sss

could anyone  please explain how  the sss works.

for instance is a 72 sss course harder then a 70 sss course

even if they are both  a 72 par course ?

Golf courses where the SSS is lower than the par are considered, by those in authority, to be easier and are always much shorter than courses where the SSS is the same as the par. There are a few courses where the SSS is greater then the par, but this is pretty rare.

The whole system is not the best IMO, because if we played a course of, lets say. 18 par fives, then the par would be 90 but the SSS, based on the current guidlines would be way in excess of this, due to its great length, yet in actual fact the majorty of players would all be low handicappers, as par fives offer the easest chance for pars on a course.

On the other hand I could take you to a course down in Alfoild, Sussex where there is a hole of about 300 yds, yet if you were to play that eighteen times then your handicap would probably go up as it is very tight, with out of bounds all down the right and if you go down the left you cannot see the gree, which is also guarded  by a little pond with the green sloping towards it.

It is about time that we got away from this obsession with building courses, which are really only designed for the professional and those amateurs who are built like brick s**thouses.

Even watching the golf today at Birkdale was an enlightening reminder that the rough there is nowhere near as tough as the rough on my course and a few of you will be seeing for yourself next week. If Adam Scott were to hit a ball as far offline as he did on the home stretch he would never have found his ball on my course.

John you've touched on a subject that gets my goat.  Tiger's achievement at the US Open was amazing but a number of times he sprayed it way off line into what should have been a bad lie only for it to land on an area trampled flat by spectators.  The big hitting professionals often benefit from this bonus while the more accurate shorter hitters are in effect penalised.  I'm not sure if this would work but I would like to see a tournament played where spectator areas were deemed OOB.  This I think would achieve what the rejigging of courses to make them longer hasn't namely to conteract the big hitters.

Jon,I don't think the spectator areas should be out of bounds to the players, the spectators should not be allowed to trample all over the rough.

The problems with doing this would mean that the rounds would take six hours instead of five as they spend all the time looking for balls and then taking the appropriate penalty.

Watching Garcia spend at least five minutes weighing up his putt on 17 and then three putting it, says it all.

We have to face the facts that the top professionals play a completely different game to us amateurs, Adam Scott hit one drive 309 yards into the wind and then Garcia hits a nine iron 210 yds downwind.

 d

I play with a couple of very long hitters, certainly the equal of Danny, but I have noticed that when I have measured certain shots of theirs with the GPS in my buggy that they do not appear to be hitting it much further than 220/230 yds, in actual fact if, by some freak, I hit one, then I am not that much behind them.

I am hoping to get down to Farnham on Saturday and watch The Viper in the Long Drive Championships, now he is a long hitter.