"The culling of courses is not viewed as a negative by NGF."

Picked this up off the GCSAA newsletter:

According to the National Golf Foundation, there was negative net growth in golf facilities in 2006 for the first time in 60 years, as the number of courses that closed (146 18-hole equivalents) was greater than the number of openings (119.5).

In releasing the data, NGF said it was not an alarming occurrence, but a confluence of events – openings returning to more normal levels and weaker facilities being culled.

In the late 1980s, the number of openings was about 100 per year. There followed a wave of increased construction in the 1990s that peaked in 2000 with nearly 400 openings. Since then the wave has subsided to near historic levels.

The culling of courses is not viewed as a negative by NGF. The organization expects overall course supply to stop expanding in the absence of increases in demand. It is primarily the weaker courses that are closing and, in many cases, owners who sell are profiting from long-term real estate appreciation. Finally, a better quality overall golf supply means a better quality experience for players.

It's great that the course-a-day advocates are now okay with "culling."  

Thanks to reader Scott for this story on one course that would like to cull, or at least, cull portions in favor of housing, but can't thanks to a judge's order. 

"Rolling the ball back isn't going to change that; all that will do is save land"

Scotland on Sunday's John Huggan lets Hank Haney ramble on about how the game has never been tougher, and therefore, a little ball rollback that only impacts the tour pro would be a disaster.

"The biggest factor, however, is that golf courses today are generally so much more difficult than they used to be. What makes a course difficult - and you tend to see this whenever a big event is being played and the greenkeeper has prepared the place specially - is fast greens. Not only are fast greens more difficult to putt on and chip to, you have to hit your drives into the right spots if you are to have any chance of getting your approach shots close to the hole. When the ball runs after it lands, the game is always harder."

Okay, fine.
 

Shoulda stopped him there Huggy!

"It is no exaggeration to say that everything is more difficult these days. You have to be more precise in every aspect of the game. Look at it this way: I hear all kinds of talk these days about how modern equipment has made golf easier - at least at the highest level - but what has been done to make the parts of the game that amateurs find hardest any easier? Nothing. In fact, the opposite is true.

Uh, what do those things have to do with one another? 

"So, I just don't see where the game has gotten easier for the typical amateur. I think it is harder than it has ever been. And will continue to get harder, as long as courses get longer in response to the top 1 % of players. I have to say that makes no sense to me. Why do clubs worry about what the pros do?"

But hey, if we bring the pros back a little, won't the divide you speak of be fixed? Apparently not...

"Okay, I can see how the narrower fairways have reduced the incentive for players to shape shots," he concedes. "In the US Open at Winged Foot last year, the correct way to play the course was just to hit to the corner of the dogleg on every hole.

"But I'm not sure what people mean when they say that shot-making has been lost to the game.

Whoa there. He says there's no incentive to shape shots, but he doesn't see a disapperance of shotmaking?

The only thing that has really changed on tour is the clubs that are being hit to the greens. Players are a lot longer off the tee than they used to be. Where Ben Hogan was hitting a 2-iron, most guys are now hitting 7-irons. If that makes the game boring, then I would have to agree.

"But the alternative doesn't bear thinking about. If you haul the ball back 40 yards, you make the game so much worse it is incredible.

"Already we have a certain amount of players who the game has passed by, and that number would increase if the ball didn't go as far as it does now.

And we all know how hard it is to move tee markers UP.

"Golf, after all these years, has finally gotten like other sports. It hasn't changed because of the equipment or the ball: it has changed because better athletes are now playing the game.

Ahhh...it's been a while since anyone has mentioned the better athletes concept. Not since...oh right, all of that talk about steroid testing. 

"Every sport is the same. If you are small, you better be quick. If you are big and slow, there is a spot for you. If you are big and fast, you are a superstar. And golf has finally reached that point.

"So it isn't the ball. The problem is that there is such a big gap between those who can really 'send' their drives out there and those who can't. All of which takes the little guy out of the game. And that is the way it is in every sport."

So don't address the issue at the professional level because the amateur isn't reaping the benefits of the equipment like the pro. Brilliant.

This is an interesting point at least...

