It's All Right There In Front...

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Ah, you know how it ends.

That's right, Chris Johnston writes about Canadian Open host Hamilton, which the players just love because there are no railroad ties and it's all right in front of them, no thought required.

Isn't this the Colt course with the cool greens? And which, just as Harry would demand, is soaked in rough and trees to make up for the fact it's too short?

"I think it's just a nice break," said Mike Weir of Bright's Grove, Ont., who is once again the country's best hope in this event. "I'm speaking for the other guys, but I think they like to play courses that if you hit one off line, you're in trouble in the rough. You're not making eight because it one-hopped off a railroad tie into the water.

"I think guys like that change - it's all there in front of you."
Sigh. 
Janzen thinks more PGA Tour events would be held at traditional courses like Hamilton if they could handle the infrastructure.

"The problem is that the old courses don't have the space to house a tournament anymore," he said. "There's no room to expand to have enough length and there's not enough room for all the corporate stuff.

"Unfortunately the modern courses are all about looking great now. They don't want to plant trees and have it mature. They create all kinds of crazy things now."

USA Today Story On Course Redevelopment

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I'm not sure why it took me so long to put this Dennis Cauchon story from the USA Today up. Perhaps because it's somewhat depressing.

Here's the subtitle: "Golf courses are being plowed under in record numbers to make way for residential and commercial developments."

Golf course openings fell from a peak of 398.5 in 2000 to 124.5 last year when measured in 18-hole equivalents, the National Golf Foundation reports. During that time, course closings soared from 23 to a record 93.5 last year.

When courses temporarily closed for renovation are included, the USA had fewer golf courses open at the end of 2005 than a year earlier — the first year-to-year decline since 1945.

Golfers still have plenty of places to play: 16,052 courses nationwide.

"Golf courses aren't generating the returns people like to see," says Mike Hughes, chief executive of the National Golf Course Owners Association. "The land has appreciated so much in value that it makes abundant economic sense to turn the property over to other uses."
Even more ominous for the future of the game:
Shorter golf courses and par-3 courses are being redeveloped especially rapidly, the National Golf Foundation says.

Some homeowners who bought houses on golf courses have been surprised to see their views disappear. "The golf holes go away and suddenly you have people living in your backyard," says Mike Waldron, executive director of the Georgia State Golf Association.

Golf courses are being built where land is cheaper and more rural. Golfers still have many choices but may have to drive farther to play.

"It's like when your favorite grocery store down the street closes," says Jack Nance, executive director of the Carolinas Golf Association. "You're sad, but you deal with it."


 

Faxon On TPC Boston Changes

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Joe Gordon gets a few tidbits out of Brad Faxon on the planned changes to TPC Boston:

“The tour has asked me as a guy who’s been around here for a long time to (help) make some changes,” said Faxon, of Barrington, R.I. “This course will be part of the FedEx Cup and I think they want to try to make it a little more New England style, traditional.

“They picked (architect) Gil Hanse to make the changes. I think he can make some pretty significant changes to the look of the course. It’s not a bad course. I think it plays kind of Florida-like. I think the players like (the course). They need to love it.”

Faxon said there will be changes made to all 18 holes with the two biggest the fourth and 16th. The fourth will become a drivable par 4 and the par-3 16th will be shortened.


Paying $200 To Be Miserable

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Thanks to reader Jeff for the latest John Paul Newport column in the weekend WSJ.

Course developers are well aware of golfers' masochistic tendencies, and they spend bounteously to concoct (and maintain) the many cruel features -- bunkers, ponds, linoleum-speed greens that hump and heave -- necessary to crush our spirits. For this reason the most difficult courses are often the most expensive. A rule of thumb for resort and daily-fee properties is that the operators must collect $10 in green fees to recoup every $1 million in outlays for land acquisition, design and construction. Thus a $20 million course charges $200 to play -- a beautiful thing for those who like their humiliation served in double doses.

