Australian courses to commit to innovative new event

Golf Digest Middle East — Fri, 22 Oct 2021 00:33:05 +0000

David Cannon
The par-3 16th hole on the East Course at Royal Melbourne Golf Club.

By John Huggan
It’s a great idea. An obvious idea. And now it is going to happen. Driven by the formidable pair of 2006 U.S. Open champion Geoff Ogilvy and former European Tour player Mike Clayton, the inaugural Sandbelt Invitational will take place Dec. 20-23. Four of Melbourne’s world-famous collection of courses—Royal Melbourne, Kingston Heath, Peninsula Kingswood and Yarra Yarra—will host one round each in a 72-hole event with 60-strong mixture of male and female pros and amateurs, a relatively low-key start to what both men hope will evolve into one of Australia’s biggest tournaments.

The potential is obvious, the philosophy novel in a world typically driven only by financial matters. Yes, Ogilvy’s eponymous foundation is kicking in a $50,000 (Australian) purse—and other sponsors will hopefully be in place by December. But for now the motivation is more altruistic than economic.

“Clayts has to take most of the credit for the idea,” Ogilvy told Golf Digest. “A couple of months ago we heard that the Australian Open was unlikely to happen [the men’s and women’s events were officially cancelled last week for the second year due to the pandemic], at which point Mike decided we had to have something in its place. We’ve been doing a few little things over the last few months, one-day 18-hole events that gave promising youngsters opportunities to play some competitive golf. So he called round a few clubs in Melbourne to see if we could expand that to a four-day deal.”

It didn’t take long. Ogilvy describes the reaction as “unbelievable.” Royal Melbourne was in straight away. Peninsula said yes within 30 seconds. Yarra Yarra and Kingston Heath followed quickly, too.

“Once we had the clubs involved, we sat down and thought about the field,” Ogilvy said. “The actual breakdown isn’t too clear right now because of COVID travel restrictions, so we’ll have to see how that pans out. But we’ll have the best field we can get, both men and women, professionals and amateurs.”

That concept, too, is an extension of what the Ogilvy/Clayton team has been doing with what they call “the game,” a series of one-day 18-hole events with men and women competing against each other designed to provide promising young Australians with competitive opportunities in these trying times.

“I want to make it clear the Sandbelt Invitational is not going to be like a ‘normal’ event,” says Clayton, who, much to the amusement of all who know him, will be “tournament director.” “Not yet anyway. It’s not going to be on television. There won’t be too many spectators. There won’t be any roped-off fairways or scoreboards. It’s all about getting the best players we can find competing with each other again. But the real stars of the show will be the courses. It’s not an event built round star names, which has been the norm down here for a few years.”

Michael Dodge
Ogilvy hopes the Sandbelt Invitational can provide playing opportunities for local golfers who have been limited in events they can compete in due to travel restrictions during the pandemic.

Disappointingly, it would seem unlikely that the leading Australians on the PGA Tour—Marc Leishman, Cam Smith and Adam Scott—will be able to tee-up this year. But the reaction from Ogilvy and Clayton’s fellow pros has been, as you might expect, unanimously positive.

“What a treat this will be, undeniably one of the best collection of golf courses worldwide,” said former Ryder Cup player Nicolas Colsaerts (whose wife is Australian) in a tweet.

Japanese Tour player Matt Griffin was even more effusive.

“Since the halcyon days of the 1990s, Australian golf has been all about who is not here rather than who is,” said the native Melburnian. “This announcement is the perfect example that it might be time to celebrate who is here rather than who isn’t. We have a heap of talent that’s been starved of big tournaments for 24 months desperate to prove itself. If you forget about the names, the product is basically the same and possibly even better, as the Vic Open has proved.”

Speaking of which, the Sandbelt Invitational will offer exemptions into both the Vic Open (a mixed-event sanctioned by the European Tour and the LPGA) and, for the men, the Australian PGA Championship. Already, legitimacy is growing.

“I really hope this will expand every year, to the point where it becomes a really big and important event,” says Clayton, one of golf’s most erudite and thoughtful commentators on all things architectural. “But we don’t need a huge purse at this stage. That only raises expectations, ones we can’t meet because of all the travel restrictions in place. Players from Western Australia, for example, can’t come to Melbourne right now. So the money doesn’t really matter that much.

“People have criticised Golf Australia for cancelling the Australian Open. But our event is different. We’re not comparing apples with apples. We don’t have to deal with sponsors or television. We have no expectations. All we’re trying to do this year is run an ‘amateur’ tournament with good players on great courses. And we’ll see how it goes.”

The post How a former U.S. Open champ got four iconic Australian courses to commit to innovative new event appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

Royal Melbourne’s composite course ‘the closest thing you will ever see to Pine Valley’

Golf Digest Middle East — Tue, 10 Dec 2019 02:53:49 +0000

David Cannon/Getty Images

By John Huggan
Ask Mike Clayton what he thinks are the best holes on the Royal Melbourne composite layout (12 holes from the West course, six from the East) that this week hosts the 13th Presidents Cup matches and the native Melburnian – one of the most respected voices in golf architecture – is quick to identify all 18. Which is no surprise. Almost universally hailed as the best course in the southern hemisphere, “the composite” is that good.

