At altitude in Mexico City, golfers are hitting mammoth drives

MEXICO CITY — Ball go far.

That’s the succinct, repetitive narrative of what players are seeing at Club de Golf Chapultepec heading into Thursday’s start of the World Golf Championships-Mexico Championship.

With the course resting 7,500 feet above sea level, golf balls are taking long-distance flights toward intended targets around this tree-lined, tight golf course that opened in 1928. Anticipating this assault from the best players armed with the best technology in the game, organizers of the event put up a fence 100 feet high and 335 yards away from the tee on the driving range to corral the longest shots.

Didn’t matter. Some players were flying the screen with mammoth drives. Tee shots exceeding 400 yards could be routine this week. How about 375-yard 3-woods? Or 280-yard 4-irons? Or 200-yard 9-irons?

“My driving (distance) average is going to go up this week hitting 2-irons all week,” said world No. 1 Dustin Johnson, one of the longest hitters in golf.

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Jordan Spieth took on the par-3 seventh Tuesday in a practice round with a 5-iron.

“Didn't quite hit it great, and I walk up and it carried 235 (yards),” said Spieth, who hits his 5-iron 195 max at sea level. “ … I mean, some of the shots I hit today, I just couldn't believe how far they were flying.”

Math skills and Trackman, a device that scrutinizes each shot’s variables including ball speed, swing speed and distance, are working overtime this week as players develop a strategy to attack the par-71, 7,330-yard course.

The elevation can mean a 15% difference compared to sea level or a difference of 10% to 5%. So what is the percentage when you’re hitting a wedge and what is it when using a driver? When it’s cooler in the morning compared to hotter in the afternoon? Downwind or into the wind? Shots that draw or fade? A three-quarter shot vs. a full shot?

“There is a lot of math involved,” said Brendan Steele, who has played at 5,000 feet in the PGA Tour stop in Reno five times. “But you have to really consider the flight you put on the ball. So if you’re in between clubs you could either hit the shorter club higher or the longer club lower. And that brings two different equations into the mix. You don’t necessarily have to hit it harder or softer, it’s all about hitting it up or down.”

It can be complicated, said Jon Rahm, one of the longest hitters on the Tour.

“I think the closer you are to green and when you have to be more precise it becomes more difficult,” he said. “When I can visually calculate 100 and they tell me 80, I say no, it can't be and it's easier to miss the green.

“So I’m increasingly more surprised.”

Spieth ran into Lee Trevino last week and got some sage advice from the member of the World Golf Hall of Fame who played here a few times.

“He said when you play in Mexico City, keep the ball really low so you can maintain control,” Spieth said. “Even though guys are going to want to be sailing it over things, hitting drivers way up in the air, the lower you keep it, the more control you have.”

Many players say the greens, which are small and very undulating, are the course’s best defense, with Spieth saying the course would be too easy if the greens weren’t so difficult.

And to the fittest may go the hardware. While all the math may leave players with headaches, elevation at this level can do tricky things to the body. Players said this week that playing nine holes felt like going 18. That workouts were quickly zapping them of energy.

“It is physically quite a bit different for us,” Spieth said. “ … They say give it 24 hours, but that will probably continue to be something that's a factor here, is just maintaining strength and endurance throughout the entire four days of competition. It’s just a taxing week.”

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