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“There are no self-shooters”.
~George Low
It is a rare day that I don’t hear the question “So, what do you think about the new technology and how it’s affecting the game?” followed by “Do you think the ball is going too far”? My usual response, and I’m not trying to be a smart-ass, is to ask “Is your ball going too far?” The fact is I can’t think of anyone I know or teach who thinks their ball is going too far. No one I know is finding the game too easy, hitting wedge to every hole and shooting 64 every round. Everyone is trying to hit it longer and straighter and trying to shoot lower scores, and not everyone is succeeding.
If you ask me, all the hysteria about the demise of the game due to technological improvements in equipment is ridiculous. There is no harder game than golf. The number of rounds played per year is flat to descending, and the number of people who quit the game is equal to those who take it up. The PGA of America is touting “Play Golf America” as their marketing mantra, but America is responding with a definitive yawn. It is my contention that more people would take up the game if they were taught better right from the start, and that those who already play would continue and indeed play more if they could just play a little better. We all know that a better swing helps us to hit it better, and it is just as apparent that better equipment can be a huge help as well.
I can’t emphasize enough how hard it is to play a decent game of golf. It’s hard to hit the ball far or straight, hard to pitch it the right height or distance, hard to putt it into the hole. A round of golf can be 4 _ hours of torture when played worse that your normal level. Anyone who teaches golf will tell you that in no case does a set of new clubs or a new ball cure a chronic swing ailment or totally revamp a game. If anything it makes the average Jane or Joe excited about playing the game and perhaps a little more able to handle the difficulties the game presents. He might hit his driver 10 yards farther, hit his irons a bit higher, straighter, and longer, or make a few more putts. That means he might shoot 84 instead of 87. The bottom line is this: he still isn’t very good. New equipment can help a little, but it’s going to take a whole lot more to make a significant dent in his proficiency, more being lessons, a physical fitness regimen, and a measurable increase in practice and playing time.
Once we have established that improvements in equipment, and that includes the clubs and the ball, are a good thing for the average player, which means a good thing for the health of the entire industry, the issue becomes “What about the Tour pro?” Indeed, the hue and cry over driving distance is relegated to the PGA Tour and the fact that there now exists a large enough number of players who carry the ball 300 yards or more to cause one to wonder whether or not the great courses are being made too easy by such prodigious length off the tee, which invariably produces short shots into the green on holes previously considered to be “long”. A great example was the 18th hole at the Atlanta Athletic Club in the PGA Championship in 2001. Listed at 490 yards, the hole really measured at over 500, a fact that the PGA of America chose not to publicize to avoid controversy. Being a short hitter, I had 3-wood left to reach the green both Thursday and Friday. This would have been bad enough, but with a lake fronting the green right up to the front edge and 10,000 people watching it made for an especially interesting shot. On the other hand, my playing partners, Adam Scott and Chris Smith, both extremely long hitters, were approaching with 7 irons. Chris was going with all the technology, a 45 inch graphite shafted Ping driver with the largest head available at the time. Adam, on the other hand, had a 43 _ inch steel shafted driver with a smallish head. Needless to say, it didn’t really matter: Adam hit the ball with a few yards of Smith on every hole, and while I had equipment certainly equal to what they had I couldn’t hit it within 50 yards of either of them off the tee.
My point here is that hitting the ball longer and straighter is still an individual thing. Not every Tour player flies the ball 300 yards. The fact that a few more guys like that are emerging as good players (see the recent success of J.B. Holmes and Bubba Watson) is simply a testament to the fact that in the last 20 years golf has attracted far more great athletes to the game at a young age. And make no mistake about it: if you hit it longer and keep it in play you are better than someone who doesn’t. Driving is the most difficult aspect of perhaps the most difficult sport. There have always been guys who hit the ball a mile. What you must remember is that the only players other than John Daly who consistently hit the ball 330 or more yards weren’t complete players. They were long drive specialists who applied 100% of their focus to hitting the ball as far as they could with the hope that they could get one ball out of six to end up within 50 yards of where they were aiming. Now there are a small number of guys who can hit it that far, keep all their shots between the bushes, and hit all the rest of the shots necessary to shoot low scores. Good for them. They have made themselves good players, and they deserve the advantage they get for hitting the ball farther than the next guy. As Tiger has availed himself of the technology that maximizes his distance he has reemerged as the game’s dominant player. Just as Nicklaus drove it past almost all of his peers and played the rest of the game better as well, so Tiger combines his tremendous power with superior iron play, short game work, and putting to dominate today’s Tour. They are the best because they do it all. Trying to bring them back to the field by making them shorter actually flies in the face of tradition and throws a wrench in the continuity of the history of the game.
