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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

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.

jwestbury 4y ago
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).
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- bombcar 4y ago
  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.
dagw 4y ago
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.
- geoduck14 4y ago
  >Professional sports are first and foremost supposed to be fun to watch Are you sure?
  - liveoneggs 4y ago
    they are entertainment
  - bombcar 4y ago
    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.
  - Waterluvian 4y ago
    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).
    - dagw 4y ago
      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.
- TRiG_Ireland 4y ago
  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).
- illiarian 4y ago
  > 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"
  - barrkel 4y ago
    I don't think people want to see continuous exchanges of aces in tennis.
    - illiarian 4y ago
      It's a fine line indeed :)
  - jaclaz 4y ago
    Well, many, many years ago in the late 1970's there was the spaghetti racket in tennis that was swiftly outlawed: https://www.lovetennisblog.com/the-spaghetti-racket-a-documentary-about-the-infamous-racket/ https://www.lovetennisblog.com/the-spaghetti-racket-a-docume...
  - yowzadave 4y ago
    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.
    - illiarian 4y ago
anonymousDan 4y ago
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.
- glanzwulf 4y ago
  But then isn't the issue just with the course? It was designed in 1894 so maybe it's time to update it? 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).
  - tectec 4y ago
    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.
  - worldsayshi 4y ago
    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?
    - glanzwulf 4y ago
      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. So win win?
dsm4ck 4y ago
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.
francisofascii 4y ago
It lengthens the time of the rounds, which is already a problem.
paulcole 4y ago
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.
- bombcar 4y ago
  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.
matwood 4y ago
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.
- bombcar 4y ago
  Even if the courses are reworked it kills one of the fun things in sports, the historical comparisons. Was Babe Ruth a better hitter than Barry Bonds? If the golf course has the same name but the course and equipment are different, it’s really a different game.
  - matwood 4y ago
    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.

jwestbury 4y ago

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).

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
bombcar 4y ago
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.

dagw 4y ago

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.

geoduck14 4y ago
>Professional sports are first and foremost supposed to be fun to watch Are you sure?
- liveoneggs 4y ago
  they are entertainment
- bombcar 4y ago
  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.
- Waterluvian 4y ago
  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).
  - dagw 4y ago
    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.
TRiG_Ireland 4y ago
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).
illiarian 4y ago
> 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"
- barrkel 4y ago
  I don't think people want to see continuous exchanges of aces in tennis.
  - illiarian 4y ago
    It's a fine line indeed :)
- jaclaz 4y ago
  Well, many, many years ago in the late 1970's there was the spaghetti racket in tennis that was swiftly outlawed: https://www.lovetennisblog.com/the-spaghetti-racket-a-documentary-about-the-infamous-racket/ https://www.lovetennisblog.com/the-spaghetti-racket-a-docume...
- yowzadave 4y ago
  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.
  - illiarian 4y ago

anonymousDan 4y ago

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.

glanzwulf 4y ago
But then isn't the issue just with the course? It was designed in 1894 so maybe it's time to update it? 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).
- tectec 4y ago
  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.
- worldsayshi 4y ago
  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?
  - glanzwulf 4y ago
    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. So win win?

dsm4ck 4y ago

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.

francisofascii 4y ago

It lengthens the time of the rounds, which is already a problem.

paulcole 4y ago

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.

bombcar 4y ago
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.

matwood 4y ago

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.

bombcar 4y ago
Even if the courses are reworked it kills one of the fun things in sports, the historical comparisons. Was Babe Ruth a better hitter than Barry Bonds? If the golf course has the same name but the course and equipment are different, it’s really a different game.
- matwood 4y ago
  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.