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You’ll use every club in the bag
Bringing fun & adventure back to golf
By ED TRAVIS
Bringing fun & adventure back to golf
By ED TRAVIS
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“You’ll use every club in the bag,” is a compliment
pertaining to a golf course’s design and playing
characteristics and taken to mean that in order to
score well you will need a variety of shots not just, “Hit
it hard. Go find it and hit it hard again.”
Or, put another way, it could be a fun course to play.
Golfers also seem to like layouts that require a range
of tee shots, i.e., not every hole is a tree-lined bowling
alley. Maybe there is a bunker or two to be carried or
avoided or a dogleg with the fairway sloping in the
opposite direction…you know, fun stuff.
Secondly, the guys and gals who make a living playing
this game are better at it than we are. Obvious you say
but, (drum roll please) since they are so much better
than average players and the rulers of the rules are
concerned these few elite golfers are too good and
hitting the ball too far, why not roll back the number of
clubs they can carry to ten or 12?
Let’s introduce another dimension to “every club in the
bag,” give the pros a chance to use their huge talent by
having to “create” shots since they may no longer have
the exact club for the situation. It would bring them
back closer to the game play by the less skilled and
talented who in a given round may never have the
perfect club for a shot. The truth is this is the way golf
is played by the majority of golfers.
Remember, the present limit of 14 clubs was not
chiseled in stone tablets 5,000 years ago. Back in
1938 it was an arbitrary limit imposed by the USGA
reacting to golfers who were attacking the course with
as many as 25 sticks in the bag. Think of it as the
“caddie relief” rule.
pertaining to a golf course’s design and playing
characteristics and taken to mean that in order to
score well you will need a variety of shots not just, “Hit
it hard. Go find it and hit it hard again.”
Or, put another way, it could be a fun course to play.
Golfers also seem to like layouts that require a range
of tee shots, i.e., not every hole is a tree-lined bowling
alley. Maybe there is a bunker or two to be carried or
avoided or a dogleg with the fairway sloping in the
opposite direction…you know, fun stuff.
Secondly, the guys and gals who make a living playing
this game are better at it than we are. Obvious you say
but, (drum roll please) since they are so much better
than average players and the rulers of the rules are
concerned these few elite golfers are too good and
hitting the ball too far, why not roll back the number of
clubs they can carry to ten or 12?
Let’s introduce another dimension to “every club in the
bag,” give the pros a chance to use their huge talent by
having to “create” shots since they may no longer have
the exact club for the situation. It would bring them
back closer to the game play by the less skilled and
talented who in a given round may never have the
perfect club for a shot. The truth is this is the way golf
is played by the majority of golfers.
Remember, the present limit of 14 clubs was not
chiseled in stone tablets 5,000 years ago. Back in
1938 it was an arbitrary limit imposed by the USGA
reacting to golfers who were attacking the course with
as many as 25 sticks in the bag. Think of it as the
“caddie relief” rule.
Being limited to 10 or 12 clubs would force toursters to
decide prior to each round the correct clubs for a
particular course and conditions – which they sort of
do now but it certainly couldn’t be done on automatic
pilot. It would require some real thought. To get to a 12
club limit I can envision, “Well, I’ll drop the driver
‘cause I can hit my fairway wood 280 and that’s OK for
this course and I’ll pull my 9-iron wedge out since
there aren’t really any 9-iron shots on this layout.”
Or how about leaving a 7-iron and 2-iron in the locker
to make it down to 10 clubs?
A new level of strategic thinking would be introduced to
the pre-round preparation and an almost infinite
amount of grist for media mills. Scoring might suffer
slightly but the added excitement would more than
make up for it.
Imagine Phil having to hit a cut 5-iron around one tree
and over a second to green that slopes away…oh
wait, he has to do that now anyway. But the point
remains fewer clubs would showcase the
tremendous talent of the best players in the world to a
degree not now possible.
The reason why this whole topic comes up is not to
penalize really good golfers but to do away with the
two different sets of rules presently in place, one for
the best players and the other for the rest of us. A great
attraction of this game is a weekend warrior can play
the same course as Ricky Fowler, not as well to be
sure, but it’s the same course and with the same
equipment. That is not true now because of the USGA’
s rule mandating one type of grooves for “elite players”
and letting non-elite players use another type of
grooves.
decide prior to each round the correct clubs for a
particular course and conditions – which they sort of
do now but it certainly couldn’t be done on automatic
pilot. It would require some real thought. To get to a 12
club limit I can envision, “Well, I’ll drop the driver
‘cause I can hit my fairway wood 280 and that’s OK for
this course and I’ll pull my 9-iron wedge out since
there aren’t really any 9-iron shots on this layout.”
Or how about leaving a 7-iron and 2-iron in the locker
to make it down to 10 clubs?
A new level of strategic thinking would be introduced to
the pre-round preparation and an almost infinite
amount of grist for media mills. Scoring might suffer
slightly but the added excitement would more than
make up for it.
Imagine Phil having to hit a cut 5-iron around one tree
and over a second to green that slopes away…oh
wait, he has to do that now anyway. But the point
remains fewer clubs would showcase the
tremendous talent of the best players in the world to a
degree not now possible.
The reason why this whole topic comes up is not to
penalize really good golfers but to do away with the
two different sets of rules presently in place, one for
the best players and the other for the rest of us. A great
attraction of this game is a weekend warrior can play
the same course as Ricky Fowler, not as well to be
sure, but it’s the same course and with the same
equipment. That is not true now because of the USGA’
s rule mandating one type of grooves for “elite players”
and letting non-elite players use another type of
grooves.
This is 180 degrees opposite of the Association’s own
policy of having the same rules for everyone.
The rule is in response to the USGA belief the pros hit
the ball too far (another example from the solon’s of
Far Hills, of questionable logic and less than world
class decision making).
An Emperor of Golf - there’s already a King – could
have the Tour try this 10/12 club idea out in a couple of
events before making it official and do so without the
USGA’s blessing since the PGA Tour operates with its
own set of rules but does follow the USGA in most
things.
It would be exciting, fun and draw lots of media
attention…exactly what the game needs.
Now, truth time. None of this is original with me. It is
another idea from the fertile mind of Frank Thomas,
former technical director of the USGA, now a golf
industry consultant and a most knowledgeable person
about equipment.
So maybe we can begin a mini-revolution. If regular
golfers were to rise up and let the USGA know they
don’t like the way the game is being regulated some
things might actually be changed. Rather than
institutionalized and run by a multi-million dollar
bureaucracy golf might get back to something simpler
and more pleasurable with logical rules.
policy of having the same rules for everyone.
The rule is in response to the USGA belief the pros hit
the ball too far (another example from the solon’s of
Far Hills, of questionable logic and less than world
class decision making).
An Emperor of Golf - there’s already a King – could
have the Tour try this 10/12 club idea out in a couple of
events before making it official and do so without the
USGA’s blessing since the PGA Tour operates with its
own set of rules but does follow the USGA in most
things.
It would be exciting, fun and draw lots of media
attention…exactly what the game needs.
Now, truth time. None of this is original with me. It is
another idea from the fertile mind of Frank Thomas,
former technical director of the USGA, now a golf
industry consultant and a most knowledgeable person
about equipment.
So maybe we can begin a mini-revolution. If regular
golfers were to rise up and let the USGA know they
don’t like the way the game is being regulated some
things might actually be changed. Rather than
institutionalized and run by a multi-million dollar
bureaucracy golf might get back to something simpler
and more pleasurable with logical rules.