More #savetheoldcourse Reviews Rolling In...

The story picked up steam with a lead note from Doug Ferguson of AP in which R&A Chief Executive Peter Dawson called the reaction "knee-jerk" and offered to give people tours of the work that was kept a virtual secret until last Friday's news dump. And to think I used to get heat for calling him out as wannabe architect! Well, you were right. He's no wannabe.

The Change.org petition is over 200 signatures and waiting for more. Based on the Twitter outrage, tripling that number in the next day or two should not be difficult. Especially after you read the belly putter ban language!

Oh and the Old Course is Tweeting away, so follow her if you aren't already.

Tiger Woods was asked about the changes at his World Challenge event today by, oh right, by me. He didn't seem too thrilled with the work, though I was surprised how quickly he endorsed a few of architect Dawson's ideas before frowning as he talked about the Road hole. Jason Sobel reports.

“I think 17 is hard enough as it is,” said Woods, who carded two pars and two bogeys on the hole when it hosted the Open Championship two years ago. “I don't think we need to make that bunker any deeper or bigger. I know they experimented in 2000, I believe, they made the bunker deeper, then I think it was in '10 they made it more expansive, so it was not as deep, but more balls would collect into it. They seem to keep changing 17 a lot. It's a pretty hard hole. I think it's the hardest one on that whole property.

“I don't know, I'm not real keen on that one, but it is a hard hole, period, either way, whether they make changes or not. It's going to be a hard hole, a pivotal hole. I know over the years they've changed the rough lines on that hole quite a bit and given us fairway to the right which we've never had. Granted, now we've got to take it more towards the hotel, but at least it gives us an angle to play down the green, which is nice.”

Ian Poulter was not so kind, firing off some afternoon Tweets from his hotel room.

Count Robert Karlsson in the group that isn't too thrilled either, posting Tweets (here and here) as soon as he heard the news.

Even analyst Peter Kostis, the same guy who used to put us down for wanting to live in a time when the great courses weren't butchered and who so passionately defended the distance chase that got us into this mess, is appalled by changes. No word on if he's made the connection between the Old Course changes and distances spiraling out of control, but we can use all the bodies we can in this fight to save the most treasured course on the planet.