Masters’ six-hour rounds prove golf’s ball roll back cannot come soon enough

Bryson DeChambeau’s big hitting off the tee can negate many of Augusta’s features

The Masters excitement fizzled out on Sunday’s back nine not only because of Scottie Scheffler’s excellence. The challenge was too difficult to all but the world No 1. The risks outweighed the rewards.

You can always tell when the course set-up – any course, that is, not only Augusta National – has gone over the top when rounds veer towards the six-hour mark. And in this case more than. Friday’s viewing was interminable for all but the insomniacs watching back in the UK. It took so long and it looked so damned difficult.

Granted, not even the green jackets can fix the weather, but it did not need to be that arduous. Indeed, the test became almost unacceptable, as the defending champion signified in a rant. Balls were moving on the greens in the near 40mph gusts.

Again, you might think, that can’t be helped. But it can. The putting surfaces were – to use an old term that got a US commentator cast out from the booth – “bikini waxed”. Fast greens render the trial more treacherous, but it also leaves open the threat of winds making it unplayable. It happened at St Andrews at the 2015 Open. If the grass had been a longer then there would have been no oscillation and no hooter. So why do they do it?

The greens were testing as usual but especially on Friday – AP/David J. Phillip

To protect the integrity of these cherished layouts, that is why. Modern technology has turned these gems – once full of subtleties and multiple layers that offered the talented the opportunity to be creative – into pitch and putts. Take Bryson DeChambeau in Friday’s second round. He walloped it 400 yards and had a flick on to green. Good on Bryson, it is a narrow throughfare and he took it on with his might (although he ended up only making par). But this is not what Bobby Jones and Alister MacKenzie, the architects of this Georgia masterpiece, intended back in the 1930s.

Jones once said “I don’t see any reason for a tree on a golf course”. What he did recognise is that golf is at its best when there are options available and the answers are beautifully diverse. Those golfers with vision can work with angles and highlight that the game can be played in many ways and that holes should follow suit. But by growing the trees and introducing rough – another sin as far as Jones and MacKenzie would have been concerned – the diversity was sacrificed and the dimensions curtailed.

Yes, you will get wonder shots from the pines and there will be eagles and double-bogeys on those two great par-fives – the 13th and the 15th – that will elicit Augusta roars and Augusta groans. But on Sunday, even when the pins were generous and the gusts had died, the famous roars were few and far between. And that is what happens when the officials become so concerned with the winning score being above the 20-under mark that they engineer the examination to be little fun to play and hence not much fun to watch.

In fairness, Fred Ridley, the Augusta chairman, is actually aware of this tragic truth. On Tuesday in his annual press conference, Ridley sent the club’s support to the governing bodies’ proposals to roll back the ball. In 2028, the R&A and US Golf Association intend to introduce regulations that will take up to 20 yards off the big-hitters from the tee. It is not enough but it is a start.

Augusta is famed for its beauty as much as its difficulty – Getty Images/Jared C. Tilton

The restrictions should be more severe and they should also take action against the driving “woods” themselves. But the horse has not only bolted on that, but disappeared around the dogleg. The simplest method for the R&A and USGA to address the distance issue is to concentrate on the ball and tackle the legal departments of the equipment-makers on this single front.

The Masters’ intervention is crucial because the PGA Tour – which is owned by the players who are paid by the ball-makers – has stressed its opposition. In the midst of the civil war, this is more infighting that the professional game does not need. They will come out with some outrageous nonsense as the date gets nearer. They will claim that weekend hackers will be affected when the rules are altered for everyone in 2030. As if hitting it five yards shorter – with a good one – will be noticeable to the recreational golfer. And if it is, move the tees up. Sorted.

There are so many reasons for the reined-back ball, not least environmental concerns, as the courses get longer and more water is required and more fertiliser sprayed to ensure that the bomb and gauge brigade cannot completely overpower the scorecards. Yet purely from an entertainment perspective (and in this era we are constantly being told that it is entertainment) there is only an upside to a shorter ball. Never is this more evident than at the Masters, where those of us who remember Augusta before the Tiger-proofing think of what it once was and the drama it produced.

Let’s face it, Sunday’s last few hours verged on the boring and predictable. It was clear that Scheffler alone had the tools to deal with the back nine and get towards the ideal 12-under to 16-under range. Augusta doubtlessly found the right winner – Scheffler is in a different league. But he could have been asked to prove this by exciting, daring play, not by clinical and composed perseverance. The new ball cannot arrive soon enough.

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