Course Architects are one of Golf's Problems

The course I grew up and still play most of my golf on was 9 holes when I started. In the mid-70’s additional land was purchased and it expanded to 18 holes. A subsequent land purchase lengthened the course and took it to a par 72 (greatly compromising my ability to break 80 I might add). I still like playing the course for obvious reasons, but I’ve also remarked that the club should’ve sued the final course architect for malpractice.

I offer up two examples of where I think the architect lost the plot. The left half of the tenth green is narrow with a severe slope and has a bunker directly in front of it. Now I can, or could back in the day, hit a wedge into the green so it was fair enough for me. If I was above the hole or well to the right….well I’ve hit a bad shot. But the average member can’t go for the pin when it’s placed on this side and actually hit the green without extraordinary luck and from the middle of the green they are looking at a very difficult two putt. I mean very difficult as in I’ve played Pinehurst 2 a number of times and these greens are more difficult to putt.

The sixteenth is a par 5 dogleg to the right with a creek that limits how far the drive can go. The second, layup shot has to go up an incline over mounds and bunkers and find a thin slice of fairway. Anything that lands short of the fairway stays in the rough, go through the fairway at all (and I mean at all) and trees block your way to the pin if it is on the top portion of the green. Older members can’t clear the bunkers which are in the way even to get to a point where their third shot is 150 yards long. So the bunkers, which aren’t much of an impediment for the best players ,force the seniors to hit a layup shot which takes them out of range to reach the green with their third.

Mind you this is a small town course with a pretty strong golf tradition, but also a mostly older membership. We aren’t talking about the type of course which is well stocked with scratch and one handicappers and produces state amateur champions.

All of which brings me to this quote from an article on the sociologist Nathan Glazer who, among other things was critical of modern architecture (the buildings kind):

“contemporary artists and architects ‘do not find it easy to celebrate the common ideals and emotions of the community. It is more likely that they will celebrate themselves…Of course, any art requires some considerable assertion of the individual ego. But at the same time, great art, and certainly a great monument, requires the artist to give himself up to the constraints and demands of the task at hand.’”

One of the great problems facing golf to my mind is that too many architects have built courses without the actual users in mind. We have courses which are built with the best player in mind because those are the designs that are celebrated. And, if they are famous and look right, average players want to play them too…at least once or twice. But members are playing their course not once or twice but repeatedly and the object should be to design and build courses which fit the skill, or lack thereof, of the members.

End the Torture, Golf Broadcasting Needs a Rethink

We’re through the four majors of the 2015 golf season. With a fresh crop of stars emerging with some obvious rivalries the competitive landscape appears bright. The golf fan would have much to look forward to if it wasn’t for the awful state of golf broadcasting which is anything but fresh. Apart from showing many more holes the approach to telecasting golf has barely changed in my lifetime and despite the majors being covered by three different networks there’s no discernible difference among those networks in how the game is called. The exception is the European Tour events which are quite well done.

You might think that the reason the Euro Tour is better is that the Brits just know how to call golf, but then there’s Nick Faldo, so that’s clearly not it. There is a certain unfamiliarity advantage. But I think the biggest advantage is that the Euro Tour is covered with a comparatively skeleton crew. Which leads me to the following thoughts on how to telecast golf (with the majors primarily in mind).


1. Less is more, a lot less is a lot more:
There is an extraordinary excess in the amount of commentary. At points we have a reporter on the ground, an announcer at that particular hole, the host, a lead analyst all intent on interjecting something onto the proceedings. Watching golf you come away convinced that the announcers are being paid by the word. More forgivable are the suitable for radio comments particularly for putts; he comes up short, that was right all the way…What is needed is little more than quick orientation comments of the Day, second shot on 14 variety. The presumption should be to say nothing rather than something. Pay announcers by setting a ceiling amount and then deducting for each word.


2. You’re at the event live. That’s your niche:
We now have 24 hour sports stations, and an entire channel devoted to nothing but golf. The one unique thing the telecast brings to the table is that it is live. For the love of God, SHOW SHOTS. Instead we get taped segments and after round player interviews, you know all the things already beaten to death, available elsewhere, inherently dull (has a player ever said anything even remotely interesting in a post round interview?).


3. We’re just not that into you:
Somehow our main announcers think they’re a big reason why we watch. Other than the intro, there is absolutely no reason to show the announcers. Worst of the worst here was Fox, which seemed to believe that we were more interested in watching their announce team sitting behind their desk discuss the tournament than actually seeing it.

This is also where we run into my first law of sports broadcasting; the more shtick, the earlier your sell by date. Gary McCord started on CBS in 1986. Do the math. Even David Feherty who I find really inventive and funny is starting to grate. And the hosts are all terribly over-exposed. I get quite enough Joe Buck in the football season, thanks.


