The Last of the Long Hitters

[John_Conley]

I played yesterday with a friend who has only been playing golf for a few years.  He asked about Jack Nicklaus.  "Was he a long hitter?"  He'd seen Jack finish 6th in the Masters a few years ago, but 1986 was so long ago it didn't happen (for my friend's experiences) and his dominance in the 60s and 70s was too long ago to mean anything.

As we all know, Jack enjoyed a tremendous advantage over his peers for a long time.  Ditto Davis Love when he came on the scene and John Daly after him.  Tiger's length advantage was dramatic in 1997, but doesn't seem to be the reason behind his success any longer.  Does he really hit it much past Sergio Garcia, Phil Mickelson, Ernie Els, or other long-hitting top golfers?

From stories I've heard, Hank Kuehne is without question the longest hitting professional golfer.  Sure, Stiles Mitchell, Mike Heinen, and a few others bang it out there, but not even close to Kuehne if you listen to players on Tour.  This got me thinking, is Hank Kuehne the last long hitter golf will ever have?

Sure, you'll always have the separate discipline of Long Driving - where genetic freaks blast relentlessly.  In all sorts of directions.  But for pro golfers trying to shoot low scores, aren't they all pretty much long.  Or aren't at least enough of them real long so it isn't such a novelty anymore?

All sorts of guys get it out there in the same neighborhood as Tiger, but that wasn't the case just five years ago.  Advancements in equipment have given us a whole generation of guys like Charles Howell and Ty Tryon who pound it because of the enlarged sweet spots and early training.  (Aside from Montgomery, does anyone swing with a rhythmic motion anymore?)

Will we see another player in the future who enjoys a pronounced advantage over his competition?  Or will so many people be similarly long that it won't be as stark as the advantage enjoyed by Nicklaus and Woods?  Is Hank Kuehne the last of the long hitters?

[TEPaul]

John;

In my opinion, if Tiger or Love or any of the other notorious long hitters want to be out front long again they could. Let's just say quite a bit longer than we see or the stats show now.

I watched Love really closely from the time he was a sophmore in college, into the pros etc and talked to him too about this very subject.

What he did with his length, Tiger did too! All of them that seem to get successful on the tour seem to do it too, I think. They start to tone the length down sometimes quite a lot. They have it if they want it but rarely use it as they potentially can.

The only truly long hitter who never did that was Daly and it shows--its always shown with him. Kuehne is long, super long, even Tiger always said he probably couldn't catch him on a drive if he really tried but Kuehne has got to learn to tone it down too or he's going to be history as a tournament professional.

Love was curious even in the beginning. He always seemed shy or even reticent about his ultra length. When he became so well known (even in College for unheard of length) people would start screaming for him to launch a driver and when that happened he often put it back in the bag and took out his famous 1 iron.

Of course even that almost made me faint!

[Joel_Stewart]

Of course not is my first impression, somebody is going to be able to blow it by Kuehne at some point.  Although former USGA exec Frank Thomas (now with Golf Digest) has stated that we are close to achieving the maximum distance a ball can travel with the new equipment.

Now aside from that, my reason for this post is that last year I'm hitting balls by myself at The Medalist and here come a group of 4 guys including Hank Kuehne who happens to start hitting balls directly next to me.  He has an amazing swing generating torque like I've never seen, far greater than Tigers swing.  At one point it looks to me like he's hitting 7 iron 200 yards.  After a while he brings out his driver and hits the ball so far that it literally disappeared

I'm not sure of my ending on this story although his actions are louder than words and I'm not even sure what tour he is playing or how his game has progressed.

  

[Dan King]

Joel_Stewart writes:
Although former USGA exec Frank Thomas (now with Golf Digest) has stated that we are close to achieving the maximum distance a ball can travel with the new equipment.

Professor P.F. Tait of Edinburgh University once worked on a theory that the gutta-percha ball could be driven no farther than 191 yards. His son, Freddie, tore that theory to shreds. One of the finest golfers of his time, Freddie drove the green of the thirteenth hole at St. Andrews, a distance of 341 yards, and the shot was said to have carried 250 yards.

