It’s back!
Twenty years later Tatra Press has kindly allowed me to bring back Grounds For Golf now that golf architecture is of more interest to the masses. A new Introduction looks at what’s driven the interest growth and two new chapters I had a blast adding (plus a few edits to keep things up-to-date).
The Amazon purchase page for the book arriving June 15, 2026.
John Davis in the Arizona Republic looks at the decline of Papago and a possible restoration.
He also offers an excellent summary of the good, bad and controversial restorations or late. Thanks to reader Steve for the heads up on these two fine stories.
So much for the Magnolia lengthening impacting scores. Put them on a soft, 8,500 yard course devoid of strategy, and these guys will still go low.
I think someone asked him why Aussie's are such good bunker players:
GEOFF OGILVY: I would say anyone who's played a lot of golf on the sand belt, the Royal Melbourne, Metropolitan, that's a real bunker shot. You've got nice lies all the time, but you've got not very much margin for error. It's not just landing it in the right spot, but with the right spin and the right height. It's just a lot narrower margin.
You could hit a great shot, but just not catch it right, it will release past the hole. A very fine line between a good and bad shot. I think if you can hit them close in Melbourne, you can hit them close anywhere. They're very deep bunkers in Melbourne, too, most of the time.
I don't know. I wouldn't have ever looked at or thought Aussies are really good bunker players.
Rich Beem, after round 1 of the Funai Classic talking about the rules and the Wie incident before a rally killer stepped in:
Q. Throughout history golfers have been penalized, DQ'd for signing incorrect scorecards. I'm just wondering in the Internet age, do you think that rule is a little archaic now?
RICH BEEM: Actually there's a guy I played golf with on Monday. I played with a guy who's a member of the R & A on Monday. Everybody knows what we shot, on the Internet, TV, everybody. But the rules of the game are you've got to sign your scorecard, and it's not that difficult. I mean, to be honest with you, I think the instance where it happened at the British Open a couple years ago, I don't think that's fair. I think you ought to be given your opponent's scorecard, not your own, but that's how they do it over there, it's a little bit different. You're in charge of your own scorecard and it's not that difficult to write down 18 numbers in a row about what you shot and then sign your scorecard, double check it, end of story. There's been some tragic instances in the past, but I don't think it's archaic. I think it's part of the game, and you ought to be able to do that.
Q. What about some of the other rules like the direction you take a drop?
RICH BEEM: There's so many rules, we can sit here and talk about rules but we're not going to because it's silly and I'm going to go eat here soon.
There are some rules out there the funny thing is that the rules are made by guys, the governing body, USGA, and I'll say it out loud, a lot of these guys can't break an egg, they're not players. They don't understand the rules they have in place, or some of them are outdated and some of them don't make common sense. Like the rule that happened to me at the PGA where I swept debris on the green but I was only this far off, but yet if you're on the green you couldn't do it. So they changed that rule, so that's my rule, I'll take credit for that.
There's a lot of rules that don't make sense. But that's what they like to do. They like to sit around and drink scotch and come up with new rules or old rules and don't want to change them, I don't know. It's their prerogative, man.
Q. You talked about the whole new approach with the putting. Is that because of the change in putters, or were there other changes you made or adjustments putting wise?
Instead of the Wie DQ going away, it seems to have opened the door not only for the media to write about itself, but also to question the rules of golf. Mike Bianchi in the Orlando Sentinel certainly raises some fine points in comparing pro golf to other sports, but I'm not quite sure about the ideas regarding players keeping score (and how wrong that is). Thanks to reader A.L.F. for the heads up.
Add Bob Casper to the list this week saying that lengthening courses is a mistake. His solution:
No doubt, distance is an advantage off the tee. But firm greens and flyer rough negates the upper hand of the power game. It's a scary notion that millions of dollars can be spent for renovations and restorations to courses in hopes of affecting a tiny percentage of players known as bombers. The formula for success for all golf's governing bodies should be firm -- and unchangeable.
Firm is good, firm is good.
And thankfully, Casper never once mentions narrowing the courses any further (he, unlike some, apparently realizes that there is a point when 20 yards is closer to a walkway than a fairway). But it is interesting how there continue to be more calls for rough when this year's flogging approach has only become more accepted despite efforts to stop it. The more they narrow fairways and the more rough that is harvested, the more the players just swing away.
Golfobserver's Frank Hannigan takes a look at the Michelle Wie DQ and her drop method.
This courtesy of reader Tommy...again, for Michelle's reference.
Here is a strange story from the UK's Telegraph quoting Grant Moir of the R&A, who is eager to let Michelle Wie know that they are on her side.
Are they that desperate to get her in the British Open, or just trying too hard to be liked? Seems they're a bit out of their jurisdiction on this one.
