A thought on the Amateur Championship courses...

ShriekingSheet

A thought struck me recently regarding the NSE&W Championships, and the Irish Am Open & Close.

Virtually every course, every year, is the same kind of sheer and windy links. In many ways, providing such a tough battle for the top amateurs on the likes of Royal Dublin or Baltray makes a whole lot of sense, and there's also the huge tradition associated with Lahinch, Portrush & co, which is brilliant.

However.

These championships are Ireland's breeding ground for our future tour players. Yes, the events are hugely prestigious in their own right, but surely we'd like them to act as elite development tournaments for the next Harringtons, McIlroys or Clarkes.

If that's the case, I have to ask, leaving aside tradition (which I'm a fan of), why are our breeding ground events almost exclusively played on courses which are nothing like the Tour courses the guys will hope to compete on in the future?

Tour events on either side of the Atlantic are, by and large, played on big meaty parkland courses. We have a good few of them in Ireland, but we don't play big amateur events on them.

Even the recent European Tour events in Ireland favour Druids Glen, Adare Manor, Carton House, Mount Juliet and The K Club. Interestingly, one of the few recent times it was on a links, our top amateur won the event, being so used to it from playing the East of Ireland there every year.

Why not replicate the European Tour course conditions here for at least some of our amateur championships? We have the venues to do it.

It just seems that our amateur events of gale force winds, tight lies and low-boring shots wearing 3 layers of wet gear are a different sport to the game that's played on tour.

newport2

Good post, but I think playing a lot of links golf before turning pro makes a better all round golfer. I think anyone who can take on the elements you mention can easily play parkland golf, but not the other way around.

GreeBo

newport2 wrote: »

Good post, but I think playing a lot of links golf before turning pro makes a better all round golfer. I think anyone who can take on the elements you mention can easily play parkland golf, but not the other way around.

This is exactly it for me. If you can play in those conditions it should be a walk i the park to play target golf.

downthemiddle

ShriekingSheet wrote: »

A thought struck me recently regarding the NSE&W Championships, and the Irish Am Open & Close.

Virtually every course, every year, is the same kind of sheer and windy links. In many ways, providing such a tough battle for the top amateurs on the likes of Royal Dublin or Baltray makes a whole lot of sense, and there's also the huge tradition associated with Lahinch, Portrush & co, which is brilliant.

However.

These championships are Ireland's breeding ground for our future tour players. Yes, the events are hugely prestigious in their own right, but surely we'd like them to act as elite development tournaments for the next Harringtons, McIlroys or Clarkes.

If that's the case, I have to ask, leaving aside tradition (which I'm a fan of), why are our breeding ground events almost exclusively played on courses which are nothing like the Tour courses the guys will hope to compete on in the future?

Tour events on either side of the Atlantic are, by and large, played on big meaty parkland courses. We have a good few of them in Ireland, but we don't play big amateur events on them.

Even the recent European Tour events in Ireland favour Druids Glen, Adare Manor, Carton House, Mount Juliet and The K Club. Interestingly, one of the few recent times it was on a links, our top amateur won the event, being so used to it from playing the East of Ireland there every year.

Why not replicate the European Tour course conditions here for at least some of our amateur championships? We have the venues to do it.

It just seems that our amateur events of gale force winds, tight lies and low-boring shots wearing 3 layers of wet gear are a different sport to the game that's played on tour.

I think you will find that Irish professionals have done quite well in majors recently. It may be as a result of playing on these difficult windswept courses as amateurs.

Russman

Agree that the difficult links conditions are a help in the development of future pros and contribute to making them a more complete golfer.

I also think that the amateur championships are not solely the breeding ground for future tour stars. Granted most of the lads will harbour ambitions of turning pro, but plenty don't, and I don't think these events should be looked at as a nursery for future pros, they're great events in their own right IMO.

Mister Sifter

If you look down the list of winners/contenders for the main events over the past two decades, it's hard to argue that the current course-picks don't bring the cream to the top.

There are a lot of lads out there who get to + handicaps playing on their home parkland courses and then turn up at the East/West etc and can't understand why they can't break 75.

It's too easy to blame the course choices. I'd be more inclined to say it simply reveals a flaw/flaws within the games of those players.

Also, for me, too much is made about the difference between links and parkland.

ShriekingSheet

downthemiddle wrote: »

I think you will find that Irish professionals have done quite well in majors recently. It may be as a result of playing on these difficult windswept courses as amateurs.

Spot on. 6 major wins.
4 of them on links courses.
Throw in Lowry at the Irish Open and Hoey at the Dunhill.
Do you see what I'm getting at?

