I don’t understand what the problem is. So everyone gets smaller numbers on their card. Just accept a new normal of what a good score is?
Edit: thanks for the thoughtful responses. I understand now. Providing different ball difficulties like squash does seems like a really elegant solution.
I think it's not just about better scores, but about basically bypassing most of the major challenges on a course. The pros often don't have to deal with the same sorts of bunkers, water hazards, etc. that amateurs do, and this can cause amateurs to lose interest. Nobody cares about long-drive competitions (well, okay, some people do, but long-drive competitors are hardly making PGA Tour money).
Golf is one of those “watch someone do what you do but better” sports - I dare say the percentage of golf enjoyers who watch also play - and you can play the exact same courses the pros play without much work.
We see this in all kinds of sports. Professional baseball for example use bats that make it harder to hit home runs. Professional swimming limit how long you can swim under water, even though it leads to slower times. Professional sports are first and foremost supposed to be fun to watch, and people find it less fun to watch golf if everybody can hit the ball 'too far', since it removes the need to navigate the trickier parts of the course.
The “professional” gives it away - someone is paying for it and that is mostly people looking for entertainment these days. There may be a very small amount of “record beating” but even that should be entertaining.
Imagine if MLB used aluminum bats or allowed the pitchers to grease the ball. A game if endless home runs or endless strikeouts would be boring.
Yes. Olympics and other competitive events seek the best. Professional sports seek the most entertaining and therefore most profitable (which usually but not always correlates with skill).
Olympics and other competitive events seek the best.
That's not really true at all. Look at swimming again for example, they have lots of rules related to what you are allowed to wear and how you're allowed to swim that all lead to slower times, but (hopefully) a more fun event to watch. The Olympics keep changing and tweaking the rules of all kinds of sports simply to try to make them more interesting and/or increase their popularity and viewership.
It's been fascinating to watch that in a new emerging sport which is still developing rapidly: World Chase Tag.
While it is a professional sport, they can't afford to pay high player salaries, so it has to be fun to play, too, to attract talent. But they definitely do care about how it looks, and have said in interviews that this was their main focus during initial play testing. They've actually changed the rules very little over time (they reduced the rest period between chases from 30 seconds to 25, but that's about it); instead, they've focused their attention on tweaking the quad, the structure on which the game is played. Small tweaks to the positioning of bars can subtly alter the balance of power between chaser and evader. They've deliberately nerfed some developing strategies they decided they didn't like (by adding obstructions behind the Mountain, for example).
> Professional sports are first and foremost supposed to be fun to watch, and people find it less fun to watch
There are some sports where they have a similar problem (tennis and table tennis) where the speeds have become ridiculous, but no one wants to limit that (via limits on equipment sizes etc.) because people don't want to see long tedious technical exchanges. They want to see "wack" and "boom 200 kmh"
In tennis, despite serves being generally faster than they were 30 years ago, the game seems to be less serve-dominated. True, there are still players who are one-dimensional in their ability to hit aces...but the very top players all have well-rounded games. Novak Djokovic has less than half the number of aces as John Isner, despite having played in many more matches.
And for ground strokes, the net and court size restrict how much power you can give a shot--spin and control are more critical. Pro-level racquets are generally less powerful than those used by amateurs. If a company were to come out with a racket that could hit twice as fast, approximately zero pro players would use it.
It kind of ruins the point/skill involved in many hole designs. Not sure if you are a golfer, but many holes in older courses were carefully designed with hazard s/locations (bunkers, rough, water etc) at specific distances to penalize poor shots, and to reward accurate approach play with mid/long irons. It completely changes the nature of the course if you can just boom a big drive over everything and not get penalized if its a bit wild, and then flop it on with a short pitching wedge. For example, in my local course (designed in 1894) there is a famous finishing hole that forces you to lay up your drive (e.g. using only a fairway wood) to avoid going into a gully, leaving you with a long 3- iron uphill approach shot. With bigger driving distances they've had to move back the teebox to retain the idea of the hole.
That's what's being discussed, do "they" change every golf course or just nerf the equipment for pros a bit? Which also has the added benefit that amateurs can still play the course as intended.
Or you standardize the equipment to match certain characteristics. The only reason to continue tweaking the equipment forever would be that you want to sell clubs. Shouldn't it be about individual performance and technique?
