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In a Hole, Golf Courses Experiment With 15-inch Holes
Hugh Pickens DOT Com (2995471) writes "According to the National Golf Foundation, golf has lost five million players in the last decade with 20 percent of the existing 25 million golfers apt to quit in the next few years. Now Bill Pennington writes that golf courses across the country are experimenting with 15 inch golf holes the size of pizzas to stop people from quitting the game. "We've got to stop scaring people away from golf by telling them that there is only one way to play the game and it includes these specific guidelines," says Ted Bishop, president of the PGA of America. "We've got to offer more forms of golf for people to try. We have to do something to get them into the fold, and then maybe they'll have this idea it's supposed to be fun." A 15-inch-hole event was held at the Reynolds Plantation resort last week featuring top professional golfers Sergio García and Justin Rose, the defending United States Open champion. "A 15-inch hole could help junior golfers, beginning golfers and older golfers score better, play faster and like golf more," says García, who shot a six-under-par 30 for nine holes in the exhibition. Another alternative is foot golf, in which players kick a soccer ball from the tee to an oversize hole, counting their kicks. Still it is no surprise that not everyone agrees with the burgeoning alternative movement to make golf more user-friendly. "I don't want to rig the game and cheapen it," says Curtis Strange, a two-time United States Open champion and an analyst for ESPN. "I don't like any of that stuff. And it's not going to happen either. It's all talk.""
In my lifetime alone, I've seen so many cases of "loweing the bar" to compensate for society's general lack of interest in becoming proficient at things.
In the 1990's and 2000's, the FCC seriously dumbed-down the Amateur Radio licensing material and requirements, eventually completely eliminating the morse code requirement - and an Extra exam today is nothing like the Extra exam I took in 1998.
Not long after that, the FAA created the "sport pilot" class that does not even require a medical exam, so people on life support can fly around in 2000 pound, high-velocity projectiles and put them into random peoples' houses when they have their in-flight hypoxia-induced heart attack.
Now we're going to FIFTEEN INCH golf holes? Are they serious? Let's go down to six bowling pins while we're at it, and drop the 1st down requirement in football to 7 1/2 yards. Oh wait, we can't do fractions anymore, so just make it 5 yards.
While they're add it they may as well add a stroke to each par as well, just to attract more mediocre players and discourage them getting any better at the skill.
People need to stop being such fucking assholes and try to be good at things. Everyone wants a goddamn trophy for simply showing up. This, right here, is why America is failing. The rest of the world is BETTER than us at shit because most Americans are lazy assholes who just want to consume and don't give a damn about proficiency, skill, or ambition. Yes, everyone wants to be rich, but they want to do it by simply taking it from people who ARE good at things, and who have earned their wealth by using those skills.
Fuck you all. Every last goddamn one of you entitled little brats.