All I'm saying is that we're doing brilliantly in links golf on tour, but the downside is that links represents less than 10% of tour play.

Is it not a fair suggestion to say if our future tour guys played some major amateur 4 day events on courses akin to the other 90% of tour courses, maybe we'd see results in more regular tour wins, and more major wins on parkland courses (on which the majority are played).

newport2

ShriekingSheet wrote: »

Spot on. 6 major wins.
4 of them on links courses.
Throw in Lowry at the Irish Open and Hoey at the Dunhill.
Do you see what I'm getting at?

All I'm saying is that we're doing brilliantly in links golf on tour, but the downside is that links represents less than 10% of tour play.

Is it not a fair suggestion to say if our future tour guys played some major amateur 4 day events on courses akin to the other 90% of tour courses, maybe we'd see results in more regular tour wins, and more major wins on parkland courses (on which the majority are played).

Perhaps our high proportion of links wins is down to the fact that other countries don't play their amateurs on links. ie we produce all round golfers, they produce target golfers. We produce our fair share of parkland major winners and punch above our weight in links.

I think if we played more parkland golf at that level, we might only turn out the same number of parkland majors as we do now, because every country is prepared for them, but we may lose our advantage at the links ones which every country isn't prepared for. Possibly resulting in less majors won overall.

ShriekingSheet

Mister Sifter wrote: »

If you look down the list of winners/contenders for the main events over the past two decades, it's hard to argue that the current course-picks don't bring the cream to the top.

There are a lot of lads out there who get to + handicaps playing on their home parkland courses and then turn up at the East/West etc and can't understand why they can't break 75.

It's too easy to blame the course choices. I'd be more inclined to say it simply reveals a flaw/flaws within the games of those players.

Also, for me, too much is made about the difference between links and parkland.

I'm not blaming anything for anything. I'm just asking the question as to what's the optimum set-up we could have to produce more succesful tour players like the ones we have.

Entities like New Zealand rugby and FC Barca take a root-to-branch approach in producing their future stars. They analyse every detail of their talent development and come up with the best set-up.

If you think the best way the GUI can do this is to play 100% of championships on links courses, that's fine. I'm just saying there could be an argument otherwise.

To support the argument, I point to how many of our brilliant irish performances on tour happen on links, despit links being a tiny percentage of tour golf.

You could extrapulate that and say we're punching under our weight on the parkland courses, and therefore in the majority of tour and major events.

But if people thing we have it sussed as is, then great.

You can't, in one breath say + handicap parkland players don't break 75 on links, and then say too much is made of the difference in links and parkland. There's a significant difference. As I said, look how often an Irish player wins on tour on links. If 100% of tour events were on links all of our players would jump up the rankings, because their such a difference, and because we're so honed to the courses.

ShriekingSheet

Mister Sifter wrote: »

If you look down the list of winners/contenders for the main events over the past two decades, it's hard to argue that the current course-picks don't bring the cream to the top.

Sorry, forgot to add, I'm not in the least bit arguing that the cream has not been brought to the top. I actually think the same guys would win on tough parkland set-ups, because they're so good.

All I'm talking about is preparing these same guys for tour golf, by winning on tour-esque courses.

mag

Mister Sifter wrote: »

for me, too much is made about the difference between links and parkland.

for me its the opposite.

i grew up and played 95% of my golf till my 20s on links. i found that i struggled when playing parkland after moving away from home. i had to adapt my game quite a bit - higher ball flight, more purely distance orientated wedge game, taking 2/3 irons out of my bag for hybrids. i suffered for a while...still do

i guess you would expect elite amateurs to have this variation in their game but, as you say, the scores can be poor and there has to be a factor of their games being suited to 'parkland-style'. i seem to remember when the irish pga was played at the european there were a lot of big numbers being posted too..

Russman

mag wrote: »

for me its the opposite.

i guess you would expect elite amateurs to have this variation in their game but, as you say, the scores can be poor and there has to be a factor of their games being suited to 'parkland-style'. i seem to remember when the irish pga was played at the european there were a lot of big numbers being posted too..

Yeah, but to slightly refute that, how come most of the time the top 20 or 30 places in The Open are generally mostly US players who never grew up playing links golf ?
The cream will come to the top no matter what IMO with the occassional "odd" result.

mag

Russman wrote: »

Yeah, but to slightly refute that, how come most of the time the top 20 or 30 places in The Open are generally mostly US players who never grew up playing links golf ?
The cream will come to the top no matter what IMO with the occassional "odd" result.

because theyre better putters

Russman

True enough !

