Chaos Please
I’m not sure I like what happens here. But I also don’t like it when people say they don’t like what happens here. I’m stuck.
I’m on the 16th hole at The Waste Management, a golf hole as popular as it is repellent.
The British traditionalists sharpen their quills and write, “Old Tom would be turning in his grave!” Meanwhile, the pioneers of golf cart beers scream their motion from the stadium top. Their words are unclear, but they’re having the time of their lives.
I feel no affinity with either party, and yet I know an answer lies somewhere amongst the pile of empty beer cans.
Change is both difficult and constant. Its difficulty is the reason golf lags 5 years behind the culture at large. From the loose fitting trouser crawling its way onto the fairways last year, to the gradual acceptance of trainer shaped golf shoes and music on the golf course. The cultural flow from the zeitgeist to the clubhouse is glacial.
During our stay in Phoenix we sat floorside for a Suns game, and it’s clear the NBA product is keeping pace with the Tiktok age. Mascots rush on court during timeouts. Trampolines are wheeled into place to facilitate a flying man in a gorilla suit performing the greatest slam dunk in history. And yet when you compare the 1986 Masters footage of Jack raising his putter to the sky in celebration with the 2024 Masters, there is broadly, zero difference.
That is part of golf’s magic and an element of it that I truly love. Traditions are nobly upheld, etiquette is paramount and dress codes are clearly defined. All of this allows, perhaps more than any other sport, the magic of a bygone era to feel more intimately connected to today’s game.
But the world is getting younger. People are chronically online. Sports are competing for attention. Attention is money. Money is survival. A concept that glued a 15 year old to his fuzzy TV screen in 1986 would be disregarded as ancient drivel now.
A young energetic crowd, free from the bindings of golf’s unwritten rule book, are demanding more.
As I glance across the chaos of the iconic 170 yard par 3 at TPC Scottsdale my mind is cast back to years of playing professional golf. The arduous process of building a reliable golf swing has taught me a few things, chief among them is that the best way to make a change is to exaggerate the feeling you are trying to achieve. Take it beyond reason, for long enough, and eventually your baseline shifts.
Whether by accident or masterful puppetry, that’s exactly what’s happening here on the ‘Loudest Hole in Golf.’ For some, it’s uncomfortable; for others, unthinkable. But when the bleachers are swept clean and the beer cans are recycled, the needle of golf culture has shifted—just a notch or two—in the direction it needs to go to survive.
Like a salesman high balling a client, The Waste Management never intended to actually sell you the shirt over your head, beer can catapult lifestyle, it just wants to desensitise you to the more reasonable, but still slightly inflated, price of change.
The 16th at TPC Scottsdale isn’t the blueprint for where we need to go. It’s a unique and necessary case that invites a new demographic into the game who would otherwise have walked straight past. It’s a platform for experimentation and a vehicle for introducing a new entertainment product.
The Open is still our oldest Championship. The elegance of the Masters will remain untouched, but amidst the belly slides and boo’s, the Waste Management is a clumsy pioneer. Push the boundaries, upset the apple cart, move the needle. Our sport will be in a healthier place because of it.