From Thursday's Memorial Telecast...More Furrowing Talk

KARL RAVECH: Baseball is a statistic driven sport and you get bunkers like this and the numbers are going to go down. Are the players concerned about those things?

JACK NICKLAUS: I never was, but maybe some of these guys are, I have no idea. But I don't see why they would be. A good bunker player is going to have a good sand save record. But I think the guy who can putt those four, five, six footers is the guy who is good at sand saves. It's not necessarily about how good of a bunker player you are.

IAN BAKER FINCH: The best bunker players on Tour are around 60 %, up and downs, and the average is just under 50%, so a little less than half is the up and down percentage.

JACK NICKLAUS: Well, if the Tour continues to do what we're doing here, which I think they will, they say they are going to, ah, then obviously the sand save percentage will go down.

PETER OOSTERHUIS: The average today is just over 34% from sand.

IAN BAKER FINCH: That's just today.

PETER OOSTERHUIS: Yes, 34.2%.

JACK NICKLAUS: I'll tell you what else will happen too, is that your driving accuracy will improve greatly on the Tour with bunkers like this in the fairway.

IAN BAKER FINCH: Because they'll have to take a club to avoid the bunkers and think a bit more about it.

JACK NICKLAUS: Yes, they're going to have to put the ball in play and I think it's going to bring the game back to level of...just a very simple thing, just a rake, brings the game back to where it's a little more controllable for the course and the guys putting on a tournament.

KARL RAVECH: What else? I mean, could you make rough longer during non-major events, what else can you do?

JACK NICKLAUS: Well, you know, Karl what I've always felt is that the recovery shot is one of the most beautiful shots in the game of golf and the norm has been now to make the rough higher, the fairways narrower and to me that makes the game more boring. Because all you do is hit it in the rough and chop it out. And the guys with the golf equipment today drive the ball must straighter so they can have narrower fairways. But when they miss they don't mind missing in the bunkers. But now if we make the bunkers such that you don't want to put it in the bunker, then you're going to start thinking, do we take teh driver out of your hand or do we leave in your hand to do what we're going to do. So I think it's only a plus for the game of golf. Equipment has made game much easier game, particularly for the pros. And I think there are ways to combat that and we haven't combatted that up until this time. Hopefully this will be used effectively in the future.

And this was a little later on...

JACK NICKLAUS: I want to try and equalize the game from power. I think that the game has gotten...it was about 80% shotmaking and 20% power when I played, power has always been an advantage and always will be. But I don't like to see it be 80% power and about 20% shotmaking. I think it's gotten too much where power takes over and you'd like to be able to get it a little more in balance. It takes guys that don't hit the ball nine miles a better opportunity to play the golf tournament and to be on par the guy who's a Tiger Woods...

Comments

[Sean Murphy]

I loved the strategy that J.B. Homes used on the 18th during this years Phoenix Open. Large fairway bunker down the right, water and bunker down the left with a 320yrd carry, "new" bunker forward and to the right, a 333yrd carry. J.B. considering those deep furrows next year will calmly pull driver out of the bag. Take three looks while waggling, then take a huge cut at the (hard core) "superballs" were playing with today, successfully "expanding" the (the greapefruit size (sweet) hot spot on the "face" of his "460CC Arnold Palmer Beginners Only Driver", giving it the pose and 13 seconds count, then watching this "rock" which was just "bounced" off the planet, safely landing beyond the new furrows finding its way into the steriod driven rough, where he will then procede to (no grooves necessary) gouge his next 85yrd shot on the 440yrd par 4 onto the green and exclaiming, "I've nerver worked out in a gym ever!"

[Chris]

Players have been winning PGA Tour events while hitting less than 50% of their fairways. Those guys Nicklaus believe players are fixated on statistics. Tiger was until he realized he could beat the rough with the balls used today, he started flogging it right along with Phil and Vijay. Furrows are another pansie ass way of dealing with the real problem. It won't be golf again, until pros are playing with golf balls again.

[Chuck]

This may be beside the point, but has there been any less-qualified golf anchor in recent years than Karl Ravech?
It might be gratuitous to pick on him in this regard, but for his alluding to the vague point that "you can't take a step backward in terms of equipment or courses, because it would mess up our record books." That is the worst argument I can think of on any side of any golf-related debate.

[r.a.c.]

will this give the USGA an "easy way out" of the technology debate/issue?? if furrowing does what Jack seems to think its going to do, will it provide a false sense of security to the USGA (and R&A), easing the pressure to roll back ball technology?