Dan King

who do I get, but the Dali Lama himself.  The flowing robes, the grace... stunning.  So, we tee off on the first hole and the Lama hits one, a big hitter the Lama, down a three thousand foot cliff at the base of this glacier.  Do you know what the Lama says?... Gunga, la gunga.  Gunga la gunga. So we finish eighteen and he's gonna stiff me. So I say, "Lama....Lama!  How about a little something, you know, for the effort, you know" And he says, "Oh, there will be no money, but on your deathbed you will receive total consciousness".  So I got that going for me, which is nice.
 --Carl Spackler

[TEPaul]

Joel:

There you go! That's probably why poor Hank Kuehne is struggling on some tour you've never heard of. He can and does hit his driver virtually out of sight and they do  unfortunately disappear and in golf that's still known as stroke and distance!

[Joel_Stewart]

He made $80,840 this year which should qualify him for the Hooters Tour.

[TEPaul]

Dan King:

I was just reading about that drive of Freddie Tait's in C.B. MacDonald's "Scotland's Gift Golf" and he talked about all the nefarious balls they were using in those days that at first completely pissed off Alan Robertson with Old Tom and then Old Tom got completely pissed off with Freddie for using that ball. After that drive Old Tom forceably took that ball away from Freddie. The ball is today in the R&A. It says Titleist guttie PRO V-I supersonic! There was one other ball like that made but some poor St Andrewian got killed by its jet wash and of course the ball was never seen again, although they say it might have landed in Finland and may have had something to do with Stephen Hawkings original ideas on black holes.

[Jim_Kennedy]

John,
As it stands now some guys hit wedge into 400+ yd par 4's holes and 6 irons to the par 5's.
Never mind the out of sight ball, how about the ball that's left 56 1/2 yds. away from the green with a shot to a front pin on a front to back sloping green? Or how about the short-sided shot? They turn into pars more frequently than birdies effectively negating the advantage of length. Too much distance can be a detriment( not for me ). I don't think you will see anyone trying for that advantage anymore as there is nothing to be gained by it.  

[Doug Siebert]

Jim K,

How can length ever be a detriment?  If you had some magic dust you could sprinkle on Fred Funk which allowed him to hit his driver 450 yards using the same swing he uses today, do you think he'd complain?  He might not pull out the driver very often, since being even 1/2 degree offline on a 450 yard drive is trouble, but wouldn't it be a big advantage for him to be hitting his 4 iron past where the Tiger and Love are hitting their driver off the tee?

Brad Swanson and I had a discussion about this when we played together a couple months ago.  We both recall that when we were high school/college age in the 80s that par 4s of 440 or 450 yards used to seem really long to us.  Now that we are older and don't swing as hard as we used to, its funny how those 450 yard holes don't seem nearly so long anymore.  And it isn't just in the last 10-20 years I'm talking about, I remember reading something in Golf Digest years ago where Sam Snead talked about how he was hitting a 5 iron to a certain hole at age 65 or so that was a 3 iron in his prime, he said the ball went a lot further than it did in the 30s.

I don't believe Frank Thomas for a second, I think he's just telling us what he wants to believe.  Supposedly we were at the overall distance max right after it was set over 20 years ago, but the ball makers have found a way to fudge it by producing balls that stay within that limit when hit with the exact conditions the USGA's Iron Byron tests produce but go further than they "should" under the launch conditions that more modern equipment and swings produce.  Computers models worked wonders, and as we get more computing power and can model not only the aerodynamic properties of the ball flight but also the dynamic properties of the ball/club impact in three dimensions (we're not there yet) we might find another big jump over the next 10-20 years.  Maybe by the time I'm in my 50s a 500 yard par 4 won't seem all that long after all.  Though they might be building courses with par 4s that play 540 from the tips by then so I guess I'd have to move up!

But I think it is silly to suggest Kuehne will be the last long hitter on tour.  There will always be players who are giving it close to 100% effort on their swings who will be longer than anyone else for as long as they can keep it together or until they stop swinging so hard.  Remember how Tiger used to hit all those shots (even wedges!) with swings so hard it looked as though both of his feet were leaving the ground for a moment?  He doesn't do that anymore, just like how Love modulated that huge downcock he used to have back in the days he would reach #16 at Firestone with a 1 iron/3 iron.

[Phil_the_Author]

What I find most ironic about this thread is what occurred at the 2002 Open. 2 holes were deemed "unfair" in their set-up, the 10th & 12th, not as much because of their length as par fours, but because of the demands that were put upon the players drives.

On twelve, it would take the mammoth carry of 261 yards to clear the cross bunker, and on ten the USGA was requiring the players to hit it 255 yards to reach the fairway.

So much talk about distance and how far the modern players hit the ball. Earlier in the thread mention was made how players are able to hit "wedge into 400+yard par fours and 6-irons into par fives". Yet if the fairways are narrowed a bit as the USGA does for the Open, reasonable distance carries are not only no longer expected, but are considered "unfair".

