Is it fair to equate distance technology with agronomic improvements?

[Patrick_Mucci]

Mike Young,

I wrote the thread title with green speeds in mind as a counter measure to courses playing shorter.

The two evolved seperately from one another with NO intentional collaboration.

[TEPaul]

“Tom,

I don't think I agree with the notion that there are, or should be, two games in one.

Sully:

I can understand that you may not agree with what Ron Prichard said there, nonetheless, I think it’s a most interesting way of looking at golf. Here’s the remark he made about the game being two games in one in its entire context;

“The great architects of yesterday recognized that golf in it's proper form was two games - in one.  The first; was the journey from tee to green. The second; was the great challenge of playing effectively/successfully on the putting surfaces. When we constantly stress greater speed on these putting surfaces - achieved with improved species of turf, and of course such maintenance practices as rolling, we sooner or later reach a point where the green surfaces are so limited in cupping area, and, particularly under tournament playing conditions,  so extremely quick, - clubs have little option but to rebuild the putting area/areas.  The consequence  ---  we end up with the same sort of outrageously boring putting areas that we see week after week on the PGA Tour.” 

We can see that his concern is that greens have become more boring than they once were probably due to speeds that are too high for really exciting and topographical greens. If this leads to greens that are far flatter and less interesting than they once were than that certainly could lead to less strategic consequences from tee TO the green as far as playing into them.

But I look at what he said about golf being two games in one in perhaps a different way. If you introduced someone to golf who had never seen the game before I think their initial take on the game would be that it really sort of is two games in one because of the unusual distinction of putting greens from the rest of golf courses as well as the fact that just about half the game (half the scoring in a round) is with one club---eg a putter.

To the novice to golf I bet that would be a whole lot more apparent than it is to most of us who are so used to golf as we’ve known it for so long.

And that fact of a huge reliance in scoring in golf on the putter brings up the brilliant George Thomas’ ideas about half strokes for putts. At first one might think Thomas may not have liked putting because he may not have been good at it but that wasn’t it at all. He made the point that if there wasn’t such a reliance on putting in scoring that would allow architects to construct courses (and par holes) entirely differently and actually far more economically which would make golf an all-around more affordable game.
 

[JESII]

Anyone that knows of Percy Boomer knows..."I putt as I drive".

[TEPaul]

Percy Boomer??

Yep, right. Wasn't he the guy who tried to sell a book or so with some simple cliches?

I don't know, Sully, we all have our thoughts and beliefs about most of this stuff and certainly you do. So does Ron Prichard. I really enjoy his take on things whether I completely understand them or not. The thing I always liked about Ron is he seems to have always had his own unique thoughts about most of this stuff. With him you get the feeling he didn't just hear it somewhere and re-run it. You get the feeling it's really him and I like that. I think that's the way good artists are.

[Peter Pallotta]

TE - your second to last post reminded me of something. I seem to remember that during his prime Jack Nicklaus would keep his glove on even while putting. Am I remembering that right? If so, I've never read any explanation as to why he did that, but here's my guess/theory --  it was Jack's way of turning two games BACK into one, i.e. it was a physical and ever-present reminder to himself that the four foot putt 'counted' exactly the same as the 300 yard drive.  And part 2 of the theory is that this is a telling and important 'indicator' of some changing ethos in golf and even golf course architecture in the modern era. Yes, the putt has always counted the same as the drive....but with JN (or so my theory goes) that fact took on extra meaning and significance, both to the golfer and the designer

Peter 

[Doug Siebert]

Apologies for the delayed response. I was hoping to take the time to really consider the many good responses on here and just have not had the time lately.

I really appreciate Ron Prichard popping in with an interesting commentary.

My baseline of reasoning when starting this thread is that all things evolve...all the time.

Much of what Ian Larson said just above is true. I can't get my hands around what people think will happen if we roll equipment back 5% or 10% or whatever. Is there some reason to believe that 15 years later people will not hit the ball as far as they had just prior to a roll back?

JES,

My views have evolved somewhat since the advent of the Pro V1, and I really don't think that the increased distance is the biggest issue.  If I had to choose, I'd legislate spin rates or whatever else was necessary to get rid of the Pro V1 type behavior where the ball spins less off the driver (or any club a given player can swing fast enough to compress the ball enough to "activate" the inner cover)  That causes three problems that I see:

1) larger gap in distance between those with higher and lower swing speeds....I know some argue that there should be a benefit to having a high swing speed and I'm not arguing against that (as it is one of the few advantages I have over otherwise better players ) but the existing advantage certainly didn't need to be further increased

2) ideal driver trajectory now consists of much more carry, much less roll, so ground obstacles/hazards come less into play

3) ball is much less affected by the wind, especially a headwind, to the point where there is now no extra skill involved in driving into a 25 mph headwind as there was once -- you don't even need to alter your normal trajectory and can still produce quite satisfactory results!

Now I do think that if we made the ball behave like the ball used to behave, where you have to make a choice of higher or lower spin that will apply to all clubs in the bag equally, it would reduce the distance somewhat because it would subtract what the Pro V1 has added.  Whether there is still some residual distance gain over the pre Pro V1 era 10 years ago is rather immaterial, as is whether other avenues like increased strength or longer/better shafts gave more distance to get back to where we are now in 15 years like you suggest.

If we are worried about that we could do a small rollback as part of this.  As I've suggested before, if we leave the initial velocity test alone and just make the ball slightly larger while keeping the weight the same we'd cut down its distance by a small amount, bring a bit more wind into play, and accomplish the important goal of being able to tell which balls conform to the new standard or not with a simple test (i.e., they can't remain the same size or we'll never tell them apart)


Regarding your original post I don't want to get drawn into the whole pro/con technological/agronomical changes thing.  Yes, faster greens are tougher, but if they are flatter then not really, and anyway the tighter fairways surely cancel that out at least for halfway decent players.  The only big boon the really crappy golfers have received in pretty much the entire history of golf was the big headed driver.  I may have some issues with how it has deskilled the driving game by making it the easiest club in the bag to hit, but as it is the only thing the 30 handicapper can point to in the history of golf that has made his lot measureably better (well, maybe surlyn is the other one for those who were not well off!) I think it would be impossible to get rid of now.