Cantlay: "The biggest problem for me is when we lose the architectural integrity of the golf course...Something has to give.”

In conversation with Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon, Patrick Cantlay became the rare under-30 golfer to have given the topic of distance its impact on courses any thought.

But he did better than that. Golfweek’s Adam Schupak reported on the comments and transcribed.

“That’s the hardest part of it. The knee-jerk reaction is don’t do anything. They may mess up the implementation, so it won’t be worth it,” he said.

“Theoretically, the golf ball needs to go shorter,” he continued, “Every golf course I go to has different tee boxes farther back than even 4-5 years ago when I visited the golf course. It’s getting to the point where the tee boxes are already to the perimeter of the property, so much so that Augusta National has been buying up all the adjacent pieces of property so they can put more tee boxes and change the holes.

“That’s not sustainable. Not only that if pace of play is one of your biggest concerns, how many golf course do I go to on Tour where the tees are 100 yards back? They can’t keep going in this direction.

Cantlay added: “The technology isn’t only better but young guys are trying to hit it farther and farther because the stats say the farther I hit it, the better I’ll play. Something has to give.

“I think the biggest shame is that I can’t go to Cypress Point and play the course the way the designer designed the golf course to be played. The biggest problem for me is when we lose the architectural integrity of the golf course. We’re to the point where that’s where we are. Something has to give.”

The full conversation: