Considering Sawgrass at Under 7000 Yards

A day and a half into the 2010 Players, the field is lighting up a subdued TPC Sawgrass.  The lead hinges into double digits under par and is likely to get somewhere around -13 by the end of the day if the weather keeps up as it has. Thanks to a brutal winter, growing conditions at the Stadium Course have prohibited thick, deep rough.  Due to soaking rain leading into the championship, the ground is soft and still very receptive to all kinds of shots.  Even the trusty island green 17th saw the fewest balls in the water during a single round since those stats have been maintained by the PGA Tour.

Sawgrass plays to a little over 7200 yards today.  As a target golf course, it could probably stand to play to some 6900 yards and still not get totally thrashed by touring pros (weather debilitating its brunt aside).  So why not play to that length?  The PGA Tour could really place another stamp on the Players if they took a stand against distance and allowed their jewel to play at a length now considered obscene.

The under 7000 yard track is a nearly dead notion on the PGA Tour.  Distance gains over the last 15 years that have largely plateaued have led to a havoc of expanding courses to include new and weird tee boxes.  For crying out loud, Bay Hill had to cross a street to create a new tee box this year.  Look at what happened to the Road Hole.  Though distance gains are mitigated, courses are still responding to distance gains.  And for what?  Their ego?  The ardent belief that longer means more difficult?

Merion - host site to the 2013 US Open - may be one of the few American cathedrals that will fly in the face of the trend to take golf Extenz.  It'll play to right around 7000 yards in three years' time to stage our national championship.  Mike Davis does not appear worried that Merion will be exploited or outright defeated by the Open field.  He appears confident that a course with tricky fairways and even more perplexing greens will be enough for par to stand its ground.

The 2002 Open Championship saw Muirfield play under 7000 yards.  A nearly 6700 yard seaside course yielded a huge playoff at -6.  It can be done - though Muirfield did so with the curse that is Scottish weather.

The instant defense - if there is one - has to come from Japan and Ryo Ishikawa's 58 (nearly 57) on a course measuring a little more than 6500 yards.  Ishikawa's accomplishment was belittled in some circles because of the total length of the golf course.  Rory McIlroy's 62 was held in higher esteem because of the course length and the quality of competition.  Neither factor, though, is especially pertinent when comparing to Ishikawa's round.  In fact, length had little to do with that 58.

Look at the scoring for the tournament that Ishikawa won.  His winning 267 was -13 on the par 70 layout.  He won by five, meaning -8 was good enough for second.  On a 6500 yard track, -8 at second place tells me that it is possible to dictate scoring (with some cooperative weather) to that number.  Not to advocate for setups that mirror the white tees at your local way-too-long muni, but 6800 or 6900 yards can be made to play much longer than the number on the card. 

Not to say that every course on the PGA Tour could withstand a grand total under 7K.  There are plenty of courses on Tour that need to play long because they are not designed with shotmaking in mind.  They lack the total tee-to-green examination that a course like Sawgrass does. 

It is quirky, yes, but Sawgrass is a New York Times reader's course.  There is nuance in every blade of grass, much like Merion (and that's the only time you'll see that comparison made).  Courses with that kind of forethought which force five and a half hours of mental taxation can play to almost any length.

The debate will rage on about the Players' place in the pantheon of what is now a major.  Seeing as though Lee Westwood opened up Pandora's Box to consider almost any event on Tour a major by ranking down some ten events, that is not particularly pertinent.  But it is true that Sawgrass and its annual tournament seek a differentiator from its competition.  In many ways, Sawgrass is Masters Lite in May.  But having the trust in Pete Dye's design to allow the total playing yardage to start with six may be an experiment worth trying.

Trust me, Greg Norman's 264 will be safe.