8,000 Here We Come?

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. 

Low Scores A Wake Up Call?

Readers of the Future of Golf or this site know that I'm not a fan of gauging a tournament's success based on the winning score when so many elements are in play (weather, conditioning, etc...).

And it's particularly annoying when the course setup is so obviously being used to create a "respectable" final tally, whatever that is.

However, the record scoring at Medinah and the 60 fired Monday at the U.S. Amateur are bound to turn some heads.

Or at least quiet those who have declared that scoring hasn't changed, so all is well in the world of golf.

So will action on the distance issue only come about because of record low scoring?  

I guess it's wishful thinking on my part that people would wake up based on the costly impact on the everyday game or the death of strategic architecture or the emerging drug issues. Maybe low scoring will shame the governing bodies and Tours into action. 

Jackie Burke Unplugged

There's a killer book excerpt in the new Golf Digest featuring Jackie Burke's thoughts on the Ryder Cup, but since it's not linked, here's Burke talking to Jim McCabe about his PGA Championship win and other topics.

He has been around the game for nearly all 83 years of his life, which is why when he speaks, people listen. Burke has a passion for the game, particularly for great amateur play, but he cares little for some aspects that shape the landscape. He's fearful that a player on a practice range somewhere is going to get seriously hurt by a teaching device what with all the ropes and metal, and he feels pity for what they've done to the club professional's job description.

``He's got to worry about carts and shirts and the hypotenuse of a triangle," said Burke.

As for the phenomenon called Tiger Woods, Burke said it isn't a mystery.

``He's the only one who understands how to play the game, how to make shots," said Burke. ``The other guys? They're all out there plumb-bobbing the world, worrying about their launch angle and their ball speed. But Woods is like the great pool player -- he doesn't see the cue, doesn't see the ball, he just sees the whole game."

"Champions 08222306"

E. Michael Johnson and Mike Stachura reveal a few new specifics about the Ohio Golf Association Champions Tournament ball, which will be used Aug. 22-23 at Windy Knoll.

According to Alan Fadel, a member of the OGA's board of governors, the ball was submitted for USGA approval earlier this year. "We were told it was on the [conforming] list in June," he said. "In fact, I believe it may have been used on [a pro tour] this year."

Still, some of the ball's particulars -- including who makes it -- remain a mystery. The ball, which sports "OGA" as its logo and has "CHAMPIONS 08222306" (the tournament and its dates) as its sidestamp, is not listed as such, meaning it is on the conforming list under a manufacturer's brand name.

Fadel would not reveal the manufacturer, but said the ball is "a three-piece, very high-spin, very low-compression" model. And although the OGA has been consistent in saying it is a "uniform" ball as opposed to a "short" ball, Fadel confirmed the OGA ball is six to seven yards shorter off the driver, five yards shorter off the irons and some 20 yards shorter on drives into the wind for players with swing speeds in the 100-110 miles-per-hour range, where most of the event's participants fall.

This is funny... 

The move to a uniform ball may raise eyebrows,

only if you are looking at a 207 drive at waterlogged Newport as a barometer for distance's impact on the game...

but that the OGA is taking this step isn't surprising. The association has a decided maverick streak, having declared a local rule in the early 1980s allowing players to tap down spike marks, leading to a falling out with the USGA. The OGA also was the first U.S. association to ban metal spikes.

"This is not the OGA trying to act contentiously," Wall said. "[But] if it becomes a discussion point for all of golf, then so be it."

As much as I'd like to know what kind of ball it is, the OGA has wisely decided to keep it secret.

They have nothing to gain by revealing the manufacturer and instead make it clear that they are more concerned with the results of their studies, instead of introducing a new ball to golf.

Still, it would be nice to know in case others wanted to, you know, try out the ball.

Reader Blue Blazer awakened from a long slumber to wonder if the balls pictured above came from an overseas company residing in a country where they have no room to keep lengthening courses. He also thought the dimple pattern resembled something from the old Slazenger or Maxfli lines.

Anyone recognize the dimples by looking at the photos?

Either way, we should know soon, since it's inevitable that a tournament contestant or media member will send off a sample to a manufacturer that can do a quick ID autopsy.

Breaking News! Ogilvy Concerned About Direction of Game

I know Australia is a bit disconnected from the world sometimes, but how do you explain The Age sending out a story on Geoff Ogilvy's comments about the state of the game as breaking news? The comments, reported by Golfobserver's John Huggan (which The Age obnoxiously did not cite), were made Friday or Saturday of the U.S. Open and reported in a June 20th column.

