When Bobby Jones completed his “grand slam” by winning the US Amateur at Merion in 1930, Golf Illustrated published aerials tracing each of Jones’ shots of each of his two final day rounds, thus allowing the golfing world a glimpse at his greatness. Looking at these photos today, one is truly amazed at just how far he must have hit the ball. On many of the photos, Golf Illustrated wrote in yardages on the fairway, and Jones appears to be consistently knocking the ball out there around 300 yards or further.
It is enough to make one wonder why so many of us are complaining about how much technology has changed the game. If Jones could consistently and repeatedly knock it out there 300 yards or more, then shouldn’t we conclude that the technology must hot have changed the game much at all?
The trouble is, at the time the official yardages of many of the golf holes at Merion were overstated, sometimes substantially. While I don’t want to revisit past quibbles about specific yardages on specific holes, I will state, generally, that using Google Earth, an overall measure of the course indicates that the total yardage is overstated by more than 300 yards. Holes with rolling terrain, such as a the 10th, 12th, and 14th appear to be off by around 10% or more.
How could this be? Turns out it all depends upon how you measure.
In 1924 the Green Section Record published an article called “The Measurement of Golf Holes,” which discussed, among other issues, the following (my underline added):
The question is constantly asked whether holes should be measured in an air-line or along the contour of the ground. For practical reasons the contour of the ground is usually the better method. In the first place it is much easier, and in most cases it gives a result almost identical with that of the air-line method. If the play is over rising ground followed by falling ground and then another rise, it is true that the contour method slightly increases the length, but as a large part of the play is uphill this seems entirely fair, because the hole plays long even as measured. Of course, in certain exceptional cases the air-line method should be used. Let us take, for instance, a one-shot hole of, say, 160 yards in a direct line, played from a high tee over a deep ravine to a high green beyond. The air-line measurement would be 160 yards. If a contour measurement were used, following down into the ravine and up the other side, it might show a distance of 200 yards, which would be entirely misleading, as the contour of the ravine in no way enters into the shot. In general thenfor the sake of practical convenience, holes should be measured on the contour of the ground; but in the unusual case where the contour does not enter into or affect the play of the shot, the air-line method should be used.
The article, authored by Alan D. Wilson, may have drastically understated the impact of using the contour method on rolling terrain. Given that Wilson was a long-time member of Merion and the brother of Hugh I. Wilson, who is credited with designing both Merion Courses, Merion most likely measured using this method.
Presumably, many other older courses also used the “contour” method of measurement, possibly distorting the yardages of the shots on their courses as well. How about your own course? Were the yardages accurate? Are they now?
As for Merion, I haven’t checked them all, but the current measurements seem have been made using a straight line method. So Merion has grown much more over the years than the supposed change in yardage reflects.