"[Long Drive] is a sport built solely on the outcome of one very specific physical movement in the same way javelin or shot put or high jump are"

My State of the Game colleague Rod Morri was not as caught up in last week’s Long Drive championship and Bryson DeChambeau’s inspirational top 8 performance. While Long Drive is a fascinating way to show off alternative skills and real athleticism given what goes into it, Morri’s reminder is a good table setter for the upcoming “skill” discussion (assuming the governing bodies decide to do anything significant, a huge if at this point).

Morri writes for Golf Australia:

As dumb as it sounds to say out loud, there are a few things that make golf ‘golf’ and one of the most important is the multi-dimensional nature of the skills required to play it.

From the 300 yard tee shot to the three foot putt (and everything in between), the game is an endless test of fine motor skills, raw power and the ability to think critically.

Most sports don’t have anywhere near as many layers as golf and those that do tend to have teams made up of specialists in different areas.

Cricket has predominantly either batters or bowlers with genuinely world class all-rounders being the smallest group in the game.

Long drive has almost none of this. It is a sport built solely on the outcome of one very specific physical movement in the same way javelin or shot put or high jump are.

It lacks all – or more accurately, any – of the nuance of golf where the outcome of any given shot accounts for only a small part of the whole.

Basically, a dumbing down of the sport. But isn’t that pretty much where golf leadership wants the sport to go in hopes of reaching a younger audience? So why would they do anything?