Here’s a selection of photos from the No Laying Up Summit (both the Thursday “Peak Party” and the main event on Friday). Big thanks to EJ for taking these!

NLU Summit Photos

In the UK, most rounds of golf are not measured with stroke play. Tired of his stroke play rounds getting wrecked by the difficult second hole at Wallasey Golf Club in western England, Dr. Frank Stableford enacted the first Stableford scoring system competition in 1932. Rather than counting the total number of strokes taken in an entire round, points are earned on a hole-by-hole basis.

Like true Americans, we took something that was already invented, twisted it just slightly, and are now calling it our own. Our modified stableford game is called Tilt, and it’s much easier to learn the rules to this one than 

We first introduced this on our trip to Bandon Dunes. We had five guys, so team matches were not possible. A drawn out game of handicapped stroke play over the course of seven rounds was unlikely to be exciting, so we made up a points system on the fly, and it actually ended up working out well. Here’s a quick scoring guide (all net scores).

This is all pretty standard. Things get exciting when you make a net birdie, which officially puts you on TILT. Your next hole is worth 2x the points, so a (net) par will earn you 4 points instead of 2. The same goes for the negative points. If you make (net) double or worse, you lose 8 points instead of 4.

The real fun comes in when you really get hot. Two net birdies in a row puts you on Triple Tilt, and your next hole is worth 3x the amount of points.

A net eagle is essentially treated as two birdies in a row. If you make a net eagle (assuming you’re not already on tilt), you earn your 8 points, and you bypass the 2x to get a 3x bonus on the next hole. If you’re already on 2x Tilt, and make a (net) eagle, you’re now on 4x playing the next hole.

A net par takes you off Tilt, and makes your next hole worth the normal allotment of points.

After a par-bogey start, Neil is getting dialed. A lung dart on the 3rd tee has him refocused, and on the par-4 3rd, he makes a comfortable 4 for 3. He collects his 4 points for the net birdie, and walks to the 4th tee officially on tilt. He makes a natural birdie (without getting a stroke) on the 5th, and seeing as how he was on Tilt (2x), that birdie is worth 8 points (4×2). He heads to the 6th on 3x! The nerves are real, and he pumps one OB. The arms assume the normal surrender cobra position, followed by the shoulder slump that we’ve seen oh so many times. Neil makes a 10 footer for double, but the damage is done. He loses 12 points (-4×3), and falls back to the pack.

For the gambling portion of this game, there are no set rules or guidelines. We usually have it where everyone throws in 50 bucks at the beginning of a trip, and the winner collects either all of or a majority of the pool (depending on how many guys you’re playing with).

NLU Betting Game: TILT

 reached out and offered up some goodies regarding the setup of ANGC this week. In the same vein as having caddies Jim “Bones” McKay and Matty Kelly on the pod, we thought it valuable to shed some light onto the course conditions from an expert in that field. Moving forward we will try to lean on him for his expertise for big events as the de facto in-house NLU agronomist. Enjoy! – Tron

*figures listed are according to News Bulletin No. 1

Everything at Augusta National is secretive, even their heights of cut. The figures above are the heights of cut posted in a recent Masters News Bulletin. In my professional opinion, there is no way to get greens to run out as fast as they do at ANGC at 1/8”. Your local private club is probably running between 11’ and 12’ on the Stimp, mowing their greens at 1/10” with a single roll on a daily basis depending on environmental and growing conditions. Keep in mind anything is possible when ANGC is mowing and rolling greens at least twice a day.

Fairways are all mowed from green to tee. This promotes turf that grows against the direction of play and into the impact of a golf swing. The overseeded ryegrass does not actually create grain unless you have an uphill lie, and the upright orientation of the leafblades help to create an ideal lie for a ball sitting in the fairway. Short shots that require more finesse and feel around the greens may be a little “sticky” from this mowing practice, which is why you see stubbed and flubbed chip shots that end up back at the players feet.

Greens are mowed in a pattern referred to as the “double freakie,” which is the four-way double cut diagrammed below. One pass with a greens mower is made in one direction, then the mower is turned around and goes over the exact same line in the opposite direction. Another greens mower starts the process at a 90 degree angle. The greens are also brushed before they are mowed. This promotes an upright leafblade orientation that ensures a uniform cut throughout the green. These practices eliminate any grain on the greens, when you hear Faldo talk about grain on the greens you can feel free to call BS.

The collars and fringes are mowed at different heights using the same machine in a single pass. The machine is called a “wacky head mower” and was invented by the maintenance team at Augusta National. Half of the mower reel sits on the collar of the green, the other half sits on the fringe cut. If you look close enough during the broadcast, you will see the distinct heights of cut running off the green into the surrounds and approaches.

The slopes and contours on the greens at Augusta National are dramatic to say the least, some more than others. Each green at ANGC receives personalized treatment and conditioning that best reflect its slope, pin location, and shot-making values. Greens speed, firmness, and moisture ratings vary from hole to hole depending on the character of each green. During the Masters Tournament, each green receives its personalized treatment from a dedicated crew whose sole focus is to create the best playing conditions possible for their particular green. The reason ANGC does not publicize their greens speed or firmness rating is because they are inconsistent, and they have to be. A uniform speed and firmness from green to green would simply not be fair due to the dramatic slopes found at ANGC. The golf course has never been officially rated by the USGA, however an ‘unofficial rating’ was conducted during tournament practice rounds in 2010. The unofficial rating of the golf course was determined to be 78.1 with an average greens speed of 12’, peaking at 15’. The large variance in greens speed is to protect the golfers from the dramatic slopes and contours. If the 12th green was rolling north of 13’ on the Stimpmeter, the green would essentially be unplayable with its back-to-front slope pushing shots into Rae’s Creek.

It should also be noted that the conditioning of the greens at ANGC can be regulated through state of the art sub-surface drainage systems and heating/cooling systems. The greens through Amen Corner can sit as much as 170 feet of elevation below the Clubhouse. Due to this change in elevation and topography, temperatures and environmental conditions can be quite different depending on your location on the golf course. On cooler, brisk mornings, the climate control systems can help to regulate the greens temperature to promote turf health and growth conditions. Conversely, on warm, muggy days, the temperature and moisture levels can be controlled as well. Most golf courses in the Southeastern part of the country use warm-season turf to grass their greens, like bermuda or zoysia grasses because of their drought and heat tolerant characteristics. Augusta National grasses their greens with bentgrass, which is classified as a cool-season turfgrass. Bentgrass does not do well under hot and wet conditions; turf loss and disease are major concerns under these stressors. The bentgrass greens at ANGC are strong and healthy year after year, largely in part to the sub-surface drainage and climate-control systems, coupled with a seemingly bottomless maintenance budget and the Agronomy Team’s impeccable attention to detail.

The Agronomy Team during the Masters Tournament is not the everyday maintenance staff at ANGC. It is an all-star roster of the greatest minds and up-and-comers in the turfgrass industry. The guys and gals you see on mowers throughout the week likely run their own golf course maintenance operation somewhere else across the country, probably with superb conditions as well.

