[Kalen Braley]

Excellent points gents


As a High Capper, I can't even count the number of times, everyone in the group, (including the ones as bad as me), wanted to go back to the tips for whatever reason.  And I'm like the course is challenge enough for me from the whites at 6200, why would I go back to the 6800 tees. And then it just gets awkward from there with the back and forth, which 99% of the time devolved into some form of your manhood being challenged


Golfers and thier egos....

[Tim Gavrich]

Excellent points gents


As a High Capper, I can't even count the number of times, everyone in the group, (including the ones as bad as me), wanted to go back to the tips for whatever reason.  And I'm like the course is challenge enough for me from the whites at 6200, why would I go back to the 6800 tees. And then it just gets awkward from there with the back and forth, which 99% of the time devolved into some form of your manhood being challenged


Golfers and thier egos....

This is probably a subject for a whole new thread, but why not just play the tees you want to play and let your buddies play farther back. The beauty of the handicap system is that you can have a fair match with them regardless.


I like to play the back tees most places, but I often have to profusely tell people that they can play whatever tees they want. I shouldn't have to, but I do, because there is nothing so fragile as the male golfer's ego. If they instead want ruin their experience by playing too long a set of tees, it's not my problem.

[Kalen Braley]

Excellent points gents


As a High Capper, I can't even count the number of times, everyone in the group, (including the ones as bad as me), wanted to go back to the tips for whatever reason.  And I'm like the course is challenge enough for me from the whites at 6200, why would I go back to the 6800 tees. And then it just gets awkward from there with the back and forth, which 99% of the time devolved into some form of your manhood being challenged


Golfers and thier egos....

This is probably a subject for a whole new thread, but why not just play the tees you want to play and let your buddies play farther back. The beauty of the handicap system is that you can have a fair match with them regardless.


I like to play the back tees most places, but I often have to profusely tell people that they can play whatever tees they want. I shouldn't have to, but I do, because there is nothing so fragile as the male golfer's ego. If they instead want ruin their experience by playing too long a set of tees, it's not my problem.

Tim,


That works out great with strangers, but when you're with friends, who want to yuck it up, drink beer, insult your mom, and cough in your backswing on the tee, its ruins the whole day by not joining the wolf pack on the tips...


First and foremost, golf should be a fun and social thing.....so there was always that.

[Erik J. Barzeski]

Mike Bowen, by what means will the golf ball be traveling farther in 20-30 years?

• The golf ball itself goes about as far as it can, under regulations.
• Drivers are about as long, light, and large as they can be under regulations (driver shafts could get a bit longer, but players seem to feel they give up too much control and precision, or they'd likely use them now).
• Optimal launch conditions are well understood.
• Agronomy probably (?) isn't going to change a ton (and if it does, it may be to slow the roll, so to speak).

So the only way that the golf ball can travel farther over the next 30 years is… by players swinging faster. How are you going to regulate that? It's not going to travel further through advances in the ball. The ball goes as far as it can. It's up against the level of regulations.

Jeff, I don't agree with you at all on how bifurcation would actually play out. Golfers have historically wanted to play what the pros play, even if they don't break 90 most of the time. Beginning golfers don't even want to take my advice to tee it up everywhere for the first year they play golf. The ERC II didn't sell, the illegal long distance balls don't sell, etc. People don't want bifurcation. The non-pro ball will be seen as "the cheater ball." You think it's coming? I'd take that wager. The PGA Tour doesn't want it.

Golf doesn't have the hard lines like other sports who can bifurcate, nor do they have separate ruling bodies.

And I've never said Erie is representative of anywhere. I've used it as a teeny data point that exposes what I think is the drastic over-statement by many about how many courses are spending gobs of money to "add yardage." I don't think it's happening anywhere near as often as many seem to feel, and I've repeatedly asked for data on this. Nobody has provided anything outside of "five of the top ten in my area" type info.

Tim, you killed it as usual. To your point about Sweetens Cove, how about Streamsong? Probably won't host a PGA Tour event any time soon, and yet, is the darling of the golf community right now.

Tom, I respect the heck out of you and your work, but PGA Tour pros are not hitting Driver/9I to every par four, and it doesn't help your case to say something easily shown as false.

Lastly… I think by and large MOST golfers play the tees that are fairly appropriate to their games. I rarely see players playing too far back. The idea of "seeing the whole course" seems to have faded a bit. Whispering Woods, which tips out at 6804 yards, rarely sees play from the back tees. The white tees - two up (black, blue, white) from the back see the most play, by far.

[jeffwarne]

Excellent points gents


As a High Capper, I can't even count the number of times, everyone in the group, (including the ones as bad as me), wanted to go back to the tips for whatever reason.  And I'm like the course is challenge enough for me from the whites at 6200, why would I go back to the 6800 tees. And then it just gets awkward from there with the back and forth, which 99% of the time devolved into some form of your manhood being challenged


Golfers and thier egos....

This is probably a subject for a whole new thread, but why not just play the tees you want to play and let your buddies play farther back. The beauty of the handicap system is that you can have a fair match with them regardless.


I like to play the back tees most places, but I often have to profusely tell people that they can play whatever tees they want. I shouldn't have to, but I do, because there is nothing so fragile as the male golfer's ego. If they instead want ruin their experience by playing too long a set of tees, it's not my problem.

Back in the day, growing up at a classic course with a full membership and tee sheet,
Ladies played the reds-far longer than most forward tees today
Men and juniors(regardless of ability) regularly played the whites
and pros/scratch/plus-maybe 10-15 out of 1000 members played the blues-that included very few-future Touring pros Larry Mize, Jay Cudd, king of the mini tours Bobby Warr.
During the club championship the few invited juniors would step back to the blues.


All three sets were generally on the same block, with occasionally the ladies tee separate.


You didn't have a choice of tees and nobody told us we weren't having fun and that everybody regardless of age and ability should be able to reach all greens in regulation.


Yet somehow, despite the economic turmoil of the era, golf continued to grow.


The modern scale has created the perceived need for multiple additional tees, and modern entitlement makes sure everyone "is comfortable" on their tees.
As Kalen points out-kills the social thing-and makes administering tournaments with different tees and handicaps a nightmare.

[Tom_Doak]

Tom, I respect the heck out of you and your work, but PGA Tour pros are not hitting Driver/9I to every par four, and it doesn't help your case to say something easily shown as false.

OK, "almost every par four".  It's not every hole because there are lots of Tour sites that have put in back tees of more than 480 or even 500 yards for par-4 holes, though not in Erie, PA.


I'm really not worried about proving my case to you.  I'd be thrilled to discuss it with the people who matter.  But they, like you, don't want to hear it.  For years they've had their fingers in their ears and talking when we started to talk.  Today, some of them realize that they let it go when they shouldn't have, and they'd really love to see good players have to hit medium or long irons into a green on a hole less than 550 yards.  But when you cite a million points of evidence, they still don't want to hear it.


I've got all the stats from the Sony Open at Waialae, courtesy of our consulting work there.  They include the longest drive on each hole on the course.  The longest drive of the week, overall, was 383 yards by somebody bashing one up over the corner of the trees on the [tournament] 14th hole.  [How common was that 10 or 20 years ago?]  Unfortunately, they don't record the club players hit into the green, so I can't tell you what % of approaches are 9-iron or less.  They do have the % of approach shots of different lengths ... I will get back to you on what percentage of them are under 150 yards.


They also break down the drives, hole by hole, into "under 240", 240-260, 260-280, 280-300, and "over 300".  The longest drive on most of the holes was between 340 and 360 yards, but they don't have a category to highlight those.  About 50-60 percent of the tee shots for the week were in the "over 300 yards" category.


You don't think that's a change from a few years ago?  I do.


I saw Alan Shipnuck a couple of weeks ago respond to a reader question about what % of distance gain he put down to various factors.  He said it was maybe 5% agronomy, 20% stronger golfers & faster club head speed, 20% being more aggressive, 25% the clubs, and 30% the ball.  I'd say that was reasonably close.  Even if you disagree with which factor has done how much, the bottom line is that it's made the pro game a lot different than it used to be, no matter how much you'd like to disagree.  All you've gotta do is go and watch them to see it.




I am not as certain as others here that trying to reset it all via one factor (the golf ball) will be so easy to do.  I'm curious to hear Mike Clayton's view on that.  What I see as the biggest differences between Mike's day and today are a) the driver head is so much bigger than everyone just tries to crush it, which no one would even try 30-40 years ago, and b) through a combination of factors, everyone plays straight shots now, instead of curving the ball left or right.  The latter is the biggest loss to the game. 