Yeah, I see your point. It's a tricky aspect because if you go that road and mess with the engineering aspect of the sport, what's the point to remain in the sport for the manufacturers? If you can't sell new "and better" clubs to make shit players like me hope to feel like Tiger Woods?
But if they change the course, that won't affect me. I (and others like me) will never get to play at Augusta but those who do get to play, will continue playing there.
Many other great replies, I would add- If courses have to get bigger for long hitting pros, that increases cost overhead for the course all year long, when players that can't even hit that far are the normal players/customers. Golf is very expensive as it is.
The other replies you got are good, but miss a key component of what makes golf interesting: score separation.
On a given hole, you don’t want everybody to get a birdie (or everybody to get a par or everybody to get a bogey, etc.). You need there to be some risk/reward that leads to some getting a birdie, some getting a par, some getting a bogey, etc. This is what adds drama and strategy as a tournament goes on. Which option will the guy in second go for? What will the leader do?
If you remove this separation and have almost everybody taking birdie/par and nobody taking bogey, then all the scores will be bunched tighter together and the end result is a tournament that’s less exciting to watch.
The “do I take the safe shot that gets me there in three guaranteed, or do I try to go for the long drive and hope to hit it in two (but if I miss I’m at four for sure)” was even a part of golf on the Wii.
There’s also something about a sport that becomes not a question of doing excellence but instead becomes all about not being the person to make a mistake.
When Tiger Woods came on the scene many courses had to be reworked because he was simply hitting over all the hazards. Now with newer technology and the increased athleticism of new players, they are hitting even farther. Personally I would prefer they continue to re-work the courses, but they may not have the space.
Historical comparisons are hard because many tournaments are not at the same course every year, weather is often different, and courses have always been changed over time. When it comes to pros, something as seemingly simple as pin placement can radically change the outcome and those are moved every round.
"He'd rather see the current golf clubs get modified rather than the ball, and he's not alone."
That has got to be the biggest nonstarter I've ever heard. If players use different clubs than the fans, it would undermine all of the money behind the equipment manufacturers, advertising and merchandising.
It’s where “stock car” racing came into play, and at the extremes are rally car racing.
Racing fans seem content to perhaps maybe drive a vehicle made by the company that sponsors their team; but they don’t actually race. Golfers (and I suspect some large percentage of viewers are also players) really like buying the equipment the pros use even if it’s not really appropriate for their skill level.
It’s a story so old that PH Wodehouse references it in his books.
Well if people already use what the pros use despite what’s best for them, why would nerfing pro equipment be a problem?
Personally I think courses just need to change. There are already huge disparities in courses. Pros already demolish 99% of golf courses because they’re tuned for average players.
We already often have "men's tees" and "women's tees" - new courses can simply implement that further and have various tees for various skill/power levels.
Race cars aren't more practical than golf clubs, but the reasons for which race cars aren't street legal are borne of practicality. Bumper height regulations are to hedge against the possibility of cars bumping into each other (and visibility.) Race cars don't have those concerns because all the other cars are race cars. Otherwise (ignoring emissions, cause I don't know), adding height, raising the bumper, turn signals and such can be done to even the most aggressive race car. It's been done, but the reason it isn't done more is because race cars are designed for race courses, and are incredibly hard to drive in regular, stop and go traffic.
I can't see any reason why a better club wouldn't be preferred, so long as it is available.
They do. The Car of Tomorrow was created for safety purposes. If fans or manufacturers had anything to say about it, nascar would use vehicles that actually looked like floor room models and not the same car with different stickers.
Dragsters in the Top Fuel class have become so fast that the course distance was reduced from 1/4 mile (~400 m) to 1,000 feet (~300 m) in 2008, for driver safety.
What would the effect of going back 10 years in club tech? We didn’t have this same problem 10 years ago. I know the PGA players are also significantly more athletic than they used to be though.
Softball got both metal bats regulations/conformance testing and changes to the ball “pop” over the years.
As a serious (but only B-level skilled) player, I hate the ball changes, but the bat changes I think are good (except for the cost of replacing now-banned bats).
Softball changed primarily for player safety, but I think there could be an analog here. Hitting a marshmallow-feeling softball sounds and feels worse. Hitting a regular ball with a bat that’s slightly less engineered still sounds and feels good and I think lets the better players separate their performance from the rest of the field.
