Fay says: "It was this desire -- and we have to rethink this -- to create chipping areas. They work in some places, but not everywhere. At 7 there was no place for the ball to stop."
As mentioned earlier, it was the rolled, double-cut, dried out green that caused the problem. A collar of rough shouldn't be necessary to keep PUTTS on the green.
Fay: "But we want to make sure that hitting the fairway is important...(f)or example, next year at the 320-yard 6th hole at Winged Foot West, I'd like to see the rough eight inches high."
EIGHT INCHES? While I agree that hitting the fairway should be at a premium in the US Open, eight inches is silly. It could cause injury.
Fay: "That's the Open's imprimatur -- it's the hardest tournament."
Ok, but look at what that means if you're playing that tournament on a course that was never designed to be the "hardest" golf course. Or, to look at it another way, is "hardest" defined by par? Does this mean that the imprimatur of the US Open is that it always have the highest winning score? This way of thinking, to my mind, makes the original designer of each venue increasingly irrelevant. If Fay's mindset is indicative of the USGA, is it time to take the Open to courses built only in the previous 5 years? 8,000 yards or more?
Shackleford: "...golf, like tennis, is less interesting to watch than it used to be."
This comment is in regards to the technology making the game less fun to watch (and there's something to that notion), but the part of the statement that makes it hard to agree with is the "used to be" part. Does he mean in the 60's? The 70's? There was a period there as Jack tailed off that was about as boring to watch as could be. Perhaps not from a "pure golf" standpoint, but just because there were no compelling personalities in the game. I have to say that right now there are numerous, differing, interesting personalitites in the game of golf who are worth watching.
Fay: "The biggest difference I perceive in the game today is not power, it's the ability to score, the play on and around the green."
I can't say that it's the biggest difference to me, but I think that bunker play around the green in particular has changed. Whether it's the condition of the bunkers themselves, or the architectural configuration, or just the ability of the players, greenside bunkers just don't seem as hazardous as they used to. Bunker splashes to three feet or less seem like the norm now. Has anyone done a study (or is it possible to do one) to determine if up and downs from greenside bunkers are more prevalent now than in the past?
Shackleford: "A lot of people who play can't relate to a tour pro's game."
And that's why people aren't playing? Or watching? I don't agree that I need to "relate" to a tour players game to want to go play. What was it that Bobby Jones said when he saw a young Nicklaus? That he "played a game with which I am not familiar?" Tiger's current game is only a little more out in the stratosphere compared to mine than was the play of Nicklaus then (hell, Nicklaus NOW. I'd love to shoot a 75 at Muirfield). The elephant in the room that they didn't want to talk about is, as Mr. Pazin states - the time and the money. The time issue isn't going to change much, and as long as all of the new courses being built are either private clubs or high-end daily fee courses and balls are $30 a dozen, that isn't going to change either.
Fay: "If you had taken as a mathematical exercise what happened in the '20s and kept adding distance, one could argue that today's championship course should be 7,600 yards, par 75. That hasn't happened."
And maybe that's what SHOULD happen (if you want to keep par as the challenge) instead of drastically altering older layouts. It's the ugly dichotomy - I want to see those great courses, and I want to see the tour pros play them, but I hate to see them get chewed up by driving distances that the architects did not build into their designs, and I hate to see the courses altered so the longer distances won't change the players' scores.
FAY: "How can you say golf is more elitist? Everything argues against that. Before any of us came along, the game was private. It's completely different now."
Before any of you came along was quite a long time ago. Yes, there are more public courses, but most of them top $50 a round to play, at least in my town.
FAY: "Yes, golf is expensive, but so is every other leisure experience."
I'm sure that Fay's yacht is also very pricey. But how expensive is it for a group of guys to play a game of basketball at a local playground? Or baseball at a local field? The ignored question is, can golf exist in a less expensive form to introduce new players from new, lower-income demographic?
Please forgive me for my lack of brevity.