Legends of golf continue to grow the game

It’s a gathering of eagles anytime they get together. The opportunity to watch and listen, whether it’s live or on television or on the internet, is a joy to those who love golf.

To call them legends of the game doesn’t quite do justice to their place. Jack Nicklaus? Gary Player? Lee Trevino? They comprise golf’s pantheon. It doesn’t get any better or bigger than that. The wisdom and knowledge they share comes in large bunches.

Each in his own way told us decades ago where golf was headed and how it would get there. Some of it may have seemed far-fetched but with time most of what they have said has come to pass. That’s the brilliance of what they’ve done over the years that exceeds even their accomplishments on a golf course, if that’s possible.

They were together again last week at the PGA TOUR Champions Bass Pro Shops Legends of Golf, and the conversation flowed seamlessly from topic to topic. Participation continues to be a focal point when golfers and course designers gather. The idea is to make the game faster, more fun and more affordable.

Player is building a 13-hole golf course. Nicklaus has long since discussed dialing back the golf ball to bring courses down to more manageable distances so that the great traditional tracks continue to thrive instead of becoming obsolete.

Trevino grew up on public courses in Texas and is a leading proponent of the value of public facilities, like the one Johnny Morris, owner of Bass Pro Shops and Big Cedar Lodge, has hired Tiger Woods to design in Missouri.

“Public golf courses have made a big leap in the last 15 years, and the reason for it is because they're keeping those courses in the condition that the private clubs are being kept in,” Trevino said. “It's letting more people play the game … The more public courses that you can put in, the better off you are, yes.”

Nicklaus said he’s been told that 91 percent of golf is public play.

“That's great, that's opening it up,” Nicklaus said. “It’s good golf and nicely conditioned. People are finding that they can go play a public golf course and have more variety and play more places and for a lot less money and enjoy it. The three things we have in the game that are difficult is time, money and difficulty.”

Nicklaus is working on a project that will address those issues.

“I don't want to tell you where it is because it hasn't been publicly announced yet, but the USGA is all over it, wants to work with us on it,” Nicklaus said. “I've been talking with Mike Davis (USGA executive director) quite a bit about the game of golf.

“But the game of golf has been played by how far a golf ball goes and that's how a golf course has been designed for a long time. Your old golf courses that are 6,000 yards. Well, they were designed because the golf ball went proportionately for a 6,000-yard golf course. And then it went to 6,500, then it went to 6,800, went to 7,000, 7,500. Who knows where that stops?

“But you've got thousands of golf courses in this country and around the world that really, if you wanted to play a championship event on them, you would rate them as being a 90 percent course, 80 percent course, 70 percent, 60, 50. It's very simple to make a golf ball to fit that.”

The Nicklaus project involves a landlocked century-old golf course in a center of an American city.

“No extra space, nothing else,” Nicklaus said. “They wanted to restore the golf course and restore the park system. I said to them, ‘Well, your golf course is probably just fine for what it was 100 years ago. Why don't we restore the golf course in a modern-looking golf course and have it be probably whatever the proportion of what it should be?’”

Nicklaus said it’s practical, given the attached costs, to consider similar options.

“Will that happen overnight?” he said. “No, of course it won't happen overnight, but it will happen over time. People want to go back and try to look at where they're going and what could happen with that.”