Weather permitting, Augusta National is able to create the playing environment they want to see on a daily basis with this cutting edge technology and endless agronomic resources. If they want the greens to play firm and fast, they crank up the SubAir and dry out the greens. If they want to see soft shots where players have to control spin, they can irrigate and regulate their desired firmness and moisture content to do so. At your home club, a soil moisture rating of 15% – 19% would be considered relatively dry. At ANGC, I would imagine this range would be considered ideal for the shots the committee wants to see played into their greens. Many players have said that the golf course they see on Thursday is drastically different from the golf course they played their practice rounds on. Monday through Wednesday players are attacking flags and getting the ball to stop on a dime. Then it seems as though someone flipped a switch Thursday morning and wanted to see carnage, and that is exactly what happened.

Augusta National’s primary turfgrass is bermuda. During the hot and humid Georgia summer, bermudagrass covers the landscape because of its heat tolerance characteristics (amongst other reasons). In the Fall as the nights become cooler, the bermudagrass goes dormant, stops growing, and turns brown. Once the weather patterns are desirable to grow cool season grasses, the bermudagrass is scalped down from tee to green to almost nothing. The scalping process can be quite aggressive depending on the bermuda’s health. It is very labor intensive and requires an incredible amount of resource inputs. Once the bermuda has been scalped, perennial ryegrass seed is laid out from wall-to-wall using calibrated spreaders that ensure all areas receive enough ryegrass seed to promote a dense and uniform turf canopy. In my personal experience in overseeding, we have used more than a million gallons of water per day to establish germination, matched with a fertilization program that can cost up to $10,000 per application in product alone (both statistics I have a hard time advocating, rationalizing, and standing behind). From the time the ryegrass seed is spread to the time you can re-open the golf course to play may be from 4-6 weeks depending on environmental and growth conditions. We will never see it in our lifetime, but I would love to see how ANGC looks after a partial overseed – leaving the rough as dormant bermuda and growing perennial ryegrass on the tees and fairways – see TPC Scottsdale or PGA West.

The Masters: Agronomic Summary

Here’s a take: #17 at Augusta National (Nandina) stinks.

Before the congregation comes at me for blasphemous statements against the hallowed sanctuary that is Augusta National Golf Club, I”ll say that on most other courses, it would be a solid golf hole. But its current circumstances don’t allow for the benefit of the doubt. Please think about Nandina and answer two questions:

RIP Ike, his tree, and the excitement of #17. Long live the left to right ball flight.

The first question is most difficult to answer based on what I see via the telecast and have learned over the years from Ian Baker Finch, who covers the hole for CBS. The hole clearly plays as one of the harder on the back nine with a 4.19 historical scoring average, but unlike 11 with the intimidating second shot and obvious trouble left, 17 possesses no real hazards. 14 has carved out its role as a unique test with one of the crazier greens on the course, a bunker-less breath between the excitement of gettable par 5’s. Augusta already has the onerous par 4 with a deep front bunker and segmented green in number 18, a classic uphill finisher making 17 a bit redundant in its current form.

With the loss of the Eisenhower tree in 2014, CBS lost its narrative for Nandina. That tree was the hole’s identity and an easy anchor for what made #17 unique. When the final groups walked up the back hill from #16 green, Nantz just had to play the hits: mention Ike, play up the tradition and lore of Augusta, and let IBF take over. Nandina was a potent elixir of patriotism and nostalgia, but without that tree, it’s now just a long par 4 they’ve had to make longer due to modern technology. On top of that, the CBS cameras are poorly positioned and don’t give us a feel for the blind second shot into what’s one of the hardest greens on the course. How about giving us a topographical map or view of where the green breaks instead of the watered down fly over of a bland hole that hardly mentions the difficult green complex? But hey, I should cut CBS some slack…

On both my visits to Augusta I’ve found myself crisscrossing the 17th fairway repeatedly on my way more interesting holes. During those traverses, I’ve watched a number of approaches into 17 before the marshals open up the walkway at the crest of the fairway, and each time I’ve found the shot leaving much to be desired. The bombers get up on top of the hill for an easier 8 or 9 iron in while the Kuch’s and ZJ’s have a much tougher blind mid-iron into a rock hard green. Yes, I do respect the degree of difficulty watching pros sling darts into a difficult pin, but I’d love to hear someone tell me that a drive or approach on 17 was a shot that stuck with them. Shit, other than Jack’s putt in ’86, I’d love to hear any other iconic shots anyone can list from anywhere on the current 17th, pictured right. This is pretty remarkable for the penultimate hole at The Masters Tournament. The back nine on Saturday and Sunday is a rolling crescendo of energy through the 16th. Once the action reaches 17 it feels akin to one of those generic IBM commercials – a vague placeholder that’s just there because it’s always been that way. The hole sets that a par-par finish for the leader will be good enough. It doesn’t 

Fear not, there’s a better way forward: take the spirit and concept of the 3rd hole (Flowering Peach), which is the most interesting par 4 on the course, and apply it to the land which currently constitutes 17. According to the 

“believed the third hole to be nearly perfect in design. Thus, this hole has been changed less than any other on the course.” 

Year after year, I listen to Peter Kostis rave about the risk reward elements of the tee shot, and how even the longest hitters don’t gain much of an advantage going for it off the tee due to the delicate touch required around the table top green.

Using the 3rd hole (pictured left) as a template for improving 17 is the perfect antidote to barrage of tweaks and lengthening over the past two decades that’s denude the course of personality and creativity. Picture an uphill 310-325 par 4 with that same rock hard green and a bit more penal collection area off the back. I’ll let the real architects do what they do and handle the details and execution; I’m an “idea guy!” But the

 might be too good: guys chasing the leader, fresh off the cauldron of 16 with adrenaline pumping, knowing they need birdie and grabbing driver instead of the sensible iron.

Augusta National is one of the most altered courses in the history of the game, a fact which should provide license to make an improvement that would add variety to the course and elicit drama beyond the usual suspects down along Big Play Rae’s Creek (and its tributaries). A wise man down in Australia once told me that a golf course is a living organism that ebbs and flows with the tides of time and can always be improved. ANGC obviously subscribes to that philosophy given the myriad changes from Mackenzie to Maxwell to Jones Sr. to Fazio (and everyone in between), but often misses the boat on what those changes 

 be. With Eisenhower’s Tree long gone, a reimagining of 17 would be a great start to unlocking some of the unrealized potential of ANGC, which is surprisingly plentiful.

Stinky Nandina

 drops I seem to get it about three days after most of my friends and the wait is interminable. When the mailman finally shows up and I see the “Do Not Bend” cardboard envelope sticking out of the mailbox I’m transported back to elementary school, when I would get home from school on Thursdays and run down to the mailbox to check if Sports Illustrated had been delivered.

