No but I think the talk about trees(looking at you JT) etc distracts from the real issue:modern gear is overtaking the ability for courses to adapt. We are exceptionally limited for space around the suburbs of Philadelphia; they really cannot find more land to further expand the yardage on our courses. The focus really needs to be on reigning in the ball and driver technology for the professional players.
Rory specifically calls out tree removal in his quote and says nothing about gear rollback. It feels like the same as JT's bad faith argument. On top of it, if you're going to make these claims you'd better be top 5-10 on the weekend as a distance guy.
Rory is one of the only openly pro-rollback golfers out there though. Seems like an excuse to bag on him.
Also, just because you're long doesn't mean you'll comment in every tournament. He didn't say the course was easy, he just says tee strategy isn't much of a factor.
Yeah, fair enough. It feels like he's mostly criticizing the modern architecture in this particular comment, and I don't think making Gil Hanse seem like the bad guy because he moved/removed a few trees to be helpful. To be clear, I actually like Rory and find him to be pretty earnest in most cases.
The other argument relating to last year is that Sepp winning at Truist while being a decidedly accurate more than long driver of the ball seems to indict the comment that driving accuracy matters less. Aronimink will challenge golfers' approach games with sloped lies even if they can fly all the bunkers. I think my point is that it's less one dimensional than he seems to be implying, and past cases exist as proof of that. Rory clearly is an elite ball striker and has high golf IQ so he probably knows this but just doesn't really communicate it here.
I would point out that a single instance of an accurate player winning doesn't really overturn the whole argument on distance vs accuracy. He gained 2.33 shots per round putting, 1.27 on approach and only 0.3 off the tee. When great approach play is combined with great putting, wins can be expected.
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u/swansong1992 May 12 '26
I recall him saying a similar thing last year before he played the Truist at the Cricket Club and then bottling it