Travel Michigan Golf

THE YARDAGE GAME

There's no doubt golf courses are getting longer. Architects are planning new courses that, just a few years ago, would have been considered monsters, while old classics are being reworked to add length. When Augusta National packs on some yardage, as when the site of The Masters announced it was completing renovations that would add some 300-odd yards to its length, you know that 7,000-plus yard courses are more than just a trend.

After its 2001 meeting, the American Society of Golf Course Architects called for reining in the technology that makes even once average hitters long off the tee. While the group has asked the United States Golf Association and the Royal & Ancient to "develop reasonable parameters" for both clubs and balls, members have suggested putting limitations on the golf ball would keep golf from becoming a different game.

This week, in a statement making a case for these equipment limitations, the ASGCA made reference to a talk given by famed English golf designer Donald Steel at the sixth International Golf Conference at St. Andrews. As early as 1997, Steel called for tightening restrictions on clubs and golf balls.

"Yet, in those four years, the advance in the realms of the manufacture of clubs and balls has perhaps been more dramatic than in any other four year period in the entire history of the game -- Haskell ball and steel shafts included," Steel told an International Golf Conference audience. "There is no wish to be over dramatic, but there is a definite fear that the situation is riding out of control."

While there's little danger of your average 18-handicapper making the great courses of the world obsolete, professionals play a much different game in the 21st century than they did even a decade ago.

Tom Kite is one example. The 51-year-old U.S. Open winner drove an average 283.3 yards and recorded a 69.72 scoring average when competing on the Senior PGA Tour this year. In 1989, when Kite was a good 12 years younger and first on the PGA Tour money list, his drives averaged just 255.9 yards and his scoring average was comparable at 69.57. And Kite's gains are not unusual -- not to mention how much farther the young and well-conditioned PGA Tour stars hit it today.

"If a course could be created that demanded that Tiger Woods had to hit long irons for his second shots to the par 4s, mid-irons to the par 3s and the par 5s were all three-shotters," Steel explained, "you would need a course of at least 8,200 yards, and even then I doubt you would contain him. Last year on a new course where the opening hole measured 660 yards, he was home in two with a drive and 2-iron." So much for Tiger-proofing.

Taken from the Golf Press Association info@gpagolf.com