I’ve always believed golf course design/architecture can humble any player and Oakmont proved that. While Oakmont isn’t the only course to prove this point, think Bethpage Black, I believe it shows that some (maybe not all) golf courses can be set up to negate advances in ball technology.
What say you?
by TheGnocchiandFig
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32 Comments
I think bifurcation is the answer. Amateurs don’t want to lose five to ten yards, and I don’t want to watch pros play in six inch rough every week.
If your course has 7,300 yards to play with.
I think it proved the counterpoint. If you need to set up a course like Oakmont was the tech has gone too far.
You need very wet conditions to be able to grow rough that long and thick. You can’t put a course like that anywhere
Simple answer make the pros play persimmons and blades
Eh I think the 6 inch rough thing was fun for one tourney but would get real fucking old real fast if that was the norm.
I don’t think Oakmont decided the debate. Oakmont is a big property and has it own uniqueness. Bethpage is also a decently long course.
I think the debate is still relevant. They can’t keep making golf courses longer, most don’t have the land for it.
If you want to see 8 inch rough 3 yards off the green then I guess you can negate anything. Remember many of these courses have members to think off as well. A course that is a bear for the pros might not be that fun to play.
It proved the opposite. The course basically has to be completely tricked out to get these scores. The balls and equipment needs to be limited on the pro level much further than the amateur level.
The amount of other golf courses in the world that have greens as firm, fast, and undulating as Oakmont is probably 1, and that course famously doesn’t have any rough.
Grown up rough is a somewhat gimmicky thing most of us enjoy once a year at the US Open. We’re already lacking a bit in course character and diversity on the tour, and what you’re suggesting would make it even worse.
I think it proved that par is a construct. You make any of the insanely low scoring courses a par 70 like Oakmont was and the final scores are magically not as crazy. Kapalua plays a par 73 for some reason. You make Oakmont a par 73 and JJ is now -13 for the week and everyone is talking about how “easy” it played. You want to stop seeing scores so far under “par”? Change what par is on these courses. Every single one of them has a par 5 or two you could turn into a long par 4 for these guys. Or just leave everything the way it is and just accept that par is a meaningless number and the lowest total strokes is going to win whether that’s +3 or -30.
The ball goes too far, and doesn’t bend as much as it used to. I think the fact the game theory now of playing one shot shape is a bigger problem than distance. Because there is so little movement, it really does make sense to practice only one shape.
If you make the ball bigger slightly it will reduce distance, but also reduce effective sidespin. There’s no easy solution here.
The ball spinning more will have adverse affect on super fast greens, but honestly, smooth and running a 9, is better than the tiered greens running a 13 where if you are on the right tier your make percentage is 3x what a casual club golfer has on a normal parkland course.
Greens should start to get a bit slower with more slope. Oakmont’s slopes are its best feature. It didn’t come across that well except on 18. Lens compression made the course less interesting than it actually is.
“its such an obvious solution, why doesn’t every course just play as a 7550 yard par 70?”
Hard disagree, Sunday especially showed that we do need a shorter, spinnier ball.
Why keep extending historic courses ad infinitum when they can just roll the ball back and make those courses more challenging for the pros. There are plenty of amazing golf venues that have no room to be extended so they simply cannot be used by the pros anymore because it would be driver wedge on every hole.
“If you make everything harder, it becomes harder”. Really groundbreaking stuff man keep it up
Persimmons and blades for the US Open? Cut line is +19.
This is going to be unpopular.. but I played competively in the late 90’s and 2000’s. Its just not the same game anymore. They let the equipment get too forgiving and now its too late. The ball rollback is dumb though, and wont achieve what they want it to. Making every course have 10 inch rough is probably also not the answer lol.
Not remotely the case. You can’t play at Oakmont every week on tour. And just growing the rough isnt the answer. The open Bryson won tried that. It didn’t matter because he just drive it as far as he could and had wedge either way, rough or fairway. Most courses cannot handle and were not designed for 330 yd drives. It cannot continue like this or there will only be 5 courses they can play.
It’s 7,400+ yard par 70 wtf are you talking about
I like what Scheffler had to say, why do we care what the winning scores are? Why do they need to be relatable to the avg handicap golfer? We don’t go watch the NBA because they play like us, or the NFL if they played like regular people do. Golf is the only sport that we are upset that the scores are getting better than they were before when people used wood clubs, why do we need to see that? You can’t compare players in different eras really in any sport. Sports; like humans evolve over time and inherently people get better the more they study something, there’s always some innovative individual who takes it to the next level, then you get a sudden shift.
