There are certain moments in sports that create drama, or possibly it is the other way around. In any event, we all know what those types of moments are...One might be needing to hit a free throw with time expired to win a basketball game. Another is coming to the plate with a man on second and third, and down by a run in the bottom of the ninth. And while it may not be the first instance you think of, for many, needing to get a drive in the fairway on the last hole of the US Open is indeed another.
And there are a portion of those folks that are starting to wonder for how much longer hitting a fairway will really matter. Week after week on the PGA Tour, we watch players hit the ball further and further, with less and less regard for accuracy off the tee.
Last week, rookie J.B. Holmes won the Tour's FBR Open by seven shots over the rest of the field. So far in 2006, Holmes ranks second on the tour in driving distance, averaging 313 yards [for some perspective, in 1990, Tom Purtzer led the tour with an average of 279 yards]. All weekend long, the CBS announcing crew gushed about Holmes' prodigous length and the type of star he could become on the PGA Tour.
But shouldn't a star on the PGA Tour have to manage to get more than half of his drives in the fairway? Through thirteen rounds, Holmes has succeeded in finding the short grass only 53% of the time, ranking 118th. Holmes certainly doesn't think it's necessary. "It's better to have a wedge in the rough than a 7-iron in the middle of the fairway," Holmes says. "That's just the way it's going now."
But make no mistake, players like Holmes, Bubba Watson, and Hanke Kuehne are not ushering in a new era of golf, they are merely a product of their times. Improved technology in balls and clubs have players bombing away first and asking questions later. After the 2005 season, Dick Rugge, senior technical director of the United States Golf Association (in conjunction with the Royal & Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews, the USGA is golf's governing body), conducted a statistical examination, studying what factors most correlated with success on the PGA Tour.
The statistics show that from 1980 to the early 1990's, rankings in driving accuracy, driving distance, putting average, and percentage of greens hit in regulation (the percentage of greens in which a player has a birdie or eagle putt) on the PGA Tour all had similar and balanced correlations with rankings on the money list. Since the early 1990's when driving distances on the tour began to dramatically increase, the correlation between driving accuracy and money list ranking has dropped to essentially zero while the other three categories have maintained their relationship.
Big deal, you might say, if players hit the ball further but with less accuracy, it makes for more dramatic golf -- scrambling out of the deep rough for a birdie or par is dramatic. Yes, it is, but there is also drama in having to place a ball in the fairway and hit it a long way. More and more, players need only to accomplish the latter.
And quite subtely, the increases in distance have an effect on the average amateur's golf experience as well. In order to combat these increases in distance, golf courses have to become longer, and longer, which requires more land to be purchased and later on, maintained. More land equals longer and more expensive rounds of golf. Gone are the days of the fifteen dollar, three hour round of golf. They've been replaced by the forty dollar, five hour round of golf.
There are two things everyone values in life: time and money. As rounds get more and more lengthy and expensive, golf will become less and less popular. Also depressing the game's polularity will be the driver/wedge, driver/wedge, driver/wedge strategy employed on the PGA Tour. It makes for boring television, similar to professional tennis with one unreturnable 100 mph serve after another.
For the most part, the USGA and R&A have stood by while distance increases have, well, increased at a rapid rate, accumulating the statistics, but ignoring and/or misinterpreting them. No one knows for sure why golf's governing bodies have ignored the changes in the game, but one of the most popular theories is that the leaders of these organizations fear the inevitable lawsuits that will come from the deep-pocketed golf equipment industry. Another factor is that golf is a game where people choose to follow the rules and often call penalties on themselves [can you imagine that in any other sport?..."Excuse me Mr. Umpire, but you called that a ball and really, I think that was a strike, I should be out now, so I am just going to go back to the dugout"], and maybe the USGA/R&A also fear that there is a limit to what golfers will comply to...Rolling back the allowable potential distances of golf balls might just cross a limit.
But recently, there have been signs that we may have hit the limit of what the USGA is willing to endure. Earlier this week, Jim Vernon, chairman of the USGA's Equipment Standards Committee, had this to say in his speech at the organization's annual meeting:
Our task this year is to continue to evaluate all these factors and to determine whether new regulations would be appropriate to require the elite players in particular to regain some of the skills that were more important in the past. The task is complicated, or course, by what I said at the beginning of my remarks -- we regulate equipment for all golfers of all skill levels, not just PGA Tour pros.
The Equipment Standards Committee has set an aggressive agenda for 2006, and we believe it accurately reflects the state of the industry and the game. Underlying all our efforts will be the philosophy set forth in the Statement of Principles: we will remain vigilant to assure that technology does not diminish the skill necessary to play the game.
Let me assure you, talk of "new regulations" to "assure that technology does not diminish the skill necessary to play the game" is language we have not heard from the USGA in some time -- if ever -- when it comes to distances the golf ball travels.
The attraction to golf has always been -- even in Roman days I would presume -- the need for strategy, creativity in shotmaking, self-discipline, and a balanced combination of distance and accuracy in order to be successful. Tweaking the rules so that such skills are again a requirment rather than a quirky little advantage, would go a long way towards ensuring the integrity of the game.
And isn't that what the USGA is there for? Isn't that why people like me renew our membership every year?
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More reading...
...PGA Tour Statistics
...United States Golf Association
...Nearly anything by Geoff Shackelford, including The Future of Golf.
...Examining shotmaking in college golf.
...Examinging shotmaking on the PGA Tour [scroll towards bottom].
..."Golf Clubs and Driving Distance"
...Thankfully, I had the chance to enjoy the US Amateur at Merion CC, because the course probably doesn't have enough length for today's pros.
...Sure, there are some problems, but golf is still a great game, and there are plenty of reasons why...and Kevin Hall is another one.