The Tour players panned our restored Redan hole at Waialae.  It wasn't controversial 30 years ago; back then everyone would play against the slope of the green by hitting a fade.  Today, they don't even try to play a fade.  They just label it "unfair" when a green doesn't hold a straight shot.

[Ira Fishman]

Think for a minute about baseball. Wrigley and Fenway are the same dimensions they were 100 years ago. Except for the steroid era, the only variation in home runs has been the ball. For golf add the club and it is pretty easy to see why we can play World Series at Wrigley and Fenway but not US Opens at Chicago Golf or Myopia Hunt.


Ira

[Ulrich Mayring]

I hate those courses, where every hole starts with a par 3 worth of tees. Meaning that from the back tee to the frontmost tee you could play a par 3. These courses are butt-ugly, have a lot of unsavory walking and the potential to break up groups. So I'm not buying the argument "everyone can play from whichever tee he likes". Two tees is plenty, if you ask me. Of course no one does

Ulrich

[Erik J. Barzeski]

OK, "almost every par four".  It's not every hole because there are lots of Tour sites that have put in back tees of more than 480 or even 500 yards for par-4 holes, though not in Erie, PA.

Honest question, Tom: why do you care? Sure, take the easy route and get your digs in about my using Erie as an example that people may be over-stating how many courses have undergone expensive expansions in the last 20 years (I've yet to see any data on this)… but why do you care? Is the sixth at Streamsong Blue a poor hole because it's LESS than a driver/9I? What about the 10th at Riviera? Are the 10th or 17th at Oakmont poor holes, because they're not driver/8I or longer?

Who cares what 0.0001% of the golfing population hits into even the majority of par fours? I don't. Do you?

He said it was maybe 5% agronomy, 20% stronger golfers & faster club head speed, 20% being more aggressive, 25% the clubs, and 30% the ball.  I'd say that was reasonably close.

The ball goes as far as the rules will allow. It can fly farther… if players swing harder. How do you legislate that? Tony Finau is swinging over 122 MPH this year. Of course his ball is going to go farther than Luke Donald's. But so what?

Even if you disagree with which factor has done how much, the bottom line is that it's made the pro game a lot different than it used to be, no matter how much you'd like to disagree.  All you've gotta do is go and watch them to see it.

I don't disagree that the pro game is different now. I am saying I do not care. I am saying I don't think what 0.0001% of the golfing population does should dictate the direction golf as a whole goes.

The Tour players panned our restored Redan hole at Waialae.  It wasn't controversial 30 years ago; back then everyone would play against the slope of the green by hitting a fade.  Today, they don't even try to play a fade.  They just label it "unfair" when a green doesn't hold a straight shot.

Do you really, truly care?

Think for a minute about baseball. Wrigley and Fenway are the same dimensions they were 100 years ago. Except for the steroid era, the only variation in home runs has been the ball. For golf add the club and it is pretty easy to see why we can play World Series at Wrigley and Fenway but not US Opens at Chicago Golf or Myopia Hunt.

1. More home runs are hit now than when those stadiums were built, and 2. Pitchers have improved, too.

[Ira Fishman]

Erik,


More home runs almost entirely attributable to the end of the dead ball era. And precisely true about pitchers and hitters both improving physically; therefore, a controlled experiment—the significant change has been to the equipment.


Ira

[John Kavanaugh]

Considering that amateurs don't get to play in Wrigley how is this a valid comparison unless the only thing you care about is the pro game?

[Mike Sweeney]

Considering that amateurs don't get to play in Wrigley how is this a valid comparison unless the only thing you care about is the pro game?

Well they play Fenway:

[Ira Fishman]

Chicago Golf and Myopia Hunt were great tests for pros and amateurs alike. Precisely the point about changes in equipment. Rizzo does no better than Banks at Wrigley and even Big Poppi does no better than Ted Williams at Fenway.


Ira

[JESII]

It’s, they were tests before the balata was in play...what are you proposing?

[Michael Moore]

I just had my first grandson. In 12 years I will be 70 and under the current one ball - one world policy we will be able to play from the same set of tees. If the game is bifurcated we won't even be playing the same game. It depresses the hell out of me.

In a game that has been played for 400 years these perfect synergies between a man and his grandson are no longer accidents.

