"So you feel for Jack a little bit because you're not allowed to do it any more."

I thought Geoff Ogilvy was kind (and insightful) on the subject of what appears to be another Jack Nicklaus design players don't care for. Geoff's typically original analysis:

Q. Tiger earlier in the week said these greens were quite severe. What's the difference between big curvaceous greens like these and big curvy greens like at Augusta National?

GEOFF OGILVY: The greens at Augusta look like they're supposed to -- they look like -- they look right. Most of them are built on the hill that they're on, their natural looking slopes, it doesn't look like people moved too much dirt to make those greens.

These ones look a little contrived. And they're a bit -- Augusta has the bigger sweeping kind of more natural looking hills. These ones have a few little steep things and such.
(Laughter.)

But it's probably almost genius greens. I mean, all the best golf courses in the world have really slopey greens. So you can see what he's trying to do. Greens are getting too flat probably because greens are getting too fast. You couldn't design Augusta right now, every player would walk off if we walked into Augusta the first time we had ever seen it, played a brand new golf course, we would all quit after nine holes. We would all say, "I can't play this, it's ridiculous."

So you feel for Jack a little bit because you're not allowed to do it any more. But they look -- I don't mind big slopes. I just don't -- they just don't look as natural as Oakmont or Saint Andrews or Augusta like the truly natural slopey ones.

So he's really saying that an architect can still pull off big, sloping greens if the contours are built properly.

Now, the three courses cited by Ogilvy all had one thing in common at the time of their creation: they were not constrained by USGA spec greens.  Augusta has since gone to USGA greens and according to the people I trust who played them before and after, have lost a great deal of their character in the way of neat little bumps and rolls.

Not that this is a legitimate defense of poor green design, but it is something to keep in mind as the players pile on The Ritz Carlton Golf Club at Dove Mountain. (And if they were lukewarm while at the tournament, it only gets worse when they get off property! Playing PGA National this week won't help.)

"My 10-year-old Griffin now plumb-bobs. I go, 'Dude, what are you doing?'"

Cameron Morfit conducts an entertaining Q&A with Steve Flesch, covering all sorts of good stuff.

Let's talk Tour policy. You've slammed course setups. What's your beef?

It's the same every week. Having every par-3 at 230 yards is boring, as is having the rough at five inches. The greens don't always have to be 12 on the Stimpmeter. They water the fairways and around the greens, forcing you to hit a high spinny shot in. We've gotten away from the fact that golf can be played more than one way.

But that's exactly how Tiger and Phil and most of the top players like to hit the ball. Maybe the rest of you guys should learn to live with it.

But let's not set up every course so it's like a major. The public wants to see us make birdies, so let's set up the courses so we can display our skills and show everybody how good we are.

Seems the boys really are in love with the Memorial these days.

Jack Nicklaus upset the pros when he toughened Muirfield Village for The Memorial and furrowed the bunkers. Who's going to call up Jack and say, "Enough!"?

It's hard. Jack should have his input, but is it really in the best interest to play the course like that? That was eight-inch rough that obviously hadn't been topped off the day before the tournament, as Jack indicated in the papers.

Are you calling Jack Nicklaus a liar?

No, I'm not, but it was eight inches on Monday and it wasn't touched the whole week. Whether it's the tournament director or whatever, don't tell us it's four-and-a-half-inch rough. I can put my foot in it and see it's over my shoes. It's the same at Arnold's event. That rye-grass rough is sticky and it's five inches long. Muirfield is one of my favorite courses, but from the first time I played it in '98 to 2008, it's gotten harder, not better. The greens are 14 on the Stimpmeter and they're not big; do you need ruts in the bunkers, too?

This may be the first time someone dared to note the issue for Phil Mickelson and his joint instructors Butch Harmon and Dave Pelz.

Your fellow lefty Mickelson had a quiet 2008. What's wrong with him?

Phil Mickelson is fantastic. I have learned so much from watching him play. He knows I respect his game, and I don't want to say anything that would upset him, but right now I think he's got two different kinds of coaches. I worked with Butch Harmon for five years, and his way of thinking about the game is a lot different than how Dave Pelz is. Dave's very analytical, very scientific, and everybody respects that. Phil is trying to find a balance between two methods that seem to pull him in different directions.

