Nationwide Tour Clearly Needs More Suffocating Rough!

John Dell reports that the Nationwide Tour's finest are on the verge of setting an eye-opening driving distance standard.

With just three more tournaments left there has been a resurgence of players consistently driving it more than 300 yards. Leading the charge is Kyle Stanley, a former standout at Clemson who heads into this week averaging a hefty 320 yards a poke. He's one of 52 players averaging 300 yards or better -- significantly more than on the PGA TOUR where only 12 players average 300 yards or better.

Stanley, who is in his first full season on the Nationwide Tour, has some experience on the TOUR after playing in 12 tournaments. He wasn't that surprised about the discrepancy between the two Tours.

"I think a lot of it has to do with course conditions and maybe there's a little more emphasis on getting it in the fairways on the PGA TOUR," Stanley said.

Here's a previous post on driving distance averagers over 300 yards on the Nationwide.

Comments

[JS]

The Nationwide guys just hit it further, on average...because there's less money lost by being crooked...

[Charles Boyer]

The NT has younger players who play more fearlessly, and yes, the courses are less penal than are some of the mainline Tour courses.

A lot of that has to do with the budget that's given to a given Tour course for setup. It's far higher than an NT course. Secondly, a lot of those courses have more staff to prep their courses.

You could ostensibly specify deeper rough for NT events, but as it usually goes, someone is going to have to pay for it.

[fatgoalie]

In effect, the PGA TOUR controls everything about the course in a regular tour event, and
has the ability in its contracts to have the course set up as it desires.

In the past, the Nationwide/Buy.com/etc did not, contractually have the same amount of control.
First year in Dayton, OH, the course had punishing rough on a fairly easy layout. It was a pretty good event.
Next year, hardly any rough, and the scores plummeted! Why no rough? They lost so much business in the lead up to the first year, with people losing balls and slow play, they wouldn't do it the next year. Pretty simple really

[Taffy]

I, for one, prefer to watch the NT on tv. Those guys aren't as robotic or something, and they mash it! Shows you how good tour players are as these guys shoot lights out on setups somewhat closer to what we play(or think we do). What amazes me is the size of some of the guys. They are huge with ape arms. No wonder they smash it. Would be fun to see where they would hit it with persimmon and balata.

[Ky Laffoon's Ghost]

@Taffy: Mostly deep in the left woods, resulting in a string of triple bogies.

[Adam Clayman]

But Geoff, That's impossible. The distances have been decreasing since the '02 joint letter. :)

[The O]

One other thing to consider is that by and large, the Nationwide Tour guys are younger, and presumably stronger.