Kelly Blake Moran,
I think you have to seperate existing from future courses.
I don't know of any existing course that would alter their fairway contours to present a challenge to great players for four days out of the year, leaving their members to deal with those conditions the other 361 days of the year.
One of my points was that rough no longer constitutes a scoring impediment when golfers are hitting the ball great distances and leaving themselves Lob wedges and Sand Wedges into the greens.
While my travels have been limited, I' haven't seen or heard of one renovation-modernization where center line bunkers and diagonal cross bunkering was added to the golf course.
It's counter to the golf culture in the U.S.
And, when you introduce features other than rough, those features have to interface, in a non-penal way, with the members the other 361 days of the year.
It may be that:
1 New Championship courses should be designed for the
sole or primary purpose of hosting Championships.
2 The I&B should be rolled back.
3 The penal nature of golf should be reinstituted through
design efforts to old and new golf courses.
Jim Kennedy,
I've been playing with a group of about 16-20 fellows for the last 40 years, Their handicaps and games are very diverse.
A drive that carries 200 yards is a big drive for most people, and probably beyond the reach of 99 % of woman golfers.
In addition, your premise would imply perfection on every shot for the mediocre to poor golfer. They don't hit it dead solid perfect with 200 yard carry drives and 175 yard carry 5 woods. They mis-hit their drives and their second shots, thus penal features in the 300-360 range can adversely affect their games, and pace of play on the golf course.
Rough, it's narrowing and expansion might not be so bad if the rough was restored to its pre-competition configuration.
But, we all know that everyone wants to play the same golf course that the best players in the world play, and thus, courses are rarely returned to their pre-tournament configuration.
A rollback of the I&B seems the most prudent choice.