Mister Sifter

ShriekingSheet wrote: »

I'm not blaming anything for anything. I'm just asking the question as to what's the optimum set-up we could have to produce more succesful tour players like the ones we have.

Entities like New Zealand rugby and FC Barca take a root-to-branch approach in producing their future stars. They analyse every detail of their talent development and come up with the best set-up.

If you think the best way the GUI can do this is to play 100% of championships on links courses, that's fine. I'm just saying there could be an argument otherwise.

To support the argument, I point to how many of our brilliant irish performances on tour happen on links, despit links being a tiny percentage of tour golf.

You could extrapulate that and say we're punching under our weight on the parkland courses, and therefore in the majority of tour and major events.

But if people thing we have it sussed as is, then great.

You can't, in one breath say + handicap parkland players don't break 75 on links, and then say too much is made of the difference in links and parkland. There's a significant difference. As I said, look how often an Irish player wins on tour on links. If 100% of tour events were on links all of our players would jump up the rankings, because their such a difference, and because we're so honed to the courses.

It's an interesting debate (unusual, sadly, for Boards these days) and i'd love to hear the GUI's reasoning behind why they have it the way they do.

However, the GUI stuff on links only constitutes 4-5 weeks in the year. If an amateur is worth their salt and has serious ambitions about playing on tour, then they'll surely be playing enough other stuff around Europe/globally (predominantly on parkland) over the other 47 weeks to allow them to hone their skills. It's important to remember that there are big events played on parkland too, outwith the east, west, north etc ... Munster strokeplay, Mullingar, Waterford etc.

Tones69

imo if you can score on a windy links u can score anywhere

ShriekingSheet

Mister Sifter wrote: »

It's an interesting debate (unusual, sadly, for Boards these days) and i'd love to hear the GUI's reasoning behind why they have it the way they do.

However, the GUI stuff on links only constitutes 4-5 weeks in the year. If an amateur is worth their salt and has serious ambitions about playing on tour, then they'll surely be playing enough other stuff around Europe/globally (predominantly on parkland) over the other 47 weeks to allow them to hone their skills. It's important to remember that there are big events played on parkland too, outwith the east, west, north etc ... Munster strokeplay, Mullingar, Waterford etc.

In terms of the GUI's reasoning, if I put myself in their shoes, I would be petrified of changing such long standing traditions of Lahinch, Portrush, Baltray and RP. You don't idly fiddle about with that kind of long standing, respected plan, even if it might make a bit of sense (on paper) to do otherwise.

It's not likely I'm majorly calling for a change, but I just reckon if the afore-mentioned All Black's or FC Barca talent development guys were asked to design a process for Irish golf, replicating tour conditions in amatuer events would be something they'd do.

But what the f*ck do I know.

decko11

ShriekingSheet wrote: »

In terms of the GUI's reasoning, if I put myself in their shoes, I would be petrified of changing such long standing traditions of Lahinch, Portrush, Baltray and RP. You don't idly fiddle about with that kind of long standing, respected plan, even if it might make a bit of sense (on paper) to do otherwise.

It's not likely I'm majorly calling for a change, but I just reckon if the afore-mentioned All Black's or FC Barca talent development guys were asked to design a process for Irish golf, replicating tour conditions in amatuer events would be something they'd do.

But what the f*ck do I know.

Firstly, the GUI do not control the location of the provincial championships -- nor in fact do the provinces - they are run under joint control of the host club and provincial council - however ownership rests with the 4 clubs.

Indeed some years ago the West was moved from RP to Enniscrone - this required the written permission of RP and was only granted on full condition it was for 1 year and 1 year only.

The Close has been played on many a fine Inland course eg Malone, Carlow, Westport, Killarney, Cork, Tramore and many more

In my view we are lucky to have so many fine links and its right and just most championships are played there -- What if the R&A was to plug Gleneagles for the Open..... it wouldnt just be right -- would it ?

PGF

(a) Irish golfers have won 3 majors on links courses recently. (Pebble Beach is not a links)
(b) Irish amateur championships are played on links courses.
Therefore 'a' happens because of 'b'?

Don't think so. Correlation does not imply causation.

Which Irish professionals grew up playing a links course as their home course? McDowell. Anyone else? Can't think of any.

Irish pros have been very successful on all types of courses in the last 15 years (moreso than before) not just links courses.

Who was the last player from any nation to grow playing a links as their home course to win a British Open?


Why have the Americans won more than half of the British Opens for the last 50 years? Because they were better players, not because they were better links players.

PGF

Any while I think of it... who was the last Scottish player that was brought up on a links to win the British Open or any tournament on a links?

gorfield

Here's a list of tournaments I've played or entered this year through the GUI as a national team member, be it links or parkland.

