The Reality Open

For all those sick of watching the elite of the PGA complain about
the conditions of play on a course manicured to standards most of
us will never see, I propose the reality open, a tournament held
under typical conditions for public golf in the United States (and
probably world wide, but I can't speak for others).

Course -- Select a public (muni or open-to-the public) course at
random from those capable of being set up to play long enough (6800
yards?)  No special preparation of the course would be done other
than setting the tees sufficiently long  This means:

	Fairway cut to normal playing height (i.e. not that pool table
	felt that they use on the tour courses) and normally
	maintained (i.e. full of divot holes and unreplaced turf,
	with occasional bare spots and rutted section).

	Rough cut to normal height and normally maintained
	(i.e. thick and juicy right next to the fairway and greens,
	thin grass over hardpan farther out and where carts have
	battered it around the greens, and leaves, twigs, and the
	occasional beer can everywhere.

	Bunkers in "normal" condition (filled with heavy sand and
	muck and generally wet from overnight sprinkling, raked
	some time within the last 3 months).
	
	Hazards marked normally for the course (generally using
	only red and yellow stakes, requiring players to drop on
	steep slopes within 2 club lengths of the water, not
	outside of arbitrarily set hazard boundaries.)

	No marking of ground under repair other than what is usual
	for the course (generally only dangerous open holes and
	piles of dirt).

	Greens mowed at normal height, with pin placements changed
	first thing in the morning (i.e. slow as molasses, spiked
	up, and volcano shaped around the cup by the time the
	competitors start).
	
Conditions of play -- Typical of general weekend play

	No caddies, each player has a choice of carrying, using a
	pull cart, or motorized cart (gas powered, two players to a
	cart, cart path only -- Casey Martin welcome -:)
	
	No yardage guides other than occasionally marked sprinkler
	heads and randomly set pin position indicators (those
	little flags on the shaft that are supposed to mark
	whether the pin is up or back but generally scrambled by
	careless players.
	
	No forecaddies -- each player must locate his/her own ball.
	
	No "lift clean and cheat" -- play each one where it lands.

	No galleries, grandstands, tents, etc. -- i.e. a poorly hit
	ball will bounce into the woods or OB, not be stopped by a
	grandstand and given a free drop.
	
	Tournament starts at 11AM each day, right behind the weekly
	outing of the fraternal order of spike draggers.
	
	Tee times at 7 minute intervals.
	
	Marshals patroling the course in gas powered carts would
	attempt to maintain a 4 hour pace of play by encouraging
	the players to keep pace.  

And perhaps as an extra bonus, a tournament within a tournament
offering a prize to the best scores posted using only clubs from
the course's stock of rentals, and using using balls either bought
from the "experienced" ball bucket at the pro shop or found on the
course.


I'm not trying to be sadistic here, and I certainly have no
illusions that conditions like this would allow even the best local
players to compete with the pros.  The worst player with a tour
card would surely mop up my local course.  It would be nice,
however, to see how the pros cope with the kinds of conditions we
play in, and to watch the TV commentators give us some playing tips
we could use for the conditions we face, not how to deal with a
so-called bad lie in a bunker where the ball is only slightly
indenting a substance with the consistency of whipped eggwhites!