State Of The Game Clippings: While You Were On Holiday Edition
While many of you were away enjoying the Thanksgiving, the Links Trust of St. Andrews issued a Friday afternoon press release announcing that nine of the Old Course's holes would see the first genuine man-made changes to the most sacred ground on the golfing planet that countless architects have tried to replicate with little success: the Old Course green contours and surrounds.
;)
Several of the areas in question were last moved by the ocean centuries ago. Major changes to bunkers have only been for maintenance or evolutionary reasons, with the last recorded alteration of a bunker location dating to 1949. The plan, by architect Martin Hawtree in coordination with the R&A and approved by the Links Trust, makes the recent tees built for the Open Championship outside the Old Course boundaries look sensitive and endearing.
Especially when they finally figured out whether they were in bounds or not.
Yet while you were away, news of this Mona Lisa-nose job crystallized the issue before us that many of you have been well aware of: the governing bodies, and in this case the R&A, will go to stunning lengths to mask regulatory malfeasance by rigging a course to get a higher winning score so that no one notices how badly they've done their job. Or as Stephen Gallacher put it, they're scared of a 59 over the Old Course that is now very possible due to modern equipment.
;)
Making the Old Course situation all the more fascinating is the tension surrounding by this week's possible announcement of a USGA/R&A ban on anchoring putters against the torso, and the overall realization that the game is led by people willing to go such lengths to not address the primary issue that they would risk defacing the most sacred grounds in the game.
So to recap the wacky holiday weekend and the perilous state of the game...
Gary Player kept his verbal assault on the governing bodies, more specifically the R&A, and this was before he had heard what they had planned for St. Andrews. Bifurcation was definitely on his mind.
Jim Achenbach used the belly putter ban we're likely to get this week or next to again raise the question of what good the governing bodies are doing for the everyday game. Another bifurcation supporter.
Bifurcation already exists, and they simply won’t admit it.
Touring pros play longer courses with firmer fairways and faster greens. Tees and bunkers are perfect. These pros adhere to the one-ball rule. Amateurs generally do not play under these conditions. Touring pros use equipment that is hand-selected and hand-checked. It is individually customized and modified. Pros have golf balls delivered each week to their lockers. Most amateurs do not have access to this equipment.
This is bifurcation. It reflects different conditions and different parameters for pros and amateurs.
John Huggan uses his visit to Australia to chat with leading players like Graeme McDowell and Ian Poulter to point out there is more to the game than we are getting with the distance chase that has sadly prompted the R&A to subject St. Andrews to changes (and this was filed before that news broke). ;)
Media coverage of the Old Course press release was paltry due to the Friday afternoon timing, the American holiday and the limited understanding of what the Old Course stands for within the architecture and history communities. Disappointingly, the SI Confidential passed even with Old Course observers Bamberger, Shipnuck and Van Sickle all in.
However, architect Tom Doak has been leading an early campaign to get the Old Course work reconsidered by the Links Trust, issuing letters to the American Society of Golf Course Architects, the European Institute of Golf Course Architects, the Society of Australian Golf Course Architects and the British and International Golf Greenkeepers Association.
An excerpt:
I propose to make a petition to the Royal & Ancient Golf Club expressing that as a golf course architect, I feel that The Old Course is sacred ground, and that architectural changes should not be made to it unless necessary for the maintenance and health of the course. I would like to know from each of you individually, whether you are interested in participating in this movement, and whether your organizations might be interested in participating as well.
He received a reply from ASGCA president Bob Cupp who likened the Old Course changes to "redesigning Chartres" and said of the ground features under siege: "The historic significance of those forms is immense, something that should be preserved at all cost, even if it is some low scores."
;)
And historian Mark Bourgeois posted this on his website:
On 23 November 2012 Peter Dawson and Martin Hawtree selected themselves as the first humans in recorded history to change St Andrews' 11th green ("Eden"). Dawson and Hawtree decided they will change eight holes, in all, on The Old Course. This site is dedicated to the previous generations of architects, greenkeepers, and R&A officials who preserved and protected the 11th green and other architectural features original to The Old Course.
Please email the Links Trust and request a delay in these changes.
Geoff
**Architect Ian Andrew, a restoration expert and historian, has written to his ASGCA peers asking the organization to take a stand:
While I may not personally like what some architects choose to do with historical courses, I had never seen a proposal so egregious that I thought we as an organization needed to take a stand. Until now. The latest proposal for renovations to the Old Course in my opinion crosses that line. While I’d prefer they let well alone, it is not the entire proposal that compels me to write this letter. It is the desire to alter the contours of the land. Any change to the undulations or green contours shows a complete disregard for St. Andrew’s hallowed ground.
I’m not foolish enough to believe any course should be locked in time or not allowed to make change, but recommending changes to the ground contours and green contours of The Old Course is a travesty.
Geoff
**Adam Lawrence sums up the "furious reaction" of architects in a Golf Course Architecture post.
Reader Comments (17)
However, it wsa quite clever to have it the week of Dubai, where most Europeans, particularly British, who care about golf would have their attention firmly on the Tournament. It would be interesting to know if any of the commentators on TV coverage made abything of this disastrous announcement.