, I subconsciously prioritized which pieces most appealed to me and read them in a really bizarre order, saving certain pieces for certain moods or settings. My wife made me aware that I was doing this and then rolled her eyes. At the risk of sounding like a cheesedick, TGJ always feels inherently personal for me beyond the fact that No Laying Up has a column in the back and that a member of the NLU Fam (D.J. Piehowski) is a contributing editor for TGJ. The themes explored in each of 

 I love golf and marry convergent people, places, and themes that have impacted me in a number of different ways.

Discover the stories, photography and characters inside TGJ No. 3.



Get your copy: 





— The Golfer’s Journal (@GolfersJournal) 

No. 1 brought to life the adventures inherent in golf with journeys to Tijuana, Askernish and North Berwick and also featured Big Randy detailing an adventure in his own backyard tailing Monty around the US Senior Open for the “Lipping Out” feature. It made me want to get out there both to these places and to go find my own hidden gems.

No. 2 explored the soul and spirit of the game with invigorating stories from the Bandon Sheep Ranch, the hickory and persimmon-making Louisville Golf Company and a piece on Sweetens Cove Golf Club that transported me back to my rebirth in the game.

Four years ago I was living in Atlanta and burned out on golf, sick of the lack of good options to play around town and burdened by the resource constraints inherent to actually 

 golf. Then I heard about Sweetens Cove and my concept of golf was completely shattered. I made the two and a half hour drive four times in a span of twelve months, playing at least 36 holes each time and never playing the same hole twice during the same trip (keep in mind it’s a nine hole course). Travis Hill’s story about his initial trip to Sweetens captured the transcendent spirit of the place and fleshed out the same feelings I’ve held since 2014, often struggling to express in my own words. Now when someone asks about Sweetens, I just tell them to buy TGJ No. 2.

And while Nos. 1 & 2 were both exceptional pieces of #content, No. 3 is on a different level. It continues both the spirit of adventure from No. 1 with far-flung pieces on Shiskine and Whistling Rock. But it also offers a deeper exploration of what’s been lost in the game over the past few decades (Caleb Hannan’s descriptive dive into the now-deceased world of golf hustlers, Jay Rigdon’s energizing piece on a scruffy muni in Chicago – ironically right down the street from where I was born – and D.J.’s half-hopeful/half-tragic AF look at Banff Springs through the lens of up-and-coming architect Riley Johns). These pieces inspire you to get involved and be the change you wish to see in the game. In the spirit of the “something lost” theme, Neil also used the NLU “Lipping Out” column to lament his recent move from San Francisco to New York and employed the word “fuccboi” in print.

Wherever and whenever. . . Lee Trevino, 1981. Photo by Walter Iooss Jr., TGJ No. 3

 (@golfersjournal) on Mar 12, 2018 at 10:24am PDT

As I count down the months and weeks and days to No. 4 arriving in my mailbox, I keep pressing D.J. and Travis for details on upcoming issues and they just smirk. The Golfer’s Journal is just scratching the surface. While I’m certainly biased, it’s obvious that this publication has established itself as the foundation and voice for a growing subculture (or is it a counterculture?) within golf that’s on the verge of doing big things and becoming far more than just a niche group.

Digging into The Golfer's Journal No. 3

 We gleaned questions from a thread on our message board, 

, and posed questions to the whole crew.

What PGA Tour event would you move (course, location, and date all count)? And if you could, where would you add a new Tour Event? -TigersWoods

 Speaking from the standpoint of what is most realistic and seemingly easiest, flipping Honda and Mexico makes way too much sense. I’m sure there’s a reason why this hasn’t happened, but this solves a lot of February/March scheduling issues.

 Michigan needs an annual Tour event. I’d flip Greenbrier and The National on the calendar and move The National into Michigan (I’m not tied to any particular course). The schedule would then go from Michigan to Quad Cities to The Open Championship (oppo event is the Barbasol in Lexington, KY) back to Canada and then Bridgestone in Akron. A legit Great Lakes Swing!

 The Pacific Northwest needs love too. I don’t know what courses, but I’d be alright with expanding the West Coast swing by a week or two at the expense of the Lone Star State. I’m way out on the Texas Swing. It feels mundane and blends together between all the majors. The Byron Nelson has always been meh (saved this year with everyone quaffing Trinity Forest), The Colonial is a landlocked, diet Heritage with no vibe (Dean & Deluca was the perfect sponsor as an overrated coffee purveyor but even they bailed), and The Texas Open feels like something the Club Pro Guy or Roy McAvoy should playing in. The courses all feel flat, hot, and long. No thanks.

 The Valero was the event that sprung to my mind as well, although I’ll admit I’ve never attended it. That’s the hard part with a lot of these events – for many of them there’s such a different vibe on the ground than what you see on TV. So in that respect, even if I think an event stinks from my couch, if the people that go to it each year (and the charities that benefit from it, etc.) love it, then by all means, carry on. I’d also like to see them move the second Playoff event because I think TPC Boston low key stinks. Not only are there 45 other dope spots in Boston that would be cool to see, but on years like this where you have the first three legs all on lush, tree-lined courses in the Northeast, things start to feel a little like Groundhog Day.

 Oh man (cracks knuckles and takes a deep breath)… I like all of the above. This stuff gets my juices flowing. Michigan needs a tour event (I love taking the National there like Randall mentioned). I’m also pouring more resources into the John Deere and putting it on a rotation that includes the Twin Cities, Des Moines, Quad Cities and other golf-crazed markets in the upper midwest. Get it a better spot on the calendar too. Hell, make it a playoff event.

I’m moving the Malaysia event to Japan, moving the Shanghai WGC to Australia. Like DJ said, we’re decamping from TPC Boston (which may already be in the works). I like Neil’s emphasis on hooking the Pac-NW up, unfortunately that ain’t gonna work on the West Coast Swing as it’s Jan/Feb up there and the weather stinks. So start the wraparound season in Napa, go up the coast to a new event in Seattle or Portland, and then you rotate the Canadian Open between Vancouver and Calgary for the next five years for the week after that and helps it avoid the post-Open Championship malaise it’s currently in. This removes a couple weeks from the bulk of the summer season, lets you move playoffs up to avoid football, and capitalize on the primo September/early October weather out west. I could keep going for another couple hours on this topic.

How can you be a proponent of rolling back the ball after the results this weekend at Chapultepec? Course played sub 6500 yards, winner at a very fair 16 under, lots of excitement, etc. -BigJake

 Apologies BigJake, but any argument against rolling back the ball that cites par or Chapultepec as an argument against change is misplaced. Chipotle Golf Club is a laughable layout that is simultaneously awesome to watch the pros play. But it has next to zero interesting architectural elements, and isn’t that relevant in the ball discussion as a hole.

There’s still plenty of tournaments played on shorter courses where the scores aren’t disgustingly low. That doesn’t mean that there isn’t an issue. Fact is, because of how far the ball goes, architects and tournament organizers have been forced to artificially protect par by growing the rough up, narrowing the fairways, shaving down the greens and hiding the pins. Eliminating fairway width also takes away strategic elements of playing a hole. When a player has nowhere to go but dead straight, every single player has to play a hole the exact same way. Chipotle Municipal is maybe the most egregious example on tour of a course that forces players to play each hole the same way – straight through narrow corridors of trees.

Dialing back the ball would help bring back so many of the architecture elements that many course designers intended to be considered when playing a hole. Bunkers will be in play and will require precision to play around or near them to provide the best angle at the pin, rather than being irrelevant and capable of being bombed over.

The farther we move the tee boxes back, the more the longer hitters will benefit. The farther the ball goes, the bigger advantage the longer hitters will have. If we dial it back 10%, a guy that carries it 300 yards will now carry it 270. A guy that carries it 270 will carry it 243. Yes, that’s only a three yard difference, but that’s not insignificant. And when you factor in roll, that gap between those two players will close even tighter.

 I think I like TPC Chipotle a lot more than Soly does, but I can’t disagree with a lot of his points. The reason scores were relatively protected on the short course was pretty simple – it was claustrophobic as shit off the tee. I think this was crazy fun to watch for one week because you get guys hitting recovery shots constantly (my favorite), but it’s just not possible as a solution from week to week for a million reasons. The downside of seeing a course like this “succeed” on Tour is that the casual fan sees a popular winner and assumes that means it’s a “good” golf course. This is how you end up with tight, punishing public courses that lead to 6-hour rounds, agronomy problems and all the strategic elements Soly mentioned being wiped away.

Did the Killhouse furniture come from a Goodwill or did you just find it in various alleys?

The #Killhouse design aesthetic is what I’d call ‘Chic Donation,’ a ragtag mix of Goodwill, free stuff people send Soly & Tron, and old furniture from the humble ATL abode of The Franchise and Peg (aka, Tron and Neil’s parents). The Patrick Reed couch was actually one of two in our family room for about 10 years. It has not aged well, and goes better with a darker wall color and a less sunny family room! My vision for the #Killhouse is a museum of useless golf history, objects that represent inside jokes that no one gets (see: welding mask), and mismatched furniture that garners stern but fair shit talking from the gallery during the live show. I think we’re well on our way!

 Fun fact–‘Chic Donation’ is an interior decor line bourne from the revolutionary 

 fashion line from infamous designer, Jacobim Mugatu.

What do you guys think has happened to Smylie? – assortment of Refugees

 I don’t think Smylie is that good. He got hot in Vegas and stole a win, went comatose for 3 days at Augusta, and then regressed back to where he should be. The problem is he upped his personal #brand on SB2k16, and got put in the convo with dudes that have been the creme de la creme from junior golf through today.

 Smylie’s an interesting story – Neil nailed it on the head, and that’s not meant as a slight to Smylie. You have to respect someone getting hot, taking advantage of it and having the confidence to keep riding it. He was a middling college player for three years at LSU (averaged around 74-75 each season) before he got v hot his senior year. Then he won in his first year on the Web Tour in ‘15 (an impressive five shot win at the tough Victoria National, probably the hardest course on that circuit), and then parlayed that into a PGA Tour card and went unconscious Sunday at the Shriners. He went from 71st in SG putting in ‘15, to 138th last season, and down to 158th thus far this year. 2016 was the outlier and he’s simply regressing to the mean. The mean is still top 200 players in the world, so he’s still very good. But it will be interesting to see if/how he keeps his card after his exemption from the win runs out this year. He’s only 26 and coming from a lower foundation than guys who were First-Team All-America through college. It does kind of suck for him that we wouldn’t be asking any of these questions if he hadn’t been overexposed by the media in a fifteen-minutes-of-fame type of way.

Tron/Soly, Give me one or two examples of something in the golfing world that’s still over your head or something you just figured out. – SplashShots69

 4 things stick out: 1) Will never figure out how Charles Howell III only has 2 career wins. 2) How does Jim Thorpe make contact with the golf ball? 3) How/why Tom Fazio is the current architect of record for 2 of the top 3 courses in the world. 4) The 2006 United States Ryder Cup team.

Also, I just figured out how to read grain about three months ago.

 Though addressed to Tron/Soly, this is an equal-opportunity mailbag schnitz, so I’ll happily answer the question. Here are a 3 for me:

– How they calculate FedEx Cup points: This is something I’ll never really care to understand though.

– The Grass following the sun throughout the day, which changes the grain and the break of certain putts. The big homie Will Smith tried to explain it in Bagger Vance, but I continue to mix up on whether into the grain or through the grain will make it faster/slower.

– The list of ways you can hold onto your tour card: Tron read it out loud one time, and it sounded like the U.S. tax code to me.

– How guys spin the ball back from 40 yards and in.

– How the ball seems to enter a different dimension when Rory hits driver, and it just continues to rise. Like, it looks like the Falcon Heavy entering a second burn. The ball should start coming toward the Earth, and it propels itself even further in the air and into the jetstream.

– How fields are filled out. I know there’s a priority list and all that, but I can’t name how guys at the bottom of the field get into out, and how the first alternates get cut out.

– Was shocked to follow pros and find out how many truly awful shots they hit. I’ve seen duck hooks, I’ve seen tops, blades, chunks. And on so many of those holes, they end up making par. And I can’t explain how.

 Does compressing the ball count? Or how about like three quarters of golf’s rulebook? In all seriousness, two putting techniques are way over my head: Plum-Bobbing and AimPoint. I’ve had several people try to demonstrate the former to me, and I’ve been given a pretty detailed explanation of the latter yet I still don’t have a grasp on either.

 care about course architecture or is it just something you talk about to try to seem refined and worldly? – GeneParmesan

 First of all, huge shout out to Gene Parmesan, who would have definitely been in the Pete Dye school of design – trickery of the eye and big, dramatic reveals.

I absolutely, unequivocally did not care about it 5-6 years ago. I couldn’t tell you why a hole was good or bad beyond the fact that a short par 4 gave you “options.” I was more into conditioning than anything else, which makes feel very sad to say. I think two things changed this: 1) Going to Bandon and Scotland for the first time made me realize that everything I thought I knew about golf was pretty much bullshit and that just hitting golf shots – trying to shape it a certain way or use the ground or whatever the shot dictates – is so much more fun and engaging than a 4-hour quest to try to break an arbitrary number. Particularly playing Doak courses for the first time was eye-opening to just how fun it is to see a puzzle of a green complex and give it your best to solve it in a different way each time. 2) Reading/listening to Andy Johnson’s work at The Fried Egg made the whole idea so much more accessible and opened my eyes to a million books, Twitter accounts, everything. I’ve been pretty burned out on the pro game the past few years and this has given me a whole different way to stay engaged with golf that I’m finding to be more rewarding and infinitely more interesting (other than when Tiger’s playing).