You have nailed it once again. Of course there will be a rollforward for amateurs instead of a rollback for professionals, and of course my best hikes in recent memory had nothing to do with precipitous mountain climbing and were instead prolonged oceanfront trail walks when my father was slowing down and my son was speeding up.

[Ira Fishman]

It’s, they were tests before the balata was in play...what are you proposing?

Jim, golf may be the only major sport where the playing field needs to adapt to changes in the equipment. That strikes me as precisely backwards.


Ira

[Tom_Doak]

Erik:


At one level, I DON'T care about the pro game.  I got to where I am in architecture by ignoring that small % of the business and telling my clients they should ignore it, too.  I've built shorter holes with more undulating greens than the PGA Tour guys would ever let me if I was designing a TPC course, and those courses are highly thought of BECAUSE they're different.


And I am with you that the most interesting holes now are some of the really short par-4's that weren't designed to be driven, so the players really don't know how to attack them.


But I also consult for a lot of older courses, and most of their members DO watch the Tour every week.  Anytime a Tour player comes to visit, I get an earful from the green chairman about how short the course played and how the guy hit the longest par-5 in two with a 6-iron and can't I find a few more back tees SOMEWHERE?  And I try my best to talk them out of it, but I can't deny that the course plays shorter than it used to for the better players in the club, who are usually the ones on committees.  And so we wind up building back tees for the 1% or the .01% to keep those courses "relevant," even if it's all pretty meaningless to most of the membership.  I don't mean I'm going to 7500 yards or something crazy ... but what used to be 6600 is now 6850 or 6900, and only because I won't let them go to 7000.

[Sean_A]

OK, "almost every par four".  It's not every hole because there are lots of Tour sites that have put in back tees of more than 480 or even 500 yards for par-4 holes, though not in Erie, PA.

Honest question, Tom: why do you care? Sure, take the easy route and get your digs in about my using Erie as an example that people may be over-stating how many courses have undergone expensive expansions in the last 20 years (I've yet to see any data on this)… but why do you care? Is the sixth at Streamsong Blue a poor hole because it's LESS than a driver/9I? What about the 10th at Riviera? Are the 10th or 17th at Oakmont poor holes, because they're not driver/8I or longer?

Who cares what 0.0001% of the golfing population hits into even the majority of par fours? I don't. Do you?

He said it was maybe 5% agronomy, 20% stronger golfers & faster club head speed, 20% being more aggressive, 25% the clubs, and 30% the ball.  I'd say that was reasonably close.

The ball goes as far as the rules will allow. It can fly farther… if players swing harder. How do you legislate that? Tony Finau is swinging over 122 MPH this year. Of course his ball is going to go farther than Luke Donald's. But so what?

Even if you disagree with which factor has done how much, the bottom line is that it's made the pro game a lot different than it used to be, no matter how much you'd like to disagree.  All you've gotta do is go and watch them to see it.

I don't disagree that the pro game is different now. I am saying I do not care. I am saying I don't think what 0.0001% of the golfing population does should dictate the direction golf as a whole goes.

The Tour players panned our restored Redan hole at Waialae.  It wasn't controversial 30 years ago; back then everyone would play against the slope of the green by hitting a fade.  Today, they don't even try to play a fade.  They just label it "unfair" when a green doesn't hold a straight shot.

Do you really, truly care?

Think for a minute about baseball. Wrigley and Fenway are the same dimensions they were 100 years ago. Except for the steroid era, the only variation in home runs has been the ball. For golf add the club and it is pretty easy to see why we can play World Series at Wrigley and Fenway but not US Opens at Chicago Golf or Myopia Hunt.

1. More home runs are hit now than when those stadiums were built, and 2. Pitchers have improved, too.

Erik

Folks obviously care...and for good reasons.  I think we can all (or mostly all) agree that the pro game has had a negative impact on architecture and the preservation of classic courses.  The issue really comes down to can we do much about the situation...if so what are the best measures to take?   Problem solving ranges from drastic rollback of the ball and possibly other equipment...even course presentation to restricting pros to certain courses (presumably courses which most deem not worth protecting?) to further bifurcation...to even more targeted designs to match ability level to clubs and owners making taking decisions which are more suitable for the those paying the bills....and anything inbetween. 

