Do you hit the ball too far?

[Dan Kelly]

But man I am humbled and emasculated around really big hitters like our man shivas.

I'm sure he's humbled, too (if not emasculated), by how much more often you're down the middle with your pathetic little drives. Maybe?

[THuckaby2]

Dan - perhaps at one time that might have been true.  There is room for the tortoise in this game.

 

[TEPaul]

Never in my life have I ever hit the ball too far----not a single time, but I sure would like to see what it feels like.  

Too short has always been my problem. Now that technology has taken off in golf equipment I guess I'm falling apart faster than technology is advancing because it sure ain't helping me with distance.

But I did have this conversation of hitting the ball too far with Nebraska's young bomber, John Hurley, who some (a few tech testing centers) think may be in about the top twenty longest good competitors in the world today.

Walking down a fairway at Merion just after he carried another one about 330 I told him I thought they should do something about distance by rolling the ball back about 10-15%. Young John just said; "I sure hope not because then I could only carry the ball about 290!  

[Rick Shefchik]

No. But I do hit it a lot straighter than I used to...maybe because I'm not swinging so hard.

[Jeff_Brauer]

Sunday, I played Paako Ridge, and even with elevation changes, etc. I was outdriven by my playing partner by close to 100 yards! I felt better when my drives clocked in at 250-270, but his really, really, went, and one was almost 400 yards.

So, no, I don't hit it too far, everyone else does!

[TEPaul]

One thing this website and those on it who are really freaked out by the propect of increased distance today are just going to have to learn to be objective about and come to grips with is ROLLOUT!!

Most everyone on here seems to be a proponent of firmer and faster conditions. If they're going to support the increased use of this maintenance practice they are going to have to accept that there will be drives like the one Jeff Brauer just mentioned that may be in the neighborhood of 400 yards!

Do you think the guy who hit that drive flew the ball 400 yards? Of course not. He probably flew it 100 yards less than that and the remainder was rollout.

If those on here who support firm and fast and also support limitations on distance do not recognize and acknowledge this simple fact, the one thing they will begin to do is completely destroy the campaign so many of us are on today to dry out these courses from constant over-irrigation and promote a greater use of firm and fast conditions.

As Pat Mucci sometimes says, you can't have it both ways and this is a notable example of that! Dick Rugge (Senior Director of the USGA's Tech Center) was the featured speaker Sunday night at the Lesley Cup at GCGC and I asked him why the USGA doesn't just compare carry distances ONLY to get an accurate indicator of distance increases and he said because that's not the way golf is. He's right about that of course but there's no way I can think of that the USGA or anyone else is going to be able to establish a comparable barometer or baseline for rollout. I say just compare only carry distance if anyone wants to understand the recent effects of distance increases due to technology!!  

(The other day at my club I hit a really lousy drive into the rough amongst a few trees. The rough is hard and fast and sparse. Then I hit another far more solid drive into the fairway. When I got out there the ball I hit into the dry hard rough was over 50 yards farther out there than the much more solid and farther carrying drive I hit into the fairway).

[Rick Shefchik]

Tom -- We see conditions like that in Minnesota every few years, when there's been little rain and the courses do most of their watering in the fairways. The rough gets hard, dry and wispy, and if you really want to bomb one, you aim for the rough.

Not this year, though.

[Kenny Lee Puckett]

I don't hit the ball far enough.

TEPaul nailed this thread with the "Roll Out".

I carry the teed driver in normal conditions 280-290.  If the fairways are firm and fast, I am at the mercy of the bounce.  My carry with the new ball/better COR/Dialed in shaft & loft  combo is 15-20 yards further than the old Persimmon/Balata technology when I was 20.  At 44, I can still jack it with the young bucks, but they have the advantage of playing all week long, and are likely to be a little more accurate.

In order to conserve distance in the current era, the Roll Out can be dialed in.  If you want to neutralize a long hitter, mow green to tee.  Water the fairways.  Pinch the fairways at 260.  Transplant the roughs with thicker grass from 240-320 yards and around the greens.  None of these distance resistance elements are going to keep me from hitting the big stick in casual play.

Overall, any attempt to reign in the long hitter by increasing  course yardage or adding/moving hazarding is going to doubly penalize the shorter hitter.  ANGC with their changes should benefit the bombers even more.  Additional hazards from 260-330 yards are still going to have to be negotiated by the shorter hitter.  However, distance players still have a regulator.  Swinging hard still has its severe penalties in O.B. and the lost ball.

Length, as in superior iron play, excellent short games, dead-eye putting, is still an attribute.  Why must we look to hinder those players who hit it long?  We don't obsess over accuracy in iron play/short game/putting by coming up with ways to make that part of the game even harder.

Make the fairways Indian-File wide, and I'll weigh the advantages of threading a 2 Iron or hitting it to wedge distance in the rough.  Cripple the longer hitter with dog-legs that require shot-shaping.  Denude us completely with forced lay-ups at 270 yards.  All you'll do is hit the short-knocker even more.

I guess "Chicks dig the long ball" as NIKE once commercialized, and the shorter/more accurate players must have a case of "Driver Envy".

JWK