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Comment by hkmurakami | Hacker News Reader

2 handicap felt like "expert" but nowhere near master.

As a junior golfer I peaked at 2.4 (probably put in around 10,000 hours, though I obviously didn't keep track), and I agree that being scratch felt much much harder than going from 12 to 2, and +2 seemed impossibly far away.

Not to mention tour conditions for green speed, rough thickness, and length are much tougher than your average very good golf course. My home course at the time was a PGA Tour venue but theyd always close the course for a week to toughen things for the tour event.

For what it's worth, at a 2 handicap I believe you pass the bar to become a PGA of America professional (teaching pros and club pros), pending qualification exams and iirc 2 rounds of play test.

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I'm not a golfer, I played a bit as a youth so I'm familiar with the basics but that is all.

I'm curious how they'd toughen the course just for the tour event? Was it things like changing the size/position of hazards or were there more subtle differences?

I don't know specifics to a pro tour, but here are things I know a golf course can do (has done):

1. Move the holes on the green. It's pretty easy to do, you basically have a giant cookie cutter that cuts a hole out, you drop in a cup and then move the bit you cut out into the old hole. On a well maintained course the seam will be gone in a few days. Most courses have a map of where the possible hole positions and a difficulty measure for each configuration.

2. Watering/not watering greens. If you don't water for a few days, the greens get harder and the ball doesn't slow down very much. On a sloped green this can make a decent landing turn into a gigantic overshoot.

3. Mowing height. A tall rough can suck energy out of your swing. A low green makes the ball roll fast. I'm not sure if they change the height for all areas of the course (especially if you're happy with your greens), but it seems trivial to let the rough get a little higher.

In your comment you mention moving the size/position of hazards. Moving bunkers is a bit of an ordeal and I'm not sure if they would do that for a PGA tour (but I could be wrong). Making the water level higher so the ponds get bigger seems easy enough though.

They can narrow the fairways, and with bunkers they'll put extra maintenance effort to get the sand just right. With the majors they might go a lot further. Courses will also modernize on their own just to be more attractive, for example Royal St. George's made some big changes to get the Open back.

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