That’s probably the key: make changes that help the best players showcase and differentiate their skill.
It is like everything else in the world, marketing is trying to cater to the "masses". Duffers want to play like the pros, and if some they do one thing wrong the clubs go flying through the air. I only played a few times when young (I think it is boring). I also noticed the cost of golf balls seem very expensive these days. I guess it is for all the research to make things easy.
It is like Tennis, when I was young we used regular size rackets. I stopped for a few years and I noticed people were playing with rackets that the string area was larger. At first I said they were using "cheating" rackets only to find out these were the new regulation.
So I agree, time to tone some things down. Pros should be challenged. Now I wonder if this happens if the tournament will supply the balls. (do they already do that?).
The regulations didn't change. Tennis racquets were always allowed be that size, but wooden racquets as big as modern day ones would either be too heavy to swing or too frail to withstand the forces.
Not having enough goals is exactly why it's worth watching. You can argue over who played better, what would have happened if only that chance had gone in, what if that red card didn't happen, what if that sub had come on sooner, and so on. And the big one, whether the better team won.
In fact every sport tries to muddy the advantage of the favorite. Look at tennis, how exciting would it be if it were just a race to 100 points?
People seem to like this about it, but I agree. Not feeling like the sport rewards better teams consistently, plus the fact that some matches are super dull, is at the core of why I just can't get interested in football (soccer).
I don't think so, the number of goals has been pretty stable (e.g. for FIFA world cups it's a stable average of between 2.5 and 3.0 since the 1960's). The story is similar in most leagues. 2.5-3.0 is plenty, I wouldn't like the sport to transform into something where you have 4 or 5 goal averages, it wouldn't become more interesting because of it. Anyone who enjoys football should enjoy a 0-0 or 1-1 draw as much as a 3-3 game otherwise it's just not their sport.
It’s funny to me they picked one of the worst courses in the country (I should know, I have played there a lot) to be the source for this article. It is also a very very short course and the vast majority of people that play there are beginners. There are several world class golf courses in the DC area that have hosted major tournaments, but EPGL (no one call it that by the way, it is Hain’s Point) is the closest course to NPR’s office.
There are plenty of sports with different rules between amateurs and the pros. Amateur and pro boxing use different scoring systems. American football uses a different ball, different clock rules, different catch-possession rules, etc. Different baseball leagues use aluminum vs. wooden bats. Track uses different hurdle heights. None of these remove the central conceit of amateur sports.
That said, I agree with many professional golfers that the way to address the distance issue is through the clubs and course design. It's a simpler solution for the game.
Well I don't know much about the North American sports, but amateur boxing needs to be safe. Even then you kinda know that you're not a pro boxer, because you're encased in a soft helmet.
The thing about golf though, is that it's one of the few sports where you're in the same stadium (venue/whatever) as the pros. As in the exact same place, not a mini stadium for amateur athletes or a random football pitch in the park, or a boxing ring in some gym. So you can feel that in most sports, you are not really like one of the big boys.
I wonder how much players care about that.
In any case, why is there this line between the ball and the clubs? Why is it better to change one but not the other?
I definitely support a major overhaul to restrict the distances, by whatever means necessary: clubs and balls. A round a golf should be doable in 3 hours on foot.
The NFL constantly tweaks rules (I think the body responsible is the "Competition Committee"). Baseball just banned the infield shift and enlarged the bases. In the 1960s, baseball lowered the pitcher's mound.
The rules can end up so complicated that you need a degree to understand them all, which can be disheartening for viewers, too. The infield fly rule is often the subject of much confusion.
They’re trying to change the rules in ways that don’t change how the game is played. This results in weird unintuitive rules that only apply in specific edge cases. I’d rather they attempt more bold changes to how the game is played to keep the simplicity rather than the rules just being however the referees feel like interpreting them on any given day.
It’s been a while since I followed baseball. I’m trying to think through the implications of simply removing the infield fly rule. Is the following thinking correct?
If the rule is removed, runners would be unsure if they need to stay on base or advance. It would depend on if the infielder caught the fly ball (which is like 99% in their control). The batter would wait just before first base. The fielder would catch the ball if runners were far from their base. But what should the batters do? It seems like the lead runner should always stay, but the man on first should advance if he’s a worse runner than the batter.
