[Malcolm Mckinnon]

Why do we, in the USA, want to make our greatest golf courses unplayable for average golfers in order to accommodate major championships?

I'm thinking specifically about Baltusrol and Merion which I have played recently and upon which the bulldozers are rolling ad nauseam, but the malady proliferates well beyond to all aspirants of big money tournaments.

Sorry to offend all the architects on this forum, but aren't these golf courses being ultimately ruined as far as eventually becoming not playable by ordinary people. What is the value of a golf course that is only playable by an elite, skilled few?

Does the R&A have plans to enhance and deepen the bunkers at Saint Andrews before their next major? Why not???"

[Tom_Doak]

Malcolm:

The only justification for making such changes to courses is that the ruling bodies are admitting that they have allowed the game to become too easy for the professionals by being too lax about equipment regulation, so they think they need to change golf courses to make up for their lapse.  [That, and for some reason, both the host clubs and the USGA/PGA/R&A believe it's worth it just to raise the winning scores by 2-4 shots, as surely, the changes make a small difference to the winning score and rarely ever determine who wins the event.]

Incidentally, the R & A has indeed steepened and deepened bunkers on The Old Course in recent years, and have not been shy about making significant changes to the tees and bunkering at other Open venues.  They just don't make as big a deal over there as to which architect is "the Open doctor", because health care is nationalized. 

[Anthony Butler]

Malcolm:

The only justification for making such changes to courses is that the ruling bodies are admitting that they have allowed the game to become too easy for the professionals by being too lax about equipment regulation, so they think they need to change golf courses to make up for their lapse.  [That, and for some reason, both the host clubs and the USGA/PGA/R&A believe it's worth it just to raise the winning scores by 2-4 shots, as surely, the changes make a small difference to the winning score and rarely ever determine who wins the event.]

Incidentally, the R & A has indeed steepened and deepened bunkers on The Old Course in recent years, and have not been shy about making significant changes to the tees and bunkering at other Open venues.  They just don't make as big a deal over there as to which architect is "the Open doctor", because health care is nationalized.  

Nice to see some people other than myself are up earning a crust at this time of the morning...

The Golf Channel described Martin Hawtree, the guy who's doing Trump's course in Scotland, as the R&A's Open 'doctor'. I wasn't sure if that was true or just another case of Trump fluffing himself on TV.

Would it still be true to say the best way to make a course sufficiently challenging for the world's best players without ruining it for the members is to rely on the ODG's maxim of making the greens the 'best defense' of par? You can always back those off after the tournament... with the exception of Oakmont of course. This, of course, is not as predictable as changing the holes or narrowing the fairways. And if the weather doesn't cooperate... (see Shinnecock '04)

To your last point, Tom: If they totally screw up Merion with the 2013 Open, Lou Duran and Shivas can always claim it's another case of Obamacare run amok.  

[Philippe Binette]

Because

1) they don't care as much about the winning score at the Open Chanpionship

2) because protecting par is too weather dependant in the US. A bit of rain and no wind (which is really possible at the US Open) and players are going to demolish any US courses, remember the 64's at Bethpage in the first round. Imagine if they had not toughen up the course.
In the UK, if you toughen up the course too much and the wind kicks in on firm ground, the course would be almost unplayable... remember at Birkdale, the final 2 rounds, the course was hardly playing 6700 yards and it was hard to break par.
If you get 4 days of no wind, like TOC in 2000, then the winning score is way under par... If the wind is up like at Turnberry, 3-under would do.

[Bill_McBride]

What are they doing to Merion?

I saw the Old Course in the 2005 Open and played it before and after, and there really isn't much difference between the course I played and the course the pros played - other than the tees off the course!  Hoylake in 2006 the same. The major difference seems to be letting the rough grow for the Open.

Contrast this with the millions spent here ruining classic courses..........

[Carl Rogers]

IMO, the wind in the UK adds several shots to the field.

[Cliff Hamm]

What than is the response to the following from the Baltusrol website:

While Tillinghast’s Upper and Lower have been lengthened and strengthened for today’s tournament play, the changes designed after Tillinghast passed were overseen by two of the most preeminent architects to follow him – Robert Trent Jones and his son Rees Jones.  Many of the recent changes introduced by Rees Jones under a master plan program have remained true to the Tillinghast design for both the Upper and Lower courses.

Every other early American golf course that hosts modern major championships has also been changed and modernized.  The flexibility that Tillinghast built into the Upper and Lower has allowed these two courses to stay competitive without major green redesign, fairway rerouting or new hole construction.  Many other early American courses have not been as fortunate – they have had fairways rerouted, green sites moved, and new holes constructed in order to stay competitive.  No such changes have occurred to Baltusrol’s Upper and Lower.  The Dual courses of today are very much the same, although longer with a few more bunkers, as the courses of yesteryear.  The proof is in a comparison of aerial photos of Tillinghast’s Dual Courses in their early years to the Dual Courses today.

