FRED FUNK: Well, I'm hoping we reach the limit. I keep saying that every year. And then you get our J.B. Holmes and Bubba Watsons to show up and they can fly the ball 60, 70 yards past where I can fly it. And it is fun to watch a ball fly like that, but, man, it's changed the whole scope of the game on how they set up golf courses and how they design golf courses. And fortunately the great golf courses like the Hilton Heads and the Westchesters and TPC even down at Sawgrass and Colonial.
And those courses have -- the scores haven't really changed that much, because they're, it's more important to be in position. I think the biggest, the greatest thing about the game that gives the guys at our level a little bit of difficulty would be you stand on the tee and you got to think a little bit. You got to actually say, okay, I got to shape it this way or that way or I got to hit a 3-wood or iron versus a driver. It gives you a lot of options.
And, yeah, you can hit a driver, you can send it out there, but you better hit it in the right spot or you pay the price. And those are the great designed golf courses. It's hard to design that into a lot of them. But it sure seems like they did a lot of that in the old days, in the old traditional golf courses that are still our best ones, and they stand the test of time and the test of technology.
That's the great part of the game. And even with the distances that guys are hitting it now on TOUR haven't really come down. I don't know what that says. I really don't know whether that says that it's the nature of the game. You can only make -- based on probability, that you're going to make X amount of putts in 72 holes, because it's just probability. Who knows. I have no idea what it is.
But scores haven't really come down that much, if at all. So it is still a very difficult game to play, but it has changed a lot. And with that being said, there's -- there are golf courses on the TOUR that we're playing that are just such a huge advantage for the long hitters that I just stay away from those. Where it's just send it as far as you can, there's no decision off the tee, driver every hole, hit it 350 yards if you can, and wedge it in there and/or hit it in the rough.
Hit it as far as you can in the rough and only have a wedge, eight, 9-iron out. Guys are so strong that they can still get to know the green a lot of the times, or around the green. And that's the biggest change in the game is if they're sending it as far as they can and if they're in trouble, fine.
How Phil can score that well going into the 18th hole hitting only two fairways at Winged Foot. I didn't see the round, but that's remarkable to me in that rough that they had there that he could miss that many fairways and unless he missed a lot of first cuts, or hit it in a lot of first cuts, I don't know. But sounded like he was hitting it in trash cans and tents and all sorts of stuff, and he didn't pay the price until the decision on the last hole.
So I can't quite figure that one out except for the fact that Phil does so much preparation that I think when he goes in and sees the golf course like that, with they know they can over power a golf course that Phil would say, okay, if I do hit it over here I can chip it out to here and I can score from here. And he knows his short game is -- he sets it up just right the right distances for him to maximize his opportunities to save par, and it's obviously worked.
He putts in a lot of time and effort to gain a lot of knowledge of the golf course. So he could do what he did there and he just didn't, he just lost it on that last shot. Really the last decision, not the last shot. But anyway, that was a long-winded answer to the technology question. Let's see, can do that one in shorthand?
RAND JERRIS: Fred, thank you for your time this morning, and we wish you success this week.
FRED FUNK: All right. Thank you. I hope to see a lot of you guys.
End of FastScripts.