Austrailian Am- Huntingdale & Woodlands gcs- parkland (sandbelt)
New south wales Am- Mona vale & long reef gcs- 1 links 1 parkland.
Lake Macquarie Am- Belmont Gc, parkland
NSW matchplay- Elanora CC, parkland
European Nations cup- Sotogrande gc, parkland
West of ire- Rosses Pt, links
Irish am open-Royal Dublin, links
Irish Close- Royal Portrush, links
East of Ire- Baltray, links
Brabazon trophy- Walton Heath, parkland
Interprovincial cship- Royal county Down, links
South of ire-Lahinch, links
European Am cships-Carton house, parkland
Carlow and Mullingar senior sc- both parkland

let's not forget the Irish close is usually rotated around parkland courses also.
I'm highlighting here that elite amateurs are certainly not handcuffed to links by the GUI, our championships have a historic tradition to these great courses we are so lucky to have. And let's admit we have punched above our weight in the last 10yrs in majors considering how small a country we are!

Let's not forget the Irish close is usually rotated around some p

ShriekingSheet

I'll get my bleedin' coat so.

blackwhite

decko11 wrote: »

Indeed some years ago the West was moved from RP to Enniscrone - this required the written permission of RP and was only granted on full condition it was for 1 year and 1 year only.

Just on this, the West was moved to Enniscrone because of a big job being done on the greens in Rosses Point that took them out of action for about 8 months.
Co. Sligo GC actually requested that Enniscrone step in for the one year as the host course, but retained much of the responsibilities of host club for the competition that year.

mikeunt

gorfield wrote: »

Here's a list of tournaments I've played or entered this year through the GUI as a national team member, be it links or parkland.

Austrailian Am- Huntingdale & Woodlands gcs- parkland (sandbelt)
New south wales Am- Mona vale & long reef gcs- 1 links 1 parkland.
Lake Macquarie Am- Belmont Gc, parkland
NSW matchplay- Elanora CC, parkland
European Nations cup- Sotogrande gc, parkland
West of ire- Rosses Pt, links
Irish am open-Royal Dublin, links
Irish Close- Royal Portrush, links
East of Ire- Baltray, links
Brabazon trophy- Walton Heath, parkland
Interprovincial cship- Royal county Down, links
South of ire-Lahinch, links
European Am cships-Carton house, parkland
Carlow and Mullingar senior sc- both parkland

let's not forget the Irish close is usually rotated around parkland courses also.
I'm highlighting here that elite amateurs are certainly not handcuffed to links by the GUI, our championships have a historic tradition to these great courses we are so lucky to have. And let's admit we have punched above our weight in the last 10yrs in majors considering how small a country we are!

Let's not forget the Irish close is usually rotated around some p

fair play gorefeld but what relevence does the bit highlighted above have to this discussion
sure is a mighty impressive cv by the by
you must be a handy enough golfer

newport2

mikeunt wrote: »

fair play gorefeld but what relevence does the bit highlighted above have to this discussion
sure is a mighty impressive cv by the by
you must be a handy enough golfer

The OP was expressing concern that elite amateur golf revolved around links courses.

The highlighted part of Gorefield's post indicated he is an elite amateur golfer and is thus speaking from experience when he said it didn't.

The_Architect

Personally I think the poster is putting the cart before the horse.

What we need to be doing is getting more pro tournaments back on links courses, not killing the final element that still makes amateur golf great in a false attempt to provide a breeding ground for professional golf.

Once upon a time, it wasn't all about money.

liam12989

blackwhite wrote: »

Just on this, the West was moved to Enniscrone because of a big job being done on the greens in Rosses Point that took them out of action for about 8 months.
Co. Sligo GC actually requested that Enniscrone step in for the one year as the host course, but retained much of the responsibilities of host club for the competition that year.

guys iirc the west was in enniscrone for 2 or 3 years...noel fox and micko illonen won i believe....

i do know at one point there was talk of enniscrone/RP being played in west and players play 1 course 1 day the other a nxt...logisticly not realistic

blackwhite

liam12989 wrote: »

guys iirc the west was in enniscrone for 2 or 3 years...noel fox and micko illonen won i believe....

i do know at one point there was talk of enniscrone/RP being played in west and players play 1 course 1 day the other a nxt...logisticly not realistic

Correct on this. Asked the auld lad on it and he clarified. Was only supposed to be for one year, but they had problems with the first attempt on the greens and so a bigger job had to be done that took another 2 years. Course was playing on temporary greens for a 18 months out of 24!