The governing bodies of golf are looking to perhaps limit the affect technology can have on the game of golf in order to make it more challenging and avoid the possibility of some our most iconic golf courses becoming obsolete due to the length golfers are now hitting the ball.
Personally, I think that the technology is making the game more interesting and less annoying for the average golfer who is benefitting from the advances in club design and ball manufacturing. However, at the top level of the game I think that technology plays only a small part in the bigger picture.
When I started watching golf on the TV, I was in awe of the likes of Severiano Ballesteros, Greg Norman, Nick Faldo, Colin Montgomerie and Tom Watson, to name a few. They had a skill set that today´s modern golfers just don´t seem to possess. They could work a ball, they wanted to move the ball to suit the course that they were playing. They had imagination that got them round the golf course is a few shots as possible.
Compare that to the greats of today, Rory Mcilroy, Justin Rose, Dustin Johnson and Brooks Koepka, all enormously powerful golfers that bully golf courses into submission as they record 4 round totals of 20 under par or more. Don´t get me wrong these guys are highly skilled, but they are power hitters rather than magicians of the beautiful game.
If we take a look at statistics, from the 90s and then the last decade, the numbers are not that different, driving distance has increased as an average, but there has always been golfers renowned for their big hitting, just as there has for their wizardry around the greens. So what is the difference.
For me it is quite obvious, the courses are getting longer, yet the scores are not changing, why?
Because in reality, courses are longer, but they are far less punishing. Fairways are wider, rough is shorter and bunkers are now considered a good miss. What the governing bodies should be looking at is course set up. With a prime example being “Le Golf Nacional” which hosted the 2018 Ryder Cup. If the worlds big hitting, powerful golfers missed the narrow fairways they were left with little choice but to hack the ball back onto the fairways.
Golf previously was a game that rewarded shot making and the ability to keep the ball in the fairway, rather than the 350-yard drive. If we do not go back to this method of course set up then regardless of the limitations we put on club manufacturers, courses will become obsolete and the game will continue to be about power rather than skill.
Average golfers may benefit more than the professionals, but even if they do the courses should not have to be lengthened, they should be maintained so that bad shots are punished and good shots rewarded.
Amateur golfers, along with professionals will have to change their mental approach to the game and practice on keeping the ball in play, which to my mind is the essence of this beautiful game.
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