Some people out there think a magical time in golf history can be revisited with pros hitting the ball 25 yards further than decent handicap players and decent handicap players hitting the ball 25 yards further than decent women players.  Some think something akin to this shangri-la can be achieved by birfurcation.  I am not convinced this shangri-la can ever be revisited with all the will in world regarding equipment because to some degree its a myth...which is fine because all myths serve a purpose.  Two things I do believe, first...its far easier to find shangri-la on your own rather than waiting for blue blazers to mandate it.  And second, golf courses change.  Sometimes by design, sometimes by neglect and sometimes by accident.  No amount of equipment regulation is ever going to change that. We can try to stop idiots from mucking with courses by the circuitous route of equipment regulation, but nobody has ever shown me any hard evidence that it will be successful. Folks simply assume that work on golf courses will stop....though I have no idea why.

I will unhappily sign up for bifurcation and hope for the best.  I can't get behind rollback because I think it will result in more people being dissatisfied with the game. I don't believe all the jargon about graduated loss of length or that courses can easily be shortened. If we really are concerned about pro golf and its effects on design..then attack the pro game.  Why expand the issue and try to solve problems which don't exist? Why risk a golfer fall-out when the problem has been targeted?  Why try to use a sledgehammer when a tack hammer will do? 

Ciao

[Tom_Doak]

I will stop now because I've made any point I'm going to make, and I'm not going to waste the weekend worrying about it. 


It's not up to me.  If it were, I'd make new ball specs for the U.S. Open and U.S. Amateur, just like the R & A did forty years ago, and let everyone else sort out which side they wanted to be on.  It didn't destroy the game in the UK back then, and it wouldn't destroy the game tomorrow, either.  But I don't expect the defenders of the status quo to go along.  That's the way of the world now ... the status quo yields nothing.  There is no such thing as the good of the game, only what's good for their pocketbooks.


That's why some people listen to me ... because they can see I've got nothing to gain from my view of it.

[John Kavanaugh]

Yea, you've got nothing to gain by forcing the ball on the ground sooner. Only your legacy.

[Mike_Clayton]

'I am not as certain as others here that trying to reset it all via one factor (the golf ball) will be so easy to do.  I'm curious to hear Mike Clayton's view on that.  What I see as the biggest differences between Mike's day and today are a) the driver head is so much bigger than everyone just tries to crush it, which no one would even try 30-40 years ago, and b) through a combination of factors, everyone plays straight shots now, instead of curving the ball left or right.  The latter is the biggest loss to the game.'


Tom,

The biggest difference between the professional game now and the mid 1980s is every player drives the ball like Greg Norman - only further. He had a massive and well earned advantage over most of the rest - not Woosnam,Nicklaus,Seve, Lyle, Couples and a few other smashers - because he was such a great driver.
There were the few like Greg who were long and straight. There were guys like Hale Irwin and Graham Marsh who drove beautifully straight and out of the sweet spot the majority of the time.
So many long hitters were wild and gave up the length advantage by driving it out of play too often.
Then there was Seve who was one of the greatest drivers ever. Sure he could be crooked but he moved the ball around to suit winds and hole shapes like no other I ever saw. Anyone who thinks him a bad driver didn't see him play enough.I've long said MacKenzie was designing for him - giving him space to express himself and if he was crooked a chance with a great shot to recover.It's no surprise he was the only man to win at Royal Melbourne,Augusta and St Andrews - although no doubt Tiger and Jack could have won at RM also.
The biggest change to allow that was the size of the head on the driver and it was a disaster for the administration to allow it to get any bigger than The Greatest Big Bertha - which looked ridiculous at the time.
The driver combined with the ProV saw the huge spike in distance.
It's also thrown a whole group of players into the same skill-set pool - making it much harder for the better drivers to break away from the rest. See the cut this week at the NZ Open - seven under par.

Erik,

Tom consults to Royal Melbourne (Presidents Cup 2019) and we (OCCM) consult to Kingston Heath (likely Aust Open in 2020),Lake Karrinyup (an annual co -sanctioned European Tour event) and The Lakes (Aust Open 2018) and I know a lot more than 0000.1% of the members care about how their courses play. Many care about the legacy of MacKenzie (RM,KH and his partner Alex Russell at LK) and the test he set. They abhor formerly long holes being cut down to drives and wedges and yearn for the resetting of something resembling the original test.
And that doesn't mean going back to hitting woods into the long 4s but just not 9 irons and wedges.


