It is interesting to me to read here that Westchester's greens are kept very firm and as such put real demand on players and even the Tour pros.
It is even more interesting to me that some speculate that Westchester has narrowed its fairways and grown the rough deep. Others have said that the present fairways might be at their original widths.
What is interesting to me overall with this is it's OK I guess to make a course purposely play harder but what you don't want to do, in my opinion, is to force the player to wedge out of the rough of narrowed down fairways since he can't advance the ball all the way to those firm greens anyway. Let the golfer play golf and go at those firm greens!!
I'm making this post because I heard something this weekend that is really exciting to me. One of America's most famous courses may be becoming increasingly allured with the playability and strategic meanings of really fast and firm greens! But not in and of themselves. Not apparently from just how they putt. Much more now from how a golfer approaches them!!
As such they might be looking now at expanding the fairways back to what they were around 1930 (very wide) and to also really get the "through the green" speed up and very firm. This will bring many of the bunkers back into direct play as the tee to green playability will have a much wider dispersion.
I'm not saying which course this is because the discussion was anything but official knowledge but it sounds like something that is really being looked into. I'm sure some might guess who I'm talking about but I'm not saying.
If this happens it very well might have the most significant and benefical effect that any of us could possibly hope for! If this course does it, it will be noticed and copied!
Obviously, it seems to me anyway, that there should be some caveats with this new policy. The green speeds (and firmness) will be up there very high and the course will likely play extremely intense! As such they will have to condition the membership to accept this new playability and not complain and call for things like green slope and contour to be softened to maintain speeds. The club hopefully can do this and still maintain the necessary amount of pin positions throughout all the holes on the course.
If they can do this with the wider frimer fairways and wider angles to the firmer faster greens they could take playability to a new dimension. Things like GIR and automatic two putting might go out the window to some extent but the shot values (both approach and chipping and putting) could go up bigtime. Course rating and slope might also have to be reanalyzed. Par itself is going to be another matter too!
If they do this what they might do is turn the so-called lights up on their design and its every nuance so much as to be almost blinding!
I don't know if they really are going to do this but I hope they are and I hope they try. It could show an entire membership and others things about their course they likely never knew existed before. They won't be losing their golf balls in deep rough off narrowed fairways and it will show anybody and everybody that golf is really about the relative quality of any golf shot--whether a drive, an approach, a chip or a putt!
Again, the caveat though! If this doesn't work out they should be prepared to take their course back to the necessary reasonbleness of playability and not do things like screw around with the basic design.
If this is done successfully the fallout could be very interesting. It could even show the world that distance alone may not necessarily obsolete great architecture. That things like distance and ACCURACY and PLACEMENT and STRATEGY and SHOT QUALITY and MINIMIZING THOUGHTLESS and STUPID MISTAKES might be what it's all about.
That is what it's all about---correct?