18 Holes with Alex Miceli

The interview is up on our home page for those to read. 18 Holes with Alex Miceli. Take a look as Alex Miceli talks grooves, LPGA, Twitter, and of course hot dogs and meatloaf.

Let us know your thoughts in this thread and of course with comments under the interview in the comment section. We hope you enjoy it as much as we enjoyed interviewing him.

The Hackers Paradise 18 Holes with Alex Miceli

bump for the am

Great interview JB! I especially liked AM's thoughts on adjustable drivers. I didn't think abou the tip issue at all....

He was a blast to interview, and his journey through the world of golf from golf.com is impressive.

All in all, it was an interesting interview and I found myself agreeing with him on many things.

I have mixed feelings about his comments on grooves.

On the one hand, his comment that, "its trying to change every aspect of the game" is the very same argument that was made 25 years ago when the "Square Grooves" controversy first appeared. The biggest knock I have on square grooves is that I think it's a little ridiculous watching someone hitting an approach shot from 6-inch deep rough and having it stop dead on the green or even having it suck back. I mean, what's the point of even having rough?

That said, I do believe that throttling back on technology at this point in the game is like trying to put the toothpaste back in the tube and in that sense, I agree with Miceli and think they should leave things as they are. (Although I will always miss the "flyer" and the skill and judgment it took to play that shot).

What I totally agree on is that there is a world of things that can be done to tailor the courses to the technology and I think that this would be a much better way to go. I remember during the Open Championship that more than few commentators pointed out that the bunkers at Turnberry were the equivalent of a penalty stroke. Another comment was that British bunkers are true hazards, as they should be.

I believe that the U.S. should adopt British bunker styles. Sod faced bunkers would definitely serve to mitigate a good portion of technology and it would reintroduce the concept of the bunker as a hazard to be avoided rather than the "safe havens" most of them are today.

Also, greens can be made to be more contoured and along with variable rough heights outside the greens, runoffs, pin placements (as well as some of those sod faced bunkers) a variety of challenges can be presented so that landing on the green isn't the "end" of something but rather the beginning.

There can also be simple things done such as adding trees at strategic spots such as doglegs or approaches so that only the very best shots can take them out of play. I'd also like to see more contours in fairways such as those seen at many British links courses so that a tee shot has to be a planned event taking those contours into consideration rather than having just a flat fairway where a tee shot just lands and runs forever. Not only that, if all of these things were done, there might not be a need to cut fairways to green heights or dry everything out to speed it up because the game would become more tactical and brute force would give way to planning and course management.

Lastly, I also agree that if adjustable/interchangeable shafts are going to be the future of drivers (and probably other clubs as well), then there definitely needs to be some kind of standardization that allows any shaft to go into any club. The way it is now is too proprietary and thus making it too expensive for the consumer to have true variety or choice.


Good stuff.


-JP