I don't particularly care about how America wants to deal with the same things happening to their great championship courses but we in Australia don't even have a seat at the table.
If we did the ball would have been rolled back years ago - in no small way because Australians are not as obsessed with distance as Americans.
It's the same reason we were able to rid ourselves of thousands of guns and you are still arguing about it despite it being a much bigger problem in America than it ever was in Australia.
 

[jeffwarne]

OK, "almost every par four".  It's not every hole because there are lots of Tour sites that have put in back tees of more than 480 or even 500 yards for par-4 holes, though not in Erie, PA.

Honest question, Tom: why do you care? Sure, take the easy route and get your digs in about my using Erie as an example that people may be over-stating how many courses have undergone expensive expansions in the last 20 years (I've yet to see any data on this)… but why do you care? Is the sixth at Streamsong Blue a poor hole because it's LESS than a driver/9I? What about the 10th at Riviera? Are the 10th or 17th at Oakmont poor holes, because they're not driver/8I or longer?

Who cares what 0.0001% of the golfing population hits into even the majority of par fours? I don't. Do you?

He said it was maybe 5% agronomy, 20% stronger golfers & faster club head speed, 20% being more aggressive, 25% the clubs, and 30% the ball.  I'd say that was reasonably close.

The ball goes as far as the rules will allow. It can fly farther… if players swing harder. How do you legislate that? Tony Finau is swinging over 122 MPH this year. Of course his ball is going to go farther than Luke Donald's. But so what?

Even if you disagree with which factor has done how much, the bottom line is that it's made the pro game a lot different than it used to be, no matter how much you'd like to disagree.  All you've gotta do is go and watch them to see it.

I don't disagree that the pro game is different now. I am saying I do not care. I am saying I don't think what 0.0001% of the golfing population does should dictate the direction golf as a whole goes.

The Tour players panned our restored Redan hole at Waialae.  It wasn't controversial 30 years ago; back then everyone would play against the slope of the green by hitting a fade.  Today, they don't even try to play a fade.  They just label it "unfair" when a green doesn't hold a straight shot.

Do you really, truly care?

Think for a minute about baseball. Wrigley and Fenway are the same dimensions they were 100 years ago. Except for the steroid era, the only variation in home runs has been the ball. For golf add the club and it is pretty easy to see why we can play World Series at Wrigley and Fenway but not US Opens at Chicago Golf or Myopia Hunt.

1. More home runs are hit now than when those stadiums were built, and 2. Pitchers have improved, too.

Erik,
You repeatedly have asked.
Why do we care?
I can't speak for Tom, I can only speak for me, but I do hope he chimes in.


I love golf,I love the history of golf. I love shotmaking. I love classic courses.
I love courses that strategy, variety and shotmaking matter on to play well.
I love it when elite players demonstrate those skills. I find professional golf very entertaining, especially the majors. I hate the spread out modern monstrocities that often now host these majors and automatically take 5 1/2 hours or more to play. Ben Cowan is (nearly) right that major golf should not be played on classic courses-I really hate that he is fast becoming right about this, and a license is given to develop more of those bastardizations of scale, sustainability and "architecture".


I am not pleased when I play with a young professional  or amateur overseas who is perfctly equipment optimized and sees no need to shape, knock down, or reduce the spin on his shots-shots that took years and much experience to learn.
It is even more frustrating me as a player to realize that into a strong wind a stock driver launched and spun optimally(with a store bought adjustment and technology) goes further than a low running draw that took years to perfect and control the spin and trajectory.
I see a deskilling(perhaps it's reskilling) of the game and a dramatic increase in one dimensional bomb and gouge golf-and players are of course evolving to what produces the best results.



I have attended The Masters for 43 straight years and watched as it has become far more difficult  to walk and spectate due to constant bottlenecking from tees being 40-50 yards back on so many holes. There are no more spectators there now than there were 40 years ago as they have been tightly controlled and limited for years.

But it feels way more crowded with all the bottlenecks caused by the additional length keeping one from circulating freely-especially behind a tee. It obviously takes longer to play with 400 more yards of walking back, but as Nicklaus says, it's the only classic course that's not obsoleted by today's equipment. And so far they have been successful at buying out their neighbors in all directions for expansion.(How's that for a model of sustainability)
So yes I care about that scale change ruining/ reducing the enjoyment of one of my favorite things to do..


