Question and answer with Tony Jacklin

First of all, congratulations on receiving the PGA Recognition Award.
Thank you very much… if you live long enough, and all that. But it's a great honour, especially coming from the club professionals. My dream was to become a touring professional but the club pros are the backbone of the game – without them and all their efforts, the game would not be in the shape it is today.

What are you doing these days?
My main interest is my design business. I'm not playing competitively any more and now that's out of the way I am focused totally on golf course design. I have representatives in Europe, the Middle East, and Latin America. My design business has taken off on the back of The Concession, which I designed with Jack Nicklaus. [Read more at Tony Jacklin Interview - Master of his craft] Since it opened in 2006 it has been a terrific success and I thought it was time to start up again. We have made a lot of progress in the last couple of years – we have two courses on the go in Cypress, a project in Dubai, one in Venezuela and a couple over here in the UK. I feel I'm as capable as anybody in producing good golf courses. The difficulty today is knowing quite what to produce with the golf ball going so far. The USGA and the R&A don't seem to want to do anything about the golf ball. I don't think people want to see 7,600-yard golf courses which take five and a half hours to play and more and more money to maintain. I wish we could get back to something more sensible. The integrity of the game is suffering.

Is it possible to design a course for both pros and amateurs?
Of course, it is. But it's difficult. It's more money, more maintenance, more tees, more this, more that. It's a real challenge. To accommodate all standards of player you may need 100 yards of tees on each hole – and that is expensive to maintain. But if someone comes to you and says they want a course which challenges Tiger but which their grandfather can also play, what else can you do?

What would be your favourite style of course to design?
A links, definitely. Links golf is still my favourite. But at the Carnoustie Open [in 2007], while I was playing with my old faithful 1-iron, which I keep just for links golf, ‘cos it runs like hell, everyone else had these rescue clubs. The modern equipment wants you to get everything up in the air. But at Carnoustie, or any great links, you don't want to hit the ball any higher than this room, you've got to keep everything down but how can you?

Can it go on much longer, the ball going further and courses getting longer?
No, it absolutely cannot. I think it has to be maxed out. I don't know what the answer is. These guys, the JB Holmes of this world, smashing it 350 yards, they are not going to do anything about it, they are just doing what they do best and enjoying their careers, amassing the dollars.

Is it time to have different equipment for amateurs and pros?
If enough pros cared enough they could get their own golf ball to play in their tournaments. But the modern players, it's not an issue for them. They don't need to play with clubheads any bigger than that coffee cup. They are playing with these buckets on the end of their shafts because amateurs buy them. I find it all fascinating. I sound like I'm anti new technology, but I'm not. I'm for the integrity of the game and trying to get round in three hours and not have to pay upwards of £150 for the privilege of playing a “classic” golf course.

In your designs are you looking to bring back more playable 6,600- yard courses?
You are at the mercy of whoever you are building the course for. But that's what I'm doing in Dubai. It's for the common man and there aren't going to be tournaments there, so going into it we know we can do something like that and it can be enjoyed by everyone. No heroic carries over water, that sort of thing.

What do you think about Padraig Harrington's achievements?
I take my hat off to him, and his work ethic we all know about with coach Bob Torrance. He has done incredibly well to have won his three majors and his accolades are well deserved. I found it quite fascinating what happened at Carnoustie but he got over that and ran with it last summer. His ability to get the ball in the hole over the closing holes at the USPGA was amazing and the focus he had, those eyes, the intensity coming down the stretch. He was totally focused and in another place almost. Pity he didn't get his breath back in time for the Ryder Cup but that's one of the things he has to deal with. If he is capable of winning majors, which he is, the next thing he needs to focus on is pacing himself to where he can perform at that level a lot. You can only do that if you are fresh and ready, as Tiger has discovered and as Nicklaus found.

How about Tiger, can he come back as good as ever?
I'm not sure. I was with Jim Thorpe last week, who had been at Isleworth and Tiger was out there chipping and when Jim came in after his round Tiger was still there chipping. He is as determined as ever. You never know after the break he's had but it is going to be interesting to see if he hits the ground running.

Can Harrington sustain a serious challenge to Tiger?
Well, we only know that he is capable. I think the one I'm more excited about is Sergio Garcia. I've said for some time that I think Sergio is the best player, the best ball striker out there. Obviously, we know he is fragile with the putter but, with the help of Dave Pelz, he has been improving that. He is such a personable guy but I'm not sure I've heard him say with real conviction that he is going to win majors. This [tapping head] is the greatest computer there has ever been and unless you put it in there, this is my quest and I'm going to do it. I'm not criticising Sergio at all, I'm a big fan, and I hope a pal, but I've never really heard him make that commitment. Maybe he has made it to himself. But I think that is what is required because there is no better player on the planet. He's still only 29 but the best time to get these things done, we all know, is when you are young.

