The R&A in consultation with the recently amalgamated SGU & SLGA have selected four Development Centres to trial an experiment to speed up play. With falling membership numbers clubs have been analysing the information collated from exiting members and in 95% of reasons given is the time it takes to complete a round of golf.
Strathmore will implement the trial from the 11th of April after the SLGA under 16 Open Championship. A normal golf hole is 4.25 inches wide but will be increased to 15 inches and should cut the time to complete an average round from four and a half hours to just over 2 hours. Obviously scores will improve with fewer putts so to not disadvantage players at the 4 clubs
North - Elgin Golf Club
South - Turnberry Golf Club
West - Hamilton Golf Club
East - Strathmore Golf Club
An amended handicapping system will be introduced
Category 1 + up to 5.4 buffer zone +4 reduction 0.01 increases 1
Category 2 5.5 to 12.4 buffer zone +3 reduction 0.02 increases 1
Category 3 12.5 to 20.4 buffer zone +2 reduction 0.03 increases 1
Category 4 20.5 to 28 buffer zone +1 reduction 0.04 increases 1
Much has been written in recent years about the slow, steady decline of golf as a participant sport in this country. The usual rationale for the lack of new participants in the game follows a two-tiered thought process. First, it is argued that golf takes too much time in an era of shortened attention spans and greatly increased competition for precious leisure hours, with a four and half hour round that often ends up being more like six-plus by the time someone drives to the course, changes, practices, plays, lunches and so on. In the glory days of the country club lifestyle, parents left their kids at the pool while they played, instead of driving them from one soccer game to the next in between taekwondo lessons and art classes.
The second explanation is that golf remains too difficult, and despite great technological advances that have allowed the best players (pros) to greatly increase their distance, better equipment hasn’t done much (if anything) for the recreational golfer, which is to say most golfers. In stark comparison, skiing, which enjoyed a resurgence amidst golf’s downturn, coupled dramatically user-friendly improvements in equipment with more sophisticated and standardized instruction to greatly accelerate the learning process. Today, a rank novice can take a single day of lessons and be skiing beginner trails from top to bottom. Not so for golf, which has seemingly been unable to do anything to shorten its onerous learning curve, long at best and in many cases, lasting the golfer’s entire life.
To date most industry efforts to “fix” golf have centered on the former issue, the time constraint, taking the form of faster playing alternatives to traditional 18-hole courses. Three years ago I wrote a feature on this architectural trend for American Way, the inflight magazine, in which I explained that as far back as 2007 Jack Nicklaus was advocating 12-hole designs as the new normal, and the Golden Bear created 12-hole loops within the existing eighteens at two of his layouts for private clubs, complete with special scorecards. Another PGA Tour superstar turned top designer, Greg Norman, loudly suggested 6-hole courses, and has designed a 12-hole course in Mexico and added a 12-hole par-3 course to his home club, Florida’s the Medalist. Other examples include 4 and 8-hole courses around the world.
Now a group known as HackGolf, whose tagline is “How Do We Make Golf More Fun For Everyone?” is trying to tackle the other side of the equation, difficulty, by making golf easier. Its website is devoted to “generating thousands of practical ideas for making golf more fun” and then plans to “prototype the best ideas through real world experiments and then ramp them up as appropriate.”
HackGolf, backed by the deep pockets of top equipment and clothing manufacturer TaylorMade-adidias Golf, recently did just that, demoing a bold new idea – the 15-inch golf hole. For as long as anyone alive has been playing, the standard has been a scant 108mm, about 4 ¼ inches wide. The jump to 15 isn’t a renovation so much as a tear down, offering a dinner plate sized target that should make 3-putting all but impossible and dramatically increase the number of birdies and eagles – and of course, holes in one.
Yesterday, immediately following the Masters, TaylorMade sponsored athletes Sergio Garcia and Justin Rose headlined an industry field that tried the new concept at Georgia’s Reynolds Plantation, a 6-course luxury resort with onsite Ritz-Carlton hotel. They installed 15-inch cups and played 9-holes, with Garcia shooting 30 and Rose 33, which frankly are not especially low scores, comparable to the best these pros might be expected to shoot on a resort course with standard greens. However, it also stands to reason that since they are so much better putters and routinely hit approach shots closer, they benefit less from the increased size than the average player would. Two weeks ago HackGolf debuted the new oversized holes for the first time at Southern California’s Pauma Valley Country Club, ands says that the new cups reduced the length of an 18-hole round from 4:30 to 3:45, while many golfers saw a 10-stroke improvement in scores.
