Design is the problem. You guys need to step your game up.......

[Tim Martin]

... Would Oakmont be “fun” if the only set of tees was at 7400 yards and everyone had to play from that yardage?  ...

I don't think Oakmont was designed to be "fun". Bad example.

+1

[Max Prokopy]

While I have little "in the dirt" experience, it seems like the least invasive and most efficient solution is to make bunkers true hazards once again. 


Since sand varies across regions and Tour stops, is it feasible that the Tour adopt a special set of rakes?  Design a set of rakes to reduce the opportunities for players to spin their bunker shots.  Players can choose to play a higher spin (softer) ball that will not travel as far, or play the longer balls and have to be more strategic in their games to avoid the bunkers. 


This seems far simpler than rollback, extending golf courses, spending a ton of $$ and water on growing rough and pushing greens to the limit. 

[John Bouffard]

The NBA doesn't demand the set shot only, is one example of a sport outgrowing its founding principles.

Your sentence here sort of capsulizes one of my "existential" gripes about the roll back. All sports evolve, and outgrow not only their founding principles, but also ideas and "fashions" that come along as years go by in the history of these games. It seems silly to me to fight this. IAnd it's one reason why I don't think changing course design is necessary or even desirable.

It's one thing to change the rules if, say, a basketball team gets a lead and then passes the ball around in a 4 corners delay for 10 minutes each time they get the ball. In this instance, you need a rule change to make them stop farting around and actually play basketball. In the case of golf, the modern game is exciting and magnificent. No, we don't have players hitting 3 irons into par 4 holes. The 3 shot par 5 is rare. But - and all the rest of my comment here is just opinion - I think the players still demonstrate an impressive and varied array of skills. If they need to hit a 3 iron into a par 4, they can do it, and it wouldn't surprise me if all of them can do it better than the average pro could 50-60 years ago. Even if you could make them hit tiny blades and balata balls, I think in about a year they would be playing better than their ancestors did with the same equipment.

Maybe some day we will, in fact, run out of land for golf. I have heard many in the industry say that this part of the argument has been overplayed. Anyway, if it happens, by all means roll back the ball. But for now, I prefer we just let them play.

[Mike_Young]

I don't care how strong a player becomes or how much speed he can generate...if you take the driver clubface back down to where it was in the 80's and 90's then the sweet spot becomes smaller, so shaft becomes shorter and it's more difficult to generate the same smash factor and all of these balls are tested at a premium smash factor.  Driver distance used to be a skill but now it is the easiest shot out there for the pros..let them keep playing with the ball...

[Jim_Kennedy]

I don't care how strong a player becomes or how much speed he can generate...if you take the driver clubface back down to where it was in the 80's and 90's then the sweet spot becomes smaller, so shaft becomes shorter and it's more difficult to generate the same smash factor and all of these balls are tested at a premium smash factor.  Driver distance used to be a skill but now it is the easiest shot out there for the pros..let them keep playing with the ball...

That size is roughly comparable to a modern 3 wood, and they hit those between 260 (Fowler) and 295 (DeChambeau). It could have the effect of dialing it all back to the late '90s driving distance, and as you suggest, w/no ball change. 


Guys (Rahm, etc.) will still be hitting there 6 irons 210, so they'd really have very little to bitch about.
   

[Mike_Young]

I don't care how strong a player becomes or how much speed he can generate...if you take the driver clubface back down to where it was in the 80's and 90's then the sweet spot becomes smaller, so shaft becomes shorter and it's more difficult to generate the same smash factor and all of these balls are tested at a premium smash factor.  Driver distance used to be a skill but now it is the easiest shot out there for the pros..let them keep playing with the ball...

That size is roughly comparable to a modern 3 wood, and they hit those between 260 (Fowler) and 295 (DeChambeau). It could have the effect of dialing it all back to the late '90s driving distance, and as you suggest, w/no ball change. 


Guys (Rahm, etc.) will still be hitting there 6 irons 210, so they'd really have very little to bitch about.
   

Jim,I'm not sure..I do know they play games w the three wood etc...
Since the MOI rules are not in affect for lofts of 15 degrees or more , alot of the guys have thinned the faces to where they spring...Also, I look at some persimmon drivers and they are smaller than modern three woods...JMO

[Ben Hollerbach]

"Making a 300-yard drive untenable" would include your first drawing, for sure.  No Tour pro is going to aim for either of your dots A or B -- not enough margin for error.  They are going to aim for your label of approach shot lengths, and tell every golf outlet that your design is stupid, because it doesn't give them the necessary target area to aim at.

Drawing B is slightly less "untenable", it just introduces a feature that players wouldn't like to discourage them from hitting it so far.  I did some similar things for Mr. Dye years ago, trying to make the players not lay up to 100 yards, when that was a thing.  My guess is that most of them would just bomb it down to the blind spot on your hole, anyway, unless you had a bunker 40 or 50 yards from the green down there . . . they would all avoid that.  That's what Padraig Harrington suggested we do for the 13th hole at The Renaissance Club [16th during the Scottish Open].  Again, though, you would have the entire field [plus the TV announcers] calling you an idiot for building an unfair blind bunker.


Honestly, putting some bunkers in the 300-350 range is not much different from these drawings.  Some players would think twice about the bunkers, because it seems too unorthodox for them to aim into a bunker off the tee; others would realize that's not much different than taking a chance of getting into the bunker, and fire away as long as the bunkers weren't so penal that they were prevented from attacking the green. 


I heard Mr. Dye suggest to Tom Weiskopf that he could get over his criticism of the 11th hole if he just played into the waste bunker for his second shot . . . I thought Tom's head was going to explode, because he was a traditionalist at heart.  It kind of threw me for a loop, too.

Thanks for your feedback Tom,

In drawing A, I expect the fairway width at 300 yards is ~30 yards from the right bunker to the right edge of the fairway, how does that compare to tour average? At what point would the tour play feel more comfortable, and at what point as an architect do you not care if they don't like the shot? If a tour player was to chose to play left of the fairway bunkers into the rough, they'd end up leaving a ~220 yard approach out of the rough, would that discourage them?

If placing bunkers 300-350 yards would provide the same pause for a tour player as either drawing A or drawing B, I would think that providing a similar pause and response while not relying strictly on bunkers would be a beneficial strategy? Or is the impact of either drawing, or bunkering the landing zone, insufficient at influencing the actions of the tour player towards throttling back off the tee?

[Tom_Doak]

Ben:


It's possible some players would play toward the bunker in Diagram A, instead of left of it, if the bunker was deemed not too penal -- if they had a chance to reach the green from it.  Otherwise, they'd play left, or possibly short.  But they are never going to play closer than 32 yards from the water line.



What I can assure you is, you're never going to see anything like Hole A on Tour, or my own suggestion of bunkering heavily from 300 to 350 yards.  The Tour would tell the club it wasn't acceptable, and if that didn't work, they'd tell the tournament sponsor they might get some bad press out of the players if the hole wasn't changed.  Your option B might make the cut, but only if it was deemed that the players didn't mind driving it down in the hollow . . . indeed, some players would think this gave them more run-out and a bigger advantage!


Also, I didn't realize your holes were quite so long.  These are 500 yard holes?  Are you suggesting that every hole needs to be 500 yards to make it interesting for those guys?