Augusta National chairman Fred Ridley seems on through the first tee ceremony previous to the primary spherical of the 2023 Masters.
Getty Images
Fred Ridley has drawn a line within the sand. Make {that a} line within the turf. 8,000 yards. That’s the cutoff, the chairman of Augusta National Golf Club stated. If he will get his method, the Masters Tournament will never be performed from tees that stretch any longer than that.
Ridley made that clear on Wednesday morning, in his annual assembly with the press, which he kicked off in acquainted vogue. He stated it was an honor to function chairman of the membership and the match. He talked about essential milestones for the Augusta National Women’s Amateur and the Drive, Chip & Putt championship, which marked their fifth and tenth anniversaries, respectively, this 12 months. He tipped his cap to the defending champ, Jon Rahm.
And then he turned his consideration to the golf course, which, he stated, was but once more in “exceptional condition” and but once more had been tweaked “to ensure it continues to challenge the best players in the world.”
“Adding distance to the Augusta National golf course has become standard operation over the past two decades,” stated Ridley, who famous that for 70 years, the Masters was performed at 6,900 however that the course now measures 7,550 yards from the match markers with the potential to play at extra than 7,600 yards this 12 months.
But how far more stretching can Augusta National take?
“I’ve said in the past that I hope we will not play the Masters at 8,000 yards,” Ridley stated. “But that is likely to happen in the not too distant future under current standards. Accordingly, we support the decisions that have been made by the R&A and the USGA as they have addressed the impact of distance at all levels of the game.”
Those selections, after all, contain the governing our bodies’ proposed golf ball-rollback plan, which, if adopted, would take impact on the elite stage of the sport in 2028 and on the leisure stage in 2030.
Since its announcement, final December, the rollback proposal, which the governing our bodies say would scale back driving distance for the longest hitters by roughly 5 p.c, has drawn combined reactions, with equipment-makers voicing among the loudest opposition and outstanding gamers reminiscent of Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy expressing their assist.
Given the load that Augusta National and the Masters carry within the sport, Ridley’s feedback on the rollback rely as an influential endorsement.
Why Fred Ridley is an Augusta National chairman not like another
Michael Bamberger
As the one main championship that’s performed on the similar venue yearly, Augusta National stands as a outstanding testing floor within the battle between fashionable know-how and custom. In the 80 years because the inaugural Masters, the course has been altered on myriad events. But these modifications have solely picked up tempo in current many years, notably since 1997, when Woods ran off to a record-setting Masters victory whereas enjoying Augusta’s fabled back-nine par 5s with as little as a driver and a wedge.
They additionally come from a supply who has had a close-up view of the results of distance on the sport.
“Tiger-proofing” has since change into a buzzword within the sport and a follow adopted at Augusta National, which has since lengthened all 4 of its par 5s. The most up-to-date of these modifications is on the par-5 2nd gap, which has a tee 10 yards farther again for the primary time this 12 months.
Augusta National has finished its greatest to defend in opposition to the sport’s longest bombers. But it may well solely accomplish that a lot.
In his press convention Wednesday, Ridley indicated that failing to deal with the space subject on a broader scale “would cause a great deal of stress in the game, which it doesn’t need right now.”
Among the questions he was requested was whether or not he thought the proposed rollback went far sufficient.
“As I understand, and I don’t think it’s across the board, but I mean, if you use 5 percent as an approximate number, a player hitting it 320 yards is going to lose 16 yards,” Ridley stated. “So, I imply, that’s not insignificant.
“What we found, though, over the years is that we lengthen the golf course, everybody says it’s really long, and then two or three years later it’s not so really long.”
Time marches ahead. Technology does, too. But there’ll come some extent when sufficient is sufficient.
“I think we have some time to look and see what’s going to happen,” Ridley stated. “We have some more room, but we don’t have a lot. So I’m holding to that 8,000-yard red line, and I just hope we never get there.”
Source link