Indeed, Haney paints a pretty bleak picture of the future for a game that has, until now, not simply been a size and distance contest. "The new generation of golfers hit the ball so far, you can't roll the ball back," he maintains. "If that happened, Tiger's edge is only going to get bigger. The problem with distance is that height comes with it."

And my favorite...

"Rolling the ball back isn't going to change that; all that will do is save land, and make the game worse by widening the gap between long and short.

Save land? Exactly, why would you want to that. It's only land. Nike doesn't have to pay for it! 

The long hitters won't mind if the ball is rolled back. And they would love to see the grooves on wedges altered. That's all you need to know."

Oh yeah, end of debate!

Spin From Dawson

On the post of John Huggan's annual chat with R&A secretary Peter Dawson, reader John G posted something that I think needs further consideration since I glossed over it in the inital posting:

"We now see balls spinning more from 2in or 3in rough than they do when hit from the fairway."

I'm sorry, this quote just doesn't pass the smell test. I can't believe Huggan didn't pounce on this. Has anyone seen any research to confirm this kind of statement?

I would believe that spin rates from 2-3" rough could be similar, but not quite as good as from a normal fairway lie.

But BETTER spin rates from rough than from a nice tightly mown fairway?? C'mon. I'm not THAT gullible.

These guys are desperate to say anything to distract from the real issues.

So do you think the USGA/R&A will actually be able to prove that this has been the case (better spin rates from rough than fairway), and if so, does anyone buy it? 

Huggan On Uihlein: "He has to go."

Remember Wally, I just copy and paste this stuff. In fact, reader David sent this to me, so I didn't find it, didn't write it, didn't think of it. That said, John Huggan has you on his Santa wish list...

2 A NEW LEADER AT TITLEIST: Sadly, the man in charge of the world's biggest golf equipment company is a world-renowned point-misser.

In a position to do the world of golf a favour and agree to withdraw his tacit threat to sue if the game's hard-pressed administrators should make rules that will shorten the vast distances the very best players can propel shots, Wally Uihlein chooses instead to follow a policy that can only damage the sport and, by extension, his own company, in the long term.

Look at some of the nonsense that we already have to put up with: courses covered in long grass and stretched to something like 7,500 yards so as to all but eliminate from contention anyone not physically big enough to hit drives over 300 yards on a consistent basis - goodbye Justin Leonard and Corey Pavin and Andrew Coltart.

All of which is largely down to Uihlein's intransigence.

He has to go.

Way harsh Huggy!

I also liked his plea for more Geoff Ogilvy's and fewer carts in the U.S., but this was especially good:

7 A DROUGHT IN AMERICA: Having not long returned from a visit to Australia, where water is currently in very short supply, Santa would like to see those conditions replicated in the US.

Having sampled fast-running fairways and greens that only enhanced the strategic qualities of the likes of Royal Melbourne, Kingston Heath and the stunning Barnbougle Dunes, some of the same would do nothing but good in the land of 'hit and stick'.

Instead of wedging on to pudding-like greens from basically anywhere, Uncle Sam's nieces and nephews would suddenly be forced to consider where best to place their drives. Angles would have to be created in order that approach shots could be landed short and run up to the flag.

Thinking on the golf course? What a concept, eh?

Lift, Clean and...Entertain?

Since taking in a portion of Sunday's Target World Challenge at Sherwood, something's been bugging me about the playing conditions. Naturally it took until Wednesday for me to figure it out.

Now, I'm all for playing the ball down whenever necessary, especially in major championships.

But a Saturday rain combined with the newly sodded fairways (not draining worth a lick) led to poor conditions and balls covered with mud. Third round leader Geoff Ogilvy and eventual winner Tiger Woods hit their share of squirrely shots, with Ogilvy twice having mud wreak havoc that ultimately cost him a shot at defending his third round lead.

The decision not to play lift, clean and place sums up pretty much everything that I find disappointing about the current PGA Tour leadership: their consistent inablity to understand what makes golf entertaining to watch. As I understand it, this was tournament director Mark Russell's call, and it was not his best.

The Target World Challenge is an exhibition intended to entertain the fans, enrich the players and benefit a worthy cause. This is not the time to worry about the integrity of the game. The primary goal is to create some excitement, and in this case allowing the players to play shots with a clean ball would have been a lot more fun than what ultimately unfolded Sunday.