Well, no worries, because it is still a column worth reading. Unfortunately, you have to read a cached version because the original is not viewable as Golfobserver moves to a new host. 

Actually, forgive me, but this is my personal clipping archive and since I didn't copy the original comments over, here they are from The Age's uh, exclusive.

"Two important aspects of golf have gone in completely the wrong direction," said Ogilvy.

"Most things are fine. Greens are generally better, for example. But the whole point of golf has been lost.

"You don't measure a good drive by how far it goes; you analyse its quality by its position relative to the next target. That doesn't exist in golf any more.

"The biggest problem today is tournament organisers trying to create a winning score. When did low scores become bad? At what point did the quality of your course become dependent on its difficulty? That was when golf lost the plot. The winning score should be dictated by the weather.

"The other thing is course set up. Especially in America there is too much rough and greens are way too soft. Then, when low scores become commonplace, they think how to make courses harder. So they grow even more long grass.

"But that misses the point. There is no real defence against a soft green.

"If the first game of golf was played on some of the courses we play today, it wouldn't be a sport. It would never have been invented. People would play one round and ask themselves why they would ever play a second. It would be no fun."

Ogilvy was particularly critical of US Masters officials at Augusta National.

"With the greens they have there, you don't need rough. They are always going to be firm," said Ogilvy.

"Move the pin ten feet and the other side of the fairway becomes the place to be. That's the aspect that has been lost. And if Augusta misses the point, what hope has golf got?"

Ogilvy questioned the R & A's set-up of last year's British Open venue at the Home of Golf at St. Andrews and the infamous Road Hole.

"It's the most fearsome hole in golf and yet they had to grow all that silly rough up the right hand side," said Ogilvy.

The Australia also took aim at the USGA, organisers of June's US Open where Ogilvy became the first Australian in 11 years to win a Major.

Speaking of the 2005 US Open host venue of Pinehurst where Sydney-based Kiwi Michael Campbell won, Ogilvy remarked: "All of the bunkers were in the rough."

"And all the best angles were taken away by the USGA growing long grass in the spots where the best drives should have been allowed to finish. It was a mess."

Ogilvy's biggest fear is that the new direction of golf is filtering back to the weekend hackers and spoiling the game.

"I don't care, if people want to see us hacking out of long grass all the time, it's fine with me," he said.

"But the trouble is that everyone in golf follows us, the professionals. So it gets harder to find fun places to play.

"All of a sudden my dad is out there chopping around in six inch rough, losing his ball every time he misses the fairway and having no fun. Which makes no sense. We play a game that 99.9 per cent of golfers have no hope of duplicating."

The Skill Open?

Get the Washington Post ombudsman on the line!

We have some good old fashioned anti golf ball bias displayed by Leonard Shapiro, who not only dares to suggest a retro equipment tournament, but proposes that Nike run it!

Back in June, when the PGA Tour pulled the plug, for now, on Washington playing host to a tournament for the next few years, I received several e-mails from a friend and Northern Virginia neighbor, Howard Jensen, clearly a thinking man's golfer himself, who offered an intriguing alternative to the usual stroke play format for a tournament he'd love to see some day replace the Kemper/FBR/Booz Allen Open.

The play of Woods and Pavin over the last two weeks reminded me of his proposal, which follows mostly in his words. It includes a deep-pocketed sponsor -- he suggested Nike--that would put up the prize money -- say $5 million -- and dictate the rules of play that would go something like this:

Equipment: Nike selects a standard shaft, maybe graphite, and a standard ball (soft) that all players must use. The goal is to select a shaft and ball combination that, in the hands of the longest hitters, would only carry 300 yards maximum when hit perfectly.

See the bias. Criminal I tell you! Here's more from Len's equally biased friend:

"Skill with mid-irons and skill around the greens becomes a significant factor in professional golf again. The equipment in the bags of all players is identical, no tricked-up wedges, no fairway iron/woods, no fade driver/draw driver combinations. It's pure golf, pure equipment.

"This is not a radical notion. Every other professional sport uses standard equipment for all players, even NASCAR. The Battle Cry will boil down to a single question: Is it the player, or is it his/her equipment?

