The Torture Files

Larry Olmstead at Forbes reports on Monday's TaylorMade/Hack Golf event.  After a brief review of the usual suspects, time and difficulty, Olmstead presents the solution du jour:

Now a group known as HackGolf, whose tagline is “How Do We Make Golf More Fun For Everyone?” is trying to tackle the other side of the equation, difficulty, by making golf easier. Its website is devoted to “generating thousands of practical ideas for making golf more fun” and then plans to “prototype the best ideas through real world experiments and then ramp them up as appropriate.” 

HackGolf, backed by the deep pockets of top equipment and clothing manufacturer TaylorMade-adidias Golf, recently did just that, demoing a bold new idea – the 15-inch golf hole. For as long as anyone alive has been playing, the standard has been a scant 108mm, about 4 ¼ inches wide. The jump to 15 isn't a renovation so much as a tear down, offering a dinner plate sized target that should make 3-putting all but impossible and dramatically increase the number of birdies and eagles – and of course, holes in one.

Fifteen-inch cups aren't exactly new, for instance our Super has been using them forever on his winter temporary greens.  OK, so here's the lede from this "event":

Yesterday, immediately following the Masters, TaylorMade sponsored athletes Sergio Garcia

and Justin Rose headlined an industry field that tried the new concept at Georgia’s Reynolds Plantation, a 6-course luxury resort with onsite Ritz-Carlton hotel. They installed 15-inch cups and played 9-holes, with Garcia shooting 30 and Rose 33, which frankly are not especially low scores, comparable to the best these pros might be expected to shoot on a resort course with standard greens.

Unlike water boarding, this IS torture and is completely inconsistent with who we are as a nation.  I call for Congressional investigations.  Segio and Justin are two of the absolute worst putters on Tour, and tempting them with 15" cups is like luring an innocent child into a stranger's car with candy.  As an example, we learned here that Rose is the best ball-striker on Tour, picking up approximately 2 strokes per 18 holes or 8 strokes per event, all of which and then some he gives back on the greens.   And save the e-mail, I know that Segio allegedly has had some improved putting statistics, but for now I'll stick with my lyin' eyes.

A common drill is to have players putt into smaller cups, barely wide enough to fit a golf ball, so that the real cups will seem larger.  This is the reverse...next time they play the cups will seem like the 2" practice cups.

The saving grace?  The guys we're messing with will both be on the Euro Ryder Cup team.  Though by then it will have warn off and, things being what they are, they'll both putt like Bobby Locke.

But what of the broader question?  Is this how we grow the game, or is it as ridiculous as it seems to me.  Here's what passes for their big success:

Two weeks ago HackGolf debuted the new oversized holes for the first time at Southern California’s Pauma Valley Country Club, and says that the new cups reduced the length of an 18-hole round from 4:30 to 3:45, while many golfers saw a 10-stroke improvement in scores.

 Feh.  I don't think forty-five minutes is going to change the calculus of potential players and, more importantly, where do you go with this.  If our greens-keeper starts cutting 15" cups into our greens, his body will be found face-down in a water hazard quite quickly.  And this idea is equally preposterous:

In some cases participation in the novel experiment will be limited to weekend tournaments or fundraisers, while other courses plan on having both a regulation and 15-inch hole on each green at all times.

Channeling Jon Lovitz, yeah, that's the ticket.  I could se ethis being helpful if you had a few practice holes or a short course at your club.  It would make a nice place for youngsters to hit their first few shots, and being able to hole out and "make a score" is a nice touch.  But back here on planet Earth nobody has the extra real estate necessary, and grow the game initiatives won't accomplish much if they alienate the base.

But more importantly, aren't the real issues of the difficulty of the game to be found in the unnatural art of hitting the golf ball?  Has anyone ever quit the game because putting is too hard?  Rather than this kind of nonsense, wouldn't it make more sense to focus on how to shorten the learning curve for newbies, utilizing equipment, teaching aids and/or instructional techniques to help newbies achieve some limited success at getting the ball, as Old Tom Morris put it, airborne and forward?