Gary Player Vents: "Change is the price of survival!"

One of many disadvantages to wrap-around PGA Tour golf is the inability to reflect on a season. Furthermore, another theme is coming up in stories like this one by Karen Crouse, where players acknowledge they have little natural time to use an off-season to analyze, make changes and improve. Or, if they do, the players now take the tie off in January and February when the winter blues have more eyeballs on golf, forcing the PGA Tour to trot out its (now) weakest product.

From a state of the game perspective, another offshoot: the inability to reflect on how to improve the sport through rule changes. Of coures there is only one topic on that front and it's the distance madness the USGA, R&A and to some extent, professional tours, haven't the will to tackle and have even suggested is under control.

Consider...

Alex Myers offers 15 stats from the 2015 season that will "blow your mind" and this one certainly qualifies:

Bubba Watson had the highest percentage (42.86) of drives measured longer than 320 yards.

By no means a big, strapping athletic specimen, Bubba is not to be knocked in any way for his talent. However, it is someone's job to ensure that our big, cumbersome and sensitive venues for golf do not need to be constantly rebuilt to keep up with the distance chase that we all know is going to continue when even more athletes and technology merge.

This all led to yet another wonderful diatribe by Gary Player on Morning Drive, who is building a U.S. Open-wannabe venue with Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer and Lee Trevino for The Greenbrier.

Player points out that there has never been "a big man playing golf" and warns they are coming. Then says...

The tour, and this is what our in the industry doesn’t understand. They’re like ostriches, they’re reluctant to change. Change is the price of survival. In thirty, forty, fifty years time the tour, fifty percent of the tour will hit the ball 400 yards. Now, I’ve always said Augusta, you know they’ve gone back as far as they can, they can’t go back in the streets. Well I’m wrong, they bought the streets. They are going back in the streets!

Actually, based on the Bubba number from 2015, it may be much sooner than 30-50 years before we see the numbers he's talking about. The video: