Why are we so quick to penalize distance?

[chippa13]

I can hit my driver 260-maybe 270 but it can be very erratic and hard to keep straight. I don't ask the courses I play to make wider fairways to accommodate my wayward driving, I play a GAPR 3 that I can keep in the fairway. And these courses are packed every weekend with all manner of golfers.

[golfortennis]

It doesn't matter whether you ask or not. Courses need to have more room, because wayward balls covering a greater distance bring headaches, if not liability, to courses. Be it houses or golfers on adjacent holes, while stuff can happen, the courses do try to reduce the incidence of it happening.

Plus, you're on here. How many of those you reference as packing the courses give any thought at all to what club, vs those who simply grab driver and come what may?

[chippa13]

You make no sense. You're saying that guys at the courses I'm playing are just hammering ball after ball deep into the trees and back yards because they can now hit the ball 270 with driver? Why would they do that? The game isn't how many balls can I lose but what is the lowest score I can get.

[golfortennis]

You're being obtuse. Nobody steps on the tee and says I'm going to hit it 3 miles right/left. But it happens anyway. Now, when a guy could only hit a ball 220, the spray pattern only requires x amount of yardage to cover potential offline shots. Fast forward to today, where the same guy, due to a combination of a ball that rockets off the face of a driver head as big as toaster can now hit it 270, but with the same lack of control, you need that much more yardage to account for stray balls. Think back to high school math class. Make an area chart for the two different distances and the angles to each side. Now multiply that by 18 holes, and all of a sudden you have many several more acres required.

Again, between liability and avoiding problems, courses are not going to want to have potential issues from stray balls. But they have to account for the fact they happen.

 

[chippa13]

Considering the courses I'm playing haven't expanded to widen and I haven't seen a large number of unconscious people in their backyards along the courses, I'm going to assume you're wrong in your assumptions that courses must now widen to accommodate the "new" spray factor.

[tannyhoban]

Jack didn't mind when he had the advantage.

[freowho]

You must run an insurance or fencing company. Lots of golf clubs around the world having to erect giant fences, redesign holes, lose holes completely or unable to stay open because the ball is going further.

[Jwin323]

No one designs a course by taking into account how far someone will hit it out of bounds, and that is clearly not the governing bodies’ motivation behind a distance rollback. Ridiculous statement.

[OrangeGravy]

No. My view is more along the lines that it doesn't matter if we roll something back or people start regularly hitting 400 yard drives. If our collective attention spans follow the current trend, golf is more or less doomed unless it morphs into something that no current golfer would consider "Golf". I don't think golf has a very optimistic long term future. I don't think it will vanish, but I could see a time somewhere in the future where some version of the game like Top golf is more popular than actual golf. If there was a more affordable version of top golf now, I could see it being more attractive to newcomers. Wasn't a very coherent thought. It just popped into my head reading all these distance discussions.

[freowho]

"No one designs a course by taking into account how far someone will hit it out of bounds,"

Yes they do. Particularly real estate developments. And they are often poor at it. Coral Cove in Australia has a par 4 where members are banned from hitting a tee shot that goes further than 200m and the public aren't even allowed to hit the tee shot. They have to walk to the dogleg and play from a tee about 70m from the green. The old Eastern Golf Club in Melbourne had a short par 4 where players were banned from trying to drive the green. They have since sold their suburban location and moved further out past the suburbs.

I agree that the governing bodies primary motivation is not insurance or public liability, rather an avoidance of the courts, but it should be because it is having a detrimental affect on the game. The vast majority of golf courses are not built to accommodate a ball that is going 300 yards let alone 400 yards which is where it is going with Bryson hitting 5 degrees up with a 5 degree driver.

It also means less people on the course so less revenue. Bryson had to wait for the group in front to clear the fairway of a long par 4 before he could tee off.

 

 

[DLiver]

Wow did this thread go off course.

[oikos1]

Are there really that many problems with golfers now hitting the ball O.B. that everyday courses are having to expand out of play areas or are people just making **** up? I suppose that's to be expected these days.

[milesgiles]

which is a good thing, yeah?

golf without Nicklaus vs Player vs Trevino? All totally different bodies and swings. True golden age

[smashdn]

Not fairways, playing corridors. There is an insurance calculation at work. Several of the modern course design books hit on this. Doak in Anatomy of a Golf Course and Forrest Richardson in Routing the Golf Course.

 

They absolutely [have to] take into account what is on the outside of the course for liability purposes. A single hole routed with houses on both sides is a less efficient use of available land than two holes side by side. The area between the holes is overlapping playing corridor. Say if a single hole needs 100 yards of width two holes might get away with 160-175 yards of width total instead of 200. Takes less land for golf and you can maximize your residential area. You went from 1/4 acre lots to 1/3 acre lots.

