Not sure if this is the proper place to put this, but I’ll put it here.
Just watched some highlights of the 2025 Ryder Cup at Bethpage Black. IMHO, what a joke. I don’t understand why they even cut fairways. Fairways aren’t required in the modern game. Blast it 340 into light rough and spin a wedge into a perfect green and make the putt for birdie. How is this impressive? This is supposed to be one of the hardest courses in the world and players are hitting it to 5 feet from the rough?
IMO they should just remove all the trees and make everything the fairway because what’s the difference? At least they’d be honest.
Agreed. For what it’s worth, in the postgame press conference, Keegan Bradley said he regretted how the course was set up and thought the greens were way too soft
I’m glad people are talking about it. I know I’m probably in the minority but the product was not good. I was able to watch about 3 or 4 shots of the first day and turned it off. I don’t know what game I was watching but it certainly wasn’t golf.
If I were to guess, golf as an industry is going to be in big trouble if some drastic changes aren’t made. Look at NASCAR for example. A once powerhouse in viewership is now a shell of its former self and it happened overnight.
I had ChatGPT look up some stats and in the US, people playing golf is trending down when you take population growth into consideration. This is a scary stat. Once SIMs get cheaper this trend will probably escalate. I recently got my wife and daughter into the game. My daughter is a junior so she plays free until she’s 12 and then gets the junior rate at most places. This helps but when you consider we drop north of $100 to play a muni track, this game is unaffordable for most families to play regularly, let alone to play enough to be somewhat competent at it (i.e enjoy it). Why don’t kids play free until they’re 18? If the industry was smart they would make this happen because the industry will most likely get a customer buying clubs, balls, apparel and green fees for the next 50-60 years. “This one’s for free but you know where to get more.”
Then there’s the teaching industry. What a mess. How about pay club pro’s a decent wage and give them time to build a good teaching program instead of making them be Mr./Mrs. everything. Anyone can go on YouTube and get a grip, stance, posture lesson and not pay $100 an hour.
Sorry for the tantrum and the book, but I love this game and shortsighted people seem to be ruining it.
I’ve played the course hundreds of times over the decades. It was very tame setup similar to what course looks like in early spring when all the grass is short and dormant. Look back at the open Tiger won to see what it could be –hardly even the same course.
The game has changed so drastically. We can focus on equipment but it’s really an issue of course set up -hardly the same game anymore and no real risk of a disaster hole.
I’m in agreement with you because golf course design has changed so drastically over the last 30 years. Especially in the United States. Today’s course designs are about distance off the tee box and diabolical greens that can even drive a young man crazy. Even when they commission old courses to be redone they make the greens larger with tons of undulating locations and fairways wide enough to have unobstructed shots into the green.
Rough is considered long at 3 inches now when 6 inches use to be the norm. The penalty with modern golf courses today are distance and forced carry shots into wastelands. If you are strong enough to overcome these obstacles then the diabolical greens await you.