I actually really like your idea. It introduces a lot of complexity that might lead to some convention that simplifies the situation, but also leaves room for good playmaking from the fielders and runners. Makes me think of a run down. Although I also wonder if it’s too complicated in which case it would result in strictly following a convention or pure chaos (which might sound cool but players, coaches, umps, mlb would hate it).
The infield fly rule actually is one of the "better" ones as it makes sense once you realize that it's basically penalizing "intentionally playing bad for a benefit" - and the umpire calls it BEFORE the ball hits the ground.
The problem are rules that are judgement cases called AFTER the play is done.
The biggest ones I can think of that are in baseball are the balk rule and the baseline path rule.
Funny you bring those up, I actually think they're the worst offenders. They both go way out of their way to stifle any form of innovation in the sport. It makes the game WAY less interesting to me.
In the 80s there was a javelin thrower named Jan Železný who was so good that they had to redesign the javelin because there wasnt enough space in the stadiums
Cycling is comically infamous for this. The technology exists to make much faster bikes: lighter, more aerodynamic, and less mechanical loss. However, the UCI sets a minimum for bike weight, mandates frame shapes, and other equipment. There are even rules for how high your socks can be as sock material can be more aerodynamic than bare skin.
Riding position is the big one: recumbents can be much faster.
Even with upright bikes, though, there have been a bunch of iterations. I especially like the saga of Obree developing two new positions and having them both banned for being too good https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graeme_Obree
It's always sad to see this argument made comparing the golf changes to baseball wooden vs metal bats:
>If it helps, think of it in baseball terms. There's a wooden bat used in the major leagues, and a metal bat used in college and recreational play. The wooden bats require that extra bit of skill to send the ball 300-plus feet.
The reason college and recreational play doesn't use wooden bats is because they break and they'd have to travel with more bats every time, adding weight and $$$. The metal bats are changed to have the same pop as wooden ones. In fact, NPR has the story about this. [0]
That said, here are some main points I about the rule change.
1) Bifurcation, where pros and amateurs play different balls, is not good. There are people who'd be playing in events one week where you can play the current ball tech, and the next have to change. Those are people who'd be screwed to have to spend more time and money on equipment. Similar to juniors, who go up in the ranks and suddenly need to change. That part can really hurt.
2) Golf distance won't increase much more than it currently is. What's happening and is going to happen is like height in the NBA. Where it became so clear that being tall is beneficial, and so the average height shot up. But it's not like humans can grow any taller. The current golf rules for drivers do put a limit on how far humans will be able to hit it. To compete on Tour, it'll become more of a prerequisite to hit the ball far, just like more of a prerequisite to be tall.
3) That distance is different than how courses were designed and the game had been played in the past. Augusta National has changed a ton over the years to lengthen the course.[1] You can look up stories after Tiger came in '97, and all the way to this year where they lengthened #13, quite a famous hole. That hole will play much more like how the hole was played back in the days pre-Tiger.
a) Most courses don't have the money or land area to make these changes. That's the problem the USGA going with. That's the argument the NPR article is saying too, how public courses need to change. But do they? The argument made by the USGA is that public courses and players will _not_ need to change equipment.
b) How bad is it that games are played differently than when they started? NBA is quite different with dunks and 3s, MLB changed this year with the pitch clock and no shifts, NFL has forward passing and quite needed body types to play positions meaning genetics is a huge factor in whether or not you can turn pro. The distance changes is golf advancing like all the others.
4) The USGA kind of has a bad reputation. I play in USGA events and the people who run them are kind of, well, they think they're gods and know all. This causes conflict between the guys on PGA Tour and who run PGA Tour events week after week. Should the USGA be making these decisions?
I'll stop here, but there's much more to say, especially with the amount of unanswered questions. Things like, how much different equipment will be needed if you play the new ball vs the old one? Will the ball change make it even _more_ important to have length?
People think length reduces the skill in the game, and that's just not true. The ability to swing hard with control is a great skill, and is trainable. Those who say they don't want to have to do it are doing it to themselves. Golf is an athletic endurance sport. It's taken much longer than others for people to understand this.
70 comments
[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 134 ms ] threadEdit: thanks for the thoughtful responses. I understand now. Providing different ball difficulties like squash does seems like a really elegant solution.
Are you sure?