The mania for building tough courses is also fueled by the need of developers to get their projects onto a top 100 or a best-new-courses list in the golf magazines. Securing a prominent spot can be a make-or-break proposition for hugely expensive projects, especially those whose business models depend on attracting play from traveling golfers. In the notoriously subjective pseudo-science of list making, difficulty is one of the few objective criteria available for consideration. Most courses carry both a Slope rating (a measure of difficulty for average golfers) and a course rating (which measures difficulty for experts), determined by disinterested panels dispatched by the state or local golf associations. Difficulty does often correlate with quality, design inventiveness and the resources brought to bear on a course. But it can also be a red herring.

For players, the lure of difficulty is largely about bragging rights. Like birdwatchers who maintain life lists of all the species they have viewed in the wild, many golfers keep life lists of the top courses they have played -- the tougher, the better. When returning from a trip, it's far more impressive to regale jealous friends with tales of being eaten alive by courses with macho names like the Teeth of the Dog (in the Dominican Republic) or the Blue Monster (in Miami) than it is to boast about playing at a pretty little mountain course, even if playing the pretty little course would have been a lot more fun.

Another goad to taking on the most punishing layouts in the world is the all-but-irresistible urge to play where the tour pros play. On a course seen annually on TV, even a round of overwhelming frustration can be redeemed by a few magic moments. Players hit an astounding 120,000 balls a year (an average of three per player) into the water surrounding the island green on the 17th hole at Florida's Tournament Players Club at Sawgrass. But when Joe Everyman safely drops one on the surface, even if it's his third try, it's a memory of a lifetime -- and entitles him to casually observe to his buddies while watching the next year's Players Championship that he hit his tee shot on 17 exactly where Freddie Couples did.

Pete Dye, designer of some of the world's most feared courses, including the aforementioned Teeth of the Dog and TPC Sawgrass, told me recently he doesn't understand why golfers are so keen to suffer, but added that he's happy to keep building the courses for them as long as he keeps getting paid. One thing I've noticed over the years is that the more skilled and experienced golfers become, the more apt they are to play courses, or from tees, that don't abuse their souls. They know which level of challenge truly tests their game, and which level obliterates it.

 

Another Modern Design Needs Modernizing

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Thanks to reader Scott for the head's up on this Ari Cohn story in the East Valley Tribune revealing that the TPC Scottsdale Desert Course will undergo a modernization to keep up with the times.

The City Council voted unanimously on Monday to pay the Tournament Players Club of Scottsdale about $568,000 to design renovations to the 18-hole course and clubhouse, which was built in the 1980s on about 200 acres on the southeast corner of Hayden and Bell roads.

The council also approved a resolution to float up to $10 million in bonds to pay for the construction costs.

Construction is expected to close the course between February and September.

City senior project manager Annette Grove said the renovations will alter the layout of the fairways, greens and obstacles, replace turf, install better irrigation and drainage systems to conserve water, and make the course more accessible to the disabled.

“It’s going to be interesting to see how they configure this to make it a more challenging course,” Grove said.

Firestone Too Long?

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Golfonline's Joe Passov reviews his five favorite Robert Trent Jones designs, and notes this about Firestone:

By the late 1980s, Firestone South had run into a wall of criticism. "It's too long. It's too hard. It's too boring." Indeed, most of Firestone's holes run parallel to one another and the majority of greens are elevated and fronted by bunkers, lending a certain sameness to the proceedings. Yet, in 2006, the course isn't outrageously long by modern standards and a new generation of pros has come to appreciate the layout's straightforward virtues.

Hard to imagine that a course deemed "too long" just two decades ago is now the home of mostly driver-wedge par-4s. 

8,000 Here We Come?

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The Cleveland Plain-Dealer's Burt Graeff looks at the likelihood of 8,000 yard courses in the near future.

