Royal Melbourne caught short by technology
By Martin Blake
February 11, 2004
Twenty-six years ago Nick Faldo first set eyes upon Royal Melbourne's famous composite course and all these years later he remembers the shock of it.
"The very first day I got the northerly at 40 (knots)," he said after Sunday's Heineken Classic. "I remember thinking, 'How do you cope?' I just thought it was a brute. We've all learned to drink more water, though."
It goes to show how times can change. Faldo was in his early 20s then and about to tally six major championships. He would become a renowned player in the type of conditions you get at RM - that is, in wind.
As for the course, it has just taken its biggest beating in more than 100 years, with Ernie Els shooting a course-record 60 in the opening round of the Heineken Classic, and Greg Norman describing it as "obsolete" as a championship course.
Faldo these days engages in course design himself, having just opened a new one at 13th Beach called The Creek, but he doesn't necessarily agree with Norman. He thinks the officials from the European tour, which co-sanctioned the Classic with the Australasian tour, got it wrong with the set-up of the course on the first three days.
"I don't know why they waited until Sunday to get it right," he said. "It should have been set up that way from Tuesday so that everyone needed to play it in the style that makes you think about it. I saw it on Sunday, and that was how you picture Royal Melbourne being set up.
"The pins were cut to the limit, the greens were firm, and you could see the true charm of the course. Had they done that on Thursday, even in dead calm, (scoring) 60 was never on."
RM no longer plays as it was intended by the designer, Alister MacKenzie. Fairway bunkers are out of play, and it was evident on many holes last week that with no wind, this was a doddle for the top players. Els hit only four drivers in his round of 60, needing only two irons off the tee to get close enough.
At the longest hole, the par-five ninth, the old challenge of flying the row of bunkers in front of the green and reaching the cut surface in two was no longer there. Players hit driver-wedge into the 18th when, a few years ago, they were hitting middle irons in.
Technology, and in particular the improvements in ball-manufacture, combined with the tendency of the modern professional to work on his strength, have rendered many old courses largely defenceless against the top players. In the case of St Andrews and Royal Melbourne for instance, they need strong winds to make it a contest.
Peter Thomson has said RM realistically is a par 69 nowadays, with its three par-five holes all comfortably reachable in two shots. Technology is one of the major reasons why Thomson's course at Moonah Links is so long - the longest championship course in the world.
Els and Adam Scott both broke the RM tournament scoring record of 17-under at the weekend, but for perspective it is worth remembering that both are at the top of their games, and that only on Sunday did the wind blow with any impact.
And RM would be relieved to know that regardless of the scoring, the composite course brought the cream to the top. Els was the best player in the field, and Scott possibly is the second-best.
What can be done? The authorities - the Royal and Ancient in Scotland and the US Golf Association - have moved at glacial pace on the ball technology, to the point where the players don't believe they will take on the makers.
Disturbingly, Els and Faldo believe it is impractical to turn back. "It's too late. The horse has bolted, he's won the derby, and he's out to stud," said Faldo yesterday.
Seven years ago, RM's general manager, Bill Richardson, went to the R and A with a plea for sanity on technological advances in golf, telling the game's governors that older courses would have more and more difficulty presenting professionals with a challenge. But very little has happened since.
Now, short of compromising Alister MacKenzie's original design, there is nothing that RM, still ranked in the top 10 golf courses in the world, can do.
"It's a fabulous design, but let's face it, it's out of the golden era," said Faldo. "You could tinker with it without using that "L" (length) word. You might put some bunkers in front so that there's a risk and a fear-factor with some of the carries.
"You might put some bumps on the fairways to slow down the drives a little. You need your rough and hard greens to make it hard for players to spin it out of there. But to get it to length for today's players, you'd have to put 1000 yards on it," Faldo added.