Friday, June 30, 2006

Seve - I Beg To Differ!

Seve Ballesteros a couple of days ago called the US Open at Winged Foot the worst major. He thinks it's wrong that good pros can end up shooting 20 over par. Seve, the problem isn't in the scores it's in the technology - which effects the courses.

Scoring is relative. What if they increased par at every hole by one. Would we feel any differently about the same scores now that they're red instead of black? Golf is the player against himself and against the course. Good golf is challenging golf, fair golf, but who cares where the totals stand in relation to par. It's immaterial Seve.

I want fair courses. No one wants to see someone 10 feet below the hole and their ball roll back to them every time they don't putt it into the cup. That's not fair golf, that's gimicky golf. I want to see shot making. I want to see pros have to use more than drivers and pitching wedges. 14 clubs will soon become 4 wedges, 2 drivers, a putter, 3 wood or utility wood and 5 through 9 irons. Something is wrong when 275 in the middle of the fairway is a lot worse than 330, 15 yards into the rough.

Championship golf should be about the player understanding and dissecting a course to attack it in the best way given it's challenges and the player's skills. Golf at it's best is a mental game. Today most every winning pro's strategy is bomb it and drop a wedge on the pin. I thought only one player understood Winged Foot, at least until the last hole. That would be Monty. I believe he was playing for par, not birdie. That's what the course asked for. That's what Billy Casper realized when he won at Winged Foot and played his tee shot at that treacherous par 3 short of the green in every round. He used his head. I'm thinking that Phil is the best of the bomb-it generation. He certainly showed it at the Open, unfortunately not 'thinking' his way around cost him.

What's to be done to force players to have to think. One way would be to change the technology somewhere to keep the ball in the park, but it doesn't look like the powers-that-be have the courage for that. Then it's left up to each individual course to adapt accordingly - a much harder and more costly alternative.

3 comments:

RennyBA said...

Quite different from how we do it in the Nordic, but I do see your point of view.

Anonymous said...

John, I totally agree with you. I enjoyed watching the pros struggle with the course, maybe it's better for the gallery if the winner comes in with a score of -20, but doesn't it make them more "human" if they fight for par instead of walking off with an easy birdie?

Anonymous said...

Agreed. There's something about them hitting +20 that helps us "relate" to them. Granted, on that course we'd be hitting +100, but just seeing them over par makes them look more "real". Dave, you're right, nothing exciting about a -16.