For years, the PGA Tour has pushed tees back - stretching courses to more than 7,000 yards in hopes of keeping the world's best golfers from shooting 22 under par at every stop.
Technology and players who are in better physical condition, parlayed with fairways so firm that balls roll as much as 100 yards, have turned 7,000-yard courses into ones that pros hit driver, sand wedge at 455-yard par-4s and driver, 3-iron on 550-yard par 5s.
100 yards? Maybe at Kapalua and where else?
Get ready for the 8,000-yard course on the PGA Tour.

"There is no doubt [the 8,000-yard course] is going to happen," said Sergio Garcia, one of the favorites in the $7.5 million Bridgestone Invitational that begins Thursday at Firestone's South Course.

"What do I think about it? It doesn't matter. I don't care."
Ah, that's the kind of player-architect we like. Considerate, thoughtful, pragmatic.
Suggesting in the 1950s that courses on the PGA Tour would some day top 8,000 yards in length was out of the question. 
"Everyone would have thought you were nuts," said Corey Pavin, whom, at 264.3 yards, is last among 199 players ranked for driving distance.

Pavin, a 5-9, 155-pounder, averages 55 fewer yards per drive than the tour's big hitter, Bubba Watson, who averages a whopping 319.3 yards off the tee.

And what does Pavin, a 15-time tour winner, think of the prospect of playing 8,000-yard courses?

"I think that I won't be playing golf anymore when that happens," he said, smiling.

And this just warms the heart...

Allenby, the world's 36th-ranked player who averages 294.8 yards off the tee, said he has no problem playing courses stretched to 8,000 yards. "It almost needs to happen," he said. "I'd love to see it. I hit my 3 woods close.

"The length of these courses doesn't matter to us. They feel shorter and shorter."

Ah, but thankfully there's a Pepperdine educated player out there to deliver perspective...

Jason Gore is a 6-1, 235-pounder who owns the tour's two longest measured drives - 427 yards. Yet he's not wild and crazy about playing 8,000-yard courses.

"Unfortunately," he said, "it would not surprise me to see it happen.

"If you get to that point, I think you are tricking it up and cheapening it. Take Firestone. This is an example of a classic course that doesn't need all that distance.

 "It is a good test the way it is."

And the final word on 8,000 yard courses...

"I can't see it," said South African Rory Sabbatini. "That would be excessive. That would be like putting speed bumps at Talladega."

Huh? Ah, forget it. 

Built In '86, Outdated in '06

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The Louisville Courier-Journal's Jody Demling takes an extensive look at Jack Nicklaus overhauling Valhalla in preparation for the 2008 Ryder Cup.

Nicklaus was in town yesterday to oversee ongoing construction of the most extensive changes in the 20-year history of the course he designed in eastern Jefferson County as Valhalla prepares to play host to the 2008 Ryder Cup.

 About 1,000 trees have been removed, four greens have been dynamited and transplanted (one didn't meet his approval and will move again) and the No. 2 hole may play as a 535-yard par-4 for the professionals.

"I thought we had a pretty good golf course to start with, but times have changed," Nicklaus said. "It's been 20 years since we did the golf course, and golf equipment has changed dramatically. And the ability of the players has changed dramatically with the equipment.

"To challenge the ability of the players today we needed to add some length and spice to the golf course, and in some places we have softened it a bit."

Hey, but it had 20 good years.

Nicklaus spent several hours touring the course with several PGA of America officials, original course owner Dwight Gahm and course superintendent Mark Wilson, among others.

"We have to take the golf courses and make it fit today's game, and that's what we're trying to do," Nicklaus said.

And...

Every hole will be affected in some way. The grass on all 18 greens is being replaced. Greens on the sixth, eighth, 11th and 16th holes are being rebuilt, and bunkers are being added to seven holes.

"(The PGA) is turning Jack loose and making it modern," said Gahm, who sold the course to the PGA after the 2000 event. "He's doing everything he wants to do, and it's going to be even better.

"I'm just glad he's not using my money."

Nice line!

Valhalla played 7,167 yards for the 2000 PGA, won by Tiger Woods in a playoff with Bob May, but will play about 7,500 yards from the back tees when finished.

