Course Changes Verdict Watch, Vol. 7
The boys SI heaped plenty of praise on Hootie Johnson for his course changes. It occurs to me that in all of the post event praise (and from the Golf World headline on Jaime Diaz's story, the cheerleading buzz is contagious), no one is considering the ramifications of Augusta's narrowing efforts both for the home of the Masters, or for the game in general.
The overall theme seems to be, "see, it's okay to change the courses to deal with distance increases and some people's determination to not let the players actually progress in the scoring department."
Anyway, Gary Van Sickle, who will be forgiven for this transgression because he caused a wonderful stir at the Golf Writer's meeting and normally is spot on, writes:
The par-4 7th, 410 yards before the alterations, used to give players a breather. They could lay up off the tee and hit a wedge in. Now it runs 450 yards with trees on both sides of the fairway, so the players are forced to hit driver and hit it straight. Seven's a terrific hole now.
Super...loved the photo in SI. Can't wait to see it when the trees grow up and there is actually no fairway! Oh, and what's wrong with a breather hole after 4, 5 and 6?
Well, he gets bonus points for mentioning this:
Only at the storied 11th was there a questionable change. While the 11th remains the National's hardest-won par -- one player jokingly called the 505-yard par-4 the easiest par-5 on the course -- the more than 50 pines planted to the right of the fairway also make it Augusta's most unsightly hole. Were that many trees really necessary? "Instead of having U.S. Open rough, you have a forest," says Phil Mickelson. "You don't have the ability to hit a shot from there. You can only try to get the ball back in play."
A handful of smartly planted trees, instead of the forest, might have accomplished the same goal and tempted players into trying heroic -- and dangerous -- recoveries. The sideways chip-out, the least exciting shot in golf, has never been a Masters staple, but it's now an everyday play at 11.
Geoff
Ah, a different take in SI's "Big Play," where teacher T.J. Tomasi writes, "The course changes sucked the excitement out of the Masters. The tournament looked like the U.S. Open, with guys playing scared."
Reader Comments (3)
Isn't the entire...
1) added length,
2) reduced fairway width,
3) higher rough (actually creating "some rough" at ANGC)
...discussion that has enveloped The Masters simply a microcosm of the larger dilemma facing all of golf as the balls continue to travel further?
Short of a ball rollback, courses - even great ones designed by world class architects - have to undergo some combination of those three changes or be relegated to becoming ineffective tests of the top professionals.
Take Harbor Town as a current example. It is being contested this week at 6973 yards, virtually unchanged from the 6912 yards that it played to a decade earlier.
How can we expect an outstanding course, albeit one that has been enormously shortened over the past decade or more, to continue to attract modern fields that would provide winners of the caliber of Nicklaus, Norman, Watson, Miller, (a younger) Love and the many other top players that won there regularly through the 70's to early 1990's?
Right now the early second round leader board is...
1 Vaughn Taylor -8
2 Jim Furyk -7
T3 Fred Funk -6
T3 Arjun Atwal -6
T3 Tom Pernice, Jr. -6
T3 Billy Mayfair -6
T3 Duffy Waldorf -6
T8 Billy Andrade -5
T8 Robert Allenby -5
T8 Lucas Glover -5
T8 Corey Pavin -5
T8 J.B. Holmes -5
T8 Jose Coceres -5
T8 Chris Riley -5
T8 Brian Gay -5
T8 Geoff Ogilvy -5
All good players as is every member of PGATour, but can this effectively shortened course - like so many others on PGATour - continue to attract great fields and promote great fan interest or is technology slowly but incessantly causing venues to either adapt the test to greater length OR DIE?
As in most every era, today's stars are generally longer than normal hitters. Not neccessarily the longest, but certainly long. How long will they want to continue to place a sub-7000 yard venue on their schedules when newer (or lengthened) venues offer generally offer them a bigger competitive advantage over the field?
Like Sean, I would like to see the ball rolled back.
But, unlike him, I think it will reinstate the historic test of distance for historic venues like Harbor Town and that will - in essence - roll back a decade of effective shortening that has given shorter hitters a greater competitive parity on static-length courses such as Harbor Town.