[Tim Gavrich]

http://www.golfdigest.com/golf-tours-news/blogs/local-knowledge/2011/03/introducing-the-golf-digest-w-i-d-e-open.html

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Ever wonder what you'd shoot if the golf hole were a lot larger? Now's your chance to find out.  This Thursday, March 10, Golf Digest is holding the first ever W I D E Open Championship at historic Pine Needles Resort in Southern Pines, North Carolina.

The 18-hole event will feature holes created with a specially designed cutter that measure 15-inches in diameter. That's more than three times the diameter of a standard golf hole and only slightly smaller than a basketball hoop.

The holes at Pine Needles will be noticeably wider on Thursday for the Golf Digest Wide Open Championship.

The competition was inspired by recent comments from Taylor Made CEO Mark King, who suggested using 15-inch holes as a way to make golf more fun and appealing to newcomers. Intrigued by the idea, Golf Digest Editor-in-Chief Jerry Tarde created Thursday's W I D E Open event to measure how fun experienced players -- from club pros to scratch golfers to high handicappers -- would have on such a course set-up.

How much fun do you think you'd have? Would you shoot your best score? Would you chip in from off the green multiple times? Would anything under a 10-foot putt become essentially a gimme? There's only one way to know: Come to Pine Needles Resort on Thursday, March 10, and play in the event yourself.

Photos and a feature article about the event will appear in Golf Digest's June issue.

Cost is $100 a person, including lunch. There will be prizes in net and gross divisions. Tee times are going fast! To sign up, call the Pine Needles pro shop at 910-692-8611 and say you want to play in Thursday's W I D E Open Championship.

-- Peter Finch

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Thoughts on this?  It's an interesting idea but it would seem to remove a lot of the skill involved in putting.  We played Pine Needles in our second tournament of the Spring last week and I think that a lot of the interest of the course will be removed due to the greens being made a lot easier.  Nonetheless, should be interesting to read about the comments and experiences of the participants.

--Tim

[Mike Hendren]

Back in the 80's there was a company that managed golf courses and had two cups cut on each hole - I recall playing a muni in south Dallas that featured this.    The primary benefit of the large cup is the ability to essentially take the break out of putts by hitting them firmly as the ball is unlikely to lip out against the back of the cup.  

It ain't golf, but it's fun.

Bogey

[jeffwarne]

Better idea-any ball that ends up on the green is considered in the hole (or you could excavate the entire green and make it a cup)
that'd really be fun.

Check that-if you hit the golf course, it's an ace.

[Mark Saltzman]

I'm not sure making the hole bigger will achieve the goal of making golf "more appealing to newcomers."  In my experience, it is not putting that makes golf either appealing or not to beginners.  They are largely interested in 'hitting the ball.'  If it takes a beginner five shots to reach a green on a par 4, they will be frustrated whether or not they are able to one, two or three-putt.

[Kyle Harris]

Marking the target bigger is not an innovative way to make the game easier.

It is, however, a fairly self-evident way to make the game easier.

[SL_Solow]

As I recall from some reading, back in the 30's, Sarazen lobbied for a larger hole to reduce the premium on putting.  An experimental tournament was held with larger cups.  Sarazen concluded that this "innovation" only extended the "throw - up" zone.  Instead of sweating over 3-5 footers, 10-12 footers became routine for the Horton Smiths and knee knockers for the Sarazens.  In any event the premise is largely faulty.  Golfers who quit are most likely frustrated by their inability to hit the ball well as opposed to an inability to roll it in or near to the hole.  The time and expense to play are also factors that won't be impacted by this supposed solution.   In the meantime, the game has been tampered with in a meaningful way.

[JR Potts]

A 15 inch hole, as suggested here, would make for some really fun pinnable locations?  With a 15 inch hole, would there be an "unfair" pin position.

This sounds like it would be fun for a day.

[Anthony_Nysse]

When I was growing up, a few of the local public clubs in the spring and fall had an even called "The Big Hole" scramble tournament with a 14" hole. Birdie was the norm for most holes with -20 winningma ny times. It's a nice change of pace and it makes putting more fun.

[JC Jones]

Is the hole deeper or just wider?

[jeffwarne]

When I was growing up, a few of the local public clubs in the spring and fall had an even called "The Big Hole" scramble tournament with a 14" hole. Birdie was the norm for most holes with -20 winningma ny times. It's a nice change of pace and it makes putting more fun.

events like that are fun-(i've played in events with mini cups too)  just not an innovative way to get people to "not quit" the game.
I would venture that people who quit golf solely because "it's too hard" have quit a lot of things.
That's what makes being a golfer special-it is a difficult game that mirrors life-and it is a game for a lifetime.
It's not for everyone (it's just that no one told the NGF)

[Steve_ Shaffer]

Was it Hogan who said that putting isn't golf and should only count for 1/2 stroke?

[David Kelly]

When the powers that be start to question the very fundamental rules of the game I am begining to think that the long death spiral of golf has begun.

BTW, I know plenty of neophyte golfers who quit the game because hitting the ball was too hard but I can't think of anyone I know who quit because putting was no fun.