By the way, back in 1936, Jimmy Hines hit a driver and 2-iron on the 7th hole of the Black. He played it from the true championship tees that were measured at 600 yards (distance in print in the paper, actual tees measurement was approx. 586 yards). Unfortunately his second shot came to rest OVER and PAST the green.

There will always be those who can hit it forever. There are only a handful who can hit it straight.

[JohnV]

Hank Kuehne played primarily on the Canadian Tour last year where he was the leading money winner, winning over $100,000.  He played some buy.com and PGA Tour events on sponsor's exemptions.  He is in the finals of Q-School next week.

[Jim_Kennedy]

Doug,
As John Conley noted, everyone is out there with Tiger now. This is true. In '97 there were only 40 players who hit it within 20 yds. of Tiger, in 2002 there are 160+ who perform the feat.

There are shorter hitters who would benefit by extra length, no doubt, but the throttling back of the longest players says that more length is unneccessary on today's courses, i.e. addittional length doesn't translate into lower scores.

A friend of mine is on the LDA Tour. He says that a 150mph clubhead speed and 50"+ shaft is needed to crank out 350+yd drives and swings at these speeds are uncontrollable. Shafts must be extra stiff just below the hands and high-toe is the place on the face to hit the ball. The way they swing is much different also. Snapped shafts and crushed faces are a regular occurrence. He also said we will see much shorter winning distances if their Tour adopts 48" as the longest length club, something that is being considered.
So, if Fred Funk could hit it 450 he would need 6 chances to get the ball in the fairway like the LDA guys do, same goes for hitting 4 iron past Love & Tiger's driver.

[Bryan_Pennington]

In the 1999 US Open, I watched Hank tee off in Pinehurst.  His first ball must have been at least 350-375 off the tee.  The problem with the drive was 75 yards of that drive was left.  For anyone who has played #2, Hank's first tee ball crossed the road, and possibly, crossed over the houses on the other side of the road (it was out of sight).  That tee ball had to be at least 100 yards off line from where Hank was trying to play the ball.  To his credit, he hit his 3rd shot (again with a driver) dead down the middle to a point no one else was ever near the rest of the week.  Interesting to watch Tiger, Phil, Payne and Duval that week on the first tee, most hit 3 wood and I think Tiger hit an iron.  Speed, or in this case, uncontrolled distance, kills (your score).

[redanman]

I had the pleasure of watching Mr Kuehne hit balls and play at the International in 1999.  I spent a lot of time specifically watching him as I had become interested in his game from reading about him.

Mechanically he is near flawless.  I personally prefer his tempo to the illustrious Mr. Woods.  He has the soft touch and feel to make it, but has a John Daly like past although not as severe in scope or intensity.

What is incredible is what he has in reserve!  AS long and otherwise talented as he is he has such balance and rhythm it is a joy to watch.  I have been waiting for him to make it to the big tour-just to get to see more of him.

Length is not such the deal it once was as there are so many relly long players.  I get to play with the Muhlenberg College players at Lehigh and some of them (Just div II-a) players are half my size and make me look short.  AS a relatively long hitter myself, length is over-rated;  I get the most joy out of the short game and the varied recovery shots one gets to play being long and a bit crooked.  Other than the bastardized version seen weekly at PGATour stops, that is really what the game is about.  The whining at Victoria last week followed by Charles III Howell's comment "Now the greens are good and we can make     a lot of birdies"-after the bastardization of near perfect meld was perhaps another sign of the coming golf apocalypse!

I just want to say that Hank Kuehne is a joy to watch for more reasons than his length and to wish him well in the torture chamber of Q-school.  I will have the time to watch much of it this year-one of my favorite TV events to sit down and just watch.

[Bob_Huntley]

Speaking of length, did anyone here ever see Tom Winrow hit a driver? He put out a challenge to the then big drivers of the day, use a persimmon headed club with a steel shaft of 43 1/2 inches or less and ball of choice. No one came close to him. I believe someone with the unlikely name of Wedgy Winchester started winning long driving events, but he went to a 50 inch shaft to do it.

[John_Conley]

John,
As it stands now some guys hit wedge into 400+ yd par 4's holes and 6 irons to the par 5's.
Never mind the out of sight ball, how about the ball that's left 56 1/2 yds. away from the green with a shot to a front pin on a front to back sloping green? Or how about the short-sided shot? They turn into pars more frequently than birdies effectively negating the advantage of length. Too much distance can be a detriment( not for me ). I don't think you will see anyone trying for that advantage anymore as there is nothing to be gained by it.  