 That pretty much sums it up for me too. I’m a shell of the player I once was, yet I love golf more than ever, and that’s because of architecture. I grew up playing a lot of golf courses in/around Atlanta that, while well-conditioned, were (and still are) dogshit layouts that were built between 1955 and 1990. I grew up playing these courses and loving golf. I got back from college and lost the bug a little bit and got really into fishing. This was for a variety of reasons – frustration, non-walkable courses, not having a private membership in a city that offers next-to-nothing in the way of public golf.

A few years later, four things happened concurrently. 1) NLU was taking off and I was playing a variety of courses and adding to my perspective. 2) I played Sweetens Cove for the first time, which completely shattered my concept of what a golf course could/should be. 3) I bought Volume 2 of Doak’s Confidential Guide. 4) My wife and I moved to Boston and I fell in love with the game again. It didn’t matter if I was playing a historic country club or the local munis, the common thread was that all were either designs from legendary architects (even the scruffy munis) or were relatively recent designs from guys like Silva and Hanse, who lean on a classic design philosophy. Did it help that I played places like Myopia, Essex, Brookline, Yale, Taconic and Boston GC? Absolutely, that’s what really helped solidify it. But the light went on when I was playing accessible places like South Shore Country Club (a public Wayne Stiles design), Bass Rocks (a private but laid back Herbert Leeds design), George Wright Municipal and Sandy Burr (Donald Ross courses in Boston), and Red Tail (newish Silva design outside the city that is a blast). These utilized the same principles as those really exclusive places, yet were approachable and cheap and close.

When I met Andy Johnson, all of those things coalesced and the result is now that I realize 

 I enjoy golf: It’s the architecture and strategy of it. I look back on growing up and think about how it would’ve been different if I’d been exposed to classic architecture early on (and how much better I’d be as a player).

 For me, it wasn’t as much about architecture per say as it was discovering that there were different ways to play golf than in a golf cart, on a soft parkland course that weaves through houses. Playing through the UK and Ireland honestly felt like a different sport. Stateside, if the conditions dictated that I would have to hit a 6-iron from 125, I’m not teeing it up that day. In the UK I’m 

 those conditions. As D.J. alluded to, if you can give up thinking about a score, and just embrace the challenge of trying to play around a bunker, rather than bombing it over one, golf is infinitely more fun.

I guess inherently that goes back to architecture and course design, but I didn’t fully recognize the architectural elements that were making this so fun. I didn’t realize that a lot of these courses don’t have forced carries, or obnoxious water hazards, or super tight fairways. I just realized how much fun they were to play. It wasn’t until really reading Andy’s stuff that it got spelled out to me what the actual elements were that I was appreciating, even if I couldn’t spell them out myself. It’s hard to explain, but it was honestly difficult to get super excited about coming back to the states to play golf again after experiencing that euphoria across the pond. I can’t wait to get back.

In your opinion(s), will the USGA and the R&A ever go to a bifurcation of the rules? Why or why not? – aj_wehr

 Forever is a really long time, so it’s hard to say it will 

 get to that point, but I think it’s going to take a really, really long time for it to get there. The USGA had a buried line deep in the distance report that it has no intention of dividing the rules between the pros and amateurs, so I’ll take that to mean that it definitely won’t be happening this time around. (Whether it should or not is certainly up for debate.)

 I hope they don’t bifurcate. I want everyone playing the same ball and I want it to be a rolled back ball that spins more. Will they do that? Probably not. This sums it up for me:

Timber bats in MLB, tennis has managed the ball, AFL & NRL have limited interchange, swimming banned Thorpey’s suits… etc etc etfc. Golf is very lonely in the camp of sports that have let technology ravage the game. 

 I don’t think they will. I’d like them to bifurcate, and I think the pro game would be much more interesting if guys were forced to do more thinking than they currently do off the tee, and a rolled back ball would encourage that. But it would be too much of a shakeup to the entire golf industry for it to actually go through. Things will reach a tipping point when they can’t put tee boxes any further back than they have, but I honestly have no clue when that day will be.

In the Killhouse crew, who are the players that you would:

– Count on to sink a 10 footer to win a match

– Stripe a driver down a tight fairway with a 1-up lead

– Get sweaty palms and alter his pre-shot routine with BigCat watching on the tee-box

 No disrespect to the other guys (no disrespect to anyone), but I think I’m a transcendent putter within 4 feet. Ten, however, is way outside my range for anything of consequence. I’m probably leaning on Soly here. Tron is the only generational driver of the golf ball in this crew, so he’s definitely getting the call to try to hit the fairway. The “sweaty palms” question is interesting. I want to say Neil, but I want to couch it with this – Neil almost always plays to the level opposite his competition (he collapses against good players and mercilessly beats up on bad players). So if he was paired against someone shitty with the Big Cat watching, I think he’d rise to the occasion and stripe one.

 DJ for the putt (he’s world class inside 8 feet), me for the drive (think Fred Funk or Joe Durant off the tee), Randy to get nervous AF.

 I’ll go full Reed and take myself for the putt. Tron for the driver. And also myself to get nervous. I got nervous as shit hitting a shot in front of like 100 people at Sawgrass on Monday and dumped it in the water. I would top the ball if Cat was watching.

After spending some time around Tour players, what is your ultimate “rainout foursome” – the 3 guys you’d be fine spending an afternoon drinking and bullshitting with during a rainout? – TheOtherBigCat

 Great question. For me, it’d be Graeme McDowell (smart, funny, relatable, Guinness drinker). We’d sit quietly and watch a conversation between Bryson and Phil, which I think would be both intentionally and unintentionally hilarious. To me there is no one more fascinating than Phil (or at least the projection of Phil I’ve created in my mind) and I think Bryson would bring out the best in him, especially after a couple pops.

 Fuzzy Zoeller, Jim Thorpe, and Richie Ramsay because his accent is fantastic, he’d laugh and keep the other two going. 

 If we’re talking current tour players: Rory, Phil, DJ.

March NLU Mailbag (Part 2)

We’re trying something new for these mailbag columns. We opened a thread at the 

 to submit questions and have tag-teamed responses between the whole NLU crew. Hope you enjoy and get involved in the 

If you could live one PGA Tour Pro’s life, who would it be and why? –murph

Ryan Moore. 38th all-time in career earnings and zero chance he gets recognized going to the grocery store on a Tuesday night. That’s a hell of a win-win.

 For the same reasons, Charles Howell III.

 Adam Scott: Mr. Steal Ya Girl is physically gifted, got boy band ass, splits his time between Oz, Bahamas, and Switzerland (and probably several other non-extradition countries), has enough wins and a Masters to avoid any real “wasted talent” conversations from getting too in depth, owned his own plane (the real sign of “fuck you” money), and now seems to care more about surfing left breaks than reading left breaks. There’s more to life than golf for this guy. Sign me up, I’ll deal with the public recognition.

 Thomas Pieters (I’m assuming this is only forward-looking). He’s been around long enough to have made a lot of money already, but not 

the money so he’s still hungry. Crazy upside. Plays a worldwide schedule and possesses an EU passport. Definitely famous, but keeps a low profile. Gonna be a Ryder Cup stalwart. Still plenty of cool stuff he’s going to experience. Low-key funny guy too.

