TOC: the Case for the Prosecution

[TEPaul]

Sean:

Golf carts may be the worst thing that ever happened to golf, but I'll tell you right now, mats on golf courses are just as bad or at the very least a photo-finish close second!!

[Rich Goodale]

Don't be so hasty, Tom.

The Miss Lonelyputts Top Ten reasons in favour of playing with mats on the Old Course.

10. Off a mat, you might finally get to feel what it's like to put spin on the ball.
9.  You can always kick your ball into the light rough and play from there
8.  Mat manufacturing is one of the most important industries in North East Fife
7.  Mats are recyclable whereas divots are not
6.  If you get "caught out" on the course, using a mat is preferable to the leaves of a gorse bush
5.  It's almost impossible to whiff a long approach putt if you are playing off a mat
4.  No cuppy lies on mats
3.  If your opponent has lost his mat you can claim the hole, or even the match
2.  Old Tom Morris invented the mat
1.  If you are playing on a mat, you are playing golf, and not locked by your computer trying to create meaningless GCA threads in the 4-5 months Stygian doom and gloom that is Winter in Philadelphia.

[Mark Pearce]

It's no damn difference than going to bed with a life-sized plastic doll of Heidi Klum!  

Is that an informed opinion?

[Tony_Muldoon]

It's no damn difference than going to bed with a life-sized plastic doll of Heidi Klum!  

Is that an informed opinion?

No, he's never played TOC.

[Chris Kane]

The mats are nowhere near as bad as some like to think, especially those who haven't used them before.  I played a lot of golf with mats at St Andrews, and I can't say the experience was significantly diminished.

[Marty Bonnar]

4 months of the year on mats on TOC and 4 months of the year Kingsbarns is closed. East coast Scotland annual rainfall: Among the least in the UK. East Coast Scotland Frost days: Among the least in the UK. Dismal.

Maximising ROI is obviously the LAST thing on the minds of St Andrews golf operators.  

On the plus side, though, this is the first FBD thread in a goodly long while that has run to 3 pages. So I got that goin' for me.

F.

[Adrian_Stiff]

The mats are nowhere near as bad as some like to think, especially those who haven't used them before.  I played a lot of golf with mats at St Andrews, and I can't say the experience was significantly diminished.

I think a lot more UK courses could start using mats in the winter espcially if global warming continues. Firstly you have to understand the grass hardly grows in the winter over here so any wear can be quite damaging because recovery rates are poor. I spoke to a greenkeeper who believed a round of golf in January did 12 times the damage of a July round in the UK and I can see his point. Mats are not a bad thing if primarily you want to protect the course and in some respects better to strike a ball off a mat than an old divot or soggy fairway. Mats are common practice at courses that have a big tournament in say 10 weeks time, perhaps a compriomise could be to ask golfers to actually tee the ball up in order to reduce divot damage.

[Garland Bayley]

It's no damn difference than going to bed with a life-sized plastic doll of Heidi Klum!  

Is that an informed opinion?

No, it's second hand information from his friend Mucci.
 

[Doug Siebert]

But the cretins at the Links Trust only charge something like $100 during the winter.  How can you complain about that?  Why did it take two pages for someone to come up with the dreaded mats?  This is surely a LARGE tick against the ole gal.

The mats suck I'm sure but at least they are open during those months.

Anyone complains too loudly about the mats might want to ask themselves whether Pine Valley be dropped from its #1 ranking because they won't let its members out on the course during a nice winter day, even with mats!