"It doesn't matter if it's hard or easy — it's the same for everybody. But is that what we want?"

Doug Ferguson tackles my favorite subject, the increasing difficulty of PGA Tour setups and gets some fresh perspectives from Joe Ogilvie and Davis Love as well as a PGA Tour mandate from the 90s.

The problem is whether the PGA Tour is getting enough variety.

For all the complaining at Memorial, there were birdies to be made. Mathew Goggin made 15 over the first two days, along with his share of bogeys. Even so, Davis Love III has noticed the winning score getting worse in recent years.

"Scores should be going down, not up," Love said. "That's a pretty good indication that it's getting harder. Nobody ever shoots 20 under anymore. And players are a heck of a lot better. The fields are deeper."

Love said the course setup was a major topic at the players' meeting last month in North Carolina. Why are courses so hard? What kind of show can they put on for the fans and a television audience when they're scrambling for par?

And who's idea was this, anyway?

"It's a four-letter word," Steve Flesch said at the Memorial. "And he runs this place."

The mandate actually came from the PGA Tour policy board nearly 20 years ago, with only a few instructions. Firm, closely mown grass on the tees, fairways and greens. Thick, evenly dispersed rough (when growing conditions allow).

The summation of that 1990 document was to have all courses play as difficult as possible while remaining fair. Exactly what that means, of course, is subject to interpretation.

Are course setups getting worse?

In 22 stroke-play events this year, 10 winning scores were higher, 10 were lower and two were the same.

"I don't want to sound like the guy who's 44 and not playing good," said Love, who turned 44 in April and is not playing particularly well. "But it's really hard. It doesn't matter if it's hard or easy — it's the same for everybody. But is that what we want?"

This follows a year in which average birdies were way down from previous years, along with TV ratings, and players began asking if fans might lose interest watching the best in the world hack it around every week.

"I think Phil had the right idea when he said technology has gone two ways," Joe Ogilvie said. "We have better balls, better drivers, better equipment. Johnny Miller talks about equipment almost as much as he talks about himself. But 15 years ago, they couldn't grow rough 10 inches. John Deere makes a hell of a tractor that cuts the greens lower and lower and lower.

"It gets to the point when golf — even for us — gets pretty boring."

Next week is the U.S. Open, where the winning score has been 5 over par the last two years.

Ogilvie believes PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem, the USGA and other golf organizations want courses to be tougher than ever so fans won't think "these guys are good" simply because of the better equipment.

"But at least," Ogilvie said, "they're not saying 'these guys are good' because of HGH."

That last point is definitely a new one. Is Finchem that clever and the field staff really taking such a directive? I don't think so. I'm more inclined to think that it's a combination of host courses raising the bar with thicker, higher rough, the PGA Tour's philosophy that a great tournament is major like (thus, more rough, narrower fairways and high scores) and maybe a slight overreaction to technology.

What do you think?