The relationship between I&B and maintenance practices

[Mark Bourgeois]

I would like to pull out two posts from other threads for discussion.

Pete Dye wrote something in his book I'd not heard before and that really made me think. He said long drivers back in the day could be nearly as long as today's floggers -- but in a completely different way.

Dye wrote the golfers of yesteryear got more of their yardage on the ground. Therefore, they had to negotiate the features and hazards on the ground. I used to just think about I&B, especially its role in creating the all-aerial flogger game of today. But maintenance set up not just differently back in the day but in a way that complemented the I&B. And isn't what these crazy setups today are doing to challenge today's floggers? Lush, thick rough, back tees, narrow fairways, etc.

I guess it's not news to note that today's floggers play an all-aerial game but when I read Dye's comments the light bulb went off regarding the relationship of I&B to maintenance. Seeing some of these old Jones pics showing his driving distances -- or the 1950 Fazio yardages -- it made sense to me how Jones could be belting out 300-yard drives with such equipment. If we roll back I&B we might not see floggers hit it too much shorter than they do now -- how much I suppose would depend on whatever distance standard was adopted -- but my larger hope is if the ball is changed it is done so in a way that requires floggers to interact with the ground more. In turn I would hope maintenance practices "roll back" as well. That would require a change in maintenance practices but would be both good for sustainability and for golf spectating.

Some what interesting that many who advocate that the golf courses return to an earlier period, and capture some of the older amenities like modest length, firm, dry conditions, design features from the era of great architecture nearly a century ago seek to play those types of courses with the latest technology. The two don't fit together.

Several questions:
1) Can "sustainable" maintenance practices like "get down with brown" work with today's I&B?
2) Might yesteryear's I&B -- not hickories and guttas, but persimmon and low-compression -- be a better fit for sustainable maintenance practices?
3) If I&B is ever rolled back --- hahaha! -- what changes to maintenance practices might that spark? For example, would golfers, in seeking to hold on to their distance, impel greenkeepers to dry out courses? Would fairways then be widened to accommodate the extra roll?

Big philosophical question: are maintenance practices of the day a response to the I&B of the day? I think we already know they are to a degree, my real question is in what ways that aren't discussed and in particular the degree to which the two are bound. The Dye comment got me thinking about how deeply intertwined the two are -- much more tightly wound than I had considered.

[Rich Goodale]

A brief, but very timely anecdote, Marco.

Yesterday I played Murcar, and the fairways of the course were that yellowy brown color that we F&F fetish people so love.  John Kirk would have had an orgasm if he could have seen how far and frolickingly randomly balls travelled if hit reasonably well and reasonably straight.  The ground crunched under our feet (or would have done so if any of us had been wearing spikes).  That being said.....

1.  If you happened to hit the ball very well and/or not reasonably straight, your ball would end up in places that no archetect nor any other evil spirit would have wished or designed that you go.  Dante would have expanded his list of the top 100 circles of hell if he had been playing with us.  And we were seniors!

2.  Apparently the course was opened up a week or two ago to many of the leading junior golfers in Europe (Murcar is hosting the European Juniors later in the year), and the comments from the little nippers who could carry their drives 295 ranged from "twee" to "merde" to "flhywitzu" (not sure what this means in Estonian, and probably don't want to....).

3.  As to your title ?, my gut feel is "roll back the I&B but increase F&F up to yesterday's "Murcar Meld" and both the geezers and the flat bellies will (eventually) be happy.

Ricardo

[Mark Bourgeois]

Sorry, that's lazy-man writing for "implements & balls."