Because it takes away the option of taking it down the right side for a better angle. Now you just have one choice - hit the narrow fairway.
I donât think my argument is a straw man at all. After all, I didnât bring up a different sport that has other extenuating factors, most importantly the safety of players and fans. Iâm not dismissing what youâre saying because I do think you have valid points. Iâm still working through how I feel about bifurcation. My mind is far from made up and I think what youâre saying does add value to the conversation and makes me think.
I wonât tout my baseball resume here at all because itâs not all that impressive but I did play baseball through college and feel I have something to add from a baseball perspective. Starting in high school, players take batting practice with wooden bats to help hone a swing. Itâs unquestionably a different game with a wood bat. The high school game and many small school college games would be borderline unwatchable with wooden bats. Baseball is a game where bifurcation makes total sense. Itâs harder to figure out in golf.
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I mean, 11 being long doesnât bother me. If players are hitting a sand wedge into then green, then the approach angle is irrelevant. Itâs the trees on the right side that have made the hole less than it once was.
Yes, but do you really think players in the net club championship will be using bifurcated balls?!?
What do you think makes more sense; a bifurcated golf ball or building 9,000 yard golf courses?
We will eventually have to choose from one of those two options.
I donât have a problem with it. Sometimes you just need to hit a narrow fairway. Then hit the correct shape iron into a tough green.
No thanks for 18 like that. But I dig it in this instance.
I agree with you - itâs primarily the trees: players are forced to play left to hit that fairway, which creates a tough enough approach to make nearly everybody in the field bail right instead of going at that green.
If the hole still played at 460, though, it wouldnât matter where you hit your tee ball, because nobody needs to bail out with a sand wedge.
Between the trees, and the length, the hole has been reduced to a chipping contest.
Iâve seen plenty putting for birdie. Itâs rare but that is ok.
A lot of reasons.
-Our host sucks, and when files get over 100 MBâs, many of the non iTunes mediums have trouble picking up the file.
-Engagement naturally dies off near the end of podcasts. Not many people have 1 hour and 50 minute commutes, and some people flat our forget to resume podcasts. Breaking it up into two gives people a break from it, and is a reminder to come back in.
-On this one in particular, I found this back half especially interesting, and didnât want it to slip by.
-Lastly, full disclosure, our understanding of iTunes algorithms and what not leads us to believe that shorter episodes are more friendly to the system than longer ones. Could be totally wrong there, but thatâs generally what the trends have shown us.
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makes sense, i figured there was logical reasons. Thanks soly!
#11 at Augusta is an abomination, and was changed in direct response to Payne seeing guys hit wedge in from the right.
11 may not be as good as it used to be before the equipment boom, but it is far from an abomination. I still think itâs one of the best holes in golf. The second shot requires more guts than any other in major golf.
It played to a 4.4 average last year which means itâs playing as a âhalf-parâ which I a lot of people (tron) love
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Bingo.
Also surprised Chamblee didnât start tearing up when talking about the 2013 masters with Nobilo.
But will we? Where will these 9,000 yard golf courses go? Will the professionals play on courses built specifically for tournament play? Existing golf courses can be extended to a point but expanding a championship course by 1,500 - 2,000 yards isnât feasible. This just seems like youâre only assuming thereâs two possible outcomes and there isnât a range of outcomes somewhere in the middle. Why canât we do something about the ball and something about equipment? This is where it gets complicated, like Brandel mentions, because now youâve got to consider some sort of reparations to the manufacturers due to all the IP and research. I mean, now youâve got drivers coming out that increase ball speed by 5mph for tour pros. Should that be part of the discussion? Thereâs a lot of variables in the game of golf besides just a ball and they all should be considered as part of the equation.
You are agreeing with me, you just donât seem to know it yet. 9,000 yard golf courses are not feasible, and drivers are already limited in their COR. The most logical solution is a bifurcated ballâŚ
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I havenât disagreed with you about a whole lot besides your comparison to baseball, which I stand by, and weâre starting to talk past each other. You have good takes but I just think the conversation is more nuanced than youâre making it out to be.
This is my gearhead brain talking, but Chamblee lost a little bit of credibility with me when he brought up COR. First of all, he doesnât even know the legal limit (itâs 0.83, not 0.73). But second and more importantly, COR isnât the measurement that is used by the ruling bodies to determine legality of drivers at this point, itâs a measurement called characteristic time (CT). Itâs not exactly an industry secret that multiple drivers on the market right now are above the 0.83 COR limit, as told to me by an executive at Callaway (#humblebrag). So to say that the drivers are maxed out isnât even close to being correct, companies are still going to push the envelope to get closer to the CT limit without going over. OK, rant over.
On the podcast in general: really enjoyed it as it seemed like a conversation more than an interview for most of it, which was fun. I will say that @Soly is having a lot of interaction with swing gurus recently (Gankas, Chamblee, McCormick on the Altus podcast). Clearly he was not pleased with his pro-am circuit performance in 2018 and is getting into the lab to have a big 2019.
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In Brandelâs defense I think he was talking about the COR of a driver head made from actual wood being 0.73
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-Perhaps the best pod the NLU crew has produced. For critical thinking, serious analysis of the game we love, and the chance that Soly took challenging a very well-read/researched guest, I believe it was very well done.
-Discussion of classic courses and their pending obsolescence gets a bit old. And I would be a member of the refuge welcoming any and all architecture discussions.
However, I agree w/ Brandel that they will always have a place, always challenge the 99.9% of golfers who tee it up there, and that if competition takes place, combining the elements of weather (the x-factor that most architects planned for and incorporated into their designs), and daily setup, that the courses will find a way to challenge. In the example of Merion, that course also found a way to show some teeth despite (or maybe because of) having pretty shitty weather conditions (water logged) in the run up. On a short course this could have caused scores to go the other way than they did, but I think ultimately it helped enhance rough. Again, Mother Nature gets a say in things.