Are there enough players out there with the hunger to take on Tiger?
I think in Sergio's case, for example, he's been around and he wants to be the best player. I can't imagine he doesn't want to be the No. 1 player on the planet. But I do think that the rewards out there these days are so great that unless you have a game plan, something in your mind to push you to greater heights, whether it's winning ten majors before you quit or whatever – Tiger's made that commitment to Nicklaus's record – unless you have that the rewards are so great that you are going to get so far and then you are going to think, “stuff it, who the hell wants to practise as much as this.” It's just the way things work once you have been at it for five, ten years.

Is that the danger for the Caseys, Donalds, Roses who have been around for a while now?
You still have to want to eat the pressure. You have to enjoy breakfast, lunch, dinner being in the frame, being in the top-three, grinding through that pressure cooker of getting it done, whether it's majors or whatever tournament you are showing up for. You are there for one purpose, to win. The older you get, an element of monotony sets in. Here we are again, another year, human stuff takes over. It is hard to stay totally interested unless you have a purpose beyond the job at hand. That's where Tiger and Nicklaus seemed to have it sorted. Nicklaus played 18 events a year knowing that he could not give his best to more events than that. Some could play more, Gary Player was an example, Vijay Singh today, but I got bored.

Could Sergio still finish his career with a better major tally than Harrington?
I would be disappointed if Sergio didn't win four majors. Every week he plays he is there. He is so good he can finish up there even putting like a drain, or not putting as well as some of these other characters. I sound like I'm over the top maybe, but I'm a great Sergio man. Just watching him hit balls on the range, it was unbelievable, the power in that swing. But it is contained. It is not like JB Holmes, with the ground shuddering and everything flying around. It's contained, with a great tempo. A couple times watching events on television, he had 240 yards to a par-five and the commentators talk about a rescue club or a five-wood but he hit a 4- iron, that's his 4-iron distance. At Carnoustie at the 18th I couldn't get over the burn with two woods. He hit 2-iron, 4-iron.

Does it demean the Ryder Cup in any way this focus on the majors that Woods has, maybe Harrington is going the same way?
No, not at all. Some players are better in a team environment than others. Nobody is going to go into the Ryder Cup arena and not trying because it's one of the great arenas ever. If it is not working it is not because the guy isn't trying, there just isn't enough juice in the can. In 1969 Nicklaus didn't play particularly well in the Ryder Cup at Birkdale, nor when he lost to Barnesy [Brian Barnes], but no one would ever accuse him of not trying.

What is your feeling about the Ryder Cup in Wales in 2010?
If it is October in Wales they had better pray they get finished on the first day because if they don't they are in a mess. I'd be putting up massive floodlights on 17 and 18 just to cover my ass. What a thing it would be if they cannot finish the first day because then they couldn't finish the second day, and on and on.

Is it wrong that it has been pushed back to October?
This FedEx Cup, if it is all because of that, it's been a fiasco as far as I'm concerned. You had Tiger and Mickelson missing events the first year and still Tiger won, and then Vijay had it won before the final event this last time. If my name was Mr FedEx I'd want my money back.

Should the match in Wales be over four days?
I don't suppose it would be the end of the world to go to four days but then why not five days? I think in this case I would certainly take it to four days in Wales because if it rains and it's cloudy, or there is fog in the morning, then you can't do it. At Birkdale in '69 we had cars with their headlights on around the final green. But you can't turn one of the great events into a nonsense. Rather than have something untoward happen in October, there would be a case for four days.

What about getting more players to play more often?
I don't like that. I think the Ryder Cup success has had a tremendous amount to do with the format and not milking it, not doing what they have done at the Presidents Cup and having five matches instead of four. We have had some great Sundays at the Ryder Cup. Inevitably, there are going to be some weaker players on a team but you can hide them until the Sunday. The captains have a lot of flexibility on the first two days at the moment but if you start putting ten players out there at a time, not so much. I said to Ken [Schofield, the former chief executive of the European Tour] when I left the captaincy in '89, whatever else you do, don't let anyone mess with this format.

The Americans might put pressure on to have players more involved?
They tried to do it after we won twice in a row in the 80s. We won at The Belfry and then again and someone said, let's… well, let's not. Anybody who has observed the Ryder Cup over the last 30 years it is hard to argue that it hasn't been exciting. The passion and emotion that flows out of the players is so special and to mess with that it would be a shame. If I'm totally honest I'm more for the matches being close than I care about Europe winning every year, which anyway isn't going to happen, as we saw at Valhalla.

Was Paul Azinger the American version of Tony Jacklin?
He observed that they needed more captain's picks and he got four. I was always keen to have more and I still think Europe could do with three rather than the current two. You can still get in there playing 23 tournaments and not necessarily winning. Being as close as it is, as a captain, as a general in charge of his army, you need your 12 best players, you want winners. The qualifying is all done in stroke play whereas matchplay is a completely different thing. I think three captain picks would be good, he had four. He did a great job.