-30 is Good! Can we get comfortable with that?

[JESII]

Believe it or not, this is about architecture...although this may well be the wrong group to ask this question to;


Can we get comfortable with the best players in the world shooting 6, 8 or 10 under par in each round of a four round event?


There's been untold ink and bytes spent blaming the ruling bodies for not acting to shorten the golf ball. This non-action has lead to clubs lengthening their course to protect par just in case the Tour decides to hold an event there.


If you're opposed to a golf ball roll back (or at least able to admit the virtual non-possibility) then what do you do? You have two options that I can see. You prepare a golf course in an extreme manner like Merion for it's US Open a couple years ago...or...you get comfortable with the best players in the world shooting extraordinary scores.


Would 10 under par at Merion have made anyone feel differently about that golf course than you had previously?

[JC Jones]

I wonder if this was discussed when Els shot -31 there?

[Matt Kardash]

I personnallly always find a tournament boring when the scoring is really low. I find the lack of danger really boring as a viewer.

[JLahrman]

As I understand it, the course is very wide because it's usually quite windy. But during the tournament it was unusually calm, so the scores were low.

[Jay Mickle]

Can we get comfortable with the best players in the world shooting 6, 8 or 10 under par in each round of a four round event?

That professional golfers don't do better than that on a regular basis is a bit confounding.  That top track and field athletes can high jump 8", long jump almost across my living room 30', run a marathon a 4:45/mile pace gives me reason to expect that professional golfers could shoot incomprehensible scores.

[JESII]

JC,


Is anyone with a national/international platform saying forget about the ball and accept low scores? All I ever see is we have to roll back the ball to protect our great courses?


Jay,


I think it's because the course can be arbitrarily made more difficult...whereas 8' is 8' and it's there to aim at.


If Augusta had been untouched since 1997 would someone have passed 18 under? Almost without question. Is that a bad thing?

[Peter Pallotta]

Jim - yours is a good question, and a timely one given that the scores were shot on a C&C course. It strikes me that, when we reference the best players in the world, we most often talk about/mean that they hit the ball a long way. We rarely seem to mention that they know their own games very well, and that they "play the architecture" in relation to their games very smartly indeed. From where I sit, one of the key reasons we get -30 scores, especially on a wide and strategic golf course with big, cool greens, is that golfers like Jordan Speith understand better than most the best lines of play and the best angles of approach and the best options/choices and the best green/green-side misses for their own games, and can execute better and more consistently than anyone in the world that game plan, shot after shot, hole after hole, round after round. So: to your question: why is there so much hand-wringing (and I've done more than my share) about low scores when a) the alternative seems to be the Merion set-up, which to me was a no-where-land course, neither fish nor fowl, and b) these low scores are and can be shot on a course (and would be shot on many/most of the great Top 10 modern courses built in the last 20 years) that provide for the rest of the golfing world exactly the challenges and fun and interest and beauty we all (rightly) praise and cherish?  I wonder sometimes if it isn't simply a few of the deadly sins that we're guilty of and that drives said hand-wringing, i.e. pride, envy, sloth, and covetousness.
Peter   

[John Kavanaugh]

It was a fake ass par 73. -18 would still be a great score.

[Adrian_Stiff]

Most of the time these courses are Par 76 measuring them at the 251 is a par 4 and 476 is a par 5, they are tricked up to hell as well so a -15 is really a -39. Many of these players would be PLUS TEN handicap on the UK method.


I have gone off watching golf other than the majors, the one at Sawgrass and a couple of European events, I find the PGA tour and China courses very dull and they just throw their second shots into the greens that stop dead or spin back. It is not exciting to watch somebody spend two minutes over a putt.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Jim,


YES.


-10 per round would indicate that the architectural features are not functioning as intended at Merion.


Let's not forget that while some "Golden Age" architects incorporated elasticity in their designs, I doubt that any of them contemplated the distance and trajectory that the ball travels today.


Architects tend to design in a contemporaneous context.


C&C, Doak and other current day architects aren't designing today's courses with the understanding that they'll need to be 8,500-9,000 yards 100 years from now.


8, 9 and 10 under par over 4 rounds is indicative that the challenge isn't commensurate with the ability of the contestants.


For you, me and the bulk of the golf world the current course presents a challenge that meets or exceeds our abilities.


But, for the PGA Tour Pro, absent gimmickerie, Merion doesn't present a commensurate  challenge

[JESII]

Pat, I may have laid out that post poorly.


I was asking about 6, 8 or 10 under par for the Tour guys on a per round basis at a regular stop...so total scores in the 20's to 30's under par.


Regarding Merion, I was asking about a total 72 hole winning score of 10 under par.


Does that change your answer?


I would agree that shooting 10 under par per round in our US Open at one of our greatest courses would be a problem...I just don't see that happening at Merion.

[Jason Topp]

Whether the tournament produces interesting shots is the paramount consideration.  From that perspective, I have no problem with someone shooting 30 under.

Even though course conditions were not ideal (soft and lack of wind) the Kaapalua tournament shows more interesting shots than your average month of tour events.  How often do you watch a ball roll out like you do on 7 green?  How often do you see someone use a hybrid to run a ball through Bermuda grass at this level?  How about that shot by Brooks Koepka on 6 where he hit a grounder boomerang to 10 feet? 

