The downward slide nearly always begins with a group of hubris infested low-handicappers getting control of the Green Committee. Then, all you need is a weak president of the club, retarded sheep on the membership roles, a Superintendent afraid for his job and voila’, you get Butler National.
I don’t have a huge objection to the construction of new back tees if that sort of masochism makes the plus-men happy – I just don’t want to be compelled to trudge back and pretend that my penis is long enough to reach the fairway.
So, as long as they are not obtrusive or eliminate 80% of the field in the club championship, the trouble is not with new tees. In my view, it begins when the rough suddenly begins to look like Abbie Hoffman’s hair and the fairways get skinnier than a bulimic supermodel.
It is a mystery to me why setting up the golf course to appeal to 5% of the club does not more often result in an insurrection and overthrow of the (ir)responsible parties.
This is tangential in some measure, but having fought arthritis in my hands for the past ten years, I cannot imagine how elderly players even get around a golf course like Oakmont without hurting themselves. And why don’t they ask the golf course be kept reasonable between major championships?
All that Pittsburgh tough guy horsesh*t aside, once you get up there in age a little bit, what is the point in beating yourself senseless for 18 holes? Is walking off the last green exhausted fun?
You want to play Butler National or Shoreacres? Balturol Lower or Piping Rock? I don't want to be horsewhipped 18 times and am certain neither do the vast majority of the club members in America.
I've played many many courses in the U.K. and they seem to have far more sense and perspective than we do on this subject. Carnoustie is hard, that is for sure, but it does not beat you with deep grass and putting surfaces on the edge of death.
What is the matter with everybody, is it a fear of being emasculated in the eyes of their peers? We are quickly losing sight of the basic precept that golf is supposed to be enjoyable and not simply a contest to establish who possesses the most brute strength.
Yet, the sheep go along with it because nobody wants to point out the emperor not only has no clothes, but is making decisions for a tiny percentage of players who are still pissed they missed the qualifier at the State Am and want to prove to everybody they belong with the Randy Haigs or Trip Kuehnes of the world.
But they don’t, so they inflict their vacant machismo on the rest of the players in the club and pretend that because Bushwood down the street has a tougher course rating, they must have better players and prettier wives and more status.
So, in order to rectify this horrible disparity, it is necessary to grow the rough and add a bunch of bunkers and forced carries to prove who has the biggest set of juevos in this nuclear arms race.
If I were king, my first move in golf would be to cut all the rough to the tree lines at every single course in America. You want to speed up play? Start there. Only an idiot finds joy in hacking their ball out of the cabbage back into the fairway.
Even those years when I was a legit 2, I could never understand the tendency of good players towards self-flagellation. If you like S&M so much, the Power Exchange in San Francisco (
www.powerexchange.com) will be pleased to accommodate you, but from a golf standpoint, I want to have the opportunity to hit a recovery shot – something 90% of the players cannot do buried in the grass.
Now that I officially stink, I find ridiculously difficult set-ups offensive and an affront to the very reason we play the game.
It is just more preaching to the choir, but the same jackasses who want to make a hard course impossible are also the dummies who think a Stimp Meter measures the quality of their greens.
Of course, the Superintendent has two kids in college and will never dare to point out the putting surfaces will have to be flattened (or be unplayable) if the Green Chairman gets his way and they roll at 12 or 13 for everyday play - not just for the Invitational or Club Championship.
So in answer to the original question, I do not believe the vast majority of members want to make their course harder – notice I did not say more interesting – but harder. It is the low-handicap leadership who con everybody into signing off on something that is going to shorten their golfing lives and create an obstacle course.
But how often are the rank and file afraid to question the word of one of their crack players? Ooooooooh, Joe Slick is a two handicap and was once a quarterfinalist in the County Amateur, so he must know better than any of the mid-handicappers who actually play the game for enjoyment.
Yet nobody dares to speak up, so the train keeps barreling down the tracks . . . . . the only hope for the club is a group of members who contribute to this website and can argue in a cogent fashion why it would be best for Joe Slick and his coterie of big shots to resign and join the masochists at Bushwood.