[Carl Nichols]

Would your strategy on many holes change if the cup was bigger?  I suppose there might be some holes where you would consider playing more conservatively, on the theory that if you're anywhere on the green you have a pretty good chance of making the putt, but it seems like on most holes you'd still play pretty similarly.

Take 13 at Augusta as an example.  Whatever the size of the cup, you're much more likely to make eagle if you go for the green in 2, which is true today.  I suppose you might be willing to play to a safer part of the green and take your chances with a longer putt -- but that's already a choice players make right now, depending on how short of an eagle putt they would like.  You could spin the strategies out some more, but it doesn't seem like it really would affect the strategy that much, especially because everyone else would be playing with the same size hole.

[Steve_ Shaffer]

Hitting a golf ball and putting have nothing in common. They're two different games. You work all your life to perfect a repeating swing that will get you to the greens, and then you have to try to do something that is totally unrelated. There shouldn't be any cups, just flag sticks. And then the man who hit the most fairways and greens and got closest to the pins would be the tournament winner.
 - Ben Hogan

[David Kelly]

I've read Hogan's opinion for years but it doesn't make sense because the object of the game is to get the ball in the cup in the fewest strokes possible, not to get the closest to a target with an approach shot.

[Steve Kline]

Hogan was a bad putter. Enough said on that.

I ,ove the Pine Needles golf course, but I ,ost some respect for the. In doing this. If they want to improve the game they should do the following:

Give any one finishing their round in 3 hours or less a 25-50% discount ( redeemable after the round) and make everyone leave the golf course - no matter where they are a certain period of time, say 3.5 hours.

If the game was faster and cheaper more people would play.

Why doesn't a course do my idea of a discount if you play your round in a certain time? I think more people would tey to play faster when there was a tangible benefit to them.

[Carl Nichols]

Steve-
One problem is that you often don't have full control over how fast you play. If I show up somewhere with the 9th tee time thinking I'll get a discount because I play fast, but the guys in one of the front of me are slow and don't care, then I'm depending on the course to ensure a 3 hour round....which seems unlikely, especially because then they don't end up giving any refunds.

[mike_beene]

to be fair to Pine Needles,which I believe is the most underrated course I know,I have never seen a round take four hours. maybe I have been lucky. and they have push carts. I am afraid the bigger hole takes the premium on a good short game away.Just be semi accurate and you won't have to worry about speed.If you must mess with the hole go smaller.Speed up play on greens by allowing one mark and then continuous putting.

[Tim Gavrich]

I must say I'm a bit surprised at the uproar over this.  I personally think the game of golf is just about the best thing ever with a 4 1/2" diameter cup, but I'm very interested to hear what people say about the experience on Thursday.  I don't really think anyone expects 15" wide cups to become the norm anytime soon--check that...EVER.  But, Golf Digest's angle with this just seems to be to observe and report on a somewhat radically varied form of golf.  I'm sure there'll be a few people who like it, but my guess is that the overwhelming majority will say, "very interesting, but this renders 12-stimp greens and my $350 putter kind of pointless, so I'll take the old way back, thanks very much."

Just my two cents.

[PThomas]

better solutions imho:

1. build a 4500 yd set of tees on each course

2. encourage/make people play the proper set of tees

3. shoten rough, water less so the ball goes farther, fill in extraneous bunkers, etc...

4. strictly enforce time limits for each round

[Jason Topp]

Bucket cup competitions were pretty common when I was a kid.  I think they were eight inch cups.  They do not change the game as much as you might think. 

I remember being extremely frustrated in the last such event I participated in.  I started to leave putts short by the end of the round.  It was a good sign I was never going to play golf for a living.

[JC Jones]

People enjoy putting.  Why do you think mini-golf is so popular?  This is the last thing golf needs - for people, particularly the most viewed magazine, to start questioning the basic way the game is played.

To me this seems like a bunch of people who are avid golfers and members of the busines sitting around projecting their inadequacies on the game of golf.  These guys obviously take ball striking for granted, which is really what keeps people away from playing golf.

[Ryan Farrow]

Any new/different idea is a good idea......

I think its a great Idea to it every once and a while..... I think beginners will like it as they can actually make a putt over 3 feet..... You don't think a 10 year old would enjoy making a 30 foot putt?

Are you guys insane......





Also, adding strict time limit could be the biggest anti-fun move one could make.... Beginners would just love to be pressured hole after hole to "move it along" or "pick it up & move to the next hole"....

[PCCraig]

Why anyone would want to ruin a perfectly good round at Pine Needles doing something goofy like this is beyond me.

[Brent Hutto]

I have played in groups where nobody putts out from 15" anyway. So you could play the same game as this Pine Needles event by just considering gimme putts to have gone in the hole, right? Next time you play in a Nassau inside of "inside the leather" meaning the next putt is good, count "inside the leather" as being in the hole.

I don't see that being a very popular way to play your friendly Nassau. And would not save any time at all relative to the usual concession of short putts. I've no problem at all with a course doing a one-off like this as a publicity stunt but let's not pretend it's an improvement on the game. By that reckoning the game could be "improved" by simple writing down a score 18 stroke less than what you actually made.

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