How Low Can They Go?

What exactly is par for the course now? Ernie Els is so strong, when he hits the ball, it disappears faster than a chocolate chip muffin in front of John Daly, which is one of the reasons Els set a PGA Tour record Sunday at Kapalua and won by eight shots with a 31-under-par score that was both stunning and revealing.

The Plantation Course wasn’t designed to take that kind of abuse. Out on the west tip of Maui, par is supposed to be protected by trade winds, nature’s built-in feature that causes golf balls to make unexpected detours on their way to the greens.

But the wind never showed up, and as a result, the players clobbered the place. It went just as Rocco Mediate described it. He said you can put the pros on the hardest course in the world and they’ll “destroy” it, “kill” it, if there’s no wind.

Rocco tied for second and would have done better, but he shot only 23 under. The guy he tied with, K.J. Choi, shot a 62 in the third round.

Three years ago, David Duval shot 26 under in a victory and was the only player to finish at least 20 under at Kapalua. There were 11 players who did it this time.

So, the question is, what in the world are they going to do by the time they get to Phoenix, where Mark Calcavecchia was 28 under two years ago?

And at the Bob Hope Chrysler Classic, you know those courses have no chance. Right now, they’re a menu item. They’re chopped salad.

No one is trying to take anything away from the Hope courses, which are always praised for their beautifully conditioned fairways and perfect greens, but the fact is that they’re too easy and the players have become too good.

Take lovely, cozy Indian Wells Country Club, which measures 6,478 yards. If it were any shorter, it could moonlight as a jockey on the weekends. It has been said before, but it may be worth repeating that Indian Wells is the place where Desi Arnaz was one of the original backers and it’s also the place where Fred and Ethel Mertz could break par.

Joe Durant shot a 61 there two years ago on his way to torching the 90-hole record with a 36-under total that won the Hope. When Duval won it in 1999, he reserved his record-tying 59 for the Palmer Course at PGA West.

The first demolition of par this year took place in the first tournament. We didn’t have to wait long, because the direction this thing is heading, you knew it was coming soon. Expect more of the same the rest of the year as the pro game moves even closer toward making the scores, well, borderline irrelevant, and nobody wants that to happen.

Except for the major tournaments, par is pretty much irrelevant already.

It’s easier now to see why they plowed up a lot of Augusta National a couple of years ago to make it longer and meaner. If that was a controversial move then, it surely is no longer. Before, when they wanted to make the course tougher, all they could do was make the greens so rock hard that putting on them was like rolling balls on the bed of a truck.

The fact is that the players are holding all the cards right now. Just check the equipment they use. They have drivers made of titanium with heads the size of toasters. They have golf balls with 20 more yards already built in. Then there are the courses they play.

You must realize that the PGA Tour is responsible for setting up the courses. And the PGA Tour is the players. And the players all want to shoot 65 every day. From the tee, they don’t want to see landing areas eight feet wide and rough so tall they can’t see their ankles, either. At the same time, it’s not exactly fair to anyone except the big hitters if every golf course is stretched to the limits, installing length as its defense.

As for the fans, well, they don’t mind seeing birdies, of course, but too many of them and your eyes start to glaze over.

Last year at the Hope, there were 2,807 birdies. The last time there were so many birdies in one place, it was at Capistrano in the spring.

The chances are very good that there will be even more birdies this year at the Hope. With Phil Mickelson back to defend his title, six of the top nine money-winners from 2002 are expected to show up, and that means the Hope will have one of the strongest fields on the West Coast swing.

In the meantime, the four Hope courses are wondering if they make bandages big enough to cover the bruises they’re going to get. We know and they know and heaven knows they’re going to take a beating. But they’re not going to be the only ones this year, and as far as reality goes, that’s the only par for the course that matters.