Sunday
Jan212018
Oakmont: The Shrinking Of Short Grass
Ryan Farrow did an aerial overlay of the famed Oakmont Country Club from 1938 vs. 2017 and found that more bunkers have been added while there has been a huge drop in fairway acreage and width.
The club's tree removal program undoubtedly impacts the turf shift to rough, but that's not the entire story. Something else has happened in that time. Oh, right, the top players are hitting it about 80 yards longer.
Here are the results: Oakmont CC 1938 vs. Today:
— Ryan Farrow (@FarrowGolf) January 19, 2018
# of Bunkers:
1938 = 155 Today = 174
Avg. Fairway Width (around landing areas):
1938 = 46 yds Today = 29 yds
Fairway Acreage:
1938 = 37.8ac Today = 23.6ac pic.twitter.com/bX8NADZXxW
Sunday, January 21, 2018 at 02:32 AM
Reader Comments (18)
We need to offer while encouraging new players to the game not by scaring them but by showing there has always been other ways of reaching the pin that suits the individual game. To limit courses, more so fairways to the narrow spectrum is to limit the game, its appeal and options for the less gifted players.
Then, if the idea is to take the game backward to the 18th Century when it was a game mainly for the elite, narrow fairways is probably the best way to do so, in fact if the 'featherie' was also reintroduced we will have taken the game well and truly back to the 18th Century.
Not certain what drives clubs/designers to offer up such restrictive practices, but it’s very short sited and makes the game very hard "to grow".
Just what has happened to golf, well more, so golf course design over the last 50-70 years, it seems that no one remembers the history of golf and golf course design, because we are making mistakes that the 19th Designers corrected.
Many on here believe me to be ignorant of the facts, but perhaps they need to study the game and its roots a little before putting pen to paper for its their ignorance/endorsements that has resulted in the current poor state of the game since WW2.
Any time one raises questions about the impact of technology on the game one is made to feel like a complete luddite, totally out of touch and out of time. The argument is always made that the advances in tech have greatly advantaged the ordinary golfer and to wind anything back would reduce their enjoyment. My respectful response is always the same - horse droppings.
The quality of amateur, club, golf is broadly the same now is it was 30 or more years ago. All the longer flying, easier to hit clubs have made little difference. It s abundantly clear that only the elite player has truly benefitted. As a 1 handicap I count myself in that number, and since I now, at age 56, hit the ball further than I did at age 25 and with every club, would contest I am living proof that things have gone too far.
Course set-ups such as the one highlighted by this survey are the only defence clubs can come up with for the play of elite golfers. But it undoubtedly makes the game much less enjoyable for the ordinary player if clubs apply them all the time. Club players don't want to be hacking out of rough and hazards all day long. There are a lot more ordinary golfers than elites in the world. Allow them to have the fun. It is time for the dual route. Top class golf is a different game. Acknowledge it as such. Limit the ball, limit the clubs at the elite end. Perhaps then our game won't be labelled boring any more
Why - why would you or for that matter should you - it was never like that in the past why make the elite a super elite.
The need to have or be a member of a Championship course is just plain boasting, - then the Governing Bodies come along and want to make changes to the so called championship course, so why do we do it.
Its golf – it’s a game for all, using the same equipment, the same courses. It’s not about anything else, as at the heart of the game it’s all about the player vs. the course, not the fellow golfers, that's secondary if it even comes into the equation - you the golfer in battle with the course its design and Nature.
St Andrews for years was a place where duffers (learners) could try their hand to see how they scored against their heroes.
We have forgotten the pleasure that was once golf because so many want different toys to make them look good in their own eyes, face facts, play the game as it was meant to be played - all equal under the Sun, Rain, and Snow.
Why are destroying the very game we say we love?
We contend that using a 460cc driver head makes the game more enjoyable for us hackers, but do any of us enjoy the game more than we did twenty, thirty, or forty years ago?
Most likely, the biggest change in the enjoyment factor is the decrease in fun due to slow play.
So much debate and discussion on course lengthening and equipment rollback is driven by what the pros do. The average golfer benefits relatively little from equipment advances and is hurt by course lengthening. I say that the important thing is to focus on the average golfer (who pays the bills for golf) and not worry about what professionals do. I could care less if a pro shoots 50 on an old style course. Any possibility of comparing current pro golf to historical pro golf is long gone. Stop trying to "Tiger proof" courses. Cater to the average golfer who loves to play and spends the money. Clubs chase faster green speeds and longer holes primarily for vanity reasons.
Good point and I agree. However, we must remember what the clubs and governing bodies do for the pro's reflects upon our courses - just look at every Open, the R&A make changes to the course from The Old Course to Portrush course - These course modifications are done because they are too stupid to address the real issues facing golf.
Design is the key, it was in the 19th century, the early 20th Century, but now its of little importance as making money trumps the game - I for one would love to see the Pros play a penal course designed for golf.
I used to play at a Ross course that was pretty much broke all the time. We left it for a couple of years and when I got back I realized that the fairways had been narrowed, A LOT. In some cases they'd gone from ~35 yards to under 25.
When I pointed it out to some to some of my friends who'd stayed the whole time, none of them had noticed it. In a number of cases, I showed them that balls in the rough, where they ALWAYS hit it, would have previously been well in the fairways. You could spot some of the changes easily because granite 150 markers that had been installed a few years earlier, on the edge of the fairway, were now 10-15 yards in the rough.
I finally asked the superintendent about it and he indeed said that the extreme cuts in his budget were the reason. Not much later, one of the guys said, "I'd pay more dues, if they'd give me back my fairways."
Ultimately the club went broke, got purchased by some folks who, well... don't seem to care much.
K
Golf has been a game that has developed over the last two centuries into a sport that does not segregate between rich/poor, pro/amateurs or good/bad golfers. However, it seems the American Game is trying to travel back to the 18th Century when it was once a game for the rich who would wager £500.00 guineas on a round (not certain of the value in the late 1700's but by 1901 money it would be worth £60,000 - some say the value of the 1750’s bets would be between £250,000 to £500,000 in todays money and these are recorded bets).
In the end its down to what sort of game do you want, one for those with money and one for the rest of us - clearly some refuse to learn the lessons from history and keep making the same mistake (IMHO) over and over again.
Not to worry, Steve. One doesn’t apply for membership at Oakmont. One is invited to join
My handicap index since taking up the game in earnest 28 years ago has varied from 18 when first established to a low of just over 6, which I achieved in 2015.
There is zero doubt in my mind that modern equipment helps me both play better and enjoy the game better.I am longer with every club in my bag on full swings; much longer with the driver. My very best drives carry 260 yards or so today, and at age 25 it was more like 220. My "150 yard" club was as much as a 6 iron when I started out (yes, on a solid strike), and now can be as little as a 9 iron on some days. This contributes materially to better scoring and more enjoyment.
The courses I play, including a "mid-level" private club, and very good public courses in places where I have lived during my golf life (TX, VA, NJ) have not had to undergo any significant lengthening in the time I've been playing golf. There has been no need to toughen them up for experts, because none of these clubs host high level, elite competition. The expert players - 3 hcp and under - play the courses at the same length they always did, but they simply like them better because they can handle the length better.
Golf is better today than it was when I took up the game in 1990.
I believe in golf; the equipment and course should remain unchanged for all - from the poorest golfer to the highest scoring player.
We each should be able to try our game against all others who play golf and we should never force a golfer, no matter his level to keep off the course. As with the equipment, if we change the course and the equipment you straight away remove that common dominator that has for centuries defined golf as a game of equals - by that I mean Man vs. nature and the course, not necessary each other, so we need to know that the tools for the game are equally matched for each and every golfer.
Elitism is not golf, hence I hate Island Greens, Narrow fairways and shallow compacted bunkers - oh and one more thing, Greens protected to the rear by bunkers - the ball should be allowed free reign to roll past the Green if the player misjudges their shot and not aided/stopped by a rear bunker.
Equality in all - that is if you are serious about the game of golf - something the R&A have misplaced over the years.
What people seem to be hung up on are people on the extreme end of the curve.
The players whose performance (i.e., extreme driving distance, etc.) is deemed, by some, as damaging to the game are at this very extreme end of the bell curve, comprising only fractions of fractions of a percent of all golfers. We should no more make radical adjustments in courses and conditions to suit them than we would to suit people on the extreme opposite of the spectrum. Can you imagine if we tried to change equipment and courses to make the game somehow playable for people who, for whatever reason, can't make contact with the ball on half of their swings, etc.? Who in their right mind would propose that? If the performance of the ultra elite is really a concern, any action taken should apply to them only. The game works for everyone else, and in its current state is really, really good.
The reason why the extreme driving distance of some players is in part down to the inability or unwillingness of the clubs and their designer to combat the distance issues.
Design can overcome distance, history tells us that even when the distances in the past never achieved the mode lengths of drives. They used healthy courses, better known a 'sporty courses' that were defined by their hazards and the penal nature of them. however, penal started to lose favour by the turn of the 20th century because it reduced score and designers wanted low scores as the game went worldwide in a big way.
Penal fast disappeared from the vocabulary of designers as it was a few hazard too far, its reduces score and was deemed too hard for golfers, so strategic became the watch word for design. The problem with strategic is that it means whatever one wants it to mean while still allowing a score friendly design.
So my approach is that we can combat long drives by clever design, but that will reduce scores and in todays game its all about the score line and many will feel upset that they can no longer show they macho character. Then golf is not about distance but how you get over the ground full of hazards to the pin – to many players today the whole idea of golf is to fly over every obstacle, and achieve a low score and to hell with the golf. However, tell them they are not playing golf and they spit their dummy out of the pram.
We have to decide just which game is being played and design a course or courses to cater for that game.