Flashback

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While doing research for a story, I stumbled across this article on Tiger from May, 2001. He was asked if course design was in his future.

Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer and Gary Player began their design businesses in their 30s and 40s.  The 25-year-old Woods said he has no clear timetable for beginning a design career. He also said that he wouldn't necessarily design long courses just because he is known for his length.

"You really don't have to have the hole 470 or 480 yards for it to be challenging," Woods said.

I point this out because 470-480 was sort of still a "long" hole four years ago for most players, except maybe Tiger.

Yet how many times during the Presidents Cup did you see players hitting wedges into 475 yard holes?  And NBC's announcers making sure to point it out?

While watching I was thinking that you would need another 75-100 yards to create a "long par-4" in the modern professional game, assuming you would like to see a mid-to-long iron approach.

 

Narrowing the Old Course

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In the absence of legislation on the ball, who can forget the sight of long grass surrounding many of the Old Course's bunkers this past summer?

Or all that rough on the Road Hole, there to stop the final humiliation for golf administrators - players casually flipping sand-wedge approach shots on to the game's most fearsome green?

Or the transformation of the most famous closing hole in the game into a glorified par-3? Lest we forget, a 65-year-old man named Nicklaus, whose backswing hasn't reached parallel in at least a decade, was putting it on to that green.

Or the growing of rough combined with the sillier and sillier green speeds at Augusta? Or the ridiculous sight of a St Andrews Open being played from tees not even within the confines of the host course?
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Fast and Fiery

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Lawrence Donegan writes from Firestone about Paul McGinley's fine play and his thoughts on course setup.

Paul McGinley, one of the more thoughtful members of the professional circuit and therefore one of the more strident critics of the obsession with ever longer courses, sounded like a man who had found nirvana yesterday and not just because he shot a four-under-par 66 to vault up the leaderboard at the NEC Invitational here. Firestone Country Club, built in 1929 as a recreational facility for the workers at the eponymous rubber company, is an old-style course, its narrow fairways lined with matured trees and its greens defended by subtle slopes. At 7,360 yards it is not particularly long by PGA tour standards, yet with the average score for the first two rounds at a fraction below 72 - two over par - it is one of the more troublesome.
What does it say when 7,360 yards is "not particularly long by PGA Tour standards?"
"That's because the course is playing fast and fiery," the Irishman said. "Why don't people get it into their heads that the way to stop technology is not necessarily holding the ball back. Let's find a way of making the courses fast and fiery like it was today. That way length isn't so important; then ball control becomes important; course management becomes a factor; keeping the ball below the pin as well."
Sadly Paul, most in golf think that fast and fiery is bad because such conditions merely shorten courses. The other benefits (premium on placement, variety of shots, accuracy, introduction of temptation, etc...) just don't outweigh the desire to prevent the occassional 350 yard drive. Of course, the players carry it so far now (thanks to those workout programs) that the 350 yard drives are all carry and no roll!