When you come to think of it that is the secret of most of the great holes all over the world. They all have some kind of a twist. C.B. MACDONALD
From the PGA Tour:
Rookie J.B. Holmes set a new one-tournament record for Driving Distance at last week's WGC-Bridgestone Invitational with a 350-yard average off the tee. The old mark was 347.3 by Scott Hend at the 2005 Bank of America Colonial. His eight measured drives were 307-405-338-413-321-364-272 and 380 yards. Holmes finished in a T50.
Imagine what would happen if he actually worked out!
Instead of playing the game, we're consumed by the math, and unless diagnosed and attended to, the syndrome is murder. I've seen it kill off more good rounds -- including too many of my own, some before my spikes were even laced -- than any flub, foozle, yank, shank, top, yip or worm burner, all of which feed off its toxins.
Bob Rotella, author of "Golf Is Not a Game of Perfect" and an expanding shelf of companion volumes focusing on the delicate balance of the golfing psyche, advocates simply hitting good golf shots -- the rest will take care of itself. "Too many golfers get so bound by results," he says, "that they forget about the reason they're supposedly out there: to enjoy themselves."
Of the myriad choices that confront us whenever we head for the links, none is more important than the one energizing all the others: Why we opt to enter into this self-flagellating venture in the first place. For Tiger, say, the answer is simple -- it's business. Keeping score is like keeping the books. It's concrete.
For the rest of us, the answer may not be as cut and dried. Yet, like Picasso's art, certain enterprises are meant to be appreciated in the abstract, and golf, thrillingly, turns out to be one of them.
When we can get beyond the little boxes on our scorecards, we begin to pick up on golf's bigger picture: the landscapes, the camaraderies, the lovely arc of a well-struck shot. We can still note the numbers, chart progress by marking fairways hit and greens in regulation, tally the skins, collect on the Nassaus, grind through tournaments, maintain handicaps, and hope to improve on them. But is that all we want to take from the game? What about the satisfaction of going out to play golf for no reason other than, well, to go out and play golf? With passion and abandon. Like when we were kids. Getting the lead out of our golfing systems now and then may serve up no tangible proof to bring home of how we're playing; instead, it reminds us why we're playing, and even encourages us to play better.
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.
In Thomas Bonk's piece on the drug talk in golf, he writes:
The driving distance of the top players on the PGA Tour has been steadily increasing for decades.
Well, actually only "steadily increasing" in the last decade (which Bonk points out, leading me to believe there was an editing mistake). Anyway...
Advances in equipment, such as shallow-faced drivers with thin faces of space-age metals, plus improved physical conditioning by the players, inspired largely by Woods, are most often credited with the longer drives.
After the last five or so years of hearing executives, players, and media say that the distance explosion has been driven by the incredible player conditioning, might we going to see most of the blame shifted back to equipment in order to protect the image of players and quiet the calls for drug testing?
Wishful thinking, I know.
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.
Get ready for the 8,000-yard course on the PGA Tour.Ah, that's the kind of player-architect we like. Considerate, thoughtful, pragmatic.
"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."
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.
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.
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."
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."This is funny...
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.
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.
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."
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.See the bias. Criminal I tell you! Here's more from Len's equally biased friend:
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.
"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.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:
"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?
"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.
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.
From the R&A:
TV BOOST FOR SUSTAINABLE GOLFHmmm...firing a little shot at their friends in Augusta!
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.
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.
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
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.
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."Well Tom, they are younger than you too.
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.
"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?
Geoff Shackelford is a Senior Writer for Golfweek magazine, a weekly contributor to Golf Channel's Morning
Copyright © 2022, Geoff Shackelford. All rights reserved.
