The Par Busters

A funny thing happened to Pete Cooper last week. A golf pro from Florida, Cooper played 72 holes at the Pensacola Country Club and scored 70, 71, 70 and 75 for a two-under-par total of 286. Yet, for those fine rounds, all poor Pete earned was the dubious distinction of finishing 82nd and last in the P.G.A. Pensacola Open. He was 24 strokes behind Gay Brewer, who shot 66, 64, 61 and 71 for an improbable 262 and $15,000.

Par is defined as the number of strokes an expert golfer should take on any given hole, but the experts are rewriting the definition. The winning score in January's Los Angeles Open was 15 under par, an improvement of four strokes over 1966. In the Phoenix Open, it was twelve under, as compared with six under last year; in the Tucson Open, it was 15 under, as compared with ten. Doug Sanders needed a nine-under 275 to eke out a one-stroke victory in last month's Doral Open, and when the Greater Greensboro Open reached the halfway point last week, no less than 29 golfers had sub-par scores.

Heating Up. The surge in par busting may be partly due to improvements in the tools of the trade: the whippy steel and fiber glass shafts of today's golf clubs, high-compression golf balls, the portable warmers used to heat up the balls so they will travel farther. But there is a growing school of thought which holds that the real reason for all the sub-par golf is sub-par golf courses.

With 30-odd tournaments to stage each year, the Professional Golfers' Association is not always particularly choosy about where it books them. This year's Los Angeles Open was played on a mediocre public course, and the ridiculously low scoring at the Pensacola Open was hardly unexpected; at 6,380 yds., the Pensacola Country Club's flat, sun-baked 18 is little more than an oversized par-three course.

One of the P.G.A.'s problems is that many good private clubs refuse to sponsor tournaments; they do not want the trouble, the expense--or strangers trampling their fairways. Another problem is pressure from the P.G.A.'s own members, particularly the less talented playing pros who want courses made easier to improve their chances of beating a Jack Nicklaus or an Arnold Palmer. "Easy courses are great levelers," explains famed Architect Robert Trent Jones, who has built or remodeled 350 courses around the world. "They are putters' courses. A really good golfer like Nicklaus or Palmer wins on good courses. On a bad course, their skill is no advantage."

There are times, too, when even a tough course gets the tenderizing treatment. The rough is crewcut, sand traps are covered, pins are set in the fattest parts of the greens, and the course may be deliberately shortened. For the Doral Open in Miami, the Doral Country Club's "Blue Monster" was cut from its nor mal length of 7,002 yds. to 6,652 yds., prompting Nicklaus to grouse: "We're playing from the ladies' tees." (They were.) The theory is that low scores attract fans. "People don't pay three and four and five bucks to watch us hacking out of the rough," says Ken Still, who finished fourth in the Pensacola Open.

Raising the Rough. The reaction to that is a hoot of derision from Architect Jones--and from the U.S. Golf Association, an organization firmly dedicated to the principle that championship golf can only be played on a championship course. The U.S.G.A. stages nine tournaments of its own, including the U.S. Open, and the ground rules are strict. "We narrow the fairways, raise the roughs and collar the greens," says Executive Director Joseph Dey Jr. "We want our tournament to be a true test of skill." That it is. The lowest score ever in the Open was the 276 shot by the magnificent "Wee Ice Mon," Ben Hogan, in 1948--14 strokes more than Gay Brewer took at Pensacola last week. Dey complains that the rash of low scores in P.G.A. tournaments "cheapens the concept of par." Both he and Jones insist that fans prefer to watch a golfer battle the hazards of a tough, demanding course--such as Georgia's 6,980-yd. Augusta National, site of this week's Masters tournament. "Galleries aren't attracted by low scores," says Architect Jones. "What they want to see are great golf shots." He speaks with authority. Something like 40,000 fans will attend the Masters, millions more will watch it on TV--and none of the P.G.A.'s own tournaments ever attracted a crowd that large.

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