Brandel On Distance Cap: "Who is going to pay retribution to the manufacturers whose products will be rescinded?"
Golf Channel's Brandel Chamblee correctly lamented this year how TPC Sawgrass is now superstar proof because it offers so few chances to hit driver, and five years ago he was pro-bifurcation because the game the cost, length of rounds and other effects were serving no positive purpose.
But that stance was five years ago. Now he's criticizing those who shared his old viewpoints and sounds more concerned with any setting of limits on companies and equipment even though we have limits in place currently.
There have already been more than a few players talk about rolling the ball back, which when one looks a little deeper smacks of the same type of player-sponsor tandem that sought to have square grooves – i.e. Ping’s irons, which were threatening a huge market share at the time – deemed illegal on the PGA Tour a few decades ago. And, of course, there are more than a few “ancient idolaters” who’d like to see wood and balata come back for no other reason than they think the courses of Tillinghast, Thomas, MacKenzie, Raynor, Ross, Crump, and Wilson should be restored to all their majesty.
That's a disappointing and very 2002 characterization of the restoration movement or of those who just want to see the courses play somewhat as they were designed to be played.
When I hear people scream, “Roll the ball back!” I first think, Why the ball and not the rebounding and forgiving metal woods? Why the ball and not the longer lighter shafts? And then I think, At what cost? Who is going to pay retribution to the manufactures[SP] whose products will be rescinded? Who will pay for the lawsuits? Who is going to tell all of those amateurs who have been having a blast hitting the ball farther than they ever have, no more smash?
The pro-bifurcation people, like Brandel Chamblee who made the case very eloquently!
And then I think, that since this really is a problem that affects very few people in the world, namely those who can swing a golf club 120 mph with a fairly high degree of accuracy and who can putt on greens that stimp at 14, wouldn’t it be a whole lot easier and far cheaper to carve out a few teeing grounds here and there on only a select championship courses, slow the courses down with mowing patterns or the height of grasses, and everyone will be happy with the smallest of cost and inconvenience.
Players got slightly longer fairways at Merion 2013 and they're still complaining about the setup!
Still, I'm all for adding new tees as along as the bills are sent to the PGA Tour and paid for by the player pension!
After all, the parameters for the ball and driver have been set in stone, so to speak, for more than a few years now and any improvements in distance and score going forward, for maybe the first time in history, can rightly be attributed to the athlete and not the equipment.
So if things are maxed out on the equipment front, and the room for innovation is gone for pros, then what's the harm in a few tweaks to avoid sending new tee bills to the PGA Tour player pension?
This all said, Chamblee has backed off his recent Twitter assertion that building a few 8,500 yard tournament courses would do the trick. Here's guessing he did the math on that costly experiment.
Friday, December 22, 2017 at 04:01 AM
Reader Comments (92)
And what S&T says. I'm still waiting for restitution from the USGA for the newish conforming wedges in my bag. Check must have gotten lost in the mail.
No one in US lost a wink of sleep when, with the stroke of a pen, golfers all over the world had 25 yards taken of their drives literally overnight.
Exactly. So the Classic courses where the Majors and top tournaments are played will have the 5 sets of tees they have now. The pro will sell "Protournament" balls (manufactured by every ball manufacturer) for plus handicap amateurs who fancy their chances playing the ball from the back tees. The pros will get them free of course at every tournament. This scenario is not an economic issue to any manufacturer.
"The only hope has to come from the governing bodies." Or the guys who run the Masters.
I can't imagine ANY member playing a "shorter" tour ball more than once.
Whatever course they play or whatever ball they play low score wins!!!
Sorry, late to the table but as usual NL S&T, sorry CONVERT and KLG on the money.
BDF, funny comment on BC becoming a lobbyist.
Amazing that people will actually adapt and carry on.
We can talk about classic courses, distance gaps etc,
But endorsement deals from manufacturers are a hugely significant part of tour pros income.
The potential of losing that income stream is an enormous obstacle in. a rule for tour players only.
Which is one reason why I would say if distance is a problem, it needs to be an overall rollback.
Little Jeremy Robideaux, twelve years old, an enthusiastic junior golfer who lives in Biloxi, Mississippi, was given an assignment by his history teacher, Mrs. Nix, to write about the history of something he loved. Well, Jeremy loved golf. His mother played a lot of golf and tennis and his uncles played golf and even one of his sisters. Jeremy’s dad used to play golf but he quit.