And of course, slow play...

What else is on the PAC's radar?

Pace of play. There are a dozen guys out here who are habitually slow. It's not that our fine structure isn't strong enough — it's that our officials should be more assertive. We all know who's slow and who's not, and while half of the slow guys say they want to get faster, the other half say, "I don't care if I'm slow or not." Well you know what? You've got 144 guys out there that week and most of them feel you're disrespecting them by taking that attitude. You have 40 seconds to hit the shot, and if you can't do it, you're not playing out here.

Is this why weekend golfers seem to think a glacial pace is okay?

My 10-year-old Griffin now plumb-bobs. I go, "Dude, what are you doing?" He goes, "I don't know, I see you guys doing it on TV." That's exactly why it's wrong for us to be playing that slowly. 

“We do say he created the course"

The Perthshire Advertiser's Gordon Bannerman reports on the new design credit for Jack Nicklaus's Gleneagles Centenary Course, home to the 2014 Ryder Cup. You may recall that players were not too fond of David Kidd's redo. Include Jack in that category.

But it has emerged that Nicklaus isn’t impressed with Gleneagles playing around with his original design, which opened on the “finest parcel of land I have ever been given to work with” back in 1993.

The Golden Bear is growling over Gleneagles tampering with the original design without his knowledge or input. It barely rates a mention on his website, which profiles the many Nicklaus Signature courses which have emerged around the globe.

Now, instead of billing it as a course designed by Jack Nicklaus, Gleneagles flag it up as being “created” by the golfing legend.

A spokeswoman for Gleneagles said: “Jack Nicklaus designed the course for us in the early 90s.

“In the last few years and in the build up to being the hosts for the Ryder Cup, we have had another designer tweak a few holes.

“We do say he created the course and we have an ongoing relationship with the Jack Nicklaus organisation.”

"Drop your putter, dig your cell phone out of your golf bag, and call 1.877.9NM.GIFT."

I would not have believed this one if not for Ryan Herrington's item in this week's Golf World Bunker. There's selling out, there's whoring out and then there's another indescribable level of unfathomable desperation as evidenced from item in the new Neiman Marcus catalog...

Jack Nicklaus Custom Backyard Course Package

Go ahead, re-read it. Yes, THE Jack Nicklaus, Golfer of the Century turned world-renowned course designer. Yep, your very own custom-designed three-hole course. Uh-huh, for your backyard. Jack will study topography, aerial photos, and landscape maps for the site, then send his team to survey the property. He'll create a formal design plan and color renderings for up to three holes and a practice area, depending on the size of your back forty. Your construction crew builds from it, with supervision from Jack's world-class design team (the same team pursued by premier club owners worldwide). Now to sink the winning putt; when your course is finished, the Golden Bear himself will stop by to play the first round with you, personally. More? He'll sign his club and ball for your collection and throw in a custom set of Nicklaus clubs, including a personalized bag.

Drop your putter, dig your cell phone out of your golf bag, and call 1.877.9NM.GIFT.

Jack Nicklaus Custom Backyard Course Package
Price Beginning at $1,000,000.00*
OCBF9_NMO3603
*Construction and site preparation costs not included.

For $1,000,000 you get some plans and a site visit? So, how is that different from a normal Nicklaus design?

No word yet on whether Neiman's new favorite customer will be buying one of these for Todd.

"We're so heavily involved in the project, whereas in some others we've been hired guns."

Thomas Bonk talks to Jack Nicklaus about Quivira Los Cabos, "a branded Nicklaus oceanfront community, two Nicklaus golf courses and a Nicklaus golf club in Los Cabos, Mexico."

Apparently this will be like the Bear's Club, whatever that means.

This one is special, Nicklaus said. "We're so heavily involved in the project, whereas in some others we've been hired guns."

"What was that all about?"

Thanks to Jay Busbee at Yahoo for noticing a post at The Golf Watch about J.B. Holmes taking a rain check on shaking Jack's hand following his final round 77.

I knew I shouldn't have deleted the telecast before watching it!

“They do so many good things. It’s just the one thing they aren’t having success at is controlling the length of the golf ball.”