You get one of these two Sunday final pairings AND sudden death playoff at The Masters: Tiger-Phil, or Jordan-Rory. Which would you rather see? –misterfish1

 Tiger and Phil in a playoff at Augusta would be one of the most iconic, celebrated events in the history of the game. Full stop. It would be the cherry on top of the last 20-plus years of golf, a Hollywood-esque last act in the drama. It’s quite amazing (read: depressing) to think two of the greatest players of all-time, with the vast majority of their careers overlapping, in all likelihood won’t have a signature head-to-head battle for a major championship. If the ‘02 US Open is as close as we’ll ever get I can’t help but feel more than a little cheated as a fan.

 I think Randy nailed it. I kind of stopped reading the question after “Tiger-Phil.” Nothing else is close.

I think the interesting twist on this question is asking which young star you would want to see these guys go up against before their careers come to a close. For me, I think it’s Tiger and Jordan. JS has been the person whose dominance has most closely resembled Tiger’s (at least at a young age) and I think he feels like the player to me that is set up for the longest run of consistent winning (which would just make a duel like this age even better).

 Didn’t Spieth already end Rory’s career that one Saturday at Augusta when he slow-played him allllllll day? I’ll take a Monty/Norman showdown, final answer.

Is Rickie this generation’s Sergio Garcia? –Blewett

 When Sergio was 29 going on 30 he had 15 combined PGA Tour/Euro Tour wins. Rickie currently has 6. It’s not getting late for Rickie by any stretch, but with each passing year the career trajectory projections shift a bit. Currently, I’m liking a Fred Couples comp. I can imagine Rickie ending up in the 15 win (+ 3 Euro titles)/1 major territory alongside Fred. Where the comparison really solidifies, in my opinion, is in the popularity of the two guys amongst fans.

 I again agree with the Slender Man here. I think what made Sergio Sergio was that his losses were so catastrophic and heartbreaking that he was turned into this tragic figure (sometimes by his own doing, of course). Nothing about Rickie, even at his lowest, ever feels tragic. He seems to just generally be winning at life and any success on the golf course is just gravy on top. The Fred Couples comp is money.

 Everything above is spot-on (also take Randy’s stuff with a grain of salt, as he loathes the Rictator). As far as career arcs go, I’m starting to get a distinctly Adam Scott vibe from Rickie, only if Adam Scott cared more. Similar wins, similar close calls in majors, etc.

Ratio of strokes to pictures during a casual Zac Blair round? –PhilsSignedGlove

 It’s at least one photo every hole, usually more. So that’s what? 2.5 to 1?

I’ve not only never seen anything like it, I just can’t wrap my head around how he keeps all the photos organized. He’s taking photos constantly through every round, firing them all off to different group texts to illustrate different architectural nuances and then referring back to them all months later. The reason I wanted to include this question is because it’s a perfect illustration of how ZB can legitimately remember almost every hole he’s ever played. It’s incredible. We get done with a round and he can rattle off what each hole was, what number he had in and even what each of your shots did there. And he can remember most of this months later too. I’d say on a good day (and an average course), I can remember about 9-12 holes immediately after the round. After a week, that drops to about 3. He just seems to have infinite space for this stuff.

 Zac could probably give David Cannon a run for his money in terms of pictures taken over the past few years. The energy and mental organization he has to keep all this stuff straight continually blows my mind. He’s the RaynorMan in more ways than one.

 A more statistically relevant question would be “Ratio of strokes to, “this is the best (insert: hole, green, tee box, bunkering, layout, usage of native area, cart path) I’ve EVER seen” comments per round (minus the cart path line, RaynorMan would never say that). When you play with ZB, you have to relish the way he lives in the present. He might be Dori, from Finding Nemo, reincarnated as a dude in land-locked Utah. After the round he can remember every shot on every hole, but he can’t remember that he just told me the last green two greens might be the sickest green he’s ever played. It’s like active short term memory loss with no impact on the long term photographic memory. That’s wild man!

 I know this can sound cheesy (and I hope this person is not a sleeper cell with Big Insurance referencing those bad Zurich commercials where the players are taking lie detector tests about how much they love golf). But I think it’s kind of a fun one to think about every now and again.

I love it for all the reasons you’d think (you never perfect it, great company, challenge, etc.), but I think the main reason I love it is because there’s nothing else I’ve found that has so many different parallels to life in general. Legitimately every problem or high point in life can have a golf parallel/analogy to it (“Tin Cup” illustrates this really well in the therapy scene). But golf is also a perfect microcosm for people’s worldviews I think. You can learn so much about someone based on whether they’re obsessed with conditioning or score or architecture or equipment or hitting on the cart girl. You can see how people handle bad shots and how they gamble and whether they throw clubs or not. I can’t think of anything else that airs someone out quite the same way that golf does.

Golf is a perfectly imperfect blend of nature and sport. You’re outdoors amongst the elements, and battling the wind, the challenge of the terrain, the grass type, the trees, the hazards, all to put a ball into a tiny little hole. It’s hard as hell, so the genuine satisfaction that comes with a well-executed shot or a solid round hits you in the feels harder than it does with any other sport I’ve experienced. Almost all of the other sports I’ve ever played are played in the same dimensions, and are played directly against other people. With golf, the only defense you face is the course. The feeling when you stuff an approach is infectious, and you think about it all day until you get to tee it up again.

With Furyk this year, Stricker likely in 2020, and Phil seeming to fit better in 2024, who do we have for a 2022 Ryder Cup captain? More likely to be a first time captain or a repeat? –coliphant

It’s pretty safe to say that the U.S. has essentially adopted a similar model to Europe, requiring future captains to have at least served as an assistant captain. Cat will have likely been a 3-time assistant at that point, and he seems heavily invested enough in the process to want to take that leadership role.

Some media types that I’ve talked to think that we’re overthinking the Phil/Bethpage thing. Which Ryder Cup will be the first one that Phil misses? I honestly think in his mind he believes he’s going to be the playing captain at Bethpage, and I’m not willing to rule it out. That may very well be more of a pipedream than it is a prognostication, but that’s where my dream currently lies.

 Can I be honest? Are we in the nest? Unless it’s a gregarious personality or somebody willing to try something 

 outside the box, I can’t begin to muster the energy to care about Ryder Cup captains. Having said that, I hope it’s Phil or Tiger.

 I’m down with the Tiger call (especially if the Tiger Presidents Cup reports are true for Royal Melbourne). I’m not sure if he’d ever be down for it, but I think getting David Duval in there would be really cool. His highs were so good and it’s kind of become a shame that he doesn’t get more recognition for what he did. It could be the Jacksonville in me talking.

 Curveball – I’m going with Mark Calcavecchia. And he brings in Chris Dimarco, Steve Marino and Freddie Couples as ass captains, plus Dominic Bozzelli can hang out in the team room. Obviously there’s an Italian theme here with the event being in Italy, but I also think Calc would make for an awesome captain and his career is overlooked. He appeared on four Ryder Cup teams over a fifteen year period, and isn’t afraid to tell it like it is and still plays enough to have a pulse on things. Not sure Duval will be a great captain, but he’s certainly deserving.

