I did not attend the Autumn Meeting this year, but a good friend has advise me that the sprinkler heads at TOC now have distances painted on them. I should imagine that ten members died of apoplexy.

Pinsheets,also.

This doesn't surprize me one bit. It was bound to happen.

If you have to have the yardage to play the Old Course, you don't belong on the Old Course. Simple as that.

I would imagine that Phil the Author will disagree with this also.

I don't see this as a problem, even for traditionalists.  When I was there, I had a caddy who would tell me the yardage, or I could use a strokesaver had I not opted for a caddy.  But a lot of the time, knowing the distance is only a part of the battle, when the wind is up 150 yards can mean a large range of possible clubs, a lot of possible shots.  Anyone who is totally lost without the yardage might gain some false confidence playing from next to a marked sprinkler head, but it won't help him when he lands a high spinning shot halfway up the Valley of Sin.

Once the Old Course got sprinkler heads in the first place, the traditionalists had already lost.  "The avalanche has already started, it is too late for the pebbles to vote."

While my heart goes out to those ten member's families who recently passed away due to the marking of sprinkler heads, another sacred transgression also recently occurred there in the R&A clubhouse... TV cameras from the Golf Channel !!! Arrrggggh Hurrrrrumph, shameful commercialism!

Sometimes one needs a good COR!  

Speeding up Play? I think it does just the opposite. Since I have never palyed TOC I assume there are no 150 markers, so what the hell is the difference? I can envision a sprinkler head the size of War and peace... 150 to center 122 to the knoll on the right that will kick you left and so on and so on.

They really must be running out of places to spend all those extra pounds that they are now charging?

Rick --

You don't belong on the Old Course.

Simple as that.

 

Let us look to the sprinker heads themselves as the source of this problem.

No need to worry about the speed of play at TOC.  The Trust fully understands profit maximization and its corp of marshalls is the best at getting people around in four hours or less.  During my only round there I spent so much time hunting for the two assigned playing partners' foul balls that it didn't leave any time for studying the golf course.  As I recall, the course guide had the distances to/from all the major points, so marking the sprinkler heads should not be that big of a deal to the "purists" (mainly, those who have developed a competitive advantage vis-a-vis the occasional visitor through experience).  I was also under the impression that yardages on windswept links were meaningless, so no one should really care if us left-brain dominant types are provided with a placebo.

Talk about driving into the Hell bunker...

I met a brit here, a month or so ago, and he told me the story about this Japanese tourist bus that unloaded at TOC. One of the golfers (ha) hit a ball so poorly on one that he ended up on the 18th green. Without removing the ball from where it lay the tourist took a mighty swat with his 3 wood, off of the putting surface. The story isn't about him it was about the elderly greenskeeper who was riding his rickity old mower and couldn't believe his eyes and was transfixed on this Japanese man playing away from the 18th green. In his trance the riding mower drove straight into a bunker as the golfer (ha) played his shot.

Martin(fbd)

How about:

3.  Hitting the ball from the 1st tee to the 18th green is just about physically imposiible, since even if you manage the proper outside in heel shot, the natural slope of the 18th green (particularly the Valley of Sin) will feed your ball inexorably down towards the 18th fairway.

yes, the two key peices of evidence do kill this story. However in the spirit of JFK and Seinfeld, lets revisit the story. It seems the tee shot on 1 was almost a whiff and the off the toe as the ball bounced off the green hole maker to the right of the tee and doinked somewhat backward toward 18 green bouncing off the steps to the R&A and rolling on 18 green. The clanging sound of the shot off the metal was muffled by the jets from Luechers who are believed to be involved in the war in Iraq which is no where near St. Andrews. One called him a Jap tourist to protect the elite friends of Palmer, Uber, Clint and the boys who are running Pebble down the tubes and want to say all is better now than when the japs ran it.(WRONG). If you say anything enough, people will believe it, right Rummy! In fact it was an American who hoped off a tour bus to make this most poor of swings on the first hole. Only an American would not be able to tell that was the 18th green for he never sees a natural green and thought it was closely mowed fairway. He is a member of a Rees Jones course and his friends play at an Art Hills club in Naples so this is to be understood. As for the Super. Americans in tour buses are soon to be the death of him. He misses the good old days when the little yellow people would take pictures of every sea shell in Hell's bunker. He sees this fool of a man playing off 18 green and he drives down the hill(mound) behind 17 green toward the Tickle Inn. He was getting the first drink of the day. In his fury and to keep his drink from spilling, he inadvertantly drives into the road hole bunker turning the vehical over but never spilling a drop as he cusses the exsistance of every nonstop flight from Newark to Glasgow with American golfers on them.

Hopefully the Management Trust are veiwing this merely as an experiment, and have an eye to remove the dyno tape yardage, when and if the experiment fails. I sense it will fail, and mainly because of the "Walley's" who'll prance around trying to imitate what they see on television. I'm looking for this initiative to increase slow play, not reduce it.

To me, the Old Course experience has always been: go and play by sight and feel; or alternatively, go and play and take a caddie to soak up the atmosphere and tradition.

Goodness, I hope drink carts swooning by are not to follow.