Augusta: A short 7300 yards!

[Dunlop_White]

Everyone has wanted the course to play firm and fast. Well, it did this year. The ball was bouncing and rolling. Plus, golf technology, has provided a most powerful punch.........  Even with the additional yardage at Augusta, many holes played shorter than they did just three years ago before many tees were substantially moved back.

Check out the average driving distances of 300+ yards.... even though many players preferred using 3 woods around the course for placement. It was devastating.

On Hole 3, when the pin was back, the strategy was to drive the bunkers and leave 50 feet of green to work with for the pitch shot to the rear. I remember 3 years ago the talk was that Daly and Woods almost drove this green. This year, everyone almost drove it. While I was there, Craig Stadler, had the best drive. He was merely 10 yards short.

In 1998, Nicklaus made two duces on Hole 5 with a five iron. Remarkable! The tee has been moved back 30 yards and redirected to the right. Nicklaus is 6 years older now, and he hit a 7 iron into this green. Most were hitting 9 irons.

I saw Jay Haas hit a 8 iron into Hole 15. They were upset when Tiger was using an 8 iron, now Jay Haas and others are.

Hole 17: Two years ago, Ben Crenshaw, most upset about the additional length on Hole 17, said that the green was not meant to hold long iron approaches. But even with an additional 75 yards added, they are still left with 115+ yard approaches.

[BCrosby]

Dunlop -

I noticed too.

We did an exercise a couple of months ago. Using 1985 as your starting point, everyone is hitting in about 10% farther now.

Medium/long courses in 1985 were 7000 yards.

To make ANGC to play today as a medium/long course did in 1985, it would have to be stretched to 7700 yards.

Does that yardage sound as crazy to you as it does to me?

That is the architectural price we are paying for the new technology. With today's pro game, 7300 yards IS short.

Bob

P.S. You can flip the '85 comparison around. ANGC at 7300 yards is playing like a course of about 6600 yards in 1985. With some exceptions (Merion comes to mind), people in 1985 generally thought that courses that short were not fit for a major tournament.

[Lynn_Shackelford]

This is what I noticed most yesterday also.  I don't want to go down the path of whether the club's changes are positive or not.  But it is clear that yesterday something was different.  Much is probably the firm fairways, but weren't they hitting 7 and 8 irons to the 16th?  Nicklaus hit 5 iron in 1986.  Tiger hit 9 to #12 and others hit 8 irons.  Weren't the tees moved up dramatically for the final round?  No complaining, the old Masters appeared and we all loved it.  But I think old Will Nicholson has been reading some of journalism's critics that the fun had gone out of the back nine.  Also the easier Sunday hole placements for #8, #14 allowed for better scores.  That had to be intentional.
It is good for golf, the game looks fun again.

[Carlyle Rood]

Ten years ago, my 9-iron had the loft of my current wedge.  There have been tremendous advances in technology, both in equipment and golf balls.  But they've also changed our vocabulary by manipulating the lofts of our irons and "woods."  Consequently, I've begun to focus more on the behavior of the shots played rather than the instruments used to execute them.

[BCrosby]

Lynn -

I too would like to hear more about the tees on Sunday. I was travelling and didn't see it, but I've heard from some reliable sources that the tees were moved up on 13, 14, 17 and 18.

Is that right?

Bob

[ChrisHervochon]

In my opinion, 7700 yards is not all that long when the ball is bouncing and rolling on the fairways a significant amount.  My pro played in the PGA Tour event in Pennsylvania, and when he returned he said that the first two days he played with two of the guys in the top 10 in driving distance, and was blowing it by them.  This is a man that probably flies the ball 280 or 290, and he said he was hitting it past them by a good 20 yards.  That means his drives were going at least 330 or so.  Now, when you are getting 30-50 yards of roll, that's about 15-20% of the distance the overall shot is traveling.  I am by no means a short hitter, and hit it about 280 on average with very little roll on any of the golf courses I play.  I played a golf course recently with firm fairways, and watched the ball bound for what was seemingly forever; averaging very long off the tee.  My point is, how long would we all hit it if we played golf courses that were set up as good as courses on Tour or the Masters?  Better yet, how many more times would we get up and down out of bunkers, and how many more putts would we make?  Bunkers on tour are not what us regular folks hit out of.  Point being, I am not so sure we would mind playing golf courses like that all the time if we too were hitting it further, and surely a good deal of that yardage is in the par 5's as well.

