Jack Nicklaus has believed for quite a while that today's equipment - particularly the golf ball - makes the game too easy for the best players in the world. Or at least allows them to hit the ball so far that today's game bears less and less resemblance to yesterday's game all the time.

There are some very practical concerns about how far the ball is flying - for example, the longer golfers are hitting their shots, the longer new courses need to be built, the more land is required to build them on, the more water and chemicals are required to keep them in shape.

Nicklaus has argued forcefully that the ball should be "dialed back" and some of that distance gotten rid of. But he's not just standing by and letting golfers using today's equipment overwhelm his beloved Muirfield Village, either. He keeps trying to knock the PGA Tour boys for a loop, and sometimes he succeeds.

For example, this year Muirfield Village has rough that some of the players have described as "U.S. Open rough." And just like the U.S. Open rough at the, well, U.S. Open, some of those players don't like it. Not one bit.

I can understand that sentiment, actually - we all want to enjoy our jobs. We'd all like to have fun at work. If I'm working in an office, and two days a week I have to work in conditions that I don't enjoy - I don't look forward to going to work those days, and when I'm at work, I'm hating it - and it turns out that I don't really need the money produced during those two days, and that I have the option of not showing up ... well, am I going to show up?

If PGA Tour golfers hate the conditions somewhere, and they aren't struggling to keep their card, and being independent contractors aren't required to show up, might they stop playing a tournament?

Sure, it happens all the time - although rarely are players explicit that they aren't attending a certain event because they just don't like it. Players whine about the U.S. Open conditions every year, but they show up because it's the U.S. Open.

Would any golfers stop playing Jack's tournament because he likes to do things like put furrows into the bunkers? Or grow the rough to U.S. Open conditions?

Geoff Ogilvy this week:

"What would offend me if I was a member of a club (is) if pros came along and played the course and walked away and said, ‘I don’t want to play that place again. It’s too hard. I would rather have them say, ‘I can’t wait to get back here.’ ”

There's been a lot of bellyaching this year at The Memorial (especially with the conditions exacerbated by the weather). We'll have to watch how players react to The Memorial in coming years, and whether Nicklaus keeps ordering course setups that are among the most challenging on tour.