I think a few things should be pointed out:
- Augusta is truly closest to Dan King's "virtual reality"
golf. Of all the courses talked about on this site
it probably is one of the courses where most people's
opinion has been formed entirely by watching pros
over the years, and not from actual playing or visits.
- Fazio's team was asked for more yardage, and
they did at least an impressive engineering job of
getting it.
- I'm not sure Fazio himself ever called it one-dimensional
before. And there isn't a "restauration" campaign going on.
If anything, Hootie's team is most forthright about
what they intend to accomplish.
- The width issue is probably most significant
overall in terms of changing the character of the course. I
think that issue has been obscured and pretty much
forgotten by the golf pundits at large...
- IBM's commercialism isn't as crass as some of the criticism on these pages of it. Clearly the ads are attempting to recount the history of the event. Sure they're all cliches, but for the world outside of GCA, they are pretty informative, as far as ads go. Let's recall that someone has
to pay for the shindig somehow. Also, I do appreciate the
speed and quality of their scoring website
- Um... the event and the leaderboard are turning out
to be pretty damn compelling. At the end of the day,
that's what "virtual reality" golf really is about.
So congrats to Hootie and Fazio and IBM. Nice job.