Should other courses follow Augusta National's lead?

Golf Course News, Jun 2002 by Overbeck, Andrew

As I was walking up to the 8th tee at Augusta National during the practice rounds at the Masters, I stumbled upon Tom Fazio explaining the changes he made to the hole to CBS announcers Jim Nantz and Ken Venturi. That's when it struck me: how many armchair greens committee architects watching this year's telecast would be left with the impression that they, too, needed to lengthen their course?

With increasing golf ball and club technology, many courses are already adding length and new courses are getting longer and longer. While the effects of the 285 yards that were added to Augusta National were impossible to gauge due to wet conditions, the changes made to golf's Mecca fanned the flames of the technology vs. tradition debate. Not only did Augusta National add length, using land from adjacent Augusta Country Club in the process, but Masters chairman Hootie Johnson also stopped just short of endorsing a limited-flight "tournament golf ball."

While many in the golf industry are tiring of this ongoing argument, the fact remains that increasing technology and other factors are altering the game to some degree. However, as this month's Point/Counterpoint feature and News Poll illustrate (see below and page 7), the industry is still firmly divided over what, if anything, should be done about the problem.

There is no doubt that professional golfers are hitting the ball longer, but tweaking layouts for professional events has been going on for years. The big question is how technology will impact the average golfer and the 16,000-- plus average golf courses in the country. Unfortunately, there isn't much hard data on this. Most of the "evidence" that exists is purely anecdotal or based on unwieldy assumptions or estimates.

Are a majority of high-- handicappers really slicing the ball 50 yards farther right and endangering homeowners relaxing on their patios? Oristhe high-- handicapper playing more golf because he can drive the ball 50 yards farther right down the middle? The last thing the industry needs is another survey, but quantifying the problem would be better than making unnecessary changes (to both golf courses and equipment) to solve what could just be a misconception or misperception.

Speaking of using hard data to assess the severity of a problem, check out John Strawn's review of Bjorn Lomborg's "The Skepti- cal Environmentalist: Measuring the Real State of the World" (see page 18). According to Lomborg's assessment of the data on environmental problems, it turns out that the environment on the whole is actually getting better, not worse. The golf industry has known this for some time, but finally there is a body of data that provides an alternative perspective to the usual gloomy environmental scenario.

Here at Golf Course News, we never stop counting. Turn back to page 28 for a listing of the 40 industry professionals quoted in this issue.

Andrew Overbeck, editor