Is a Tough Course Also a Great Course?

We debated this on The 19th Hole Golf Show last week in light of the press release from PGA National/PGA Tour touting how difficult the Bear Trap played over the course of the Honda Classic - 356 over par, 100 more over par than last year. I came down decisively on the side that harder != better. Geoff Ogilvy, a PGA Tour winner, agrees:

Some people walk away thinking, ‘Geez, that course must be great because the pros can’t make any birdies on it.’ Other people walk away saying, ‘Well, that course must be boring to play because the pros can’t make any birdies on it.’ Everyone seems to be pretty split on the idea whether hard is good.

...kind of reading between the lines there, but you get the idea. He actually is right that people are split on it because of a Golf Digest survey that indicated that over 52% of respondents said that last year's record winning score for the Masters was good because they like to see the pros suffer a la the US Open. Unfortunately, then, 50% of golfers are wrong.

John Huggan backs me up with the data in his column from last week.