Don’t do it, LPGA !! You do not need this in your life. You do not want to play a tournament on the same course as the men. You don’t need to have any more comparisons between the men and the women – and we all see how the men play this course – the WHOLE course – not just 2/3’s of it. This is a course the men play every year – and have dubbed it worthy of a major. You don’t want to try to match the men’s scores by shortening the course to a pitch and putt length, or widen the fairways to the lengths you usually play, or slow the greens from the 12-14 the men play to the 9-12 you play. The world has seen Torrey Pines play tough at the US Open – and double digit under par in January. And if you play the easier of the two courses, people will wonder why you avoided the tougher course. It’s not worth it.

Then they’ll light it up and everyone can be happy.

There have been a few crossover sites – but they didn’t play the same course that the men played. At one of these, they were hitting drivers and three woods into one of the par threes. It wasn’t pretty.

1993 – Crooked Stick Golf Club, Carmel, Ind. – the men lit it up for the PGA and never came back.

1992 – Oakmont Country Club, Oakmont, Pa. – no rough, slow greens – nothing like what the men played

1991 – Colonial Country Club, Fort Worth, Texas – don’t remember

1990 – Atlanta Athletic Club, Riverside Course, Duluth Ga. – the men played the Highlands Course – but the Riverside is still a beast of a course

1985 – Baltusrol Golf Club, Upper Course, Springfield, N.J. – men play the lower

…it has GOT to be all kinds of fun to be able to tee it up at some of these great old courses – and the women take more advantage of some of the great new courses around the country more often than the men.

Didn’t they play the WBO at St. Andrews a couple of years ago? I don’t recall anyone taking anything away from Lorena’s 1st major then, do you?

And haven’t you gotten the memo from Shackelford and other golf writers? Narrow fairways and high rough is BORING! Part of the reason the Ryder Cup was interesting is that they let the guys play. And don’t forget Mike Davis’s approach to USGA events.

I agree with Diane that they should speed up the greens a bit more than they have been lately, but since they’ll be playing different tees, anyway, there’s nothing to lose by playing more of the same courses as the guys, especially in big-time events.

what does that mean ?

See – I forgot about the WBO – good call – but they didn’t play The Old Course the way the men played it. The women played 6500 yards (par 73) of it and played #17 as a par 5. The men played it at just under 7300 yards (par 72).

I didn’t say the PGA plays high rough all the time – in fact, there are only a few places where the rough is grown up where is has a serious affect on play, the US Open being the biggest example, and as you pointed out, that has changed under Mike Davis. They ARE forced to pull in the fairways and grow a moderate amount of rough to make these guys think a little bit – otherwise, they will shoot 60, 61,62, 63 every week – making the courses look like a joke. I do say that week in and week out – the PGA plays higher rough than anything the LPGA sees – including the US Open. Narrow fairways and rough are not boring unless it gets to a ridiculous level like the US Opens before Davis.

So – by using that term, you’re saying that my comments were not my honest opinion, they were designed to get people all worked up ?

When’s the last time you saw anybody playing with a feathery or gutta percha or even a balata ball in a PGA or LPGA event ? That comparison doesn’t make any sense. The fact is, if the men play 7300 yards and the women play 6500 on the same course, the natural conclusion is that the women played an easier layout than the men. When you have one set of tees that has additional twists and turns than the shorter tees, then the character of the course is changed.

My point, and MY OPINION, is that the women don’t need the additional comparisons between themselves and the men.