The Long and Short of It

I'm playing this morning, so you'll have to get through your trying with a longish discourse on one subject, the length and nature of the challenge at TPC Sawgrass.

Shack has a long, thoughtful post on the subject, off of which we'll be riffing...  Fair Use be damned.  Here's his lede:

Because Brandel Chamblee can be a divisive figure, discussion based off of his post-2017 Players commentary seems like a kneejerk reaction to the person making the remarks instead of the substance of his point.

There is also the precariousness of making your case off the back of someone like Si Woo Kim who won the tournament fair and square, with clutch scrambling and little choking. But Brandel's "distance constrictions" commentary should not be thrown out simply because you don't care for Brandel's style or views on other topics.

So, just because he's paranoid, that doesn't mean that they're not out to get him....

This is a worthy subject, and I tried to acknowledge as much yesterday.  It's just that this year's Players offered up a leaderboard bereft of show ponies, but that's a sample size of one.  Back to Geoff:

I happen to agree with him that the TPC Sawgrass still needs to encourage the use of the big stick more to be a more complete modern test. A great deal of money and effort has been put into improving the course as the ultimate tournament venue. That effort this year was mostly a huge success, but it was disappointing that in moving the course forward, a decision was made to not go back with new tees at holes like 1, 5, 6, 9, 10 and 14. (The 7th and 15th had new tees this year.)

Golf can point to a long list of famous tournaments where driver and aggressive play at select times gets taken out of player hands. More often than not, those events have produced awkward finishes with the best scrambler winning. While scrambling is an art that has been mastered by some of the greats, the best courses and setups do the least amount of discriminating against playing styles.

OK, a lot to unpack here... Let's deal with the 'graphs in reverse order.  I couldn't agree more that the use of the driver is a core skill set in golf, and I too am concerned when it's not a viable weapon.  However, I wish Shack had provided examples of those events where driver was marginalized, because when I think of such occurrence, the first to pop into mind was the '06 Open at Hoylake, won by a guy named Woods who his one driver in 72 holes.

As for some lengthening at TPC, I can see where he's coming from.  As an example, No. 5, for those who have played there, is simply a beast of a golf hole.  Yet I saw Jason Day hitting a friggin' iron off the tee....  Don't be sending any nasty e-mails because I know it was a driving iron, but still... But No. 9?  That one we'll differ on, as the green is so tiny and there's so much trouble around it, that you'd actually like to induce more of the guys to take a shot at it...

But a couple of higher level points here....  The only way that a shortish golf course can contain the modern game is to take the driver out of their hands.  We see this at places like Harbor Town and Colonial as well, did you perhaps think it was just random that Annika chose the latter as her venue?  And we're pretty much OK with those venues, but partially because they're second tier events.  DJ doesn't go to either, and never will.

But I also feel compelled to remind that the list of former champions at Sawgrass includes boppers such as Day, Stenson, Couples, Love, Mickelson, Scott and Woods.  I do think part of what we saw this year was a result of unusually firm conditions.... and this guys seems to agree:

Before the 2017 Players, I wrote about the sense that less severe rough, more short grass around the greens and the inclusion of a new drivable 12th would reduce some of the course's tendency to constrict and stifle talent. But the brutal, varied winds conspired with the firm, fast and immaculate conditions to present the fastest TPC Sawgrass imaginable. With that speed, the corridors played narrower and the distance advantage was lost. Without the option to extend some holes, the constrictions played more of a role than is ideal.

Geoff makes the case for more length on the golf course, something we don't hear every day of the week.  I do readily agree that holes like Nos. 5 and 14 would benefit, at least under the conditions we saw this week.  But at the same time the winning score was -10, so I don't think you want to make it all that much more difficult.  

I also think they need to re imagine the 12th hole, which did very little for me as a risk-reward proposition.  

But let's also remember that no event is immune from the unlikely winner.  The Masters (Trevor Immelman, Mike Weir), the U.S,. Open (Michael Campbell, Webb Simpson) and Open Championship (Ben Curtis, Todd Hamilton) have all had such years as well.  It's a marvelously quirky game....  Many believe that the arc of history is long, but bends toward justice.  However, in the fine print you'll see that golf is excluded....

One last thought I'm surprised that Geoff didn't offer up.  Before you do anything, you should probably wait to see whether this will be a May or March event going forward.  That will change the agronomics and wind patterns enough to matter....