“We can’t go on with glamourous golf because it’s unaffordable”. Tour
and TV legend Ken Brown says golfers need to realise the sport doesn’t
always have to be “just right” to be great.
The renowned Ryder Cup player and commentator was considering the future of golf course maintenance.
“The interesting thing for me is where is golf heading? As you know,
there’s a cost in all of it,” he said. “Every year my wife and I go
somewhere in Scotland and generally there’s a little golf course where
there’s usually one greenkeeper, if there’s even one. You can see where
golf has come from and where it’s heading.
We
can’t go on with glamorous golf because it’s unaffordable. So, from a
design point of view, you have to make a challenge out of a hole without
plastering bunkers everywhere.
“I think the powers that be have got to separate championship golf
from mainstream golf. It takes a phenomenal amount of manpower and
technical skill and it’s not real golf.
“When I go to Scotland, some of the courses don’t have a greenkeeper
and the locals come and cut them or sheep wander round, so it’s very
basic. To me it’s just as interesting to play, more so in some ways,
than to go around a course where it’s all beautiful.
“Tour golf has no relevance to club golf because you haven’t got a
chance [of reaching those levels of course maintenance] in a million
years. Otherwise golf has no future because you need more greenkeepers,
more machines and there becomes a point where it’s not sustainable.”
Brown added pressure on resources, particularly water, will change
the way the game is played with drier, bouncy conditions, potentially
leading to a more interesting game.
“I think golfers want everything to be just right, but it doesn’t
have to be that way,” he said. “You can still have a great knock
around. When Tom Morris was playing around St Andrews, nothing was raked
or perfect, but that was the essence of the game.
“Golfers have got to understand that it doesn’t have to be bright green and stripy.
“Somewhere down the road they’re going to say ‘you know what, you
can’t use water on the golf course because we haven’t got any to waste’.
“Then the whole thing will go back to where we were at Harpenden
Common in 1965 [where Brown was a greenkeeper], where it’s going to dry
out and you’ll have to roll the ball on and there’ll be a funny bounce
here and there.
“Golf is much more interesting played along the ground than it is up
in the air, so maybe the thing will turn full circle if everyone can get
their ingredients right. It’ll cost less, be more interesting to play
and courses can be shorter.”