I think the Merion question is a bit different.  To my mind, the US Open should produce a complete examination of the physical and mental quality of the competitor's game.  Assuming it is too short to present such a test, it loses something if it does not do so.  I am less comfortable in that context.


 

[Peter Pallotta]

Based on my post above, here's a theory (which I think has some merit): the sooner we here and the media and the ruling bodies of golf can accept, without grumbling, -6 a round as the new normal for the best players in the world on the world's best courses, the sooner will we all be doing quality golf course architecture (and wonderful courses both classic and modern) a great favour and a great service.


When the collective begins to embrace that, regardless of the causes (e.g. club and ball technology and/or talent), these kind of scores by great golfers don't reflect/characterize a failure of architecture and/or of maintenance practices, only then will the self-created pressure lessen on committee members (at old classic clubs) and developers (of new high profile courses) to renovate or build courses that are 7600 yards long and/or with very narrow fairways and/or have greens running at 13.


Few entrepreneurs (in truth) have all that much "vision", and few in the media have all that much "imagination" and few committee members have all that much "fortitude" - and none are full or "convictions" or are going to "fall on the swords" over a matter of principle. Only when the collective says it's okay and nothing to be ashamed of to have great players shoot very low scores, even on the very best courses in the world, will clients and writers and club members knock off trying to keep up with the Jones.   

[Thomas Dai]

As I understand it the card was par 73 with 4 x par-5's playing at 520 yds, 530 yds, 550 yds and the super downhill 18th at 660 yds. So no real par-5's then, therefore remove 16 shots (4 shots x 4 rounds) from the winning score and that changes the winning score to - 14.


Then take the par-3's and par-4's and ask what clubs were being hit for the par-3 tee shots and the par-4 approach shots, eg par-3 11th wedges/9-irons. Many low handicapper posters on here, who don't even play particularly frequently, will make a few birdies when they're hitting wedges and short/mid irons into greens from wide fairways and the players we see on TV are extra-super talanted, have all the best equipment and coaching, caddies, precise yardage and green contour details, play and especially practice like hell, are mostly super fit and in many cases haven't done much else other than play golf since they were kids, hence their bloody good and should score lights out.


Rant over (for now )!


Atb

[JESII]

Thomas...that's really the heart of my question. Why would you change par on those holes simply to make the winning score relative to par worse? I think I'm good with 30 under par...although I'm not a member at Kapalua...

[David_Tepper]

Forget Spieth's -30 score. What is far more noteworthy is that he won the event by 8 shots. It wasn't that the course was easy, his play made it look easy.

[Joe Hancock]

I don't think any course should continually change for THEM(being the PGA Tour pro's). As long as the PGA Tour guys are all playing the same, reasonably set-up course, then it doesn't matter to me, as a spectator, that they shoot lights out. Elasticity for the top .003%? I don't think so....

[MCirba]

What was tricked up at Merion?  My lord, the course could not have played softer with all the rains, the 12th green was neutered, the 15th built up, and the rough was quite playable.

[Kalen Braley]

only 5 guys went -20 or lower, 4 of them no better than -22.

Spieth is the "greater than 2 SDs from the mean"guy....he's just an outlier and as such his data point can be tossed! 

P.S. Turns out the mean was -12.7 for the tourney with a SD of 6.8...so he was more than 2.5 SDs from the mean....which puts him in a statistically small range.

[John Kirk]

Sales of "driving irons" will triple this month, after Spieth's display with that club last weekend.  Ka-ching!

[Ronald Montesano]

What Pete said, in spades.


Merion's fairways were quite narrow, which I believe is what qualifies as "tricked up."


It was a three-iron that he smacked in tight all week, not a driving iron, I'm told.

[John Kavanaugh]

I had the best time this week reading course reviews on golfwrx. Btw. I noticed Speith had a new shaft in his driver this week. Any spy reports?

[Sean_A]

I don't think any course should continually change for THEM(being the PGA Tour pro's). As long as the PGA Tour guys are all playing the same, reasonably set-up course, then it doesn't matter to me, as a spectator, that they shoot lights out. Elasticity for the top .003%? I don't think so....

Si....and I am fine with -10 at Merion.  So fine in fact that I think the club should push the fairways out to the bunkers   Merion would without question be a better course regardless of what the top players in the world can shoot on that set-up...its the right thing to do.


Ciao

[Tim Gavrich]

The winning score this week isn't indicative of a broad trend. Most of the winning scores in this year's Tour events are likely to fall in the normal general range of -8 to -18. Calm conditions on a course with gimme fairways and greens in regulation on a par-73 course are going to make for very low scores relative to par every time.


(Actually, soft conditions caused by El Niņo-related rains in California and Florida this winter may yield slightly lower winning scores than normal...if tournaments end up making it all 72 holes and are not shortened.)



Doom-and-gloomers who have been convinced for the better part of a decade that 8,500-9,000-yard courses are remotely possible in the future are free to continue to do so, even as it becomes more and more clear that technology - both the club and ball - is leveling off.


When -30 wins at Harbour Town and TPC River Highlands every year, maybe there will be cause for the deep concern some hold.

[Tom Allen]

wrong topic-deleted