4. More players are in contention than you think:
Remarkably the networks are still getting caught out ignoring a player who almost wins the event until the very end. In particular, last groupitis appears to be incurable. This is especially true during the early rounds when essentially everyone is in it. There’s simply no good reason to spend telecast time showing Phil walking, Phil standing, Phil discussing what to do with his caddie on a particular shot. At one point during the British Open we watched the player and spectators search for his lost ball. How ‘bout coming back to that when it’s resolved.


5. Enough with instruction:
I maybe alone on this (as opposed to all of the above?), but at least during the majors I don’t want playing tips and swing instruction. I get it, you know the game. But I can find all the golf instruction, and then some, in other venues. To repeat, you’re live, at the event. The tournament is the thing. At one point we had 3 or 4 Fox analysts tell us how they strike the ball when putting on dodgy greens. Since we can’t actually see that or know which players are doing one or the other that commentary tells us nothing about the actual tournament at hand.

The best stretch of announcing was actually delivered on Thursday or Friday of the U.S. Open in the otherwise terrible coverage of FOX. Late in the day and down to a small backup crew, FOX stumbled into something. Shane O’Donoghue, who’s actually a golf guy, was spare and unobtrusive in the host role and analysts Flesch and Pavin made single comments and moved on. It was almost enough to give a golf fan hope.
 ^.

Golf - a long time ago

From biography of Herbert Asquith (British Prime Minister to be); when Asquith had just left college in 1875 and spent time as a reading member at St. Andrews:

“Even nearer to hand were the links of the Royal and

Ancient St.

Andrews Golfing Society, and Asquith there made his first acquaintance with the only sedentary game which was ever to arouse his interest.  It was a useful acquaintanceship, for although golf was then so little developed that he and his modest-living student companions were able to hire the services of the British Open champion to carry their clubs, the game was to become an almost essential accompaniment to Edwardian politics.  In the heyday of Asquith’s career, there was hardly a politician of note who did not seek his relaxation (and in some cases try to transact a part of his business) upon a golf links.”

Asquith, Roy Jenkins

There's a great picture of him from 1912 just after he's hit a drive in full golfing attire (hat, suit and tie, dress shirt with cuff links no less).  Looks like he favored a baseball grip rather than the vardon.

P.G. Wodehouse and golf

"Provided luck was with him and the lie not too desperate, a mashie would put him on the carpet.  It was only when he reached the rough and saw what happened that his heart sank.  There the ball lay, half hidden in the grass, while above it waved the straggling tentacle of some tough looking shrub.  Behind it was a stone, and behind the stone at just the elevation to catch a back-swing of the club, was a tree.  And, by an ironical stroke of fate which drew from Bradbury a hollow, bitter laugh, only a few feet to the right was a beautiful smooth piece of turf from which it would have been a pleasure to play one’s second..

Dully, Bradbury looked to see how Bott was getting on.  And then suddenly, as he found that Bott was completely invisible behind the belt of bushes through which he had just passed, a voice seemed to whisper to him, ‘why not?’

Bradley Fisher, remember, had spent thirty years in Wall Street."

The Heart of a Goof, P.G. Wodehouse, High Stakes, page 49

Why Tiger won't catch Nicklaus - in theory

Via a tweet by John Podhoretz, a very interesting essay on golf and Tiger Woods by Charles Murray
http://www.american.com/archive/2010/july/why-tiger-wont-catch-jack

U.S. Open

A few thoughts on the U.S. Open

1)  A big part of the appeal of the U.S. Open is the chance to see a great golf course.  The best sites make you want desperately to play the course and imbed certain holes or features in your memory.  A course like Pebble Beach has a big advantage, but you don't need to hug an ocean to have memorable holes. 

While Congressional seems to be a decent course and the 18th, with the water on the left and huge clubhouse on the hill in the foreground, is a really nice hole, it is not an especially memorable site for the Open.  It's not to the level of say Oakmont (the church pew bunkers, the 9th green), next year's site Olympic, or Merion which is coming up.

2)  There was a lot of criticism that the course was too easy.  As I posted before I think the USGA, when it tries to protect par, generally ruins the tournament.  They didn't do that this year.  Throw McIlroy out and the winning score is -8 which is just right, especially when the par is 71.

We also got to see one aspect of the criticism rebutted on Sunday.  Andy North and Curtis Strange complained about the tees being moved up on the long par 5 ninth on Saturday, which turned it into a birdie hole as players could reach the green in two.  So on Sunday they had the tees back and the hole was completely non-descript.  Unlike on Saturday, there was no decision to make, no penalty for driving the ball in the rough, the players drove, hit a shortish lay up shot regardless of whether they were in the fairway or not, and then tried to get close with a wedge.