And naturally, this next point is just ludicrous. The plummetting ratings and Tom Fazio say the people want long drives, so they must want the power game, not silly stuff like this:

"Fan interest would be off the charts, drawing in even the casual golf fan. Sports radio and ESPN will have a field day hyping the event, and Washington would be the place to be in the world of golf.

Feherty and McCord On Pavin's Shotmaking

Not sure what to make of this exchange today between Feherty and McCord during the final round at Milwaukee as Corey Pavin prepared to approach the 4th hole: 

FEHERTY: You know it's really kind of interesting to watch this because he's playing the game the way it used to be played, but with modern equipment. He's exactly where Hogan would have been, but he's hitting a metal wood from here. He's got 212 yards. And this is a hard green to hit. These are little push-up greens, they slope off at the sides. It's a task for the amateur player to hit these greens with a wedge.

McCORD: I used to play a lot with him early when he was playing balata golf balls, he used to curve the ball so much it was unbelievable. He'd hit 40 yard hooks and slices out there.

FEHERTY: And that's why he plays so well on these courses. At Colonial, at Hilton Head, you know because you can move the old ball. You can't...this ball just wants to go straight. That's why players like Corey Pavin can still play. And it's great to see them.

TV Boost For Sustainable Golf?

From the R&A: 

TV BOOST FOR SUSTAINABLE GOLF 

The campaign by The R&A to promote sustainable golf courses worldwide received a major boost from the Open Championship at Royal Liverpool Golf Club, Hoylake – with television’s multi-million audiences a key factor.

For several years, the televising of major tournaments such as The Masters has led many club golfers to ask for “greener greens and fairways”, requiring the application of huge quantities of water and chemicals.  At this year’s Open, however, spectators watched one of the most successful championships ever, played out on dry, brown fairways which had not been watered at all during the long weeks of drought and record temperatures running up to The Open.

Hmmm...firing a little shot at their friends in Augusta! 

The excellence of Hoylake’s sustainable course led to many tributes: 

“I think it’s a fantastic test.  With the golf course being this fast, it lent itself to just amazing creativity.  This is the way – how it all started and how I think that it should be played.” Tiger Woods.

"I wish our fairways in the States were like this.  It’s nice, it’s golf, instead of trying to grip it and rip it.” Chris DiMarco. 

Agronomists and greenkeepers confirmed that Hoylake was a shining example of The R&A’s definition of the sustainable course: “Optimising the playing quality of the golf course in harmony with the conservation of its natural environment under economically sound and socially responsible management”. 

Robert Webb, Chairman of The R&A Golf Course Committee, which spearheads the drive for sustainable courses, said:  “We have had to work hard to get the message of best practice course management across to many amateur golfers and their club administrators, so The Open has helped our cause significantly.  People watching television coverage around the world – or on the course itself – must have heeded the message that best practice course management, with conservation of water, minimum use of pesticides and enhancement of the natural environment makes for more pleasurable golf and, at the same time, demonstrates greater social responsibility. 

“We’re thrilled with this boost to our work and like to think it will lead even more golfers to turn to our website, www.bestcourseforgolf.org which has already attracted registration from nearly 2,000 clubs worldwide”.

Did any of you know about the aforementioned website or the R&A "drive?"

Naturally, the hypocrisy here is breathtaking, yet predictable. The R&A is busy suggesting changes to rota courses, introducting costly changes to offset faulty golf ball regulation. They are surely aware of the liability issues and other costs making the everyday course less sustainable, all because of their complacency.

Golfdom Double Feature: Blogging and Bunkers

Now posted is my Golfdom feature on blogging and my July column on potential impact of the Muirfield Village bunker furrowing on the golf maintenance world. The column includes this plea:

"The game and expected conditions have simply gotten too expensive for the average facility to sustain, and bunker maintenance is a very expensive part of most budgets," Coldiron said. "Golfers expect what they see on TV tourneys on a daily basis."

Working with the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America staff and superintendents Kerry Satterwhite and Sandy Queen, Coldiron is attempting to develop a public golf forum at the Golf Industry Show next year that deals with ways to help public course superintendents who are bearing the brunt of a struggling game.

"Although Muirfield and the tour are doing this furrowing for different reasons, the return of bunker maintenance to a more reasonable level will help make the game more affordable in the long run," Coldiron says.

The group wants to address how the pressures of reduced revenue and increased cost have put undue pressure on many superintendents and their operations. But instead of beating a dead horse, Coldiron and friends want to offer insights, ideas and hopefully support to the unique situation faced by many public golf operations.