Imagine if MLB used aluminum bats or allowed the pitchers to grease the ball. A game if endless home runs or endless strikeouts would be boring.
That's not really true at all. Look at swimming again for example, they have lots of rules related to what you are allowed to wear and how you're allowed to swim that all lead to slower times, but (hopefully) a more fun event to watch. The Olympics keep changing and tweaking the rules of all kinds of sports simply to try to make them more interesting and/or increase their popularity and viewership.
While it is a professional sport, they can't afford to pay high player salaries, so it has to be fun to play, too, to attract talent. But they definitely do care about how it looks, and have said in interviews that this was their main focus during initial play testing. They've actually changed the rules very little over time (they reduced the rest period between chases from 30 seconds to 25, but that's about it); instead, they've focused their attention on tweaking the quad, the structure on which the game is played. Small tweaks to the positioning of bars can subtly alter the balance of power between chaser and evader. They've deliberately nerfed some developing strategies they decided they didn't like (by adding obstructions behind the Mountain, for example).
There are some sports where they have a similar problem (tennis and table tennis) where the speeds have become ridiculous, but no one wants to limit that (via limits on equipment sizes etc.) because people don't want to see long tedious technical exchanges. They want to see "wack" and "boom 200 kmh"
https://www.lovetennisblog.com/the-spaghetti-racket-a-docume...
And for ground strokes, the net and court size restrict how much power you can give a shot--spin and control are more critical. Pro-level racquets are generally less powerful than those used by amateurs. If a company were to come out with a racket that could hit twice as fast, approximately zero pro players would use it.
I wonder if there was at least some scaleback (I haven't followed tennis in a long time).
Since then the equipment changed, the players changed, but the course hasn't (much as I'm sure the grass has and that plays a part too).
But if they change the course, that won't affect me. I (and others like me) will never get to play at Augusta but those who do get to play, will continue playing there.
So win win?
Want people to upgrade more frequently?
Tweak the definition of a 7 iron so 10% of clubs become illegal.
On a given hole, you don’t want everybody to get a birdie (or everybody to get a par or everybody to get a bogey, etc.). You need there to be some risk/reward that leads to some getting a birdie, some getting a par, some getting a bogey, etc. This is what adds drama and strategy as a tournament goes on. Which option will the guy in second go for? What will the leader do?
If you remove this separation and have almost everybody taking birdie/par and nobody taking bogey, then all the scores will be bunched tighter together and the end result is a tournament that’s less exciting to watch.
There’s also something about a sport that becomes not a question of doing excellence but instead becomes all about not being the person to make a mistake.
If the golf course has the same name but the course and equipment are different, it’s really a different game.
That has got to be the biggest nonstarter I've ever heard. If players use different clubs than the fans, it would undermine all of the money behind the equipment manufacturers, advertising and merchandising.
Racing fans seem content to perhaps maybe drive a vehicle made by the company that sponsors their team; but they don’t actually race. Golfers (and I suspect some large percentage of viewers are also players) really like buying the equipment the pros use even if it’s not really appropriate for their skill level.
It’s a story so old that PH Wodehouse references it in his books.
Personally I think courses just need to change. There are already huge disparities in courses. Pros already demolish 99% of golf courses because they’re tuned for average players.
I can't see any reason why a better club wouldn't be preferred, so long as it is available.
As a serious (but only B-level skilled) player, I hate the ball changes, but the bat changes I think are good (except for the cost of replacing now-banned bats).
Softball changed primarily for player safety, but I think there could be an analog here. Hitting a marshmallow-feeling softball sounds and feels worse. Hitting a regular ball with a bat that’s slightly less engineered still sounds and feels good and I think lets the better players separate their performance from the rest of the field.
That’s probably the key: make changes that help the best players showcase and differentiate their skill.
It is like Tennis, when I was young we used regular size rackets. I stopped for a few years and I noticed people were playing with rackets that the string area was larger. At first I said they were using "cheating" rackets only to find out these were the new regulation.
So I agree, time to tone some things down. Pros should be challenged. Now I wonder if this happens if the tournament will supply the balls. (do they already do that?).
In fact every sport tries to muddy the advantage of the favorite. Look at tennis, how exciting would it be if it were just a race to 100 points?
