Aronimink Golf Club is the subject of great scrutiny ahead of the PGA Championship.
It hasn’t hosted a major championship since 1962, and it’s suitability in the modern professional game is being questioned in the week leading up to the year’s second major.
It’s a stunning Donald Ross design, with undulating greens and a scattering of bunkers, but the length of the course means most of its hazards are going to be bypassed purely by driving distance.
Rory McIlroy said that there is no real strategy to Aronimink, especially after trees were removed from the course.
He said, “strategy off the tee is pretty non-existent”, and continued, “When these traditional golf courses take a lot of trees out, it makes strategy not as much of a concern off the tee.”
Speaking before the tournament, Jon Rahm responded to those comments.
Jon Rahm responds to Rory McIlroy’s comments about Aronimink
McIlroy’s comments sparked a discussion among the golfing world about whether or not courses should be removing trees, which has been a trend recently.
This was put to Rahm, and he gave a thoughtful answer: “I don’t know about it. I’ve been making this joke for the last few years where I see a lot of golf courses coming in saying, look, 100 years ago, this golf course was like this, there was no trees.
“I’m like, well, in the back of my mind, they planted those trees with the future vision of having those trees in play, and now you’re taking them all out.
“While I see both points, I don’t know which one is more valid than the next. I do believe a lot of it has to do with course conditions.
“Some of these big oak trees out here in the wintertime when the leaves are falling and might get a little bit more rain or snow, taking some out can help with, I would say, a wind flow and overall conditions of the course.
“I think the course setup that was expected in the ’30s, ’40s, and ’50s, compared to what we have right now with how tight the grass is and how meticulous everything is, probably has something to do with it as well. I think golf has evolved, and for the overall health of the course, they might need to take those trees out.
“However, when it comes to the playability, I don’t know because I’ve never played this course with trees. I’m pretty sure in 2018 it looked pretty similar to what we have right now. It does seem like it would let you be able to be more aggressive off the tees. There’s quite a few lengthy holes out there. Also, the game has shifted a bit that way nowadays.
“I think with advances in the study of the game and biomechanics and the technology of the drivers and the golf ball, you’re going to have a lot of players that hit it very far be very accurate.
“And it’s going to be very difficult to lay back to hit fairways and have the same scoring opportunities even though you’re on the fairway with a 5-iron, whereas a player like Rory with a wedge out of the rough is still going to be pretty capable. So it’s also the name of the game nowadays.”
Planting trees seems like one of the few sensible ways of combatting the ridiculous distance of the modern game, so to see these courses removing them is really jarring.
Scottie Scheffler said what he doesn’t like about modern golf courses
This isn’t a new discussion, but it’s one that comes up far more frequently due to the layout of modern golf courses.
It was particularly glaring at Bethpage Black for the Ryder Cup. One of the most difficult courses on the planet was left defenceless when Keegan Bradley shaved down the rough.
Speaking to Grant Horvat, Scottie Scheffler once said that he really doesn’t like that these courses are removing trees. He said, “What they are doing to golf courses now, I don’t like. They take out all the trees, make the greens bigger, and typically make the fairways bigger as well. So the only real barrier to guys trying to hit it as far as they want to or need to is trees.
“When you host a championship tournament, if there are no trees you can hit it wherever you want. If I miss the fairway by 10 yards I am in the thick rough. If I miss it by 20, you are in the crowd.”
Once the trees have been removed it’s a difficult problem to fix. It’s not as simple as just adding in a forest of fully grown trees. So even if there is an incentive for trees to be added back to golf coursdes, it would take years to fix the issue.
