Mike,
Kostis' comment comes during the Garcia interview if you can catch the replay. I'm assuming he is referring to the long held myth that to win at Augusta, you could hit long, wild, hooks and putt well and that was the essence of the event. Right!
Gary,
I'm still waiting to see the positives, but I subscribe to a different design school than the folks at Augusta, so that's probably not a big surprise. The design school I subscribe to is the one that says #11 used to be really interesting because you could poll the field and players had their preferences as to how to shape and place the tee shot, and where they felt best approaching a green from for that days hole location. That to some is easier golf and not as "demanding," but I say, wait until June if you want to see who hits it the straightest, you can watch that at Open. Uncertainty about course management issues fuels more questioning and doubt for good players, and when that uncertainty happens you find out who is really the best all around golfer. It's "multidimensional" golf. I discussed this concept with a certain two time Masters winner recently, and he concurred that the 11th hole was far more interesting and exciting with players taking their own route, and it was fun (for him anyway) to hear each players different rationale for how to approach it best. And the averages certainly would say the hole played plenty tough that old option-filled way!
The other school, the one that requires the player to hit a fade off 11 tee now and justifies this idea because Phil Mickelson had 94 yards in last year, says "this is where we want you to hit to, and where we want you to hit into the green from," and I've found that players love that school of design, because it's easier for them at the end of the day to step onto the tee and hit shots without thinking of options, even if the playing corridor is narrowed. It's one-dimensional, the authoritarian school of design, and the players in response must obey to the wishes of the architect. Definitely not Bobby Jones' philosophy. Also, I just don't buy the justification that forcing one type of shot levels out a supposedly draw heavy design, the course has produced a variety champions as a supposed right to left shotmakers course this long, might as well stick to what worked.
But I think this narrowing down of options helps explain why most Tom Fazio courses are so easy for good players, and why his attempts to make courses more difficult by emphasizing tougher physical requirements and eliminating thought, are not making things tougher (in Riviera's case, the holes changed played easier statistically post-Fazio because the mental side of the game was dumbed down to one approach, as opposed to many.)
But again, that's all design philosophy stuff, and if that's what Augusta wants to do, fine, let 'em, their right. What I have a problem with, and have over the last few months in reading pre-tournament coverage, is the continuing notion floated by people like Peter Kostis during today's telecast, implying that the course was not somehow a complete test or a true "major" championship test, and now it really truly is. What makes it harder for me to understand is that when writers I respect, write similar things (probably where Kostis gets the idea), I think it takes a lot of courage to somehow downplay the track record of the course. That notion undermines the accomplishments of the people who were successful there, or anyone who loves the history of the Masters. It is the most revered tournament in the world, the one most people would kill to win, but now in looking back, it was incomplete? The course was one-dimensional? I'd love to see Kostis tell Nicklaus that to his face. I'd say yes, it was one-dimensional, it's always been great, interesting and difficult to win!
Oddly, I haven't heard many former champions endorse the changes for having finally turned this supposedly waywad ship around, usually it comes from folks who don't play the game very well or apparently feel the past is not worth a dime, or well, I don't know, they just have to write something. Hootie Johnson does the same thing, only worse. He refers to keeping things in line with Roberts and Jones, but then directly contradicts their philosophy (by the way, IBM commercials shot on the Augusta National property using the images of the course and entrance drive to push products??? Cliff Roberts IS spinning in his grave tonight).
Either way, the notion that the problem has been fixed is a subtle but disrespectul (and perhaps unintentional) jab at the history of Augusta, the design of Augusta, the creators and at all of the men who have won there. All of this disrespect for the past has been going on for the last few years, it hit a new low with Fazio's declaration on Golf Talk Live that it's really not a MacKenzie course because he lived on the west coast and Jones lived closer to the course (try reading Mr. Fazio, you'd be amazed what you'd learn). Personally, I have great respect for anyone who won that tournament on any version of the course, they had to do a lot of incredible things to win. They still do, but why ever even make the implication that somehow Augusta National, the most popular and successful tournament host course in the history of the game, was ever anything but a complete and dramatic test of golfer's skill and character? What does that accomplish? Seems like rather one-dimensional thinking...
Geoff