I appreciate the Tour's stated desire to uphold the traditions of the game, but this was not the time to do it.

If they want to get serious about integrity and protecting the traditions of the game, they should worry more about the impact of distance increases. I know, now I'm really delusional.

Target Practice

Tuesday's practice round at Sherwood was well attended by media eager to hear Tiger Woods address their questions in advance of the Target World Challenge.

I have to say it was the most boring Tiger press conference I've sat through, though there was one bizarre-bordering-on-awkward moment when Golf Magazine's Cameron Morfit asked a question and Tiger either didn't understand it, or just didn't like it.

Q.  You mentioned your skiing; are you a Black Diamond skier these days?  Black Diamond, the hardest?

TIGER WOODS:  It's not the hardest.

Q.  Double Black?
   
TIGER WOODS:  Mmhmm.  (Laughter).

Well it was more like (lots of long silence), mhm and (awkward laughter) at the strangeness of it all.

Naturally, I would not drive all the way out there with asking something, so here was my softball that actually seemed to stump him before he launched into his standard (and wonderful) diatribe on modern setup and design. Forgive my lousy phrasing...

Q.  Bobby Jones and Jack Nicklaus both when they did their design work, built dream courses or home clubs that hosted tournaments, do you see yourself taking on some sort of a project like that that's maybe your own concept for a course, and maybe it's a club just for your friends; and if so, what kind of course and place would it be?

TIGER WOODS:  Yes, and hopefully one day.  Obviously you have to get the right situation where you can do that, you can go ahead and design what you think is how golf should be played.  For me, I always believe in golf should have open front.  You should be able to utilize the ground and don't take away the short game.  I play golf courses on Tour and we all see it, miss the green, automatic lobwedge, hack it out of the rough.  That to me is not fun golf.  Fun golf is Pinehurst.  Fun golf is playing links golf.  Fun golf is learning to how to maneuver the ball on the ground and give yourself options.  One of the hardest up and downs is when you have options.  You have so many different ways to play and you see a lot of pros really mess up easy shots because they have so many different options.  I think that's taken away from the game of golf now, and ridiculous at how the modern golf courses are designed, that's how they are designed is they have taken that option away and that's too bad.

Huggan On Turner

John Huggan profiles Greg Turner's attempts to revitalize New Zealand golf and in particular, the development of young players.

Long frustrated by the virtual abandonment by New Zealand Golf - equivalent of the Scottish Golf Union - of his young compatriots the minute they turn professional - and, in turn, their consequent inability to make any sort of impact in any kind of numbers - the 43-year-old former European Tour player, who won 12 times around the world during an 18-year career highlighted by his role in the winning International side at the 1998 Presidents Cup, has devised an initiative named Wedge - Winning Edge - in an attempt to smooth what can be a traumatic transition from the amateur ranks.

And...

"Any high-performance programme is about producing world-class players," says Turner, whose elder brothers Brian and Glenn represented their country at hockey and cricket respectively. "Which is different from producing only world-class amateurs. My original expectation was that, once that subtle difference was made clear to New Zealand Golf, the irrefutable logic of it all would get them on board."

Well, naive is the word that comes to mind. "Things just don't happen that way in golf. Or, as it turned out after I talked with my advisory board, in many sports. By their very nature, sporting organisations are built on ancient foundations, and have layer upon layer of bureaucracy. They change course like a super-tanker."

All of which left Turner to battle on alone, having also gained little encouragement from the New Zealand PGA. "The PGA was no help either," he shrugs. "It exists to service the needs of club professionals, not to help young players make it in the game. Which is why the tours broke away from the PGAs in the first place. There are irreconcilable issues there.

"Having said that, the PGA should have got involved. At the end of the day, their members are best served by New Zealanders winning things like US Opens. More people are going to be buying sweaters and paying for lessons when success breeds interest in the game. But all of that does seem a leap too far in philosophy!"

So far as Turner's philosophy goes, a closer look at Wedge reveals a four-pronged high-performance system designed to bring the best out of every young player placed in its path.

"First, we offer logistical help. There is so much that needs to be explained to new professionals. They need to know where they should be playing, how the circuits work and how things work within the circuits. How do you enter events? How do you get to tour school? What's the most logical path to take? It's basic but important.