Jack Nicklaus weighed in on several topics during his Memorial Tuesday chat with the media, ranging from Boo Weekley to furrowed bunkers to the golf ball.  For a summary of his lengthy Ryder Cup dialogue, check out Steve Elling's blog summation. Elling also offered this overview of the press conference if you don't want to read the entire transcript. Mark Soltau summarizes a Jack anecdote related to Tiger's decision not to play (it doesn't sound great with his knee) and also on the topic of thank-you cards from players.

And separate of his press conference, Nicklaus offered this to Doug Ferguson in response to a question about his support of the USGA's new deal with RBS.

Jack Nicklaus has been barking about technology for at least a decade, with seemingly no help from the USGA. But he took part in an announcement earlier this month when golf’s governing body in the United States and Mexico announced it had signed its fourth corporate partner in the last 18 months.

He was asked about any perception that the USGA is more interested in getting corporate support than governing the game.

“I wish I had a good answer to that,” Nicklaus replied. “I haven’t had a good answer from the USGA on it. I think their heart is in the right place. I don’t think they’re trying to avoid being a good steward to the game. They’re probably between a rock and a hard place.

“Their efforts in the grassroots of the game, being involved in youth, certainly has been good,” he said. “They do so many good things. It’s just the one thing they aren’t having success at is controlling the length of the golf ball.”

Okay, now the highlights from the press conference.

Q. Furrowed bunkers again this year?

JACK NICKLAUS: We went to about halfway between what we were. I think that the first year we probably were a little severe. Probably the second year we were probably too light and this year we're somewhere in the middle. It's about the same exact same thing that basically I was at Birkdale last week and the rakes are almost identical to Birkdale. So I think it's pretty much the standard rake. It's just not a smooth surface.

And the intention is, as I've said in here many times, the intention is not to make it a penalty, but to have it in a player's mind that it could be a penalty. And so if you're going to hit the ball, you got to challenge a bunker and you're going to say, you know, well, if I hit in there what difference does it make, I'm just going to take my whatever club it is and knock it out and knock it on the green. The players don't worry about it.

But if you got it where you might not get a perfect lie -- and you can get a good lie in the bunkers the way we got them, but you can get a bad lie. And if that's the case, then you're going to think about whether you want to really challenge that bunker in a way that you wouldn't even consider. So it's just forcing the players to strategize, to play the strategy of the golf course.

I came up with it, the reason I did it was we just kept changing bunkers and lowering them and it didn't make that much difference. I always go through what they did at the Masters and there's two bunkers at the fifth hole at the Masters and, you know, you can't hardly shoot a gun out of them over the top, but -- they're so deep. And but Hootie saw that and didn't know if they could get out. And I said, Hootie, I promise you they're going to get out. There will be no problems. The first round Mickelson knocked it in the bunkers, knocked a 9-iron out of the bunker onto the green and made birdie. End of question there, end of subject.

So if you keep taking the bunkers and keep doing things to them, you just are destroying your membership. The membership can't play out of those bunkers. The membership is having a hard time playing, a hard time playing out of a lot of them over here. So I said basically let's not make the bunkers any tougher. Just one week a year rough it up a little bit. They call it rough raking it. And that's what we have done and that's -- I don't think they will find it to be much of a deal.

It certainly will not be a big deal around the greens. That's not where they have to worry. It's more in the fairways, because the fairway bunkers here have always been fairly easy to play out of because the guys will take whatever club they need and just pop it out of them because we just have them so perfect. And we'll just sort of rough rake them a little bit.

I loved this question. Now if we could just get Jack and the field staff on the same page!

Q. You talked about 14, a couple weeks ago about practicing, preparing your driving for the U.S. Open there. Have you ever thought about maybe one day during the tournament moving it up, moving the tee up just a little bit to put the thought in their head to give it a crack?

JACK NICKLAUS: I don't control the tees. The tees are controlled by the TOUR. Would I object to it if they put it up? Probably wouldn't if we would talk about it ahead of time so I could prepare the hole so it would play for that, as far as the occasional guy who stands back and whacks it today, but I haven't really -- I really haven't prepared and thought a whole lot about the second shot, that landing area up there as relates to receiving a tee shot. And I would bet there are going to be 10 players this week who will take a run at that. If they do, then I probably will prepare the fairway a little differently and probably -- meaning would I probably eliminate any rough that comes along the edge of it. So if you're going to take a run at it and you don't hit it where you're supposed to, you're probably going to get a little bit more -- the water will come into play a little bit more. But it's never been a big issue yet. But that would be what we would probably do.

