Some Food For Thought

    Yesterday just before my round I was
reading through FaceBook and came upon
this article.  Written by Sam Adams and
 posted yesterday on The Essentially Golf Blog.
 I would have to ponder this a bit, but it does
make a lot of sense. Personally, I prefer a tight
cut fairway, but that's just me. At any rate, I hope
 you had a very Happy Thanksgiving and I will be
back Monday for sure with my own content.
Enjoy Sam's comments.

Thursday, November 26, 2015

Have More Fun Playing Golf!

I have been involved in an untold number of discussions about the decline of golf and I think one of the major issues is that people are not having enough fun to justify the time and expense.  I am not going to get into all the possible reasons for the decline or this would become a book instead of a blog.  The one thing I am going to do is offer a simple suggestion.

Let everybody that wants to use a tee and tee it up in their own fairway.  I phrase it this way because I think there should be an advantage for hitting it in the fairway.  Now before the purist start lighting their torches let me explain.  By some estimates around 90% of golfers are already playing “lift, clean, 

and place” (winter rules) year round.  Is it such a leap

 to let them lift, clean, and put a tee under it?

One of the battles that rage in clubs and Golf Committee 

meetings around the country is the height of cut of their

 fairways.  The low handicappers want them tight and 

the vast majority of the members/players want them 

longer so they can set the ball up.  Longer fairways have

 several major draw backs.  Aesthetically, you need 

definition between rough and fairway.  With a higher 

fairway cut the rough gets deeper and slows play 

down.  It also makes the fairway softer and the ball 

won’t roll as far making the course play longer.  The longer

 cut seriously penalizes anyone that plays the ball “as it lies” 

because it produces flyers from the fairway.

The simple solution is short mowing heights and let less

 skilled golfers use a tee.  Everybody is happy

 (in my wildest dream).

There is already a lot of discussion about two different

 sets of rules - one for tournament/serious play and 

one for everyday play.  That’s wonderful, but you have

 a better chance of winning the Power Ball Lottery than

living long enough to see the USGA and R&A come out

 with that.

My suggestion is start now.  As long as everyone in your 

group plays by the same rules it doesn’t matter.  If you play 

in a league they can adopt it for all of their members.  You 

don’t have to wait for anyone to “officially” recognize it.

The vast majority of golfers don’t have established USGA

 Handicaps now, so that isn’t a problem.  The one 

drawback is that you can’t have it both ways.  If you do 

decide to establish a handicap this way you will be at a 

severe disadvantage if you decide to play in an event 

played by USGA Rules.

My point is that we need to do things now that help people

 enjoy the game more so they won’t quit as fast and 

I believe this is a much better alternative than 15 inch

 cups and “Foot Golf”.

I’m simply throwing this out as a suggestion and

 food for thought.  I encourage you to bring your friends

 into the discussion through social media, email or 

whatever you are most comfortable with.  I would 

love for you to leave comments on this.  Be sure to

 check out my Facebook page and follow me on Pinterest.

Thank you Sam for that.