For reference material, Jeremy had only the “G” volume of his very own set of World Books that he loved even more than scanning around for various things on the internet. Through his research, Jeremy discovered there was a “colonial” period of golf in America but the encyclopedia didn’t say a whole lot else about it. This really intrigued Jeremy, and wanting his report to be thorough, of course, Jeremy dialed up the head pro of the club where he played and where his parents were members, Pelican Landing Country Club. Jeremy’s mother knew the pro’s cell phone number by heart and she gave it to Jeremy in sort of a sultry, sing-songy voice.
The head pro’s name was Vern Johnson and he was twenty-nine years old and a really nice guy who had won an event a few years ago in Pensacola. Amazingly, for a club professional, Vern was also fairly well known as having a good historical knowledge of the game. Jeremy’s parents had urged him to see if Mr. Johnson knew anything about this colonial period as this would be a good opportunity to impress Mrs. Nix, by interviewing an “authority figure.” Jeremy’s parents were hugely involved in their son’s academic and golf growth, although they would have been nonetheless pleased if he excelled at badminton.
The phone rang a bunch of times before Vern finally picked up. He sounded a little out of breath, so Jeremy asked him right away about the colonial thing. Vern said, “Oh, yeah. There was some course near Charleston, South Carolina. Okay?”
Jeremy had his fresh legal pad all ready and his pencil was sharp. “When, exactly?”
“Late seventeen hundreds. Oh, Jesus.”
“Good … gooood,” Jeremy said as he scribbled like the dickens. “Thank you Mr. Johnson.”
Jeremy continued, “Mr. Johnson, can you tell me anything more? I really do appreciate your time, sir.”
“Uh, well, actually, in seventeen ninety six there were a couple of clubs down there and one near Savannah and then they just disappeared.” The woman squeezed it tightly and put her nose in Vern’s left ear and let out just a little breeze. She dug her long red fingernails in the thing ever so slightly. Vern liked that very much. “Well that’s about all I know about the history of golf in America,” Vern said quickly. “Okay, Jeremy? Good God I’ll call you back la—”
“What? Fire? Hurricane?” Jeremy was ready to write again. He thought this was what a reporter must feel like.
“Nuh uh, just disbanded. Social climate. Bad gnats. Goddamn fucking shit like that. O-kay? Is that goddamn—enough?”
The woman mouthed, “I’m leaving.” She stopped her hand, but held her grip.
Jeremy ignored Mr. Johnson’s profanity as he was used to him cursing like that during junior clinics. “That’s exactly what I need, Mr. Johnson,” Jeremy said brightly. “Tell me some more. Really, I appreciate it.”
But there was a long pause while Vern forced her hand back in action. She wouldn’t do it at first. Vern helped her. Then Vern breathed heavily, “No, Jere-mee. I got a wo-man over here. We’re doing something … very important.”
Jeremy pressed the phone to his ear to see if he could determine what Mr. Johnson and the woman were doing that was so important.
All of a sudden the woman started going at it as if her hand were covered with killer bees.
“OH … SWEET JEEEE-SUS!”
“Mr. Johnson!” Jeremy shouted. “Are you okay?”
“I’m sitting here,” Vern said slowly, “getting … oh, Jesus … my chicken spanked.”
Jeremy literally looked at the phone in his hand. Chicken spanked? What? Mr. Johnson’s got a pet chicken? Jeremy was extremely confused.
Jeremy’s mother was in the kitchen cooking dinner and thinking heavily about Vern, too. And right before she chopped the head off of a fish she called out, “How’s it going in there, little golf scholar?”
The moment Jeremy put the phone back to his ear he heard Vern drop the phone to the floor, but Vern didn’t end the call. And just an instant later, and for a good five minutes or so, Jeremy had the distinct pleasure of listening to the sounds of Vern’s chicken get spanked and was also privileged enough to hear the type of conversation extremely particular to when a woman spanks a guy like Vern’s chicken. And as intellectual and generally informed of modern times as Jeremy was, even at twelve years old, he truly felt at that moment in his existence on the earth that there was so very much left to do and so very much left to learn.
You have the honour, sir (or ma'am?), of having presented the most insouciant post I've ever read on these here pages. Though, as Tom Morris would rightly point out, 1796 does not qualify as the Colonial period. One must get one's facts straight.
Which is honestly why the whole thing is just tiresome. It seems like every day there's a new article about this.