I went out there, I used to practice from the ladies' tee and it was a perfect tee shot practice for me because it was left-to-right slope hitting up the left edge, and sort of working the ball I could run it up into the green there. And I thought that was good practice. And the guys today, I mean, you know, they could go back on 13 fairway and drive it up there they hit the ball so far today.

And the proverbial technology talk turned interesting when it came to Augusta National.

 Q. You were talking about equipment.
(Laughter.)

JACK NICKLAUS: Well surprise there.
(Laughter.)

We talk about the game has changed tremendously because of equipment and I think largely the golf ball. And yet we're asked to play the same golf courses.

So I mean obviously if the golf ball goes further and equipment hits the ball straighter, and the guys are bigger, all those combinations would only, common sense would say, duh, scores are going to be lower.

Well, okay. But then you take the golf courses and we keep changing them and changing them and changing them and spend millions of dollars to protect almighty par. Is that really the right thing to do? I think that we're trying to, we try to take today's golf courses and make them -- we take equipment, which has no relevance whatsoever to the equipment that I played or we played versus what Jones played. Yet we want to make the golf course play, to be relevant. Does that make sense?

I mean why would you want to take -- I mean it's a different game, it's different equipment. Why would you worry about that it's relevant? Though we spend millions of dollars trying to make it so. And so that doesn't make a lot of sense.

Augusta is the perfect example. I think Augusta is a, to what it is right now, frankly, I think it's a great golf course. And I think what they have done to it is what they had to do to it if they wanted to protect par. Would Bobby Jones have liked that? Probably not. His philosophy was very much the St. Andrews philosophy. And that's wide fairways, second shot golf, put the ball in the right position, you got the right angle to the hole. You do that, you take advantage of the golf course and you can score it. Okay. Well obviously with today's equipment you just take a golf course apart.

But they have changed the golf course and probably rightly so. I have two thoughts on it. Rightly so. They changed the golf course to fit today's game. But they have taken the golf course away from Jones' philosophy of what the game was to him.

So you got two things happening there. Which do you protect? And they could have had the -- they're the only place that had the option probably to say, okay, we can do, take the golf ball and make them play a certain golf ball there. And they could have gotten away with that.

But I think they did the right thing there again, as I said to you before, in not putting themselves above the game. So I don't know what the answer really is. What was your question? Was that your question?

Nicklaus made similar complimentary comments regarding ANGC to ESPN.com's Jason Sobel in this interview. Well, complimentary if you read it a certain way!

Nicklaus Admits He Used To Design For His Own Game; Has No Regrets

Jeff Shain in the Miami Herald examines the design operations of Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus. Thanks to reader Nick for the link, which includes quotes from Brad Klein about the nature of the mass produced player-architect model.

First, a Palmer anecdote:

'This is certainly an ideal situation for me to stay in the business of golf,'' Palmer said during his visit to Deering Bay. ``We'd like to hope that [golfers] appreciate what we're trying to do.''

There's always hope.

Not that Palmer and Nicklaus have the capability to get intimately engaged in each design -- though it's available for developers willing to pay higher prices.

Both, though, leave a mark on nearly every blueprint that crosses their desk.

Well, better there than in the field where they could do real damage.

''He's real careful with not pushing his thoughts on us,'' said Erik Larson, Palmer Design's vice president and one of his lead designers. ``But there are certain design philosophical items that he embraces that he wants to make sure we incorporate.''

Hazards and greens should be visible. Subtly rolling greens, rather than severe humps and bumps. Make the round visually pleasing.

''Give the golfer something to look at,'' Palmer said, standing on the 13th tee of PGA National's Palmer course. The par-3 green slopes off to a collection area behind, but it all runs together.

Palmer suggests two bunkers instead.

''One on the left and one on the right,'' he said. ``That'll make a better target.''

Hey, how about a big highway stripe down the center of the fairway too?

