How to make tournament golf more interesting

How much more interesting would televised golf be if tournament officials created events designed to highlight increased player judgment?

With TV ratings lagging and the major golf circuits trying to create a more attractive product, how about staging a tournament or two that emphasizes a wider skill set than is currently the case?

Here are a few minor adjustments in the conditions of competition designed to produce a far more fascinating product:

1. No caddies

I love the whole caddie culture, grew up in the caddie yards of Long Island, spent seven summers looping on the PGA Tour and have written glowingly of the craft. There’s even an International Caddie Hall of Fame, to which I was inducted in 2007. But really, does it require a three-minute conversation between player and caddie to determine whether — and how — to hit a 6-iron to a green? Talk about overkill. One or two events a year, let’s just see the player pull a club, judge the shot, get aligned and swing.

2. Carry your own bag

Which leaves bag toting to the player as well. Why not test their athleticism and their decision-making capacity on how light to make the bag? Instead of lugging a suitcase full of equipment, they only tote what they judge as elemental? This follows my own rule for general travel: if you can’t carry around what you’ve packed, you’re trying to take too much luggage.

3. Yardage devices, books or maps

When it comes to golf-relevant judgment, distance, depth perception and the ability to discern landforms are foundational skills. Yet they’ve been entirely removed from modern golf due to measuring devices, yardage books and course maps. Sorry, but you are on your own here as well for one or two weeks a year. With modern swing techniques having grooved players more robotically than ever, it should at least be required to judge distance, landing spot, and intended roll out and the land forms you are traversing. It worked well enough for Peter Thomson, who won five Open Championships while eyeballing every shot.

4. No pin sheets or greens contour maps

These are akin to cheating outright in my book. Again, the idea is to restore classic shot-making and shot-judging skills. Fundamental to that is the ability to read a green while trying to figure out slope and speed.

5. No Aimpoint or straddling the line

There is nothing more paralyzing during a telecast than watching world-class golfers and their world-class caddies straddling the line of a 3-foot putt to determine slope. If the science of greens reading requires you to tamp your feet down to determine what the ground is doing, then there is something lacking in the approach and it ought to be abandoned. For one or two weeks of the competitive calendar, let’s see if the world’s best golfers have the sensory capacity to assess during the middle of play without actually measuring.

6. No bunker rakes

According to the rulebook, a bunker is a hazard. You would not know that watching how world-class pros play out of these fairway and greenside pits of sand. That’s because they are groomed to within an inch of their lives, perfectly drained and manicured, and meticulously raked after each shot played from them. To which I say, “make them hazardous.” At the very least do away with rakes — which, by the way, have no standing in the rulebook and are a convenience rather than a mandated necessity.

7. Seven clubs

Why not really add some buzz and restrict contestants to seven clubs? That would lighten the bag considerably. More important, it would lead to lots of pre-event speculation and commentary during play about which clubs are right for the golf course. Players would need to adopt more dexterous shot-making techniques and play a wider variety of shots with their clubs. It would be so much fun to watch, and so much more demanding for the players

There you have it. Seven adjustments guaranteed to produce better TV ratings, more engaging play and a more meaningful week of competitive golf.