"We offer financial help, which doesn't mean we hand over a pile of cash. There is any number of corporations or individuals who would buy a piece of a young player, if you gave them a credible model to do just that. So the young lads need to offer, say, three-year contracts with 15 $10,000 shares, and have a monitoring board that has mentors like Grant Fox and Brett Stephen on it. They will sign off on expenses."

Suddenly, that is an attractive proposition for a golf-minded investor. "Then there is the mentoring itself. Our players will have access to the likes of Coutts and Oliver, men who have achieved at the very highest level. The kids can pick their brains on what it takes to succeed. Basically, they will be rubbing shoulders with winners.

"And the fourth part of the equation is the GTNZ series of tournaments, which will hopefully be the strongest possible domestic competitive arena. When our guys do make it out on tour, they will be a couple of steps further along the way because of those events at home."

"Holding onto...the Old Course as tests for elite players out of an obligation to the past is sheer folly."

It's time for another interesting tirade by Bollocks and Garbage Bomb and Gouge who put shopping above even the most sacred traditions. This time a reader wonders at what point the game breaks after sigificant advances render courses obsolete or pocketbooks empty and the Belch and Gulpers joined forces for this gem:

When does the game break? When it refuses to move forward by mindlessly clinging to the past. Amazing how Dr. Naismith let his game advance beyond the peach basket.

The USGA has changed its ball regulations as recently as 2004, and if you read the rule carefully, it may have even been more restrictive. But to your concern over the great venues, I can only offer this:

Myopia Hunt
Newport CC
Garden City
Prestwick
Musselburgh
Chicago GC

Oh but here's where it gets good.

We've had the courage to move past these venues as sites for major championships because for reasons of length, and sometimes more importantly, infrastructure, they stopped being relevant as a site.

Courage? Well, I guess placing consumption over Chicago Golf Club does take courage.

They didn't stop being relevant as significant golf courses. Are their places in history any less secure for not being part of any major championship rota today. No. But holding onto the Winged Foots, the Augusta Nationals and Merions and even the Old Course as tests for elite players out of an obligation to the past is sheer folly. Let's remember that Merion didn't host a U.S. Open until 1934, nearly 40 years after the U.S. Open began. They had the courage to do new and different things back then. Where is the courage to do the same today?

True, it does take courage to move golf's most historic events to lousy new 8,000 yard courses in order to preserve the right to buy a new driver every year. It takes even more courage to put such a thought in print.

"We move on."

In working through my issues as diagnosed by Brandy and Gin Bomb and Gouge over at GolfDigest.com, I went back to read their diagnosis and noticed that a rather spirited debate was taking place.

Since this stuff can only be read in small doses, let's start with Gouge's (Mike Stachura) reply to Chuck, who was pointing out that allowing significant distance increases to occur has the dreaded side effect of leading to unnecessary architectural changes.

GOUGE responds: It is unfortunate that some people like yourself continue to believe that journalistic integrity is dead. But so be it. I have no financial stake in the equipment debate. As for Mr. Tarde's statements in print, well, they are his, they are not always mine. That is the beauty of a public forum. That is the beauty and strength of our enterprise as a magazine. And the only thing I must admit is that the game must adapt. I have no impractical affinity for maintaining the relevance of venues of the past. If a great course from the past is no longer a sufficient test for the .0001 percent of the universe of golfers, that is not a tragedy. We move on. If Winged Foot, Augusta National and even the Old Course get left behind as outdated and irrelevant for championship golf, I cry no tears. That leaves those majestic venues for the 99.9999 percent of us who can still appreciate their greatness. But thanks for your thoughts. The discourse shows the game itself still has meaning.

It's amazing what grown men will do to preseve their shopping privileges!

Apparently, whipping out the credit card to purchase new hope that's scientifically proven to not significantly help 99.9999 percent "of us," is more important to the game of golf than playing the Masters at Augusta National or the Open Championship at St. Andrews.

What makes it all so bizarre, is that even if the game were bifurcated or the ball rolled back to preserve these venues, people will still buy plenty of balls and clubs and the pro game might be a lot more fun to watch.

"I feel like I am playing the same golf week in, week out."

Robert Allenby joins the list of players bemoaning the sameness of PGA Tour golf...