Cheers,

[BCrosby]

Chris -

There is no question in my mind that 7700 yards (or longer) is an appropriate yardage for pro events these days. Anything less is a punching bag for the big boys.

What strikes me as crazy about that yardage is that it makes no sense for regular players. Even very good regular players. It's off the planet crazy for players like us.

That wasn't the case in 1985. 7000 yard courses then were hard but playable for good amateurs. 7700 yards is not even remotely playable by the today's single digit club player.

What this proves is how completely, thoroughly, absolutely and unquestionably the game is bifurcated. It has happened.

USGA protestations to the contrary notwithstanding.

Bob    

[ChrisHervochon]

BCrosby -

You don't think that 7700 yards would be playable for a low single digit handicap if they were getting 40 yards off roll on every tee shot?  By my estimation, suppose that we on average are getting 10 yards on our home courses, that increase in roll shortens the golf course in itself by 420 yards.  With that, add another 150-200 yards or so just in par 5's; which would just mean that you're hitting a 7-iron or so in instead of a wedge.  Put in that respect I think you're in that ballpark at that point, or am I way off base?

Cheers,

[Bill_McBride]

The genius of the MacKenzie design at Augusta (or what's left of it) is that the greens can protect par better than length by where the pins are cut.  They had pins cut at #8, #13, #14, #15 not necessarily in the Sunday spots but where the scoring would be lowest.  This definitely put the old Sunday excitement back into the back nine.  They were throwing up on themselves with some of the front nine holes.  Tuck the pins on the back nine and the 31's and 32's would be a distant memory.  7700 or 6920 yards (like in the good old days!).

[BCrosby]

Chris -

Under limited, ideal firm and fast conditions, 7700 might be playable by very strong amateurs. Don't know; I'll give you the benefit of the doubt. But those conditions wouldn't exist very often. For the other 99.5% of the time, they would be stuck with a course they couldn't handle.

I play with a group of low handicappers. Our course at 6900 yards is plenty long. No one complains about a lack of length. Adding 400 yards would be crazy. Adding 800 yards would be unthinkable.

But the pro's - if we want to see them hit mid-irons into par 4's - ought to be required to play that extra 800 yards. A 7300 yard course is not long for them.

It is, in fact, short.

And that, in concrete numbers, is what "bifurcation of the game" means.

Bob  

[Dunlop_White]

Bill McBride,

You are exactly right....much of the low scores and heroics on Sunday was directly related to accessable pin locations just as the higher scores on the previous 3 days had alot to do with inaccessable pins, regardless of the length.

Bob,

The talent gap between the amateur and the pro simply keeps getting greater. Too bad we play the same courses, most of the time. Augusta is an exception.

[johnk]

I think the pin at #15 was basically the same as it was in '01 and '02.  I wouldn't call it "accessible".

#14 and #8 were more accessible than they've been in the past.  

#1 was brutal, #18 was no picnic.  #12 was amazingly hard to get near.  I saw Jakobson, Tiger, O'Meara, Cink, Harrington and others make small mistakes and dunk it.  2 balls stayed up that were to the right of #12.

Classic set up theory is to balance 6-8 hard pins with 6-8 normal pins.

I do think they set some pins to be accessible, but I think overall it was balanced.

[Lynn_Shackelford]

B.Crosby:
You were driving on Masters Sunday and missed the telecast?
Isn't that akin to praising Lincoln in your neck of the woods?

[BCrosby]

Lynn -

It is worse than that.

It is like naming your first born son William Tecumseh . . .

But at least I didn't miss much.

Bob

[gookin]

I walked the entire course on Sunday. The tees were set between 5 and 10 yards from the back of each tee.  In my mind they were all the way back.  Don't kid yourselves this course was set up plenty difficult. Has there ever been more great shots hit in one afternoon? This was a live version of"These guys are good".

[Lynn_Shackelford]

Maybe with Tiger in the back of the pack, they didn't have their usual intimidation.

[Dunlop_White]

Does anyone have some driving stats from Augusta?

Just read that Scott McCarron, Scott Hend, and Chris Couch hit drives of 397, 396 and 393 yards at the Bellsouth Classic.

In all, 31 players in Atlanta last week bettered the year's previous long drive of 367 shared by Hunter Mahan and Jeff Brehaut. Scott Hend averaged 334 for the week, Couch was second at 329. All in cold weather!