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Does length matter?
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With the progress in modern golf ball and club technology, and with many professional golfers now regularly driving over 300 yards, there is much talk these days about "Tiger-proofing" golf courses to prevent the better golfer from making a mockery of them.
Lest anyone think this is a 21st century phenomenon, the poem below from H. Boswell Lancaster's 'Ridiculous Golf', published in 1938, will prove that trying to make the game more difficult is anything but a recent idea.
But, as the poem suggests, they forget at their peril that the majority of ordinary golfers are pleased to hit it just 200 yards, and that golf was never meant to be a slugger's game...
The Natural Result
(Thoughts on Correspondence on "Are Golf Courses Too Long?")
The Greens Committee of a certain Course,
Appalled by records smashed with ease,
Decided drastic measures to enforce,
Professionals to please.
"More bunkers, smaller holes," was the demand,
Then stretch the fairways, they're to blame,
Until we reach the limit of our land,
That should improve the Game."
In twelve months' time the scheme was carried out,
And Pros. and Tigers came to play.
The Bogey of the Course they tried to flout,
But Bogey'd come to stay.
The Greens Committee chortled in their glee,
And shook each other by the hand,
Delighted that their efforts proved to be
Equal to the demand.
The ordinary members then they seek,
For their opinions and their subs.,
To find them non-existent-what a cheek-
They'd all joined other clubs.
H. Boswell Lancaster
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