[Jerry Kluger]

Matt: Your baseball analogy doesn't work.  They're still using wooden bats although the ball could be different but it is not supposed to be.  Give Tiger a persimmon driver with a steel shaft and I would say that you wouldn't need to touch the course - add in balata balls and there would be no question in my mind that they would never have had to touch the course.   Look out if they gave major league baseball players metal bats.

[Rick Shefchik]

Matt,

I've never said that the changes to AN haven't made it a more difficult course. If the changes hadn't made it tougher, what was the point? I'm simply saying that after just two tournaments, the evidence is not yet sufficient to claim that the course is now too difficult for anyone to mount a Sunday charge.

I'll "come clean" when the blip becomes a trend. In the meantime, I'd like to see them slow the greens down a bit.

[Mark Bourgeois]

But to Matt's point both Jack and Tiger practically lapped the field in those victories.  It's not like 20 golfers broke -10.

One other thing about the risk-reward getting out of whack on 15: with the third shot on the layup route having gotten brutal due to green firmness and speed, what does it say when a huge majority nevertheless chooses that route? Take the opposite extreme and consider that if every golfer goes for it in two, it could be that going for it has gotten too easy -- or that the layup route isn't easy enough.

Same problem in a different skin.

Mark

PS '75 and '77 Sunday back nines surely belong in the top 5!

[Matt_Ward]

Rick S:

Please, c'mon nuff of the tap dancing and side steppin'.

Do you think Augusta is a BETTER golf course with the sum of all the changes made to the course post Tiger '97 ?

I'll give a bit of siggle room in saying that adding some yardage would have been OK for me.

What say you -- in clear terms please.

Having a more difficult course flies in the faces of its creators -- Jones & Mackenzie. Simple as that.

Rick - the low back nine total was 33 this year. The fact that the world's #1 offered some clear and candid comments only bolsters the view in my mind. If you think having two versions of the US Open per year floats your boat then so be it. I don't because there was nothing wrong with the ole Augusta.

Jerry:

My point -- in the event you missed it -- was that the powers-that-be overreacted to the exploits of ONE player -- that would be akin to moving fences back simply because of one batter in baseball.

Mark B:

Your comments are spot on. People who simply look at only the winners fail to see the totality of what happens to the field and the other main contenders.

[JESII]

One other thing about the risk-reward getting out of whack on 15: with the third shot on the layup route having gotten brutal due to green firmness and speed, what does it say when a huge majority nevertheless chooses that route? Take the opposite extreme and consider that if every golfer goes for it in two, it could be that going for it has gotten too easy -- or that the layup route isn't easy enough.

Same problem in a different skin.

Mark,

Are you certain that a majority of guys within realistic range of the green laid up?

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