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

[jeffwarne]

 These guys are good.

I enjoyed the event.

Par 73 helps.Many similar courses
are fake par 70s.

And yes equipment needs to be regulated /rolled back. But not because these guys shoot low.
Scale , safety, and cost are my reasons.
These guys are athletes and are good.I wonder how many inserts Bubba would break with a real wood.

[Doug Siebert]

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

Shooting 20 something under on an unmodified Augusta wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing. Having most of the leaders reaching 13 and 15 with a wedge or short iron would be. Where's the excitement in that? Not much drama in wondering if they can take a little spin off it to avoid sucking it back into the creek!

[Dave Doxey]

-30, -40, why care? It's just a number.


As equipment is changed, courses will play to lower scores.  Pro scores relative to par have no meaning to the average recreational golfer.  Scores today can in no way be compared to scores posted by pros in the past.  It is a different game.


Changing courses to "protect" par is a wasteful and losing endeavor.  Even when it is done, recreational golfers never play the same course setup and would not enjoy it if they did.


Rollback makes an interesting discussion, but it will never happen.  Equipment manufacturers will never allow it, and money rules.  More gimmicks & gadgets will come along and change the game even more.  We already have adjustable clubs, range finders (now with elevation factoring), smart phone based swing analyzers, hotter balls and clubs.  If there is a dollar to be made, more will follow.  The horse is out of the barn.


Amateur competition is really the only place that this matters and that is a small part of the game. On the high end, pro golf is entertainment.  On the low end, the 98% of golfers who are simply recreational players are largely unaffected by rules and equipment and serve only as a market for the dreams being sold by equipment sellers.

[jeffwarne]

Interesting that 250 used to be Pro drive,280 was Nicklaus, and 300 was freakish, rounds took 3 hours over 4 miles vs 5 hours over
5-7 miles.....and no one ever groaned that we need to "grow the game"
If big equipment makes it so darn "fun", why are less people playing?

[Andrew Carr]

Interesting that 250 used to be Pro drive,280 was Nicklaus, and 300 was freakish, rounds took 3 hours over 4 miles vs 5 hours over
5-7 miles.....and no one ever groaned that we need to "grow the game"
If big equipment makes it so darn "fun", why are less people playing?

What's the emoticon for clapping?

Golf course construction has to be the only business where more material (land) is being used now relative to earlier times to produce a contemporary product.

[Wayne_Freedman]

Most mere mortals do not shoot -10 per round.

Is it about watching professionals play, or about your personal experience with a course?


What the pros do is irrelevant to the average golfer.
The game should be for us, not them.
They're freaks.


Play away.

[Joe Hancock]

Dave,

So are you in the camp that we should change courses because of a very small(minuscule?) minority that hits it straight and long off the tee every time?

[BCrosby]

I enjoyed the event. I look forward to it every year. Spieth's mastery of the course was wonderful to see. In fact, any time anyone plays that well it is wonderful to see.





Bob

[Kalen Braley]

The reality is, we can have what Dave pines for, and you can do it for free on any course

When the pros come to town, Carnoustie-ize the course by letting the fairways grow into rough and only mow narrow ribbon-like bowling alleys for fairways....then no one will be shooting those crazy low scores, much less day in and day out.

No extra length needed...

[Ronald Montesano]

This thread is disintegrating, Fonzie.


How many GCA dboard members clicked the thread link with the thought "I'm tired of my way of thinking. I need a new perspective."


It seems that either you love to see great golf on any type of course, or you love to see great golf on a penal, restrictive course.


This has become an "I say this is the correct way and there is no other-what now?" thread, which is a shame.

[Joe Hancock]

This thread is disintegrating, Fonzie.

This has become an "I say this is the correct way and there is no other-what now?" thread, which is a shame.

OK, Director, what should we do and say next?

Brian Cohen, speaking to the multitude;

Brian- "You don't need to follow anyone, you're all individuals!"

Multitude, in unison- "Yes! We're all individuals!"

Brian- "You're all different!"

Multitude- "Yes! We're all different!"

One lone voice then says- "I'm not..."

From Monty Pythons' "The Life of Brian"

[Kalen Braley]

Nice Joe.....

This is my personal fav, (and it also happens to be my current biggest problem! )


Brian: I'm not the Messiah! Will you please listen? I am not the Messiah, do you understand? Honestly!

Girl: Only the true Messiah denies His divinity.

Brian: What? Well, what sort of chance does that give me? All right! I am the Messiah!

Followers: He is! He is the Messiah!

[George Pazin]

Does it matter what we are comfortable with?


Is there a we?

[Kalen Braley]

Does it matter what we are comfortable with?


Is there a we?

George, two things going on here IMO.

1)  I think there is a "we", and I think the powers that be understand what the "we" wants.
2)  The "we" is not the majority of us in this forum.