He would like your advice on topics and speakers who can lend ideas to struggling facilities. E-mail him at turfman@one.net

I Don't Want To Spoil The Party...

My initial jubilation at Hoylake's successful rewarding of strategic play was tempered a bit after talking to a trusted observer. This chap knows the course well and despised the R&A's juggling of the closing holes.

And, like Tiger hinted, this observer felt that the over-the-top weekend hole locations were designed for one purpose: to keep scoring in check so that we would not notice that technology has rendered Hoylake irrelevant.

Me, being the eternal optimist, insisted that too many positives remain. Namely, that brown, firm golf on a well-designed course created an ideal model for tournament golf, especially since it rewarded such intelligent and measured play from Tiger.

But what if the R&A had made the hole locations a bit more accessible Saturday and Sunday, and Tiger wins at 24 under, with two other players around 20 under?

Would Ron Whitten be considered a prophet for declaring the course outdated?

I'm starting to think so, especially after reading this heartburn inducer from Alistair Tait of Golfweek. 

All the talk about scores reaching 20-under-par proved to be hot air. Sure the winning score was 18-under-par, just one stroke short of Woods' Open Championship record set at St. Andrews in 2000.

So what? The fact Woods emerged with the Jug proves the course passed the test. Had it been Joe Bloggs from anywhere or everywhere, then it would have been a different story.

So much for all the worry about the quirky nature of the golf course – the internal out of bounds, the three undulating greens that stuck out like old range balls in a bucket full of new Titleists.

Hoylake proved this week that it has enough natural defences to withstand the talents of the game's greatest players.

Course playing too short? No problem. Just tuck the pins.

That's what the R&A did this week. They put pins on the front of greens, had holes cut close to the side of greens so that a boldly struck putt could run off the greens.

See why I'm not feeling so good about this now.

Watson: "it's too late to do much now"

An unbylined Unison.ie story features Tom Watson's latest thoughts on the equipment issue.

The Great Man, hugely popular with the galleries wherever he plays, got up close and personal with some of the heavy hitters of the modern game and saw power unleashed that left him reeling in shock and awe - as in "aw crap, I'm too old for this stuff."

Watson knows what it's like to thump a ball a country mile down a fairway. In his day he asserted: "I was a long hitter," but conceded: "I saw a difference this week."

"During the week I played with Vijay Singh and Retief Goosen. I played with Brett Wetterich and with Chad Campbell, and these guys bomb it out there.

"I mean they're 80 yards ahead of me. I can understand people saying maybe the equipment has got too far ahead, but these guys swing the club a lot faster than I do.

"I'm out there waving at it, these guys are ripping at it. I just can't swing the club that fast.

Well Tom, they are younger than you too.

"What I think has happened also is that the ball has outgunned the R&A and the USGA.

"Back in 2001 a big jump happened then. The manufacturers played by the rules but the R&A and the USGA didn't have the rules in place to prevent the ball jumping ahead in distance.

"I think it's too late to do much now, but there are a few things they could do. One might be to reduce the size of the clubheads on the drivers, so you can't sling it with total abandon. With these drivers you can mis-hit the ball and still hit it a long way.

"Maybe they could get away from the square grooves so you can't spin the ball in the rough and put the old 'V' grooves back where you don't have the same control out of the rough.

"One thing I'm not in favour of is a special ball for tournament golf. I wouldn't like to see that. I like the competition between the manufacturers and it's good for the players."

So we know something happened a few years ago, we know it's bad, and we should correct other elements to compensate?  

Jack: I Could Have Won 25

Paul Forsyth pulls all sorts of fun stuff out of Jack Nicklaus, who was in one of his chatty moods at the Open Championship. On his 18 majors:

“Once I got past that record, I didn’t have a big push to do much else,” he says. “I didn’t know I had Tiger Woods pushing me. I would have probably worked harder and maybe won more if I had. I can’t say I prepared for every major the way I should have. I can’t say that I didn’t give away opportunities. Records were never really that important to me until it was too late to go back and go for them.

“Never in my life did I add up how many I had won. Tiger has been adding from day one. He has grown up that way, and the more he does it, the more he is reminded of it. He doesn’t know anything else.”

And...