Over the next two weeks, 20 golf courses will participate in a broader beta test using 15-inch-cups complete with special flags and flagsticks, and by the end of May, Hack Golf projects that up to another 80 courses will be enrolled in the program. In some cases participation in the novel experiment will be limited to weekend tournaments or fundraisers, while other courses plan on having both a regulation and 15-inch hole on each green at all times. No matter how successful the tests, it is unlikely the game’s ruling bodies, the USGA and R&S will consider changes to hole size anytime soon. But then again, so few recreational players closely follow the rules of golf now that the official version hardly matters if people are having more fun.
“It is clear our game needs something to recapture the incredible growth and momentum we were experiencing a decade ago,” said Mark King, CEO of TaylorMade-adidas Golf, via a press release. “Whether it is this 15-inch-cup concept or an idea that comes in from outside the industry, we need to spark a revolution that will bring new participants to the game.”
Much has been written in recent years about the slow, steady decline of golf as a participant sport in this country. The usual rationale for the lack of new participants in the game follows a two-tiered thought process. First, it is argued that golf takes too much time in an era of shortened attention spans and greatly increased competition for precious leisure hours, with a four and half hour round that often ends up being more like six-plus by the time someone drives to the course, changes, practices, plays, lunches and so on. In the glory days of the country club lifestyle, parents left their kids at the pool while they played, instead of driving them from one soccer game to the next in between taekwondo lessons and art classes.
The second explanation is that golf remains too difficult, and despite great technological advances that have allowed the best players (pros) to greatly increase their distance, better equipment hasn’t done much (if anything) for the recreational golfer, which is to say most golfers. In stark comparison, skiing, which enjoyed a resurgence amidst golf’s downturn, coupled dramatically user-friendly improvements in equipment with more sophisticated and standardized instruction to greatly accelerate the learning process. Today, a rank novice can take a single day of lessons and be skiing beginner trails from top to bottom. Not so for golf, which has seemingly been unable to do anything to shorten its onerous learning curve, long at best and in many cases, lasting the golfer’s entire life.
Sergio Garcia, the World’s Number Seventh ranked golfer, picks up his ball from a hugely oversize 15-inch cup during an experimental round the day after The Masters Tournament. Photo: Paul Abell/AP Images for Hack Golf
Now a group known as HackGolf, whose tagline is “How Do We Make Golf More Fun For Everyone?” is trying to tackle the other side of the equation, difficulty, by making golf easier. Its website is devoted to “generating thousands of practical ideas for making golf more fun” and then plans to “prototype the best ideas through real world experiments and then ramp them up as appropriate.”
Yesterday, immediately following the Masters, TaylorMade sponsored athletes Sergio Garcia and Justin Rose headlined an industry field that tried the new concept at Georgia’s Reynolds Plantation, a 6-course luxury resort with onsite Ritz-Carlton hotel. They installed 15-inch cups and played 9-holes, with Garcia shooting 30 and Rose 33, which frankly are not especially low scores, comparable to the best these pros might be expected to shoot on a resort course with standard greens. However, it also stands to reason that since they are so much better putters and routinely hit approach shots closer, they benefit less from the increased size than the average player would. Two weeks ago HackGolf debuted the new oversized holes for the first time at Southern California’s Pauma Valley Country Club, ands says that the new cups reduced the length of an 18-hole round from 4:30 to 3:45, while many golfers saw a 10-stroke improvement in scores.
The Georgia course – and 20 others in coming weeks – use the 15-inch cups with special flagsticks. Photo: Paul Abell/AP Images for Hack Golf
“It is clear our game needs something to recapture the incredible growth and momentum we were experiencing a decade ago,” said Mark King, CEO of TaylorMade-adidas Golf, via a press release. “Whether it is this 15-inch-cup concept or an idea that comes in from outside the industry, we need to spark a revolution that will bring new participants to the game.”
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