[Peter Pallotta]

Malcolm - here's a guess: it's because they were never any good for the average golfer in the first place.  Most of the courses where the USGA holds its majors were never designed for the average golfer; they weren't even designed for the average club member. Sure, technological change over the past few decades has widened the gap considerably between the good amateur player and the top professional; the disparity has never been greater.  But US Open venues were never a treat for the average golfer, the club member, or even the good amateur -- and that's well before the USGA ever first came calling.  Jump back 70-100 years: I can't imagine, say, Oakmont or Merion or Baltusrol or Winged Foot or Congressional when they first opened trying to attract members with the phrase: "playable for all skill levels, a treat for the average golfer".  As has been said before, maybe the Pinehurst Open and the prep by C&C and Mike Davis will be the start of something new.

Peter  

[Carl Rogers]

IMO, the wind in the UK adds several shots to the field.

That and firmer ground conditions become (kind of) equalizers for equipment.

[Jamie Van Gisbergen]

Why do we, in the USA, want to make our greatest golf courses unplayable for average golfers in order to accommodate major championships?

Haven't the best courses always been essentially unplayable for the average player? While not a 'championship' course, Pine Valley, is and has always been unplayable for an average player. I suspect that in the 1920's or whenever courses were built, places like Bethpage Black, Winged Foot and others were basically unplayable for the average golfer. And think about the theory behind the design of Oakmont. And what about modern designs? How 'playable' for the average golfer are any of the Bandon courses, or The Ocean Course, or Sawgrass, or Whistling Straits from the back tees with a stiff breeze? The Bandon courses would be more playable than the others, but when I played Bandon a few years ago, the wind was blowing at least 25mph with gusts to probably 40; put an "average" golfer out on Pacific Dunes in those conditions off the back tees and he'll shoot 110 or more, and this is not to say that Pacific or any of these other courses are unfair or overly difficult or whatever, its just a fact.

Your thought is valid, the governing bodies do tend to ask for too many changes to courses possibly, but your reasoning is flawed. Any course that has ever hosted a major championship was basically unplayable for the average golfer at the time they held that event.

PPallotta-you stole my idea...you bum...

[Doug Siebert]

Jamie,

You can take three average (i.e., bogey) golfers to ANY course with a rating over 70 and slope over 100 in 25 mph winds with gusts up to 40 and I'll bet you at least two of them shoot over 110....

But how often have we seen wind at those levels at any major championship?  Maybe the day Tiger shot 82 in the Open, not sure its got that strong any other time in the past decade.

But in moderate wind, the Bandon courses wouldn't cause those bogey guys to blow up, but a course that keeps itself tough all the time, like Oakmont or Muirfield, is going to bury those bogey golfers even on a totally windless day because there is just no margin for error.

I'm a five and I played Muirfield on a day with almost no wind, the summer before the Open was held there.  They say they cut the rough down before the Open after seeing it on TV compared to how it was when I played there I believe it.  There was an area I hit into on the left side of the 2nd fairway where the rough was chest high, and it was blind luck I was able to find my ball and somehow move it sideways 10 feet out of that crap.  At lunch when everyone was comparing how they did, no one mentioned score, it was all about how many balls you lost.  The one I lost was the lowest "score" I heard from anyone, with three the next lowest!  All I know is I'm damn glad it wasn't blowing 25 mph and gusting to 40 that day!

[Sean_A]

I agree with Pietro.  Some of those Flynn and Tillie courses must have been absolute ball busters 80 years ago.  I also don't think this was by accident.  Since the first inception of American design difficulty has been a prime element.

To be fair, I don't believe its coincidental that TOC was lengthed by close to 300 yards for the '39 Open after keeping the same yardage for about 35 years.   

Ciao

[Jeff_Brauer]

How does this one tie into the youth is being served theory on the other thread?  Does the path of no fear being blazed by today's youth have anything to do with it?  Is it all the USGA?

Put another way, I think you and I would probably feel bad about shooting a 63 at Oakmont, but a competitor like Johnny Miller had no qualms doing it, and today's kids want 59's every time out, having more and more examples of great rounds (and actually seeing them, or seeing them on TV from lesser PGA Tour courses)

I guess I am saying expectations play a role in elevating play, not unike seeing someone break the 4 minute mile, or getting close to it.  Do we worry about lower times in track because of better conditioning?  Was Jim Ryan a lesser runner even if someone breaks his time with better conditioning, shoes, mental coaches, etc?

[Malcolm Mckinnon]

OK.. I'm heading to Baltusrol on Thursday and will try to get some pictures up this weekend of the ongoing work for this group to pick apart. Not sure if we are going upper or lower so we will see.

My original post was inspired by my play on Merion West for the first time this Spring and not only finding it exceptionally fun and sporty but seeing strong family resemblances to my own course, Springdale GC in NJ which were never as apparent to me playing other William Flynn' s on much larger acreage such as Manufacturer's and Huntington Valley or even Merion East which has seen more than a few renovations over the years. It made me happy about my my home course and what a pleasure it is to play. (Vis a vis a brutal mess)

Original course, fun, fun, fun...Championship course, grind me into an unsavory and pissed off sausage.

I just keep loving the second sisters to championship courses that I have played and mourn the Frankenstein Monsters that their siamese twins have become at the hands of USGA/PGA eg: Merion, Baltusrol, Oak Hill, Etc.  

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