In a letter I once received from the Research Committee of the United States Golf Association Greens Section, the statement was made that: “We believe that much of the difficulty in maintaining putting greens is due to excessive use of water. The greenskeepers and greens committees point out that they do this in self defense because golfers all want soft greens.” I was asked to say how I regarded the practice of keeping green surfaces soft, even soggy, looking at the question purely from the playing standpoint.
There can be little question that the great mass of golfers in this country prefer their greens very soft. Such a condition makes the play much easier for all classes of players, and is in great measure responsible for the fact that tournament scoring is uniformly lower over here than on seaside links in the British Isles. The difference is attributable more to this factor than to the much-talked-of seaside gales, which, after all, do not blow constantly.
I cannot say which induced the other, or which came first, but there is a close relationship between our two great American preferences, the one for placing our green-bunkering very close to the putting surfaces, and the other for soggy greens that will hold any kind of pitch, whether struck with backspin or not. The close guarding in many instances makes a soft green necessary if the hole is to be playable, and the easy pitching, on the other hand, makes it necessary to decrease the size of the target in order to supply any test at all.
I quarrel with both ends of this proposition, whichever is to blame. These together are the two reasons, I trunk, why our golf courses in the main lack the subtlety of British links, and why our golf does not demand the strategy or the intelligent planning that it should. In my opinion, a properly designed hole should impose a test upon each shot the player has to make. There should always be a definite advantage to be gained from an accurate and intelligent placing of the tee shot, or a reward offered for a long, well-directed carry over some obstacle. This advantage or reward can only be in the shape of an easier and more open road for the second shot. Yet when we soak the green with water, we nullify the advantage the design of the hole has held out.
I do not believe in forcing a run-up shot in preference to a ptich in every case. But when one goes to the trouble of placing a bunker across the left side of the green in order to force the tee shot toward the right side of the fairway, why destroy its effect by soaking the green so that any sort of pitch over the bunker will hold? Our expert players are in the habit of playing long iron and spoon and brassie shots bang up to the hole. As long as they can do this, no architect can expect them to worry much about placing tee shots.
It seems to me that the ideal green would be sufficiently soft only to hold a properly played pitch—and by “hold” I do not mean to stay within a very few feet. To carry out the intention of the designer, conditions ought to be such that a definite penalty should be sustained by the player who has played himself out of position.
In this connection, I think one of our greatest needs is a fairway grass or treatment that will make the ground in front of our greens more reliable. If the greens themselves are maintained in a firmer condition, the need must arise on occasions to drop the ball short of the putting surface, allowing it to roll the remaining distance. I know very few courses where this is possible without great uncertainty.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CONCLUSION
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Up to this point, except for the first chapter, this book has presented the substance of my writings of thirty or more years ago, and the chief concern of these writings was to record my conception of the proper golf swing and of related considerations affecting the playing of the game. Now, briefly, I should like to offer my impressions of what has happened to golf in the past thirty years. My conviction is that this period has been most productive for the game.
I have no question that this period has produced some of the finest players in the history of the game. Record scoring has become commonplace, and the general level of skill among tournament performers has been consistently elevated. We see more and more fine players every year, and competition grows keener and keener.
In many respects, golf has become an easier game; greenskeeping methods have progressed; hybrid grasses more suitable for golf courses have been developed; there is a more widespread use of artificial watering; golf course designers have constructed many fine new courses, and modernized some of our old favorites. Resulting from all these influences, we have better fairways, more uniform and reliable putting surfaces, and courses that are generally more interesting to play. So it is with good reason that golf has become a more popular and attractive game.
It appears that there is today no longer the wide difference between inland golf in America and seaside golf in Great Britain. Since I wrote the chapter immediately preceding this one, there has been a considerable improvement in golf courses in this country. Many of our new courses have greens of ample size, and greens-keepers are no longer under pressure to keep the turf of these greens in a sodden condition.