"We sat down (with Nicklaus) and came up with a vision of how we can take Valhalla and modernize it and challenge today's players and do it well," PGA of America chief executive officer Joe Steranka said.

This is fun...

Members are allowed to play the course, but all the holes are using temporary greens in the middle of the fairways and course officials said play has been slow. But PGA officials said this will strengthen the stature of the course, which is listed among the top 100 nationally by several publications.

Listed among the top 100, yet it's undergoing a complete facelift. I'm not sure if it's an indictment of the rankings, or the equipment situation.

The biggest change is at the par-4 sixth hole that played 421 yards in the 2000 PGA. The hole is a dogleg right where the second shot must be hit over Floyd's Fork.

But Nicklaus said the green is being moved back 80 yards and into an area that is surrounded by trees, making it a longer hole where a second shot would likely be 200-220 yards after PGA players hit a 3-wood or long iron off the tee.

"It was already an exciting hole," Nicklaus said. "It's actually a par-4 that, I think, they're not going to be able to play a wedge to, if there is such a thing in this world today. It's going to be a beautiful golf hole."

The green on the par-3 eighth hole has been rebuilt, and the tee has been moved back a bit. The green was dropped four feet, allowing for better viewing.

Nicklaus spent a great deal of time at No. 11, a par-3 that played 168 yards in 2000. The original green has been destroyed, but after looking at the new layout Nicklaus said the green will be moved back and a little farther left from the original green. The hole will likely play 200-205 yards.

"The green you are looking at down there do not expect it to be there," Nicklaus told the media gathered around No. 11. "How it got there, I'm not sure. Probably my mistake. But we're moving it back, and it will work out nicely."

Nicklaus said No. 16 already had a new tee built since 2000, and now the green is being pulled together with the No. 17 tee box. He also said he took "some of the humps" out of most greens because "they got too severe."

Uh...they got severe, or were severe?

But It'll Be A Core Links Course...

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Frank Urquhart reports in The Scotsman that The Donald now wants to build homes at his Scottish golf development.

Ambitious plans by billionaire tycoon Donald Trump to build the "world's greatest golf course" in Scotland could be bunkered by proposals to include the development of hundreds of homes in the luxury resort.

Documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act reveal that the Trump Organisation is proposing to build 250 properties - 100 houses and 150 flats - on the site as part of the £300 million golf development on a stretch of environmentally sensitive links land on the Menie Estate, near Balmedie in Aberdeenshire.

Although no official plans have been lodged, Mr Trump has previously outlined a vision featuring a Victorian-style hotel and luxury clubhouse.

Now, the minutes of a meeting held on 16 January between officials from Aberdeenshire Council and the Scottish Executive and representatives of Jenkins and Marr, the Trump Organisation's Aberdeen architects, disclose that the tycoon also has plans for a housing development - which planning chiefs say could breach regulations.

 

Sebonack Opens

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shovels_200p.jpgCybergolf has the press release on the historic Jack Nicklaus-Tom Doak course opening.

Bearing fruition to one of the most highly anticipated design collaborations in recent years, Sebonack Golf Club, co-crafted by Jack Nicklaus and Tom Doak, marked its grand opening on August 23. The opening of the Southampton, N.Y., layout was marked by a press conference and first-tee ceremony before hundreds of invited guests, members and media. Heralded by some as "the most highly anticipated new private course in the country," some feel Sebonack is poised to capture acclaim as a "modern classic."  

Situated on 300 waterfront acres next to the historic National Golf Links of America and Shinnecock Hills Golf Course, most of Sebonack's holes offer panoramic views of Long Island's Great Peconic Bay and Cold Spring Pond. The course, which is meant to look weathered despite its infancy, features contoured fairways, expansive bunkers and waste dunes, and undulating greens with swales and ridges.   

