A couple of quotes from Peter Senior that need to be shared.
We may look back upon this summer of golf in Australia as significant one when it comes to the next generation of Australian golf stars. Daniel Popovic’s amazing win last week at the Australian PGA Championship was just the icing on the cake for what was a successful summer for the next generation of Australian golfers.
Jake Higginbottom won the NZ Open, Matt Steiger won the NSW PGA Championship, and Oliver Goss win the WA Open. Not to mention some great golf from amateur Cameron Smith, and newly turned professional Daniel Nisbet. The future is indeed rosy.
With all this in mind, the anomaly of the summer you might say, was the extraordinary victory by Peter Senior at the Australian Open. In atrocious conditions, Senior managed to hold steady during the final round to become the oldest ever Australian Open winner.
At last week’s Australian PGA Championship he was quizzed on whether he would take his spot in the WGC event at Firestone courtesy of winning the Australian Open but the Australian Order of Merit. Here was his response.
“Already last week I got into the World Championship at Firestone but I won’t be playing. Firestone is just ridiculously long for me. I played Doral two years ago, it all depends, yeah I am quite happy to go back to Doral, it’s not overly long and I feel that I can play there. But Firestone, some of the holes they have really taken back. I don’t want to blaze away for four days and be 55th and that is pretty much how it would be because the course just doesn’t set-up for me.”
“Holes like number eight, when I first played Firestone back in 1990 that was the first time I ever played it, that was like driver – seven iron, now I’d be going in with driver rescue, the greens are so small and nearly every hole that I’m hitting I’m landing onto the uphill in the fairway and I just stay there, all the other guys are carrying the hills and getting 30-40 yards run and they are going in with a nine and eight iron.”
“I didn’t play the other year when I won the PGA at Firestone, I went and played the 3M tournament and finished second to Jay Haas so it was a good decision in the end. I’m beyond getting my brains beat out these days. I just want to enjoy my golf.”
Whatever happened to the days when the old could compete against the young on the golf course?
After chatting to this likes of Steiger and Higginbottom in the past few weeks, it seems they also agree that the ball is going to far and they, the ones capable of hitting it 300 metres and further, are happy to accept a change is needed.
The question is, who has the balls to make the change?
Nice pun at the end, by the way!
On the evidence of how long it took the authorities to stamp out anchored putters, one would have to assume it’ll be 1-2 decades before they do the bleeding obvious and mandate a change to the balls.
Changing clubs or courses would be horrendously costly and thus impractical, so balls is the only logical answer!
Yes I still believe the powers of golf needs to focus on reigning in golf driver and ball technology.
Guys are hitting the ball further every year and as a result golf courses are getting made longer.
Golf is a game of shot making and should reward this. It shouldn’t reward the guys that can blast the ball 300 metres plus and can hit a wedge into the green.