Nicklaus is proud of his majors, but there are more important things. “To me, my record is 18 professional majors, five kids, 46 years of marriage, 19 grandkids and a successful business. I have other friends, I have enjoyed what I have done, and I have been able to smell the flowers along the way. Those are the things that are important to me, not the 18 majors. The 18 majors are not my life, they are part of it.

“If I had been really serious about building a record that nobody was going to touch, I wouldn’t have been able to do a lot of the other things I have enjoyed. I have had a very balanced life.

“I spend time with my kids, I have grown up knowing them, and if golf had been the only thing I did, that wouldn’t have happened. I could have won 20 or 25 majors, but I think I would have been a miserable person.”

The implication is that Woods, whose late father compared him to Gandhi, is not on this earth to have a good time. Should the world No 1 successfully defend his title at Royal Liverpool this afternoon, the biggest prize will not be the Claret Jug, which he has won twice already, but the fact that it will take him to within seven majors of the holy grail. From the moment he pinned the Nicklaus record on his bedroom wall, his only dream has been to achieve immortality.

“Tiger is a pretty well- balanced kid, who likes to do other things, like diving and fishing, but he is living in a fishbowl. He can’t go anywhere without people reminding him who he is and what he is here for. I never used to worry about anything like that. I could go to any restaurant and nobody bothered me. He’s like a rock star. They’re on top of him all the time. I wouldn’t trade my life for his, not for any money you want to name.”

And this is fun, considering he'll be President's Cup captain again in 2007:

“In this year’s US Open, six of the top 10 were foreign players, and so were 14 of the top 20. We have some very good players, but if you look past Tiger, Phil (Mickelson) and Jim Furyk, it’s pretty thin.”

Neither is he especially impressed with the Europeans, save for a select two or three. Nicklaus, who is captain of the US Presidents Cup team, says the world’s best players are from neither continent.

“There are more good world players than there are US and European players combined. Maybe, in the Ryder Cup, it should be the US and Europe versus the rest of the world.”

Player, Harmon Call For Rollback

Alex Lowe on SportingLife.com, writes about an interview given by Gary Player on BBC Radio Five Live:

Player has been saddened by the sight of Tiger Woods and Ernie Els using long irons off the tee this week because their drivers would send the ball too far on the bone-dry links at Hoylake.

He has urged the Royal and Ancient, the world body in charge of setting golf's rules and regulations, to take immediate action.

"As a spectator, I want to see Tiger and Ernie and the top players taking a driver," Player said.

"They are all hitting off with three irons and four irons. The ball is going so far that they can do that and I find it very sad the Open championship has come to that.

"The R&A and the USGA (United States Golf Association) have to cut the ball back by 50 yards.

"In 30 years' time players are going to be hitting the ball 50 yards beyond Tiger.

"It is a technology issue. The galleries have said to me 'I want to see these guys hit a driver'. These fellas are all hitting irons off the tee.

And...

Butch Harmon, Woods' former coach, agreed with Player and insisted there is no problem with the professional game operating under different regulations to amateur golf.

"The ball is the big problem. It goes so much further than it ever did," Harmon told Sportsweek on BBC Radio Five Live.

"If you take these players back to equipment Gary won his three Opens with they wouldn't take irons off the tee because they would then have to hit woods onto the green.

"The R&A and USGA have to step up to the plate and decide what they are going to do with it. Professional golf can have own rules compared to amateur golf."

Donald: "Everything I do in my swing is geared towards hitting it higher and farther."

Following the third round, Luke Donald talking to the media:

Q. Is it a problem that playing so much in America you don't play on linksy courses? Jack was saying yesterday that you should be able to play on any course.

LUKE DONALD: Everything I do in my swing is geared towards hitting it higher and farther. That's very much against what you need on a links course. But in saying that, most people are doing that, even over here in the European Tour. It's not an excuse.

Falling Back On Marketing

Peter Bart, writing in the New York Times about Hollywood's struggle to make decent films:

Today’s studios, however, are peopled by marketing gurus and Harvard M.B.A.’s. They are keenly aware that the ground is shifting under them, as it did 30 years ago. Their young audience is distracted by video games and the Internet. The huge DVD business has hit the wall.

Their basic response, however, is to fall back on marketing, to tell the public what it wants...

Sound familiar?

Instead of wondering if ratings are declining because golf's "product" is less interesting to watch, the Commissioners fall back on marketing to enhance the product. The influence of setup and architecture or the role of technology plays? Not on their radar screens.