Most this sub is absolutely clueless to what makes good golf. The stats show that driving the ball and approach were not the determining factors of this tournament. Putting was the stat that mattered, and by definition that shows this is not how you create a tournament that tests plays abilities or even makes the game any kind of fun. Just look at the stats, this set up does not accomplish what you think it accomplished.
I’ll add one more thing. What made tiger exciting to watch was not that he was dominant and incredible, but he was fallible and incredible at making something out of shitty situations that weren’t impossible, but instead really difficult. I’m sorry but over five inch rough isn’t difficult, it’s impossible. It allows no room for incredible play from really difficult situations. It doesn’t allow you to shine, it forces you to be perfect in an imperfect game, and when you veer from that unobtainable perfection you have no chance.
Take away ball searches and every one of them would have added at least 10 strokes to their score.
There should probably be lower spec limits on tour balls and clubs, but that horse left the barn years ago and it’s always tougher to get it back in afterwards.
In the end, golf is golf and pro golf (much as we like to think otherwise) is a different game. I don’t care what they do with the ball for pro tournaments as long as they don’t start/keep screwing up the design of great courses for the four days that the pros are there.
It did…in the exact opposite way from what you intend.
Bro, it was a 7,500 yard par 70. That’s incredibly long.
I really have no idea why for golf in particular people feel they can’t regulate the equipment to undo a mistake.
Baseball pitchers don’t get to introduce a new type of ball that allows more movement on their own initiative, and then in particular insist on no rollback when every game is 1-0.
What makes more sense, keep extending the actual golf courses and all the extra acreage, etc. that entail, or just enforce some limitations on the ball/other equipment?
One Pro event should be played on the likes of your local dog track. Bombed out tee boxes and chopped up fairways full of bare spots, greens full of geese shit and unfixed dimples. Saturday morning they come out to find greens have been aerated & sanded.
Spectator level should rival Waste Managements drunkenness. It would be a sight to see.
I think they should drastically roll the ball and driver heads back. The roll back that they’re talking now will only be effective for 10 years or so, imo. This next wave of players are fucking smoking the ball. 185mph ball speed as a floor.
Shrink the driver heads AND roll the ball back. I want to see the days again where a guy averaging over 300 off the tee is a pretty big deal; it would welcome back so many courses into being playable for pros.
They should just make the courses of inconsistent quality. Muni style. Hell, put leaves and twigls in the greens. Make the bunkers have a cm of rocky sand. Let the cups have a volcano mound. All the worst shit you see at a golf course.
They had a 300+ long par 3. No. It doesn’t solve the ball debate. The players that hit fairways scored while the rough punished. It was still ridiculously long because these guys are crushing it.
This proved the opposite. It proved the ball needs rolling back. Pros can’t play an impossible course….imagine an amateur. Roll the ball back, make golf fun.
One of the things that gets overlooked a lot in these discussions is the types of renovations that need to be done even at courses like Oakmont in order to keep them competitive against the pros.
If you look at some of the more challenging majors in recent years (Oakmont, Oak Hill, Pinehurst), the courses have all seen huge updates in the last 10-15 years. This just isn’t sustainable.
Renovations are expensive, (funnily enough) especially for private clubs whose members are responsible for footing the bill. Making the courses play longer requires more land, which isn’t always a possibility. And these renovations also widen the gap between courses designed for pro play and what the everyday golfer plays, which I would argue is not good for the game.
And just think, if Oakmont needs to do this, where does that leave your average Tour stop?
This is the limit. Bifurcate the sport by mean sof the ball. Consumer tech should continue to improve, but this is the limit for professional golf. The trackman era has begoten a considerable advantage to bomb and gouge golf, and rough doesn’t affect that factor. Why are the pros playing at over 8000 yards, and, more importantly, how the fuck is it relatable when I’m playing the same course at 6300? I want to see more long irons into greens. The ball spinning more = more emphasis on hitting the dead center of the face. Keep a consumer ProV1 improving, but put a spec ball into play for the pros.
I want to see pros play more PNW/Midwest/NE style courses with narrows fairways and trees everywhere