"Both Jack Nicklaus and Tom Doak have given Sebonack a lot of their attention and time," said owner Michael Pascucci. "My goal in securing this extraordinary alliance of experience and talent was to get the best 18 holes out of this piece of land as possible. What I had hoped for was to have Tom's minimalist style successfully mesh with Jack's strategic mind as history's greatest golfer and one of its finest designers, in order to result in a course of beauty and a pure test of golf skills. I believe we have achieved something very special with Sebonack."   

Both designers agree that together they have crafted a course "that is better than either of us could have done alone." Nicklaus, who was captivated by the property the first time he saw it, said, "One of the reasons I agreed to do this project is that I enjoy working with other people. I am always interested in other people's ideas and what I might glean from them. I think Tom has some great ideas on how to go about golf course design. I have my own ideas, and I would think the ideas I used have impacted him. The Sebonack project has influenced us both in positive ways, and it was a very pleasant experience. We are very proud of the end product."   

Doak, who once said of Sebonack that "it's hard to imagine a project bigger than this one," thinks he definitely benefited from the experience of working with Nicklaus. "The experience of the collaboration with Jack has encouraged me to be bolder in the future," Doak remarked. "I'd like to design a course for a professional event someday, and I think because of the Sebonack experience I understand the mindset much better after working with Jack and his team."   

Garrity Chats With Rees Jones

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SI.com's John Garrity blogs about his chat with Rees Jones.

I must have been mistaken about seeing golf architect Rees Jones driving a bulldozer out on the course, because I just ran into him on the press center patio. "Does it bother you to see so many red numbers on the board?" I asked him.

"It doesn't bother me on the first day," he replied. "You see that at most every major, because they're trying to get the whole field through. But there are some real pitfalls out there once they hide the pins."

The flag on the par-3 17th, for instance, will keep moving diagonally right until Sunday, when it is practically in the water. Similarly, the hole on the par-3 second will probably work its way left toward what used to be a bunker, but which is now water, thanks to Jones' handiwork. "The closer the players think they're getting to that trophy," Jones said with gusto, "the harder it is to get there."

Having thrown down the gauntlet, Jones leaned over and picked it up again. "We don't have a backbreaker par-4," he said with a tinge of regret, "nothing over 480 yards. And we didn't convert any par-5s to par-4s, which we often do at majors. And we didn't know the ball was going to hold so well. The players can go for the flag, knowing the ball is not going to scoot."
And...
"But it's not just the softness of the greens," he said. The clouds seemed to close in again on Jones. "It's the equipment, too. The manufacturers seem to be a step ahead of us all the time. They're making balls that come straight down" -- his eyes got big -- "and just stop!"
Rees, you're not supposed to say that. Remember, the ball is off limits in USGA groupthink circles.

 

Norman On Tour's Drug Policy: "a bunch of @#$%&!!"

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An unbylined Sydney Morning Herald story asks Greg Norman what he thinks of Tim Finchem and the PGA Tour's position on performance enhancing drugs.

"Just put rules in place," pleaded Norman.

"I think our organisation, as big as it is, should have something in our by-laws stipulating substance-abuse.

"You hear about it all the time on tour and if there are no rules and regulations in place, you don't blame the players for doing it.

"It's been rumoured for over 20 years, players using outside substances to help their performances. If you're playing for $5 million a week, you've got to take advantage of it the best you can.

"It isn't just steroids. HGH, beta blockers, there's probably a multitude of drugs out there [in the market place] we don't even know about."

Commissioner Tim Finchem has long maintained that the tour doesn't need to test for performance-enhancing substances because there isn't a problem, a view Norman ridicules.

"That's a bunch of bullshit, as far as I'm concerned," Norman said. "Don't stick your head in the sand. Step up to the plate. If there's nothing there, great, but if you find a couple who've done it, at least your organisation has been ballsy enough to eliminate it, because you don't know where it's going to be in 25 years."

He doesn't necessarily think use of performance-enhancing substances is rife, but believes that's not the point.

"It doesn't matter if it's one or 100," Norman said. "If they're using outside agencies to improve their performance and beat you, that's not good."