When I watch Rivierra and they hit hit a flip wedge to many/most of those tough iconic holes-it bores me. So yes I care about that.


I see all of the qualities I described slipping away-mainly defended by people who are fed by the BUSINESS of golf-and many who hardly play the game. Or dottering old fools the III who left pandora's box open via denial and don't know what to do now.



I'm aware there has been a steady evolution of club, ball and player equipment for the past 400 years.
It took a quantum leap at the turn of this century 17 years ago(ProV1), at a rate seen around the turn of the previous century(Haskell), when land and time were far more available.


I first started forming these opinions after playing the 7700 yard Kiawah course in 1989 in 5 hours when it first opened. As John K points out many of these tees were built for variety and wind conditions, but you still have to walk by them, Of course now nearly all are in use in a Professional event-Pete Dye was at least smart enough to see what was coming.
Now any course that thinks they might be special has tees that long, but yes most go unused-but you still have to walk by them, or even worse-back to them.
So Care about the scale of golf being ever increasing.


If some breakthrough comes along in 2025, you'll probably write about it yourself if the players are 40 yards longer in 2035.
So yes I care about that, and you might as well-but you just don't think it has any chance of happening-the same as the USGA NEVER thought the ball would go the distances it does now-despite a very clear trend line(with occasional bursts upward).


This is an architectural website-I care that architectural intent has been obliterated on nearly every classic course-the lengthening rafrely is commensurate with the equipment advances and if nothing else the scale walkability and charm is irreparably altered.

So that's a very short diatribe on why I care.

How you can ask an artist of Tom's pedigree, experience and stature why he cares that players don't undrstand or appreciate a feature he restored/built that allows creativity, fun and separation via shotmaking ability, or why he cares that their ignorance, one dimensionality or complaints may allow neutering or eliminating such a feature doesn't surprise me, but it does irritate me. It would be no different than someone asking you why you care about a player denying you had anything to do with their success for helping a player for 4 hours who was shanking on Thursday to winning a major event on Sunday.





15 years ago I was a lunatic fringe opinion on ball and equipment-even on this website which is about as articulate and educated a website(especially when you count the lurkers) as there is in golf.
Now I hear comments daily from Tour players, club pros and especially amateurs that the distance the ball travels at the elite level is a joke-and they can't understand why it's not reigned in (no one is suggesting what's happening is illegal or unregulated-even if the regulators are consistently outsmarted but the Manufacturing R&D people with a $$ interest).


So I firmly believe a change is coming-long overdue-but coming.


You are however completely entitled to not care.
You are completely entitled to rebut our often anecdotal evidence-despite the ever increasing mountain of it.
But stop asking us WHY we care
We do.





I just read Mike Clayton's eloquent response.
Exactly. Greg Norman and Seve could separate themselves with their drivers.
Nowadays it's just the same script for dozens of players with their drivers.
I frequently comment on air on how underrated of a driver Seve was because he. like Tiger, could keep himself in the hunt and thus under scrutiny, while having a week or round of driving poorly-others just missed the cut and weren't seen on the weekend while struggling.
Of course Seve's late Ryder Cup struggles, and Tiger's odd late career coaching choices resulting in awful driving contributed to IMHO falsely poor perceptions of both of their driving in their peak years.

[Jeff Schley]

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/meet-the-golfer-who-could-smash-the-pga-tour-driving-record/?addata=espn:golf:index

ESPN highlight on the topic, specifically Tony Finau

[Kyle Harris]

I propose that modern equipment has, without the rose-tint of history, made golf spectating much more fun.

I propose that modern equipment has, contrary to the popular view, made playing golf less fun.

Bifurcation does little to solve the latter and only serves to hurt the former.

Equipment advancement is driven by sales. Most golfers are buying the feeling that they are having more fun with new equipment. Thirty years ago, most golfers bought that feeling through practice.

I have fun raising a few eyebrows with my forged blade 2-iron. I am in an existential quandary as to whether or not I wish to compete by replacing my similarly forged (and often bladed) 3 and 4-irons with one hybrid and perhaps adding a fourth lofted club.

I'll never abandon the 2-iron.

[Tom_Doak]

I'll never abandon the 2-iron.

How old are you again?  Oh, right.  Get back to us about that in 15-20 years 😀

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