[Ran Morrissett]

I am heading over to New South Wales GC to have my usual bad putting round (34 plus, and I'm not talking about my waist). Does anyone out there play a version of The Captain's proposed scoring whereby putting only accounts for 1/2 a stroke? As he notes, putting would reduce from counting for 50% of the game (and no one club should count for that) down to 33.33%. My clapsing left wrist and I think it sounds like a great idea.Any supporters? Ted, maybe that is how we should score at Lost Dunes in October?[Note:  David]

[Geoff_Shackelford]

Ran,My dad and I hosted a "George Thomas Men's Golf Day" at Riviera that was played with all putts on the green counting as a half stroke. No one really seemed to get it or care, and the winning member teams seemed disappointed to receive copies of Thomas's book in lieu of the normal full rate gift certificate amounts. A real golf nostalgic membership.Naturally, the ball strikers loved playing that way, but it's a tough way to play the game at a course with greens averaging just under 4000 square feet. It also seems to be a concept more suited to match play, though I suppose that's debatable too. Our format naturally also entailed changing the par on the holes depending on many variables, mostly yardage and difficulty. I did not play that day since I was a host, but I'd like to try it out on a course like Augusta National with large greens that seem to overemphasize putting a bit more than the architects probably intended. But I understand Thomas's way of thinking and his intentions (even if probably motivated by his own struggles on the greens). Given time I think he would have figured out a way to make putting less important while not compromising the game (in other words, to get MacKenzie to stop calling him a "vandal"). Had Thomas lived longer, he and Hogan could have comiserated about the overemphasis they saw on putting. Imagine though, this was in the day of Stimpmeter speeds in the six-seven range. Think they'd be barking now about the emphasis on putting? Come to think of it, Captain Thomas would be worried about much more than the overemphasis on putting! Golf's got too many other threatening issues it needs to deal with. Like, uh, the elusive pill!Geoff

[James Clifford]

I am trying to think how it would go at Royal Melbourne. Hitting fairways and greens isn't the principal challenge - hitting the preferred spot in the fairway and on the green is. If a player gets above the 7th hole on the West course (a shortish par three), he deserves some sufferage. Reducing that pain by one/half may undermine challenge of the course.

[Ran Morrissett]

Geoff , what a great day/idea, even if the members didn't appreciate it. I am going to give it a go in my group at Newcastle next time. Is there such a thing as emphasizing putting too much in a design? Do Winged Foot and Oakmont both go slightly overboard on the difficulty meter? As you suggest, neither architect at WF or Oakmont would have ever forseen greens as quick as they are today. If they had, I doubt they would have built the same contour/slope into the greens.  But at County Down, the severity of the terrain/challenge would turn into a joke if the greens were brutal too. County Down seems to find a balance where putting isn't too precious a commodity.With dull land, is an architect's saving grace severe greens? Is that the best way to gain and hold a player's attention? The difference between WF and Baltusrol to me are  WF's amazing greens - they make the course more stimulating than Baltusrol.

[Noel Freeman]

BUMP!

[Rick Shefchik]

What, really, is the problem with enlarging the hole?

I say this is a player who has only infrequently known the joys of "good putting."

Make the hole as large as a hubcap. You'd chip in fairly often, one-putt most of the time, and put most of your focus on the 90 percent of the golf course you have to traverse to reach the carpet.

It's a game I'd play.

[Jim Nugent]

Rick, I wonder who the greatest golfers would have been, if the hole had always been that size?

[John Kavanaugh]

We paly alot of birdie ball which is where you can only win with a birdie and pick up after you are out of the hole...play from up tees and very fast.

Sometimes during aeriation season we play a max of two putts...makes hitting greens a premium.

Most supers can't change cups as it is...make the holes any bigger and you just got more problems with old cups.

[Rick Shefchik]

Jim --

My first instinct is to say that, with larger holes, the greatest players of all time would have been Nicklaus, Woods, Hogan and Jones.

But on further reflection, I'd guess Sam Snead might have been almost unbeatable if putting weren't so important.

[Bill Shamleffer]

I was actually buying into Ran's borrowed idea from Mr. Thomas.  Then I began to think about the arguments about IF the ball is actually on the green.  Then I began to think about how drastically this could penalize the great chippers.  Every up-and-down from green side rough, bunkers, and chipping areas would be a loss of a 1/2 a stroke to those who two-putted.  Thus, although this system would greatly reward those able to hit lots of greens, it would punish the great scramblers (Hagen, Runyon, Player, Watson, Ballesteros, etc.).  Actually, when looking for a way to balance between de-emphasizing putting, while not trying to punish scramblers, it would appear that enlarging the hole would be better at achieving this goal.  Yet, from reading when this was experimented with in the past, the results were not changed.  The good putters still had the same edge.

Which leads me to believe, the hole is just the right size and every time the ball is struck it should always count as one stroke.  Personally, I like that Tiger can hit the ball 350 yards and count that as one stroke.  He can then miss a 6' putt and have to count two for that last 6 feet.  If he dwells on this he could get angry with himself & frustrated with the game.  Or he can accept this as one of the ironies of the game.


PS. LETS GO CARDINALS (and bring on the Tigers)!

[mike_beene]

I think the way to deemphasize putting would be to make the hole smaller.Doesn't sound like much fun.

[Phil McDade]

Rick:

Interesting to speculate, with regards to majors, who might have emerged with more and who with fewer if the hole was larger. I tend to agree that for the very cream of the crop -- Nicklaus, Woods, Jones -- it probably would not have mattered.

But at first glance, I'd think players who were great ball strikers would've won more often, and great clutch putters/short-game players might have won less. I'd put Weiskopf, Duval, Langer, and even Hogan and Snead in the former category -- all had struggles with putting at one time during the peak/near-peak of their careers. In the latter category: Player, Casper, Trevino, Ballesteros.

The two most interesting to me are Watson and Norman. Watson was probably the best putter in the game for several years running during the late 70s and early 80s -- absolutely fearless. Then he really, really lost his stroke, and I think putting alone probably cost him some late-career majors ('87 US Open, for starters). Norman is a somewhat different case -- probably the best ball striker in terms of pure talent in the post-Nicklaus/pre-Tiger era. But it wasn't so much his putting, it seemed, that cost him majors, but his inability to hit crucial shots at crucial times (18th at Augusta in '86, for starters). It's the main reason he has two majors and Faldo five -- Faldo could go around Muirfield, grinding our par after par with wonderfully controlled iron play, and that just wasn't Norman's game. Still, I think a larger hole might have garnered Norman at least another major or two, because he was in contention so many times and lost to some folks with very good short games.

[Andrew Summerell]

Some of those short chips from just off the green are pretty easy. Maybe they should be 'half' shots as well.

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