GCA's favourite son Jack Nicklaus has thrown his hat into the ring. This article appeared this morning in The Age.
Melbourne's fabled collection of sandbelt courses would soon be rendered obsolete by the enormous advances in golf-ball technology, the game's greatest player, Jack Nicklaus, warned yesterday.
In a week when Royal Melbourne is hosting the $2 million Heineken Classic, Nicklaus said classic courses such as Royal Melbourne, Kingston Heath and Yarra Yarra would soon have to undergo major renovations in order to make them "playable" for major tournaments - because developments to the ball had been allowed to go unchecked in the past 20 years.
Left as they are, the eight or so sandbelt layouts would be dwarfed by modern golf balls that, thanks to science and technology, travel further and further each year.
Nicklaus said the problem had become so acute that even Augusta National, home of the US Masters and shrine of the game, was recently lengthened by some 300 metres, with the majority of holes affected.
"Royal Melbourne is a wonderful golf course and you've got so many other wonderful courses down here, it's a shame to see the golf ball controlling those courses the way it has Augusta and other courses in the US," Nicklaus said in an interview with The Age.
"But it's going to. If you're going to keep up with what's going in technology, you really don't have a choice - you have to adapt to the technology or become obsolete.
"We probably have less than 25 golf courses in the US now, with the equipment today, that are legitimate championship golf courses. You have the same situation in Australia. But if the golf ball was brought back 10 per cent, we'd have several thousand.
"That's not a difficult or expensive thing to do, I promise you. We produced a golf ball for a course down in the Cayman Islands in the Caribbean. They didn't have any land so they wanted a golf ball that went half as far as normal. What it really cost us was $US5000 for the tooling needed to build the ball for that golf course.
"That's not very much money when you talk about the millions and millions of dollars spent in developing the golf ball each year."
Nicklaus made his comments in Melbourne yesterday on a flying visit to officially sign off on his latest project in Australia, the Heritage Golf and Country Club at Chirnside Park in Melbourne's east.
And at midday today he will play a round at the Heritage, while wearing a microphone, with Ian Baker-Finch, Aaron Baddeley - who will arrive via helicopter for the last nine holes - and the club's professional.
"The golf course really looks good, it's a very strong course," Nicklaus said. "I think people are really going to enjoy it. The average golfer can play it, and it's also sensational from the back. Players will stand back there and say, 'Wow'.
"But I looked at it today, remembered the state of my own golf game and thought, `I'm going to play that tomorrow'?"
Since arriving in this country for the first time in 1962, Nicklaus has developed a special affinity for Australia.
He won six Australian Opens between 1964 and 1978, in places as diverse as Royal Hobart, Lake Karrinyup and the Lakes in Sydney, and on one of his early trips was described by local journalist Don Lawrence as the Golden Bear, a nickname that has stuck with him since then and become one of the most recognisable in sport.
Last week in Cleveland, Nicklaus had dinner with International Management Group supremo Mark McCormack and the sports agent produced out of a drawer Nicklaus' first Australian contract.
The contract was for 1500 pounds, with an extra 1000-pound guarantee for using Slazenger golf clubs.
"If I came to Australia, I got the 1500; if I didn't come to Australia, 1000 pounds is all they paid me. Can you imagine that?" Nicklaus said.
"Part of the reason I came down was my Australian contract with Slazenger. They gave me an airfare but there was no guarantee to play in the Australian Open. I came down here for maybe 20 years because I just wanted to play. Could you see the guys doing that today? There is no chance on this earth."
Nicklaus turned 62 last week and has not played a tournament since finishing third behind Ian Stanley in the British Seniors Open on July 29 last year. Given the dodgy nature of his back, and sundry other ailments, he is not sure whether his appearance today in front of 1000 or so Heritage members will be his last in Australia or not.
"I said to (Heritage founder) John Tickell this morning, this may well be my last round of the year tomorrow. I have no idea. I'm scheduled to play in a Seniors event in Naples (Florida) the week after ... but I just don't know if I can play a full event."
That's why, after 42 appearances at the US Masters since 1959, Nicklaus is unsure whether he'll be able to take his place in the field at Augusta in April.
In a sense, his remarks about golf technology amounted to the saddling up of an old hobby horse: Nicklaus has been banging on for years about the ball being the game's greatest concern. But, in the light of Augusta's recently unveiled changes, and Royal Melbourne's first hosting of a 72-hole tournament for six years, they carry a new resonance.
"What's happened is they've learned how to make a rock into a golf ball that can play," Nicklaus said of the manufacturers. "The old rocks we used to have as driving range balls used to go a long way. They've now made them very playable and done a wonderful job - too good a job really, that's the problem."
When told that the Australian Golf Union's new purpose-built championship course, Moonah Links, on the Mornington Peninsula, measured 6822 metres from the championship tees, Nicklaus was aghast.
"Good grief, that's 7500 yards," he said. "But what does that do? You can go ahead and build 7500-yard golf courses, but what does it do to every other course? It makes them obsolete. That's what I think is wrong. All the record books are redundant, all the comparables are gone, everything's gone."
Nicklaus' major championship tally of 18 remains the game's yardstick, but he said he fully expected Tiger Woods to one day surpass that record and, gasp, consign him to the dustbin of history.
"People say, with all his money, Tiger's going to lose his desire. I say, I don't think so," Nicklaus said.
"He set a goal - to break my records - and that's going to stay his goal until he does it. I would be very surprised if he doesn't break my records. Very surprised."
Until then, however, Nicklaus will continue to be known not just as the Golden Bear but - for golf fans, at least - the greatest.
While I feel he is on the right track about doing something with the ball, he has no idea about the sandbelt courses. He has not played tournament golf on any of the courses he mentioned for at least a decade.
I walked around RM this morning with Mike Clayton and three other European Tour professionals, and watching them play made me realise how ludicrous Jack's comments are. The greens were slow and there was no wind, but these guys were having a nightmare just trying to get near the pin. The subtle borrows and mounds around the green ensure that these players can't just fire at the pin and be safe. They had to think their way around the course.
Regarding a thread earlier this week in which people expressed a fear that RM was already obsolete: this could not be further from the truth. Hole 4 (6 Composite, 4 West) was mentioned as a hole that could be overpowered - the drive isn't bothering the players anymore but no matter how close to the green they are it is still quite a feat to get anywhere near the hole. Watch the quick greens and wind wreak havoc with their games come Sunday!