As the caravan gets ready to move on, he adds: ``This is potentially the best hole on the course.''

He has a stronger suggestion for No. 18, where a fairway bunker melds into a larger waste area bordering water.

''We have a beautiful hazard here and it's not showcased,'' he said, all but ordering up sod and vegetation.

Palmer's suggestions will be incorporated this summer.

All in a hard day's work.

As for Nicklaus, he did reluctantly admit in his book that he favored the left-to-right approach shot in his green designs. Still, it's nice to read it in a newspaper. 

'[Nicklaus has] evolved dramatically,'' Klein said, ``both as a function of the market as well as changes in Jack's own game.''

Early Nicklaus creations frequently caught criticism for favoring a left-to-right ball flight -- matching Nicklaus' playing style. As time has evolved, though, so have the patterns.

''Pretty soon I found out,'' Nicklaus acknowledged. ``I learned from that and adjusted what I did.''

I think his work was more interesting when he was designing for himself. 

"And Jack said, 'Well, I think it's just awful'"

Bob Baptist in the Columbus Dispatch lets Michael Hurdzan tell the story of Scioto Country Club's renovation where he had a little help from Jack Nicklaus.

The eighth hole at Scioto Country Club is the club's "postcard hole," a 500-yard par-5 on which a stream crosses the fairway, feeds into a lake left of the green and then feeds back out through a stone moat encircling the other three sides of the green.

"It's been a picturesque hole for us for many years," course superintendent Mark Yoder said.

Its beauty, though, was not in the eye of the beholder one day last spring as Jack Nicklaus walked toward a members committee on No. 8 and said, "Well, what do you guys think of this green?"

"The members said, 'We love it,' " said Mike Hurdzan, a local golf course architect who also was there that day. "They said, 'This is our favorite green. It doesn't get any better than this. This is our signature hole.'

"And Jack said, 'Well, I think it's just awful,' " Hurdzan said with a smile, "and I'm saying to myself, 'Oh, my God, this is really going to get fun.'

"Jack said, 'What makes you think this is such a good hole?' Now, all of a sudden, he's (challenging) these members to try to explain to Mr. Jack Nicklaus, winner of 18 majors, why this is such a good golf green? And all of a sudden people are looking at it and saying, 'Well, maybe it isn't so good.' "

"I used to play exhibitions, and the club pro, because he knew the course, had a chance to beat me. There isn't anybody who is going to beat Tiger or Phil or these guys today."

Bill Dwyre talked to Jack Nicklaus during a stop in LA and instead of talking about the golf ball, he elaborated on the widening gap between the elite players and the merely good:

The message was that the game is worldwide, and retaining that popularity is why Nicklaus is concerned about one trend -- the widening gap between the average player and the touring pro. He said the pros can do more with the new equipment -- the longer balls and perimeter-weighted club heads -- and that separates them way too much from Mr. and Ms. 15 handicap.

"For years and years, they weren't that far apart," Nicklaus said. "Today, we've gone exactly the opposite of where we should go. Can you imagine playing against Tiger Woods today, the average club pro trying to compete with him?

"I used to play exhibitions, and the club pro, because he knew the course, had a chance to beat me. There isn't anybody who is going to beat Tiger or Phil or these guys today."

Nicklaus said the average golfer hits it farther now, but the pros hit it so much farther that it has become a different game. They hit it farther, but can control it. Most amateurs can't.

"We lose people when they hit the ball 330 yards and then they can't find it," he said. "If they hit it 230-240, they can find it and keep playing. It speeds up the game."

"Then I've done what should be done."

The architect press release quotes are getting more torturous every day.

Jack Nicklaus, on the Tucson course he's started that will reportedly land the WGC Match Play when it's done, assuming the design proves worthy...well, and that site licensing fee check clears in Ponte Vedra...

 "Golf course design has been a blessing for me," said Nicklaus. "It has allowed me to take what I learned playing the game of golf and apply it to a piece of ground to create a legacy that will live well beyond what I accomplished as a golfer. If I can design The Ritz-Carlton Golf Club, Dove Mountain to take advantage of its spectacular high desert setting and beautiful vistas, while integrating solid strategy and good, fair golf shots, then I've done what should be done."