At the same time, it seems that turf conditions in Great Britain have come more nearly to approximate our own. On my visit to St. Andrews with the Eisenhower Cup team in 1958, the main difference I noted in the Old Course was an increased lushness in the turf. Formerly, the fairways had been quite fast and the greens more than firm; such conditions made necessary a kind of maneuvering entirely unfamiliar to American players. Now the fairway turf has more depth and the greens are more holding. From this observation, confirmed by correspondence with some of my friends on the other side, I have come to suspect that British seaside golf as we used to know it no longer exists.
Although in these past thirty years we have produced in this country more fine golfers than we have ever seen before, the United States is no longer supreme in the game without challenge; no longer either is the main force in the game divided been this country and Great Britain. South Africa and Australia especially are doing more than challenge; they are leading us at the moment on a merry chase. It would seem likely that other countries will before long move up to claim places for their players. All this I think is healthful for the development of the game.
In taking a hard look at modern golf, I find in the play from tee to green little difference indicating any considerable superiority of the present-day player over the dozen or so better players of my era. True, the tee shots are somewhat longer and the whole rate of performance through the green is somewhat more regular. I attribute much of this to the steel shaft, but also a good measure to the fact that the tournament players of today play in many more competitions; even the professionals in my day were mostly occupied with club jobs during the summer months.
On the other hand, once we have reached the putting surface, the modern golfer becomes a magician. I never dreamed I should see the kind of putting our tournament players are now producing. Whereas we used to consider an average of 32 or 33 putts per round to represent a quite acceptable performance for the winner of a championship, now it is not uncommon to see this number reduced to 28, 27, or even occasionally to 26. The resulting effect upon scoring is obvious. At times, I find myself mildly, even though enviously, amused by the agonies expressed before television cameras when some players fail to hole out from 25 or 30 feet. Most of my contemporaries were well pleased if from such distances they could consistently roll the ball close enough to the cup to make certain of holing the next one.
It may well be that improved putting surfaces are factors here, but I believe a far greater contribution is made by the increased putting skill of the players themselves.
The one thing I do not like about modern golf, especially the tournament variety, is the frequency with which balk are lifted and cleaned on the putting surface. It used to be a fundamental principle of the game of golf that a ball put in play from the tee should not be touched until it was removed from the hole; departures from this principle were to be made only with very good reason. One such reason, of course, in stroke or medal play was to remove interfe
rence with the play of a fellow competitor. But players were always careful when lifting a ball for this purpose to take precaution to replace it in the precise position from which it had been lifted, so that any mud or other material clinging to the surface of the ball would remain as it had been. A ball lifted from another competitor’s line of putt was not to be placed into the player’s pocket nor rolled on the ground, but held carefully in the fingers until replaced.
With the fine conditioning of our modern courses, I doubt that troublesome mud would be picked up by many balls. Unusual conditions of ground or weather could be cared for by special rules. The elimination of constant lifting and cleaning would speed up the game to the benefit of players and spectators alike.
I am tempted at this point to unburden myself of some appraisals of the great players of these last three decades, but I know all of them so well and have such a high regard for their capabilities and their pride in their accomplishments in the game that in the end I cannot bring myself to say that one or two could be better than the others. In any case, such an expression would only be one man’s opinion on a question that necessarily is so close as to require the splitting of a hair. Let us just say that we should be greateful for the contributions all have made and realize that even though the top players have reaped rich rewards from their skill, they have also provided for the game an immense stimulus that has made it a much more enjoyable and attractive pastime for the average golfer, who, after all, is the guy—or bloke, or whatever you choose to call him—who supports the game.
A previous edition of this book was originally published in 1966 by Doubleday. It is here reprinted by arrangement with Doubleday.
Bobby Jones on Golf. Copyright © 1966 by Robert Tyre Jones, Jr. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher. For information address: Broadway Books, a division of Random House, Inc., 1540 Broadway, New York, NY 10036.
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The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data has cataloged the previous edition as:
Library of Congress Catalog Card No.: 66-20928
eISBN: 978-0-307-48235-8
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Bobby Jones on Golf Page 24