I’ll throw in another couple wild cards in Stew Cink (he’s been on five teams!!!!) and Justin Leonard.

After Phil’s incredible win and ensuing post-round interview and press conference, I’m looking for you guys to put together your Top ___ (as many as you want) Phil interview clips into one glorious video. Please and thanks. –BettorThanMost

 For me, it probably will never get any better than Phil saying he was going to wear all black on Masters Sunday because he wanted to play aggressive and “studies have shown football teams get more penalties when they wear black.”

– Phil murdering Tom Watson in cold blood at the 2014 press conference.

– Phil explaining that he and Zach Johnson spotted the Internationals two holes and they still couldn’t beat them at the Presidents Cup in Korea.

– Oldie but a goodie: Phil’s “I am such an idiot” at Winged Foot.

May not be a popular take, given the NLU crew’s infatuation with JT – it seems like JT has really begun to rub people the wrong way (myself included). Sure it’s a lot of twirls and #toursauce when things are going well, but otherwise he comes across as whiny and immature when facing adversity. Why do you think he catches heat for many of the same antics that his buddy (spoiler alert) Spieth displays? –zman

 A few things here. I think the rest of the guys will say that “NLU’s infatuation” is actually just limited to me. The rest of the guys are probably able to maintain a much more impartial view of JT than I can.

I think it’s easy to forget how the tides kind of started to turn against Jordan last year. It’s not dissimilar to how young athletes in other sports get treated. On your way up, people are unfamiliar with you. When you can excel at your sport, you can do no wrong, and as the next big thing, everyone gets super hyped about the next rising star. With Spieth, television networks were barely paying attention to him prior to winning the Masters in ‘15, despite him having one of the most remarkable starts to a career in modern history. After winning the Masters (and later the U.S. Open), he was no longer the rising star. At the ‘16 Masters, he was treated entirely different by the internet crowd, as his pace of play was heavily criticized, as was his body language and dialogue with Greller. He was behaving and playing the same way he always has, but with the cameras fixated on him for a much longer duration, it shined a different light on it, and the nitpicking began.

The same cycle is happening for JT. Now a major champion, the focus on him is just different. If Luke List had done what JT did on the 16th, would people have even cared? I’ve never quite fully understood why mannerisms and body language factors so much into what a lot of people think about a player or person. I get that it’s the only thing viewers at home have to go off of, but it amazes me how fast people turned on Spieth considering all the positives he brings to the table. To me, what kind of guy a player is off the course, how he treats people, and what his peers say about him weigh much more heavily than behavior on the golf course.

 Relative to Spieth, specifically, I think JT exudes more cockiness. That’s my perception at least, and I’m sure some other people’s as well. And while cockiness has a negative connotation it’s absolutely not a knock against him as far as I’m concerned, golf is way better for strong and different personalities! But I do believe that’s why he elicits stronger reactions, particularly on the critical side, than Spieth does for similar actions.

 I agree with both Soly and Randy’s sentiment. I’d also add that I think his wardrobe makes him an easier target. Where Spieth is rocking bland shades of greys and poorly cut Under Armour threads that will only elicit shaming from someone like Tron, JT is usually wearing bright pants at least one round a week as well as shirts with obnoxiously large Polo logos. More often than not his outfits screams, ‘look at me,’ so when people do, and you are whining about a bad drive while being 5 under, it’s not a great look. The Happy Gilmore line often comes to mind when I watch him live in person: “If I wore pants like that, I’d kick my own ass.” For the record, I think that every time I watch Horschel…

 I’m shocked Soly didn’t have a whole lot to say on this subject (LOL). While JT rubs me the wrong way sometimes – I’m like 90% in. He seems like he gets it for the most part. Perfect example was the whole fiasco at Honda. I have zero issue with him kicking that dude out. It sounds like the guy deserved it. He just didn’t do himself any favors with HOW he did it. Tell one of the fifty marshals, cops and tour officials with the group to kick the guy out, otherwise it comes across like Webb Simpson snidely telling the Big Jungle Bird to “enjoy the jail cell, pal” and that’s just not a good look.


March NLU Mailbag (Part 1)

You’re going to hear a lot more about golf’s distance debate in the coming weeks, so to help you prepare, we wanted to launch our first installment of 

, where we try to bring you up to speed on what people are fighting about and why it matters.

This isn’t meant to advocate for one position or another, but simply to help give an overview of what’s being discussed.

(In case you’re curious where the above screenshot came from, 

It’s complicated, but the shortest way to sum it up is to say that many people feel the golf ball is simply going too far for the professional game to keep up. The extension of this is that many of golf’s classic venues are being rendered obsolete from a pro golf perspective. More distance means longer courses, which means more resources required to maintain them. As this trickles into the amateur game, this cost gets passed on in some way to the paying player, either through increased greens fees, member dues, or assessments.

Bro, your website is called No Laying Up. Isn’t distance exciting?

Of course it is. But there is more fallout from increased distance than just hitting more par 5’s in two. Look at Merion, where things had to be unpopularly tricked up to protect some semblance of architectural intent at the U.S. Open.

Or St. Andrews. Not only are tee boxes being stretched into 

but in 2015 the greens had to be kept so fast that balls wouldn’t sit still when the wind started to blow. There is a major butterfly effect that distance sets into motion that can affect architecture, agronomy, pace of play and much more, which is why people are discussing the topic.

Because the USGA just released its annual distance report, which showed that the average driving distance across the world’s seven main professional tours was up more than 3 yards from 2016 to 2017. For comparison, prior to 2017, driving distance was slowly creeping up at around 0.2 yards per year. The biggest difference is that players on the Web.com Tour are now more than 10 yards longer than they were in 2003, the year after which the USGA and R&A released their Joint Statement of Principles, which recognized that “distance impacts many aspects of golf and that any further significant increases in hitting distances at the highest level are undesirable.” It’s unclear how to define those “significant increases,” but even if we’re there, the problem of implementing any kind of change or solution is incredibly complex.

First of all: Money. Telling the leading golf manufacturers that they have to intentionally make their product less effective obviously comes with a host of problems (and potential lawsuits). The market leaders obviously and understandably want to protect the market share they’ve spent decades building and it’s unclear how any rollback legislation from the USGA and R&A would affect those companies. With those interests varying widely from company to company – and with industry advertising affecting much of the conversation around golf – it can be very difficult to have an unbiased conversation around this topic.

This conversation gets muddied even further when people get stuck arguing about things like par and what a true test of golf looks like. Look no further than people freaking out about the low scores at the longest U.S. Open ever this past year.

In response to the distance report and the immediate reaction within the industry, the PGA of America 

 saying they are against any kind of ball rollback (no such thing has been officially proposed as of yet). They are currently polling their PGA members to gather more insight on how distance affects the average player.