Jim:

If courses stay in the 6800-7200 range with hazards placed where they are now...  If they do go to 7600 (The distance of the Nationwide Tour's Virginia Beach event this year) or 8000 (max length on some courses being built today, believe it or not), I don't see how a 330 carry distance (my guesstimate of Kuehne's good ones) wouldn't be better than a 280 (nice poke for much of the Tour) carry.

A lot of this depends on the direction of tournament golf venues over the next 20 years.  If they keep using the same courses, you are right.

[redanman]

Speaking of length, did anyone here ever see Tom Winrow hit a driver?

Bob

It just so happens that I used to play golf at UF with Tom after he left Ohio.  I had never seen anything like him before and to some degree since.  Bigger and huskier than me (6'5, 250#-probably 6'6", 280+), he had a laminated Ping driver in those days (1970-ish) actually the first most of us had ever seen on the east coast.  With a grip like a small tennis racket for his massive hands, about an F-10   swingweight, god knows how heavy a club and a shaft that was stiffer than (Fill in the blank), none of us could swing his magical driver except to hit weak shots to the right.  Even Andy Bean couldn't really hit it.(Then as now, "It must be the club!")  

He swung harder than you could swing a baseball bat in your wildest dreams.  It seemed he swung with abandon, but he really nailed it dead center solid most of the time.  He was a little crooked, but Jesus could that guy hit it far.  If you stood next to him when he swung, you had to hold onto something (That part is hyperbole!). The sound of him hitting a ball from 3 feet away was incredible.  Scary.  Hell, the sound of the club swishiing the air was surreal.  

For those of you that remember the old Ross Univ of Fla course you can visualize it (AS it is now gone) but the 8th was about 585 par 5, (Down a hill and then back up-novel for Ross, huh?) he hit one that hit a tree less than 200 from the green about 35 feet up.  That tree was on the upslope.  That was and is the single longest ball I have ever seen. He had to let up a bit to drive the first hole 360 downhill.

For those of you that know and have played with Matt and think he is long?  You don't know long. Aye caramba.

Side by side Hank Kuehne would look like a skinny kid next to Tom.  But Hank's rhythm, timing and balance are much much better.

Bob

Just imagine young Tom with today's equipment and balls.(There is no difference and Tom proves it, right?)

[Bill V]

One last addendum to the Tom Winrow saga.

He had but one ace in those days, a 180 yard hole, he holed on the fly.  With a PW (Probably 55 or 56* in those days).

[Brad Swanson]

Redanman,
   I followed H. Kuehne around a bit at this years International.  Technically "near flawless" was certainly not the thought that came to my mind from watching him launch one about 80 yards right of the fairway on 10 off of the tee, anongst several other huge sprays.  He is long and wild, and probably always will be.  FYI he reached the 1st hole at Castle Pines during the week ( downhill 630ish yard par 5) with driver 9 iron.

Brad Swanson

[Matt_Ward]

John C:

You pose an interesting question but consider this:

Length can be broken down into two distinct catagories:

*Sheer length

*Tournament tested length

In the first category you have the Jason Zubacks of the world. This is "knock it big" on every swing and just make sure you keep at least one in play for tabulation.

In the second category you have the marriage of length and the need to keep the ball relatively speaking in play during competitions. I agree with your assessment of Jack Nicklaus because in his day the Golden Bear had the virtue of hitting a long ball while still keeping most of them in play. Anyone who has seen the videotape of Jack's win over Arnie at the '62 Open will see gaps of anywhere between 30-50 yards in which the Bear was by the King.

The same applies to Greg Norman. Make what you will of the Shark, but when Norman was at his best he could "smoke" the tee shot and still find plenty of fairways.

There will always be room for long hitters and more will certainly follow. The question is can they harness that "power" and use it to score consistently? Jack did and Tiger does. We shall see what player(s) can do the same.

P.S. One other aspect worth noting. When you talk about distance it's important to remember that how far a player can carry a ball in the air is the true measure of power. There are plenty of people who are long in total distance (hard surfaces, etc, etc) but the wherewithal to carry a ball a max distance is the truest test.

[redanman]

Technically "near flawless"

I didn't say that he could accurately reproduce the swing, did I?  