"America, it is just very much the same every week and I am bored, I get a little bit bored with it and I feel like I am playing the same golf week in, week out," he said.

"Whereas if you come down here and play or in Europe, you are playing different golf shots every week."

"It's all about money. It's all about the pension."

From Seth Soffian in the News-Press of Southwest Florida:

Greg Norman drew the ire of some PGA Tour members recently when he criticized today's players for lacking charisma and the overt desire to challenge world No. 1 Tiger Woods.

On Saturday, he drew support from partner Nick Faldo in the Merrill Lynch Shootout. After their round, Faldo told CBS, for whom he will become lead analyst next year, that the riches in today's game have robbed players of the single-minded will to win.

"It's all about money. It's all about the pension," Faldo said after Norman again raised the topic.

"Golf is a $65 billion industry"

Outgoing PGA of America president Roger Warren, talking to Tommy Braswell in the Post and Courier of Charleston:

"Golf is a $65 billion industry in this country. One thing we have been trying to do is raise people's awareness around the country about that industry. Not just the person that pays greens fee on Saturday morning to play golf. There's so much more to it, the real estate associated with golf, the tournaments, the manufacturing."

Anyone ever heard that $65 billion number before? I know PGA Tour Vice Presidents are making a lot, but...it seems a bit high. 

“We got too many people in leadership capacities that don’t understand the game at its core"

Gosh I love Hal Sutton's diatribes. This time he bent Rich Lerner's ear and it's his best state of the game indictment yet.

“I’m so disgusted with where everything’s gone I don’t even want to play the game,” he told me Thursday by phone.

And when asked about the Ryder Cup captaincy...

“There’s no captain that’s going to make the difference,” Sutton said with a tinge of resignation. Of course now, the phone call was no longer about Azinger.

“We’re in a vacuum in golf in America,” Sutton began, and I knew I was about to experience a strong Texas wind.

Okay, strap in, here he goes...

“We’re consumed by the almighty dollar,” he said. “We’ve forgotten that we all play the game because we love it. Greatness doesn’t worry about money. Greatness worries about bein’ great.”

“We’re a product of our environment,” he explained. “We’re playing a game that requires us to hit it high and long. In the old days we had to do more with different golf shots.”

Sutton emphasized that it’s not necessarily the fault of the players. “We got too many people in leadership capacities that don’t understand the game at its core,” he said. “We’re conforming to what they say the market wants and what manufacturers are giving us and it’s weakening our players.”

The market wants Tiger Woods. And therein, Sutton believes, lay a problem.

“Everyone’s trying to be like Tiger,” said the man who took heat for pairing No. 1 with Phil Mickelson in an experiment gone terribly wrong at Oakland Hills. “There’s no individualism. They’re all trying to swing like Tiger.”

“Look, Rich,” he implored, growing more animated, “it’s 400 yards to the other end of the range from where I’m sittin’ and if Jack and Arnie and Raymond and Lee and Gary and Tiger were hittin’ balls we wouldn’t need to walk down there to tell which is which. You could tell ‘em from 400 yards away.”

“Is that the players fault? No. It’s just that we’ve got it built in our minds that you have to be a certain way to be good.”

“I have respect for Jim Furyk because he doesn’t conform to anybody,” Sutton added. “He’s been doin’ it his way for a long time and he’s been doin’ it pretty damn good hasn’t he?”

Sutton puts some blame at the doorstep of America’s junior golf system.

“We don’t have world class players in their 20s,” he said. “That’s a failure on our part.”

“The greatest in the world learned the game on the golf course,” Sutton said. “People think you can learn it on the range. Mechanics make you tight. It will not free you up to play the game. There were many days when the great players weren’t hittin’ it their best and they still figured a way to win. You don’t need reinforcement after every shot.”

With the promise of PGA TOUR millions, youngsters and parents chase the dream, often spending life’s savings to attend intensive academies while traveling a junior tournament circuit that would wear down even a hardened veteran.

“We need to go back to investing in kids' futures with no agendas and no management fees, try to realign what’s important in the game. Everyone’s taking out of the game and not putting back in. I had people teach me the game and never charged me for a lesson.

“We all have an investment in this game.

“It took us a generation to get into this and it will take us a generation to get out of it.”