Ironically, given my first paragraph comment above, it could well be the Americans' pressure that could cause a re-think, if such a thing is within the bounds of possibility. But it would help if some Brits would get off their backsides and lead the outcry. And, Mr. Player, wherever you are today, please continue shouting, and bring your friends.
It seems that the notion of par as 70-72 is a given, even as people are dreaming up 12-hole rounds and 8-inch cups in an effort to grow the game.
Maybe, just maybe, we DON'T need to roll back equipment and we DON'T need 8,200 yard courses. We just need to wrap our heads around the notion that pros might shoot in the high 50's or low 60's and that 250 might win a tournament at some point. We lowly amateurs, most of whom shoot around 100, might actually trend toward bogey golf or lower. Better amateurs might shoot in the 70's or even the 60's. Imagine all those things...are they really so awful?
And spare us the talk of lost revenue for the golf ball companies... Just because baseball, football, basketball, soccer, et al, use one designated ball during any season does not stop sporting goods stores from carrying any number of alternatives (even of different sizes...). Get rid of the fancy word "bifurcation" and there is no problem. Let any scratch golfer who wants to compare himself/herself to the pros play with the designated pro ball. Let everyone else play any other available ball after all of them are dialed back a bit to some reasonable distance that still allows the amateur to not feel like he's hitting a balata...
As for St. Andrews "redesigning" the Old Course, I guess that changes the age old question from "Is nothing sacred?" to "Is nothing spared?"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1902_U.S._Open_%28golf%29
Note the presence of John Shippen tied for fifth with Willie Anderson!
Anyway, there was room for change then, the Game and Business of Golf were small, and the new equilibrium was established within a few years and lasted until Titleist figured out at the turn of this century how to make a solid ball that behaved off the clubface of an iron. As I have pointed out here before, several times, the original yardage at ANGC was 6820 in 1934 and was only about 100-150 yards longer 70 years later. The rest is very unfortunate recent history that is the result of complete fecklessness on the part of those who look out for "the good of the game." Maybe Hootie should have gone to a "Masters Ball" instead of moving the first tee back to the practice green and planting Hootie Wood on the 11th and between the 15th and 17th, among other things. That would have gotten the attention of the denizens of Far Hills. And ANGC could have with impunity told the Marketing Juggernaut to take that long walk off a short pier. Alas.
This is where we are, in the golf equipment technology debate. It was inevitable.
The one thing that I'd like to add to this debate (Geoff has laid out the basic protest in his typically incisive prose) is that so many of us knew very well, a long time ago, that this is precisely where we would end up. This was bound to happen. Not just predictable, but actually predicted. And actually debated, on my part, with that great spokesman for casual attention to golf equipment regulation, E. Michael Johnson of Golf Digest. More than a half-dozen years ago I suggested to him that equipment technology would make The Old course obsolete; and then what? Johnson's written reply to me was that championships could move on to other venues. It might be a net good for him, he said, if it opened up more nice old courses to our class of recreational players.
And if it came to that, I might actually agree with Johnson. I'd rather the R&A leave The Old Course alone, and find another place to play the Open Championship, than butcher the historical contours of the course to serve the needs of tour players' Pro V1's.
And that's the problem for the R&A. They naturally do want to go back to St. Andrews, for their own reasons, but they have failed to keep control of the equipment so as to insure that TOC was still a relevant test.
We saw this coming, long ago. The Tom Doak petition drive should not be viewed as weird, or radical or some new response. It is the result of the R&A already having done laughable things (building tees out of bounds, etc.) and having not taken note of the ridicule. Years ago.
I think Tom Doak's petition drive should be made public and posted online, with a .pdf of each signature for worldwide viewing. If every great architect and every great player from the present and the past all sign it (including Tiger Woods, Rory McIlroy and Ernie Els); and if Billy Payne, Hootie Johnson and Condi Rice sign it; and if every living U.S. President signed it (non-golfer Jimmy Carter excepted); and if every Ryder Cup captain of the last 30 years signed it; and Jack and Arnie and Gary all signed it together in a press conference held in the press barn at Augusta; and we got to a point where (just guessing) the only people in golf who haven't signed it are contracted to Acushnet or are employed by the PGA, the Tours, the R&A and the USGA... well, then there's a story. And we'll have much more to talk about.
Michael Corleone, in a scene with Sonny and Tom Hagen:
Michael Corleone: Where does it say that you can't kill a cop?
Tom Hagen: Come on, Mikey...
Michael Corleone: Tom, wait a minute. I'm talking about a cop that's mixed up in drugs. I'm talking about a - a - a dishonest cop - a crooked cop who got mixed up in the rackets and got what was coming to him. That's a terrific story. And we have newspaper people on the payroll, don't we, Tom?
[Tom nods]
Michael Corleone: And they might like a story like that.
Tom Hagen: They might, they just might.
Michael Corleone: [to Sonny] It's not personal, Sonny. It's strictly business.
Congrats to the Architects for making a stand or at least stating their displeasure. It has to start somewhere.
But it's okay, we can go back in 10 years after they put everything back.