3)  The difference for McIlroy was his putting.  His Master's collapse didn't start on the 10th it started much earlier when he bogied the first, and came about not because he started driving the ball in the direction of the surrounding houses but because he was missing key, par saving putts.  Putting was also his downfall in the PGA last year, when he had numerous opportunities but couldn't get his birdie attempts to fall.

4)  The thing you notice about McIlroy's swing is how square he has the club at the top.  It always seems to be pointing straight down his target line.  I don't believe in playing golf by trying to get into a number of different positions through the swing, but at the top is the exception.  Set it square at that point like McIlroy does and you just have to let it go to hit it straight.

5)  Let's wait and see before we start proclaiming him the next Tiger.  Again I think it will come down to putting, where Tiger didn't miss anything of importance for over a decade.  McIlroy looked much, much better with the blade this week, but it's just one week.  And because of the recency of Tiger's wins, the standard has been distorted.  Take Jack and Tiger out of it and you realize that 4 - 6 majors puts you in the game's elite.

Golf - Lessons from John Jacobs

In Right Time, Right Place, Richard Brookhiser takes a certain writer to task for falling prey to the "no principles please we're British" error.  Maybe that's why I like A Life Full of Lessons--wherein teacher John Jacobs shares his thoughts on the game--so much.  It has that British feel to it, as well as the wisdom that comes from his having been a club pro for 60 years.  The article appears in the March 2011 issue of Golf Digest and I think it's about the best instructional piece that's been published in that magazine.

The whole piece is worth a close, attentive read if you play golf, but a few of the highlights for me are:

"If golf were about getting into correct positions throughout the swing, then the greatest players in the world have had it wrong."

I happen to have a pretty orthodox, classic type swing, but I think this is absolutely correct.  Or perhaps more to the point, the attempt to turn the swing into a series of positions will destroy more golfers than it will help.

"The feeling of wanting to take the club straight back, rather than on an arc, is intuitively human, but it's the core of many faults.  We think the longer we can make a straight line, the straighter the ball will go.  But golf is a side-on-side game with the ball on the ground, so it's the opposite."

For some reason, women seem to be particularly susceptible to this error.  I see it all the time when I practice and the temptation not to butt in and say something is tough to resist.  Difficult to stay silent when husband/boyfriend is going on about something or other while the woman has the club going straight all the way to the top of her backswing, and thereby has no chance to hit the ball with any force.  None.

And finally:

"Many players never start in an address position that makes a windup back and through possible.  If you set up right, it's all done; you don't need any more thoughts.  Leave the rest to the good Lord."

Took me a long while to figure this out, but I think that's about right (I have it that setup is about 90%, the top of the backswing is another 9.5%, and then not getting greedy because you know you have it right is the remaining 0.5%). 

Read the rest: http://www.golfdigest.com/magazine/2011-03/jacobs-diaz-lessons

U.S. Open Golf Championship - scoring

As anyone who follows golf knows, it's U.S. Open week, with the tournament being played at Congressional this year.  I watch all the major tournaments and will no doubt tune in this week, but the U.S. Open has struck me as misguided for a very long time, confusing 'finding the best golfer' with protecting par.

In the last decade the median winning score in the U.S. Open was -2 compared to the median for the British Open -8.5 and The Masters -10.5.  Does the U.S Open do a better job of determining the best golfer than the other majors?  I rather doubt it, and I think anyone who watches the tournament or listens to the commentary will doubt it as well.  It isn't so much the relatively high winning score (par is rather arbitrary) as that the USGA philosophy is so committed to bringing out the inner accountant in the players.  Hit the fairway, hit the green, two putts for par and go to the next hole, whatever you do don't become impatient and actually attempt a risky shot in the attempt to make a birdie or better.  Is that really what you want from your national champion?

Now, first I think having a philosophy, any philosophy, and imposing it on the tournament year after year is a mistake.  The U.S Open moves around, being played on the best courses in what is a very big country.  Why not have the courses dictate the tournament rather than having tournament officials come in and try to make disparate sites as near to each other as possible. 

And second, if the U.S Open is known for defending par it is also known for having courses get away from it.  By trying to make the course difficult the USGA has too often not lessened the role of luck in determining a winner but increased it. 

Perhaps the player who best epitomizes what I have in mind passed away last month.  Seve Ballesteros was undeniably one of the best golfers of his era and Seve had no chance to win a U.S Open.  That he contended (at Oakmont I believe) at all is far more surprising than that he never won it.  Seve played with flair, he was an artist with clubs not an accountant.  He won and regularly contended at The Masters and The British Open but not in the U.S Open.  That's what's wrong with the U.S. Open.