That's why he is just another also-ran at this point.  By technically flawless I mean that his mechanics are beautiful, and they are.  If you look carefully, you'll see that I said he had wonderful rhythm and balance.  I never said that the had perfect timing.

The best teacher I ever had was a little fellow who had the illustrious distinction of becoming club champion at the O during Harvey Ward's reign. For some reason he took a shine to me and gave me lessons.  Check the champions board the next time in the room and you'll see his name in between Harvey's name in about the 1948 slot.  HE was very proud of that.

Dave always stressed to me rhythm, timing and balance.  He told me the great ones all lose the timing part periodically.  That's where Kuehne loses it wild, but the mechanics are wonderful.  Watch TGC for the Q-school.

Even the super-human gift to the world Eldrick Woods (BDAW, it is Thanksgiving day after all!!!) is really crooked at times, and anyone who doesn't believe that is not being honest.  He loses it by.......timing!

And Brad, thanks for the CPGC update.  The best I had heard before was Driver 8-iron by Phil Blackmar and that was from the 644 tee.  

Do you know if  Kuehene's try from the two bird tee or the one?

[TEPaul]

Matt Ward said, in my opinion, something just above very applicable with real length. How far some of these real long hitters can carry the ball--and particularly with clubs other than drivers.

A guy from around here, Gene Fieger, who can really play, is a club pro in Florida now but has played some big tour events, and is a very impressive student of the swing, has said there are guys out there who really hit it but he's not seen one quite like Woods in all he can do if he wants to.

And the thing he said he thinks is most remarkable of all about Woods is his consistent ability to hit say that 2 iron off a tight lie in the fairway about a 100 feet in the air with enourmous carry (as much or more than anyone he's ever seen). And he says he does it without even moving a blade of grass.

I'm not that knowledgeable about physics and the dymanics of the swing so this is a legitimate question on my part. How can Woods hit shots that high and that far with a 2 iron without even moving a blade of grass?

I mean logically if the club is contacting the ball on a tight lie without moving a blade of grass, Wood's irons (which look like classics heads to me) must have a super, super low center of gravity right? If his irons weren't that way, I'd think logically contacting the ball that low on the face would create a boner, even with him! And if somebody's going to tell me the ball is climbing the face in that millisecond at that speed I don't think I'm gonna buy that explanation!

[TEPaul]

I've seem a lot of super long hitters in my time but I must say I don't think I've ever seen anyone (except a professional long driver) who hit the ball like this guy Winrow from the stories reported on here.

Probably the longest (sometimes or when he felt like it) I've ever seen in a contolled competitve context was Jay Sigel. If an analogy could be drawn between a long hitting tournament golfer and a manual transmission, Sigel had about seven gears (and his backswing took about as long as other golfers entire swing--it was much slower than he is now!).

Sigel also played in 11 straight Masters and he was speaking at a tournament around here once about his Masters experiences and happened to mention that in one Masters he was paired with Norman and Ballesteros in their primes (both exceptionally long then). Never having played with them he was interested to find out where he stacked up against them off the tee.

And in the day or two he was with them he said when all hit drivers there was not one time when he did not hit it by them. He actually seemed as surprised by that as we all were.

At another time he also mentioned that playing at that level it was Love who took distance to an unimaginable level when he first came up and before he seriously toned it down. He said everyone on tour had never seen anything like that including Jack Nicklaus (who actually became a bit of a mentor to Sigel when he was trying to decide to turn senior pro)!

And again, I've mentioned it on here before about five times but the greatest display of consistent raw distance I ever saw was Love at the Walker Cup at PVGC. I know PVGC really well and he hit that Ping beryllium 1 iron (he never used a wood) in the neighborhood of 289-290, and on #6 & #15, #16 even beyond that! His other irons were commensurately as long like a 7 iron from the tips to the very back left of #3 (that's functionally about 200yds. But the one that was the real wakeup call to the future was #5! From near the tips (probably functionally about 250) a 4 iron over the green!!!

BTW, the golf ball Love used was a Titleist balata--90 compression!! He was also wearing creipe soled teaching shoes! Talk about balance!

[JohnV]

Tom, I notice that Davis knocked quite a few drives past Tiger over the last couple of days in Hawaii.  Not that it did him any good.  Pretty impressive showing by Mr. Woods.  As Lanny Wadkins said, "The way he is hitting it, I bet Tiger wishes there were a couple of majors coming up soon."

[Michael Moore]

I hate to admit it, but this thread is much more interesting than the ones about the ball going too far and what to do about it.