And what the we wants is bomb and gouge.  Just like other sports, they want to be wow'd and amazed at what the pros can do that us mere mortals can't.  So whether the GCA "we" like it or not, I don't see the long ball going away anytime soon in pro golf.

[Aaron Marks]

Make pros use 10 clubs.

[Dave Doxey]

Make pros use 10 clubs.

Would not help.  Long & mid irons don't ever get used.

[Steve Lang]

   Shivas,


You'd ban the Aldila Rogue Black in TX flex in his driver?

[cary lichtenstein]

What tournament is better than Sunday at Augusta with all the eagles and birdies, how exciting. I rest my case

[Thomas Dai]

Make pros use 10 clubs.

In Spirit of St Andrews (p65 of my reprint copy) Alister MacKenzie said


 "I would like to see the rules of golf committee restrict golfers to the use of six clubs"


.......and back in his day none of the irons, thin blades with not much flange and bounce, would have had much loft, if more than circa 45* I'd be surprised.


Atb

[David Davis]

I'm perfectly fine with the 7500 - 8000+ soft long slogs for the pros (if they don't want to draw back the distances the balls fly for them). As long as the rest of us don't have to play those courses and that means they won't ruin the great venues by trying to "update" them. I'm curious as well what Merion would of been like with truly firm conditions. That's really the only way to keep the pros from throwing darts at the flags. Even then some of them are able to come in from strange angles and stop the ball. I would also love to see Merion with width and relying on strategy of tee shot placement/angle of approach to defend par. Otherwise keep the pro tournaments off these courses. I doubt the general public even cares or appreciates whether the course architect was from the Golden Age or the Space Age.


-30, so what! Gentle conditions and a great player with a hot hand.

[JESII]

Ronald,


Not sure I see it that way. While in general we all believe our opinions are correct (because they're ours)...and it's tough to prove an opinion. Therefore, few people truly are persuaded to a different belief through these conversations...this one seems to have a couple different perspectives.


George asks the right question I think..."is there a we?"


I think "We" is not the USGA, not the R&A, not the PGA of America or the PGA Tour...although the USGA seemingly has the most influence. It's not the architect either because they seem to rarely have the power to tell a client no, simply because someone else will say yes.


"We" should be the people that ultimately make the decisions on what a course is; the courses ownership.




Shivas, you said: "Scores like that indicate that the intended blend of long game and short game shots is not happening.  Golf is not a game where you are supposed to be able to get close enough to the hole so often that you can get to 8 or 9 or 10 under"


What do you, or any of us, know about the "intended blend" blah blah blah...of any course? We think we know! All we really know is that the architect had to build something that could, in some way, accommodate an incredibly wide range of capabilities.


I think it's incumbent on those delivering the message, and those making on-site decisions, that interesting and fun carry more weight than challenge and ego in the overall quality/ranking of a course.


Think about the architectural and maintenance freedom you gain if the focus shifts to interest and fun from "intended blend" blah blah blah...

[JESII]

How do you think the old dead guys would react if they arrived today and realized exactly that? Think they would strive for a course that would make Jordan Spieth work hard to shoot even par?


If you played a good amateur tournament at Kapalua, what wins? 10 under par?


How about you when you were playing a lot. You'd have been in what, the 99 percentile of all golfers...think you would have broken par in a 72 hole event there?

[jeffwarne]

The reality is, we can have what Dave pines for, and you can do it for free on any course

When the pros come to town, Carnoustie-ize the course by letting the fairways grow into rough and only mow narrow ribbon-like bowling alleys for fairways....then no one will be shooting those crazy low scores, much less day in and day out.

No extra length needed...

Which is a horrifically wrong (and common)respose to an equipment problem that too many courses follow and keep.
Sure the scores for pros may stay the same but the game changes for the worse and play speed grinds to a halt.

[Thomas Dai]

When the pros come to town, Carnoustie-ize the course by letting the fairways grow into rough and only mow narrow ribbon-like bowling alleys for fairways....then no one will be shooting those crazy low scores, much less day in and day out.

Carnoustie is in more ways than one, a course that doesn't need to Carnoustie-ized when the pro's come to town!

Atb

[JESII]

The reality is, we can have what Dave pines for, and you can do it for free on any course

When the pros come to town, Carnoustie-ize the course by letting the fairways grow into rough and only mow narrow ribbon-like bowling alleys for fairways....then no one will be shooting those crazy low scores, much less day in and day out.

No extra length needed...

Which is a horrifically wrong (and common)respose to an equipment problem that too many courses follow and keep.
Sure the scores for pros may stay the same but the game changes for the worse and play speed grinds to a halt.

Jeff,


Do you really see this as an equipment problem? My impression is that a large number of your clients probably benefit, in some way, from the steady improvement of equipment and technology without causing any threat to the enjoyment of the game. I see this as a decision maker problem...