It must be remembered that if the distance the ball is being hit is dialed back it will affect everyone, not just the “bombers”. If J.B. Holmes hits an 8 iron to a 480 yard par-4 and you want him to hit a 5 iron, the “normal” guys who already hit a 5 iron into the hole will be hitting a hybrid club or a fairway wood. It is my guess that the advantage to the long hitter would be even greater if everyone was forced to hit it shorter while the courses stayed the same length. I don’t have the statistics to back up my conjecture, but I would think that the dispersion between the 8 iron and the 5 iron would be tighter than between a 5 iron and a 5 wood. An advantage is an advantage, so if you’re trying to create parity between players it won’t happen by making everyone hit it shorter.
The argument I hear most is that the overall increase in distance at the Tour level is making the great courses “obsolete”. That’s hogwash. I don’t see 25 under winning the U.S. Open, and I can’t imagine we will ever see that. Most great courses are finding ways to add length, and that is certainly a part of offering a defense against extremely low scores. However, it has always been the case that course conditions determine the scoring that occurs on any given week in any tournament. The number one key condition is the firmness of the greens. Hard, fast greens require approaches from the fairway, and if the rough is long enough (the second key condition) it becomes too much of a disadvantage to simply mash the ball as far as you can without a thought about keeping it in the short grass. I have played in 5 PGA Championships, and each one had different conditions and different winning scores. At Riviera in 1995 and Atlanta in 2001 the greens were soft, and the winning scores were 18 and 15 under. The Atlanta score was amazing to me, as the course was as hard a layout as I had ever played. Medinah in 1999 and Hazeltine in 2002 were long, hard courses as well, but the greens were a bit firmer, raising the winning scores to 8 and 9 under. Oak Hill in 2003 was the supreme test, with firm greens and brutal rough, and it was no surprise that 4 under won that one.
I don’t see the problem with scores in the ranges we are now getting in the majors. If it rains a bunch you might get to double digits under par. If the weather is dry and hot and the rough gets up the courses will give the players all they can handle, and a few under is a great score. Fans just want to see good golf. Who cares if 15 under or one under wins, as long as the tournament is exciting and good play is rewarded? Why would anyone want to watch Tiger hit it 280 and Fred Funk hit it 230 just so they would shoot higher scores? Does anyone remember when the NCAA banned dunking? Keeping the most talented players from doing what they are capable of doing is ridiculous. Making the pro game separate from the amateur game is a calculated disconnection that will inevitably drive fans away. A weekend golfer cannot compare his game to Tiger’s or Daly’s in many respects, but he knows how far he hits his best one, and if he can’t make a direct comparison to the Tour player he is going to lose interest. We all want to compare ourselves to the best. If Jordan jumps from the foul line and dunks that’s what a million kids want to try. If you made the rim 11 feet for the pros and Jordan could barely tip it over the rim what good would that do? Watching these guys blast the ball out there is as exciting a thing that has happened to the Tour since Daly emerged as a folk hero.
At the same time, it shouldn’t go unnoticed that normal hitters such as Toms, Funk, and Leonard (among many others) are still thriving, and that players in their 40’s are still in there competing and many times beating the young guns. It all makes for a fun watch on the weekends, and it doesn’t need to be messed with by bureaucrats whose only goal is to be able to sit at dinner with their wealthy buddies and prattle on about how “tough” their course is. If the Masters ever gets some hard and fast conditions the way the course is set up now over par might be a winner and we might get Hootie Johnson to forget about going to a shorter ball. And as far as the other naysayer, Jack Nicklaus, is concerned, I don’t recall him ever complaining about the distance the ball was going when he was hitting it 40 yards past everyone else in the 1960’s.
It is a mistake to think that the game is getting too easy. That is not the case at all, and it will never be the case. It is already too hard for the average guy, and to make it prohibitive for the best players in the world to display their skills on an equal basis with everyone else would be a mistake of immense proportions. I say leave it alone and let the manufacturers work within the present framework of the rules and continue to try and improve their products. Let pros and amateurs continue to play with the same equipment so that when Harry and Joe talk about what Tiger did or what Bubba did on TV on Sunday they are talking about a game they all share. The fact that we all struggle with the same clubs and balls on the same courses provides a connection that I believe is essential to the health of the game and the business of golf.