Tiger Proofing

I have read much about the "Tiger proofed" Augusta National this week. They do realize that he plays the same course as everyone else, right?

By Tiger proofing, they mean "lengthening." Augusta National isn't like other courses where they can narrow fairways - it is wide open, and they don't believe in rough. Until three years ago, and their version of rough is what I can "three days of beard growth." It isn't what they call rough in Scotland, what they call rough at Augusta is what they call "greens" in Scotland.

Morons. All they are doing is making it so that Tiger doesn't hit driver and a wedge on most holes - which isn't exactly an advantage for him, incidentally. When everyone else is hitting long irons into the hardest (density) and fastest (speed) greens in the world, he is going to eat them alive all day long. Augusta National knows this, but they would rather see someone win by six at -4 than have eight tied at -16. The course, you know, has its pride.

The way to even up the course is to do two things - Shorten the course and "bring back the ball." The ball is an old Augusta rule that says that all players in the field have to play with the same type of golf ball. But now, that ball wouldn't necessarily have to have the same specs as those approved by rigorous USGA specifications - it would be like the old balls - it wouldn't travel as far or spin as much.

At first blush, there are two things to consider 1) The players will hate this and 2) The USGA/PGA Tour will hate this. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you just about every OTHER rule that Augusta has as precedent for why both of these considerations should be ignored. The players wine when they change the course to make it harder, the USGA/PGA Tour whines when they don't want to allow their officials be involved at the tournament. Wah. Cry me a river. As far as I am concerned, the USGA/PGA Tour is the problem for letting the pros use rocket launchers of the tee. Unlike the USGA/PGA Tour, Augusta is not beholden to the significant cash that equipment manufacturers pour into the sport.

There is one REAL consideration to consider. First, will this affect play to the point that the course is unfair (a ball with less spin will make hitting approach shots very difficult). Well, it wasn't a problem for Jack Nicklaus or Bobby Jones or Tom Watson or Arnold Palmer or every other player who won the title before the Pittsburgh persimmon revolution?

As a fairly long hitter, I have been upset with the advents in technology for some time. It removes natural advantages that truly long players have in compressing the ball. When my 55 year old playing partner hits it as far as I do, there is something wrong. Put another way, you know there is a problem when a 61 year old Jack Nicklaus hits it farther than the Golden Bear did 40 years ago. In case you didn't know, they are the same person. That is when you know that today's stars aren't as good as he was. He was hitting it 300 yards with a wooden club. As a senior citizen, he hits it 325.

The Masters gives the world the only real opportunity to see how today's greats would have really fared against yesterday's heroes. Augusta National has the chutzpah to change normal rules to level the playing field, and they have the only course in the world which could remain unchanged for 90 years. Yes, the greens are running faster and truer (that is a golfing expression for "without imperfections") then they were a decade or two ago, but the course remains the same - as indicated by the fairly stable scoring level with modest improvements over time. Despite advents of technology, technology in growing methods and mower technology evens the score in other ways.

Ultimately, every year the first and last thing everyone talks about is the course. While Augusta National isn't the nicest course in the world, it is pretty close - and it is certainly the most mysterious and every time they fuck with it, it loses some of that allure. Until 1995, it was the same course on Masters Sunday as it was when it opened in the 1930s - save for some minor cosmetic repairs. It was a course where anyone could hit the same shots as the pros because the driver wasn't important- the putter was. In this situation, however, the course isn't the problem - the tiger is. To tame the tiger, muzzle him, not the cage in which he roams.