“Royal Melbourne is the closest thing you will ever see to Pine Valley, where every hole is great,” says the former European Tour player. “I can’t think of another course where almost any hole would be the best hole on 90 percent of courses anywhere in the world. That’s Pine Valley. And that’s the composite course at Royal Melbourne.”

Designed by Alister MacKenzie back in the 1920s, Royal Melbourne was the famed architect’s first attempt to create what Clayton calls “an inland Old Course at St. Andrews.” Another effort in a similar vein would follow a few years later at Augusta National, Cypress Point being the third part of what might be termed MacKenzie’s “Triple Crown.”

“MacKenzie hated tight, restrictive golf and narrow fairways bordered by long grass,” continues Clayton, himself the co-designer alongside Tom Doak of the acclaimed Barnbougle Dunes on Tasmania. “He wanted people to have room to play. But if you played to the wrong half of the fairway, your next shot would be much harder. It’s a simple formula.

“That next shot from the wrong angle was nearly impossible. But if you were good enough and brave enough, you could pull it off. That’s why Seve Ballesteros played so well here and at St. Andrews and Augusta. He excelled when he had space to express himself. He played with imagination and flair. Seve was the type of golfer MacKenzie wanted to encourage.”

Okay, let’s talk specifics. What sort of things can we expect this week as 24 of the best golfers on the planet play an unfamiliar mixture of foursomes, four-balls and head-to-head match play over 18 holes as opposed to 72-hole stroke-play? Lots, if Clayton is to be believed. On a course famed for playing “firm and fast” and for the speed of its sloping putting surfaces, this is a time to expect the unexpected. Or at least the surprising.

“Some of the less experienced players are going to wonder what this place is all about,” continues Clayton with a knowing smile. “For example, they will never have played a course where you never have to fix a pitch mark. We won’t see too many shots finish stiff to the hole. Really good shots will still finish 15 feet away. Closer than that is exceptional.

“We’re also going to see a lot of three-putting. Often enough you are better off eight-feet below the hole rather than three-feet above it. Four-feet above and eight-feet below are about equal in terms of difficulty. The easy eight-footer is the equal of the difficult four-footer. And I’d rather have the eight-footer. You are never going to three-putt from eight-feet. But you can easily three-feet from four-feet when you start above the hole.”

Perhaps the only misgiving some have expressed going into this biennial contest is that a fast-running composite course at 7,055-yards will not be long enough to provide a tough enough test for the two sides. Indeed, Clayton shares that concern. In this era of rapid technological advance, some of the challenges MacKenzie created have been lost.

“The course will play short this week,” says Clayton, who won once in an 18-year career on the European Tour, at the 1984 Timex Open. “We will see a lot of wedge shots. If MacKenzie came back now to build a course to test only the best players in the world – and he had the space – he would have to make it more than 9,000-yards long. That would replicate and restore what he created back in the 1920s. Where they are hitting wedges now, they would be hitting 5-irons. And they’d be hitting woods and long irons into the par 5s; not 8-irons.”

Still, danger lurks almost everywhere on a course marked by what many believe to be the most aesthetically-pleasing bunkering anywhere in the world. Some of the most perilous too. Take what will be the fourth hole this week. At only 401 yards, this sharp left-to-right dogleg is rife with potential disaster, as International team captain Ernie Els will attest. Leading the 2004 Heineken Classic, the South African hit a perfect drive there but ended up making a quadruple-bogey eight.

“The longer you hit your drive the worse your angle becomes,” explains Clayton. “To be in the perfect spot, you need to hit a high cut that just clears the bunkers on the corner. That gives you an angle into a left-pin. But if you end up in the back bunker with your approach, you simply cannot get the ball on the green if you hit towards the hole. You can play safely, maybe 50-feet left of the flag. But from there you are going to three-putt eight times out of 10. So you can be 20 feet from the hole in two and it is an almost automatic double-bogey.”

Pressed to identify his favourite hole on the course, Clayton plumps for the 189-yard par-3 14th, a relatively new addition to a composite course that has seen occasional change over the years.

“When Ben Crenshaw played the old composite a few years ago he was asked what he thought of the course and the first thing he said was, ‘we walked straight past the best par 3 I’ve ever seen,’” says Clayton. “He was talking about what is now the 14th on the composite. The 17th is, at first glance, maybe the only disappointment. It is normally the first hole on the West course. And it’s like the first at St. Andrews. You get a ‘free hit’ off the tee. But it’s amazing how often you end up with a four-footer for a par. On a seemingly simple hole.”

To sum up then, Royal Melbourne is going to be an 18-course feast for the eyes of golf architecture geeks everywhere. Especially in match play, it will provide a roller-coaster ride at both ends of the emotional scale. All in all, this Presidents Cup will be as far removed from the norm that is tour golf as one can imagine.

“You are going to see things that would explode the stats on tour,” says Clayton. “We’ll see guys hitting 90 percent of the fairways. We’ll see up-and-downs from greenside bunkers at only 20 percent. Maybe 30 percent. Three-putt stats will be way up. And proximity to the hole from, say, 150 yards, will be 15-feet worse than any course on the PGA Tour.”

Sounds like fun. For the spectators at least.

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