Similarly, PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan 

 saying the organization believes the trends “do not indicate a significant or abnormal increase in distance.” Monahan’s email points to improved athleticism and club head speed as potential influences on distance.

Titleist, which controls the largest golf ball marketshare, issued similar comments, saying, “There were several contributing variables in 2017, including course selection and set-up, agronomical conditions and weather, which need to be considered when assessing the data.” You can read more about their comments 

Many journalists and golf purists on the other side are using the distance report as further proof that the ball needs to be reigned in, which has been a consistent talking point from players like Jack Nicklaus, Tiger Woods and Tom Watson over the years as well. In their scenario, golf would roll things back to a ball that went approximately 80-90 percent as long as today’s ball.

I’m getting bored. How does this affect me?

The main problem in many of these above conversations is that the two groups don’t seem to be starting from the same position, which is dictated by one word: Bifurcation.

Many (but not all) of the people calling for a rollback of the ball are also calling for golf to embrace bifurcation, meaning adopting a different set of rules for professionals and amateurs. The easiest example to point to is baseball and the aluminum/wood bat divide. If golf was to bifurcate its rules and strictly rollback the professional ball, then nothing about your golf game would change. You’d continue to play the same golf balls, manufacturers would continue to innovate and professional golf would theoretically be able to return to (and keep returning to) golden age venues that it appeared to have outgrown. Existing Tour courses would also play more similarly to how they were originally designed.

That sounds like an easy enough solution, right?

Like all of the above, it’s complicated. Part of golf’s charm (in many people’s eyes) is that pros and amateurs use the same equipment, thus competing on an even playing field. Golf is basically the only sport where you can pay your money to walk the same grounds and hit the same shots as the pros and it’s understandable why people would think that doing so with a “juiced up” ball would cheapen that experience.

Policing this could also be a mess, not necessarily at the PGA Tour level, but in qualifiers, minitour events, different stages of U.S. Open qualifying, Q-School, you name it. These are events where many amateurs and juniors are playing alongside pros and a strict set of rules and enforcement would have to be in place. It’s easy to see that turning into a bit of a mess with bifurcated rules.

OK, so let’s say they roll back the ball and DON’T bifurcate. Are my friends and I going to lose a bunch of distance?

That’s hard to say and depends on a few things – namely swing speed and how well you compress the ball. The amateur portion of the USGA distance report was perhaps the most interesting part. The USGA has been measuring driving distance in amateurs since 1998 and even in the best players (6 handicap and better), numbers have fluctuated and only increased from 233 yards in ‘98 to 235 yards in 2017. For whatever reason, this group actually peaked at 250 yards back in 2003, according to the study.

The average golfer (all handicaps) follows a similar trend line, but has improved from 200 yards in 1998 to just under 208 yards in 2017. Compare this 4 percent growth to the more than 12 percent growth seen on the PGA Tour over the same time frame.

Many people think that the vast majority of the public is an almost irrelevant part of this conversation simply because they don’t compress the ball well enough for advancements in technology to impact them in a significant way. In other words, a rollback wouldn’t be taking distance away from them because they probably haven’t gained much to begin with.

So what should I think about all of this?

To be honest, there are way too many factors here to issue a blanket statement about what the correct answer is. There are so many differing historical and financial interests at play that your stance on this issue needs to be a personal one. (Undoubtedly, there are 400 other things to consider that we either didn’t have space for or aren’t aware of yet.)

But the main takeaway is that this issue is not going away any time soon and it’s a fascinating topic to follow in the game. Hopefully this makes it a bit easier to do so.

Fansplaining: The Distance Debate

When we set out to form what eventually became No Laying Up in 2014, the main goal was to create a community of golf fans capable of having authentic and tangible conversations about the game we love. While we have loved interacting with followers on social media, we couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something missing from that community.

. The goal for this message board is to create a place where golf fans can engage in respectful, nuanced, and authentic golf conversations. Whether that be discussion on professional golf, help with organizing a weekend game, golf travel, or golf course architecture, we believe that our followers have the intellectual capacity and the resources to add value to the conversation around golf.

In addition, we plan to engage with listeners and followers on a daily basis. Whether that be feedback on podcasts, tweets, or blog posts, or simply suggestions or agreements/disagreements with our takes, we welcome followers to use this medium to provide the feedback that is sometimes hard to get across in 280 characters on twitter.

With that, the head cover is coming off. Sign up now, and let’s hear your takes.

Introducing the No Laying Up Message Board: The Refuge

Sunday’s Golf Channel broadcasts will be “significantly impacted” by the fallout of a labor dispute between the network and its live tournament technicians union, according to several sources contacted by No Laying Up. The impact is already being seen on the Web.com Tour coverage and it remains to be seen how the Sony Open telecast will be affected.

Camera operators and technical crew belonging to the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) union have been in negotiations with Golf Channel over compensation, as well as concerns with audio and utility issues, according to sources within Golf Channel and other people familiar with the situation. After threatening a work stoppage earlier this week, the strike became official Sunday morning, leaving the 11 a.m. Web.com Tour broadcast in the Bahamas with a skeleton crew of non-union workers. After opening the disjointed telecast in the GC studio with Damon Hack and Paige Mackenzie talking over seemingly nonspecific highlights, the broadcast picked up coverage from on-site, obviously with a lack of cameras; coverage was seemingly limited to distant locked down shots and tower shots from the 13th and 14th holes.

A picket line is already set up outside Waialae CC.

The IATSE has not responded to an email request for comment. Golf Channel issued the following statement:

Articles

NLU Summit Photos

NLU Betting Game: TILT

The Masters: Agronomic Summary

Stinky Nandina

Digging into The Golfer's Journal No. 3

March NLU Mailbag (Part 2)

March NLU Mailbag (Part 1)

Fansplaining: The Distance Debate

Introducing the No Laying Up Message Board: The Refuge

Golf Channel telecasts impacted by union strike

Thinking about Tiger and Star Wars

Interview: Artist Lee Wybranski

Why You Should Subscribe to The Golfer’s Journal

What it's like to watch someone debate the fate of your muni

An Intro to Wolf Hammer: Golf's Most Dangerous Game

August Mailbag

Memorial Tournament Recap

Masters Mailbag

Articles

NLU Summit Photos

NLU Betting Game: TILT

The Masters: Agronomic Summary

Stinky Nandina

Digging into The Golfer's Journal No. 3

March NLU Mailbag (Part 2)

March NLU Mailbag (Part 1)

Fansplaining: The Distance Debate

Introducing the No Laying Up Message Board: The Refuge

Golf Channel telecasts impacted by union strike

Thinking about Tiger and Star Wars

Interview: Artist Lee Wybranski

Why You Should Subscribe to The Golfer&#8217;s Journal

What it's like to watch someone debate the fate of your muni

An Intro to Wolf Hammer: Golf's Most Dangerous Game

August Mailbag

Memorial Tournament Recap

Masters Mailbag

Why You Should Subscribe to The Golfer’s Journal