...the R & A were "frustrated" with Bamberger's handling of events. "If he felt at the time that he had witnessed a breach and was sufficiently sure of himself to raise it, he should have found an official at once.Meanwhile, GolfDigest.com readers weigh in and frankly, their comments are more interesting. Most are outraged at Bamberger and the overall situation, but in particular most seem to be in agreement that something needs to be done about outside rule violation reporting without time limits.
"He should have known just how serious it would be for Michelle if he hung on to the information until the following day."
Tim Rosaforte writes about the lengthening of Disney's Magnolia course, where he says the 7,500 yard course has become major like in toughness (well unless you look at the scores).
"This is the Funai Classic," said John Cook after his practice round, "not the U.S. Open."Rosaforte provides another opportunity for more Mark O'Meara brilliance. He, the co-architect of the splendid TPC Valencia (where the even the Champions Tour refuses to go).
"I'd like to see them pinch in the fairways and plant roses bushes with big thorns," O'Meara said. "If you want everybody to compete, play a course hard and fast. At Augusta, take out the secondary cut and take the pine needles out into the fairway and let the trees be the equalizer. Most of these doglegs today, these guys hit it over the doglegs and the hazards. You have to hit the ball long. You have to be strong and you've got to be powerful."
At least Mark O'Meara honestly sums up what all of the arguing over lengthening and narrowing courses is really about: scores, and prevention of low ones.
"What they should do, if they want to fix the game, is look at the places with the highest scoring averages," said O'Meara, who dabbles in course design. "Make courses drier and faster, with more trees, make it more penal. Make players think a little more instead of just reaching for the driver and swinging as hard as they can."
Fix the game, look to the places with the highest scoring averages. What a great idea!
As for his comments about addressing flogging (add trees, rough, etc, etc, etc), haven't they already done that? (Except fast and firm, which is difficult when the Tour seems to be followed by rain every week.)
Leonard Shapiro in the Washington Post writes of Michael Bamberger's actions:
I believe he was dead wrong and did the absolutely dishonorable thing for his profession. He was there as a representative of his publication, given credentials by the LPGA to "cover" the event, not officiate it. If he wanted to mark off the yardage to prove the error of Wie's ways to himself and then to his readers, no problem there. If he wanted to write about his findings in the magazine, again, that certainly was his prerogative.
So if Bamberger waited to spring this on readers in SI instead of reporting it to officials and the player at the tournament (albeit, way later than he should have), that would have been acceptable?I don't think so.
Doug Ferguson looks at the Disney-Magnolia course lengthening:
The Magnolia Course has been stretched to 7,516 yards, the latest tournament that figures the most viable way to challenge the best players is by making a course longer.
"They just don't get it," Frank Lickliter said Wednesday. "Grow the rough. Tighten the fairways."
Soggy fairways have made the course play even longer — and perhaps tougher.
I think they ought to just continue the player walkways from the tee right to the green.That'll put a premium on accuracy!
Ferguson noted that Tiger has put his new Nike driver in the bag, which early buzz says will make him even longer off the tee. If that's possible. Tiger had this to say about the course:
"More than the length, it's the fact that every ball is backing up," Woods said. "Every ball picked up mud. That's the hardest thing in the world. You can have length, and you can have longer shots to the green, but if you don't have a clean ball, it makes for a very difficult golf shot."
I haven't been paying attention, but are they even going to be playing this weekend with a hurricane moving in?
The criticism of Michael Bamberger and SI has bothered me for some reason, even though I know he didn't handle the Wie situation too well, as he acknowledges in the SI.com interview linked here in a second. If you want to read more complaints his actions, go here and here. For Bamberger's SI interview outlining the situation, go here. He says:
A: In hindsight, if I could do anything over again, I would try to intercept her between the 18th green and her signing her scorecard. I wish I would've done that.
And I found this comment interesting:
Q: What would that shot have been like for her?
A: From where she played her shot, she took five practice swings. Each time she lightly brushed a 9-foot tall Yucca plant behind her. If she had been 12-18 inches farther back, that Yucca plant would have been squarely in her way.
So I've finally figured out what's been bothering me about the onslaught of criticism.
Bamberger was out there on the course. Many of golf's finest scribblers haven't been seen walking with a player in years, or if they were, it was from the locker room to the parking lot. Bamberger is actually one of the few who walks enough with players to put himself in a position where he might see something unusual happen.
Some of his critics in the media might want to keep that in mind when they ponder how they would have handled the situation. (Assuming they even left the press center to give themselves a chance to see a violation).
Brian Wacker at GolfDigest.com also puts the situation in perspective by bringing up the antics of Marco Dawson, whose whistleblowing tactics were far more troublesome.
Geoff Shackelford is a Senior Writer for Golfweek magazine, a weekly contributor to Golf Channel's Morning
Copyright © 2022, Geoff Shackelford. All rights reserved.
