Without research, I am pretty comfortable saying that 99 percent of the people who play golf in the world would not be considered “elite.” Oh, the 99 percent includes many fine players – scratch and even plus-handicaps, likely including your club champion. However, they literally would be out of their league when matched against the elite.
They are not the elite as defined by the self-appointed guardians of the game, the USGA and R&A. The elite are the touring professionals around the world and the top male amateurs (mostly top college players planning on joining them). There is also a very small group of these elite amateurs who, for whatever reason, choose to retain their amateur standing.
And yet the guardians of the game seem obsessed with this 1 percent and the historic, storied courses where they play their tournaments. My question is: Who represents us? The 99 percent, the super majority, the great unwashed, the hoi polloi? Certainly not the USGA nor the R&A. They are concerned that the ball goes too far – news flash: it doesn’t – or that Winged Foot no longer will be able to host the U.S. Open. And that would be bad because? I’ll give the R&A a pass on worrying about St. Andrews as it, if any course does, deserves respect. But even with a rolled-back ball, the Open Championship at St. Andrews with a mild and windless week would be less than challenging to today’s “elite.”
Maybe, the USGA and the R&A need to decide whom they represent: the 99 percent or the 1 percent? Both were basically founded by private-club, upper-class golfers, and they’ve never really abandoned that attitude and focus. Maybe the PGA Tour, the associated pro tours and the NCAA should form their own rules/governing body and build their own courses to accommodate their tournament needs. TPC courses, anyone?
Somebody needs to represent the vast, overwhelming number of fee-paying golfers of this world. The last rules rewrite could have been better if more focus had been on public golf. Taking stroke-and-distance on a busy public course is generally frowned upon by the following groups. Placing the ball would have been better than knee-high drops. I’m sure that others could make a suggestion or two.
Maybe it is time to go our separate ways. I enjoyed watching the U.S. Open and Wyndham Clark put on a gritty performance (“Flipping the script,” June 19 GGP), and I am looking forward to the British Open, but when you come down to it, I really don't give a rat’s patoot about the problems and tribulations of multimillionaires and wannabe multimillionaires. And the “storied course?” Well, at best I would be roughly escorted off the premises if I showed up with my clubs. So, again, not way up among my concerns.
Public – in particular, municipal – golf is where most of the golfers are and certainly where the game is truly “grown.” It’s time for someone or some other ruling body to represent us and not be worried about the multimillionaires and the private clubs that the 99 percent never will play.
Blaine Walker
St. Paul, Minnesota
Global Golf Post welcomes reader comment. Write to executive editor Steve Harmon at saharmon83@gmail.com and provide your full name, city, state and country of residence. If your comment is selected for publication, GGP will contact you to verify the authenticity of the email and confirm your identity. We would not publish your email address. We reserve the right to edit for clarity and brevity.