[milesgiles]

I can think of a few in England certainly..

but to turn it round, what exactly is the benefit to ever expanding acreages?

[milesgiles]

long, straight driving Should be an advantage. No ones arguing against that.

the trouble with the guys who don’t think there is a problem is that they don’t appear to read or understand any of the arguments against the status quo. They have literally all been answered, endlessly, on this board

[chippa13]

Golf has their share of little guys. McIlroy, Fowler, and Harmon, just for starters.

[milesgiles]

All of whom swing far quicker than Player or Trevino. Rory hit it a million miles before he started working out btw.

would Player or Trevino have a career now?

[chippa13]

Why wouldn't they? They would have access to all of the same equipment and information available.

[milesgiles]

Because it wouldn’t matter how much training or driver optimisation they did, I suspect they’d get nowhere near even average tour speeds now. They just aren’t built that way. All the data shows how important swing speed is to competing now, and that’s encouraged by ultra forgiveable drivers. It goes completely against their natural games.

 

again, reference my above post, this has been answered hundreds of times before

[chippa13]

So you're saying that guys who had great natural ability 30-40 years ago wouldn't be able to take advantage of the equipment, training methods, and analysis methods that today's guys now use? That makes zero sense. This is like guys who argue Bobby Orr wouldn't be as dominant today as he was in the 70's. You put him in today's equipment with today's advances in training and treatment and he would still own the ice.

[milesgiles]

No, they wouldn’t.

it is now relatively more important to hit it long. It is less important to work it like Trevino or have a short game like Player. Golf has become one dimensional, and that’s a shame.

[duffer987]

Agreed. Comparing eras is just so stupid. Why do we always bring the old-timers forward stuck in their era's norms against what the modern version has? smh

Let's take Rory and Morikawa back to the 60s and see how they developed technically and physically in that era, not with their peak 2020 honed skills. You mean that comparison cannot be done? Yes exactly.

Bryson in the 50s/60s is Moe Norman, not some Paul Bunyan course destroyer.

[milesgiles]

I’m happy to make the comparison actually.

golfers whose physical gifts are more attuned to club head speed would struggle relative to the old timers who relied more on shaping the ball and having an excellent short game.

the long bomb counts for too much now, and that’s related to the incredibly forgiving oversized driver heads which encourages that style of play

[carrier street]

I'll throw a hot take out here: People hate how long pros have gotten because they cannot physically hit it that far.

Hear me out. ANYONE can occasionally hit a really accurate iron shot. ANYONE can occasionally hit a great shot around the green. ANYONE can occasionally hole a long put. The vast majority of golfers can't even get it out there 250, let alone 300+. They are physically incapable of doing it. No amount of practice or dumb luck (short of bouncing it down a cart path) will allow them to do it. People have no point of reference for it and therefore see it as fundamentally changing the game. In all of the discussions of this, I have never heard or read a single person say "MY driver or ball needs to fly shorter".

 

[milesgiles]

Yes you’re 100% on that. There is literally no legitimate reason to query professional golf as it is now played..

[bscinstnct]

 

I don’t think this is the case at all.

I mean people have no point of reference for watching football or any pro sport other than to marvel at the skills.

Im a big fan of big drives but am enjoying seeing off line drives being punished more by thicker rough off the fairways and greens.

[carrier street]

I get what you're saying, but what i'm saying is that on some level professional golf is relatable to the average golfer, if only for one swing every three rounds or whatever. It's that lack of relatability to the distance these guys are hitting it that makes people so quick to jump on it as a problem.

[smashdn]

We had the discussion about Faldo on another of thread. He is 6'2" and was never a long hitter. He was a great golfer due to his precision. The deck is definitely stacked against that type of player.

Doesn't mean he could not have decided at 6'2" to bulk up and swing for the fences, he just found a more efficient (for him) way to skin the cat.

 

I think my greatest hang-up is we have to qualify the bulk of these statements with "with today's equipment." Sarazen essentially played with the same equipment as Tom Kite. That's the bitter pill for me to swallow. We had a very long span of "equipment stability" that allowed the comparisons from generation to generation. I wasn't around then but I don't think there were many folks comparing Bobby Jones to Old Tom but you can make a comparison of Sam Snead to Jack Nicklaus if you are inclined. You can't make a fair comparison of Seve to Phil or Seve to Bubba Watson.

[J13]

If you want golf to grow in popularity then don't change one of the more exciting aspects of the modern game. If you don't care if it grows then by all means roll the ball back for the pro's. It's really that simple. Long hitters aren't winning every event (not even close) so wheres the problem other than course architects with hurt feelings?