Has Golf Become Too Easy For The World's Best Players

Has professional golf become too easy? It may seem like an odd question but it is worth asking after Paul Waring finished 36 holes of the Abu Dhabi Championship on a scarcely credible 19 under par.

It is true to say that the Englishman enjoyed two of the best days of his golfing life at Yas Links but here is a sobering thought - in a 70-man field, just one player was over par after two rounds. And Waring failed to birdie just four holes on the course over those 36 holes! His total of 125 was the lowest ever recorded on tour.

So perhaps the question should really be: are the courses too easy? 

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While Yas Links looks spectacular, I would question whether it really should have been chosen as a venue for one of the DP World Tour’s two prestigious season-ending playoff events. 

Sure, there are plenty of bunkers and the waste areas are punishing but the fairways are huge and the putting surfaces are perfect. In other words, it was set up for low scoring and was impossible to defend. On day three, when the pins were supposedly in trickier positions, Thomas Detry was still able to shoot a 62.

Over on the PGA Tour, the cut at the World Wide Technology Championship fell at two under par, with Carson Young shooting a second round of 61. In short, par golf just doesn’t cut it these days.

I have been looking at some of the most crucial stats for the 2024 season and they would definitely seem to support my view that the game is becoming easier - and that is precisely why there are plans to restrict the distance that the ball flies.

Rory McIlroy’s stroke average is 68.69 and he averages 324 yards from the tee - that is 10 yards further than 2023. 

Waring’s score of 61 in the second round in Abu Dhabi was the sixth such score this season.

The lowest 72-hole winning total ahead of Yas Links was Thorbjorn Olesen’s 261 in claiming the Ras Al Khaimah Championship. 

Astonishingly, the highest winning score was the 274 blows that Bryson DeChambeau required to win the US Open, traditionally the tournament that brings the world’s best players to their knees. This was the same score recorded by Marcel Siem in winning the Italian Open.

The cut at both the Scottish Open and ISPS Handa fell at 137, with the highest cut coming at 150 at The Masters - no surprise there. We also saw an astonishing 31 holes-in-one.

It is not so very long ago that any golfer who averaged 300 yards from the tee was regarded as being some kind of a physical freak. A cursory glance at the PGA Tour’s stats reveals that 101 golfers average above that distance from the tee. And that includes Max Homa, who is regarded as one of the shortest hitters on tour. For anybody involved in course design or setting up courses for tournament play that is a truly frightening statistic.

Scottie Scheffler has a scoring average of 68.6 and averages almost five birdies per round. Those figures are mind-boggling. Scheffler leads the way in total strokes gained, greens in regulation, strokes gained in approaches to the green - it would actually be easier to list the categories he does not lead.

Don’t get me wrong - like most of you, I enjoy seeing the world’s best golfers at the peak of their powers. I enjoy seeing a 340-yard drive as much as the next person. I love seeing approach shots being hit stone dead. I marvel at the bunker skills of some of these players and regularly shake my head in disbelief at the performance of some of the world’s best putters.

But at a time when they are hitting the ball ever greater distances, I do seriously question the way many courses are being set up. If you stand on a tee at a monster par four and know that missing the fairway is not going to cost you because the rough is almost non-existent then of course you are going to reach for your driver and give it the full treatment because there is effectively no penalty for missing the fairway. 

And if you land in a fairway bunker with little or no lip then once again you know that you are not being penalised for hitting a poor shot.

I have said this before and I have no hesitation in repeating it here - the rough should be allowed to grow at all tournament venues and fairway bunkers simply must be more penal. Only by doing this will we truly see the cream coming to the top on a consistent basis. 

One of Scheffler’s greatest strengths in what has been a remarkable year for the world number one has been his ability to hit the ball into the middle of the fairway - and that is why he has won seven times (eight if you include the Olympic Games) and disappeared into the distance at the top of the world rankings.

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