"In the Open, competitors hole out and increasingly must take a brisk, 100-yard-plus walk back to the next tee."

John Barton makes this shrewd point in previewing this year's Open at St. Andrews and its many tees-played-from-other-courses.

At St. Andrews, you used to tee off within a club-length of the hole into which you'd just putted out; nowadays, in the Open, competitors hole out and increasingly must take a brisk, 100-yard-plus walk back to the next tee. If driving distances were ever allowed to become so great that the Old Course were rendered obsolete, a museum piece unfit for tournament play, then golf will be a lesser game and its governing bodies will have failed.