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=nmuC8iohU88
That said, I agree with many professional golfers that the way to address the distance issue is through the clubs and course design. It's a simpler solution for the game.
The thing about golf though, is that it's one of the few sports where you're in the same stadium (venue/whatever) as the pros. As in the exact same place, not a mini stadium for amateur athletes or a random football pitch in the park, or a boxing ring in some gym. So you can feel that in most sports, you are not really like one of the big boys.
I wonder how much players care about that.
In any case, why is there this line between the ball and the clubs? Why is it better to change one but not the other?
If the rule is removed, runners would be unsure if they need to stay on base or advance. It would depend on if the infielder caught the fly ball (which is like 99% in their control). The batter would wait just before first base. The fielder would catch the ball if runners were far from their base. But what should the batters do? It seems like the lead runner should always stay, but the man on first should advance if he’s a worse runner than the batter.
I actually really like your idea. It introduces a lot of complexity that might lead to some convention that simplifies the situation, but also leaves room for good playmaking from the fielders and runners. Makes me think of a run down. Although I also wonder if it’s too complicated in which case it would result in strictly following a convention or pure chaos (which might sound cool but players, coaches, umps, mlb would hate it).
The problem are rules that are judgement cases called AFTER the play is done.
The biggest ones I can think of that are in baseball are the balk rule and the baseline path rule.
Even with upright bikes, though, there have been a bunch of iterations. I especially like the saga of Obree developing two new positions and having them both banned for being too good https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graeme_Obree
>If it helps, think of it in baseball terms. There's a wooden bat used in the major leagues, and a metal bat used in college and recreational play. The wooden bats require that extra bit of skill to send the ball 300-plus feet.
The reason college and recreational play doesn't use wooden bats is because they break and they'd have to travel with more bats every time, adding weight and $$$. The metal bats are changed to have the same pop as wooden ones. In fact, NPR has the story about this. [0]
That said, here are some main points I about the rule change.
1) Bifurcation, where pros and amateurs play different balls, is not good. There are people who'd be playing in events one week where you can play the current ball tech, and the next have to change. Those are people who'd be screwed to have to spend more time and money on equipment. Similar to juniors, who go up in the ranks and suddenly need to change. That part can really hurt.
2) Golf distance won't increase much more than it currently is. What's happening and is going to happen is like height in the NBA. Where it became so clear that being tall is beneficial, and so the average height shot up. But it's not like humans can grow any taller. The current golf rules for drivers do put a limit on how far humans will be able to hit it. To compete on Tour, it'll become more of a prerequisite to hit the ball far, just like more of a prerequisite to be tall.
3) That distance is different than how courses were designed and the game had been played in the past. Augusta National has changed a ton over the years to lengthen the course.[1] You can look up stories after Tiger came in '97, and all the way to this year where they lengthened #13, quite a famous hole. That hole will play much more like how the hole was played back in the days pre-Tiger. a) Most courses don't have the money or land area to make these changes. That's the problem the USGA going with. That's the argument the NPR article is saying too, how public courses need to change. But do they? The argument made by the USGA is that public courses and players will _not_ need to change equipment. b) How bad is it that games are played differently than when they started? NBA is quite different with dunks and 3s, MLB changed this year with the pitch clock and no shifts, NFL has forward passing and quite needed body types to play positions meaning genetics is a huge factor in whether or not you can turn pro. The distance changes is golf advancing like all the others.
4) The USGA kind of has a bad reputation. I play in USGA events and the people who run them are kind of, well, they think they're gods and know all. This causes conflict between the guys on PGA Tour and who run PGA Tour events week after week. Should the USGA be making these decisions?
I'll stop here, but there's much more to say, especially with the amount of unanswered questions. Things like, how much different equipment will be needed if you play the new ball vs the old one? Will the ball change make it even _more_ important to have length?
People think length reduces the skill in the game, and that's just not true. The ability to swing hard with control is a great skill, and is trainable. Those who say they don't want to have to do it are doing it to themselves. Golf is an athletic endurance sport. It's taken much longer than others for people to understand this.
[0] https://www.npr.org/2012/02/27/147523340/new-baseball-bat-st... [1] https://www.golfdigest.com/story/complete-changes-to-augusta...
Golf has history, but that history isn't in the current ball.
Mangling ancient golf courses or removing them from pro play due to distance is silly, it's a game, adapt.