And then, Hal had to go, the competitor who once feared no golfer, not even Tiger, now in something of a self-imposed exile. The work of fixing the game too big for one man, he’s content to put the finishing touches on a golf course amidst the rolling hills of Texas, far from the profession he no longer knows.

"The ball got away from everybody."

Yes, add Michael Bonallack to the list of rehabilitating golf executives who wish they'd done more then so we would have the game we have now. It's touching I tell you to hear this kind of remorse, documented by John Huggan in his Sunday column:

"The most fun I've ever had was being secretary of the R&A. I was there when the Open was really starting to take off, in financial terms. We were able to use that money to aid the development of the game."

However, representing the public face of golf's rules-making body outside the United States and Mexico could prove uncomfortable. During Bonallack's tenure, the battle between administrators and equipment companies was joined in earnest, and it rages on to this day.

"The biggest problem was with Ping and the grooves on their irons. That was very unpleasant. I remember sitting at dinner after watching the Walker Cup matches at Peach Tree in 1989 and being tapped on the shoulder. It was a sheriff telling me I was served.

"The writ said they were suing for $100m tripled. They have what they call punitive damages in the United States, and it wasn't only the R&A they were suing, but me personally. That got my attention!

"We had good lawyers, though. They showed that the US courts had no jurisdiction over us. We were making rules for golfers outside America.

"The wider equipment issue was a problem then, and continues to be so today, at the top level of the game anyway. There are a number of things I wish we had done, but obviously we didn't do.

"The ball got away from everybody. The scientists said the ball could go only ten more yards, but they were wrong. New materials kept on coming out, and then along came metal woods. They have taken a lot of the skill out of the game for the leading players. As have the new wedges.

"The shots only Seve used to be able to play with a 50-degree wedge are now routine for everyone who buys a 63-degree wedge. All of that crept into the game without anyone really realising the significance. I wish we could go back, but we can't."

Perhaps sensing that he has already said too much about the one subject that golf administrators tend not to enjoy discussing, Bonallack pre-empts the next question.

"There is no use asking me what I'd do if I was in charge today. When I retired I said I wasn't going to get involved in any of these controversial things. Besides, if I started announcing what I would do, people could quite rightly ask why I didn't do those things when I was in charge. Certainly, we missed some opportunities with the ball and the metal woods, but they crept up on us."

One other sadness for Bonallack is the knock-on effect modern equipment has had on course set-ups. As so many did at last year's Open, he looked on askance at the amount of rough growing on the Old Course at St Andrews.

"It does upset me to see what they have to do to golf courses nowadays. There is no doubt that the modern equipment has caused many good courses to be altered. I hate to see long grass around greens on any course. I like the ball to run off to where players can hit all kinds of recovery shots.

"It is fascinating to watch someone like Tiger working out what shot will work best after he has missed a green. Long grass eliminates all of that, and takes a lot of the skill out of the game."

Fun Notes From Babineau

Jeff Babineau shows what happens when curious writers leave the press room and share a few notes, quotes and anecdotes. The entire column is interesting, but these bites caught my eye:

The Tour's Player Advisory Council assembled at Innisbrook this week, and one of the major issues (tabled to a later date, as most important issues are) was whether or not to pare down FedEx Cup fields with each playoff week (from 144, to 120, to 78, to 30 for the Tour Championship).

This is an encouraging development for those of us who would like to see the FedEx Cup work (it will not in the current configuration).

As it stands now, the current PGA Tour "playoffs" are structured to include the Durham Bulls and half the Cape Cod league along with the Tiger and Cardinals. The all inclusive approach might be more tolerable if they were actual playoffs, with eliminations occurring each week. But without eliminating players, they are not playoffs and the 144 number remains ridiculous. (I'd take 100 to the playoffs and go from 100 to 78 to 50 to 20, or something along those lines.)

I know, I know, what if, God forbid, one of the stars is eliminated in week one? Well, considering that they are passing on the Tour Championship like it's the B.C. Open, who says they are even going to play in the playoffs? And wouldn't some upsets along the way make it more fun?

Anyhow, this was also fun from Babineau's column...

Walking past Rory Sabbatini as he belted his new Nike Sumo, flying a few balls into a lake nearly 300 yards away at the end of the range, one veteran stared and mumbled, "Is this what golf has come to?"

Guess so.