Geoff Shackelford's blog featured a new interview with Steve Smyers, in "Greenhouse Management & Production Magazine online." I looked, and it appeared (I hope!?!) that no one else had started a thread on this subject, and the Steve Smyers interview.
Link:
http://www.gmpromagazine.com/Article.aspx?article_id=107215Much of what Steve Smyers says is admirable. I would dearly love a chance to play Old Memorial someday. Indeed, I'd feel privileged to see much more of his architecture in the years to come.
But some of what he says, is frankly infuriating. He should be called to task. To wit:
Okay, let’s open this can of worms. You’re in the interesting but perhaps unenviable position of being a USGA leader on dealing with equipment technology issues and being responsive to your fellow architects and others who are demanding some kind of restrictions on distance to protect the integrity of old courses. How do you handle that?
When I first got involved, I was so traditional and very enamored of all the great long iron shots I’d seen in major championships over the years. The 1-iron Nicklaus hit at the Masters. Faldo’s shot at Muirfield in ‘92. Watson in ‘82 at Troon hitting a 2-iron on the 72nd hole. When I played, the most exhilarating shots were with long irons into par 4s. Donald Ross said a great course will challenge a great player to hit long irons into two-shot holes. I was concerned we were losing that spirit because of the newer equipment.
But as I got into it, I realized that as an architect, it wasn’t my job to say if that (technology) was good or bad. It was my job to deal with it. It’s like maintenance. When I first got into golf, fairways were mowed at an inch and greens probably rolled about 4 on the Stimpmeter. Compare that to what superintendents do today. It’s not bad or good, it’s just the reality of modern maintenance.
The fact is that as the game has evolved, we gained more understanding of the biomechanics of the body and the physics of things and manufacturers have used that and taken advantage of modern maintenance practices to give players more distance. As a designer, I can’t complain about this, I have to deal with it. Part of my job (on the USGA board) is to help my fellow architects understand how to deal with it too.
Steve Smyers might feel that "as an architect," it is not his "job" to comment on technology. I'd say it
is his "job," insofar as he has one with the USGA, to answer for the lack of regulation and especially the complete lack of innovative solutions to the problems of golf equipment technology.
As for agronomy, that's certainly a subject worth discussing. Whether greens speeds are too fast and too destructive to turf. Whether we rely too much on extremely fast greens as a defense of courses. Yeah, that's certainly a discussion worth having. It doesn't get technology off the hook, nor reduce it as a problem.
And please.. "biomechanics"? Are we going to get into the business of how "fitness" is the culprit behind 360-yard drives? When the 360-yard drivers are those paragons of fitness, Phil Mickelson, JB Homes, Bubba Watson, Carl Petterson and John Daly? That's a bowling team, not a gymnastics team.
What about the great courses that become obsolete as championship venues?
Well first, there are a lot of (classic) courses that people are convinced can’t be lengthened. They can. Merion is a perfect example.
Second, it amazes me that people blame everything that’s wrong with the game today on the golf ball and club technology. I don’t’ reject that’s been part of the problem, but there are other things that have changed us more. Number one, simply put, is the lawnmower. Maintenance technology and science has had a vastly bigger impact on the game and on courses than equipment. (PGA Tour player) Brandon Chambliss said not too long ago that old architecture and modern maintenance go together like oil and water. I agree.
Finally, consider that driving distance on all tours worldwide has been stable since 2002. I believe technology from a distance perspective is now absolutely stable. The bigger unknown is a modern-day athlete. I have a 17-year old who’s really good. I see his talent level and think about elite players in the future and I marvel at where they might be 30 years ago. Tiger was the first who really trained…now they all do it.
When a lot of these great old courses were built in the ‘20s, the players had different statures. Even guys like Hogan were only 5’ 7” or so. The equipment then kind of dictated that smaller guys excelled. Our knowledge of the swing, the biomechanics and, of course, maintenance practices were totally different. Blaming all the golf world’s ills on clubs and balls is just silly.
Geoff Shackelford ridiculed Steve Smyers for the "Brandon Chambliss" reference. It might have easily been a transcritption error from the tape of the interview. I hope that Steve Smyers knows who Brandel Chamblee is, and that it was a transcriptionist who has never seen the Golf Channel who made the mistake. That is up to Steve Smyers and the magazine to sort out.
But Steve Smyers doesn't get off so easy.
I am sorry: I don't buy it. I do not accept that, "Maintenance technology and science has had a vastly bigger impact on the game and on courses than equipment." No, sir.
It's hardly consistent with Mr. Smyers' next statement, that distance has remained flat ("stable" was Mr. Smyers' word) since 2002. Has player fitness flattened? Has agronomy suddenly flattened? I can tell you what has flattened; the Pro V1. Since 2002, the Pro V's formulation has remained pretty much the same. "Stable."* The biggest jumps in distance gains have occurred specifically in relation to changes in, and changes in usage of, the Pro V1 and its urehtane-covered siblings. Period. Full stop.
So it is not at all "silly" to "blame" many golf course architectural problems and issues on golf equipment technology in general and golf ball technology in particular. It IS silly, I submit, to "blame" fitness or golf course argonomy. Which is what Steve Smyers seems all too willing to do.
So my open letter to Steve Smyers; wouldn't you be better off, if you encouraged all architects and superintendents to build and maintain courses that are affordable, easy to maintain and best personify the spirit of the game as you seem to genuinely understand it? Extremely-fast greens ought not to be used to combat golf ball distance. Courses should not be water-saoked. Of course, the firmer and faster that golf courses get, the more that uncontrolled technology-distance becomes a problem. If you have (as you say) bigger, better-trained athletes playing golf, on firmer and faster golf courses, all of which is putting pressure on "distance," wouldn't the best thing, the easiest thing and the clearest thing to do, would be to roll back the one thnig that is the cheapest, most fungible and least-memorable thing in all of golf;
the ball?
*Edited, to note that while there have been many reformulations of the Pro V1 since 2002, those reformulations have not been substantial improvements. For those who are not cognoscenti of equipment on Tour, you should be aware that the changes in Pro V formulations that we have seen every 12 to 18 months have been all about tradeoffs; more spin, less spin. Softer feel, harder feel. Slightly higher flighting, slightly lower flighting. There are dozens of Tour players, under contract to Titleist, who currently play with past models of the Pro V1; Titleist supplies them with boxes of the "2005 Pro V1x" or the "2007 Pro V1..." And yeah, since 2002, there haven't been any big breakthroughs in Pro V1 formulation. So no big changes in Tour driver-distance stats. (Even though Tour-level courses keep getting more and more tricked up to try to rein in driver distance.) Is Steve Smyers content to wait and play catch-up when the next technology advance occurs? And is he in fact citing us to 2002 simply because that's the date of the Joint Statement of Principles on equipment technology? You know, the one wherein the USGA and the R&A finally agreed that any further technologically-produced distance gains would be unacceptable?