The state of the game, 2010-or a caddie shack discussion run wild...

[Jim_Kennedy]

Do your own work.  It's not hard to find the last couple of persimmon driver companies and collect the same info I posted.

[Garland Bayley]

Do your own work.  It's not hard to find the last couple of persimmon driver companies and collect the same info I posted.

Well here's the deal Kennedy. I don't need to look up what those companies say, because they are at no real technological disadvantage. Instead they are facing a human frailty problem. The problem they face is "Sometimes I think there isn't an easier task in all of marketing than to convince people that "bigger is better", ..." Tom Wishon, The Right Sticks, pg. 12.

My corollary is; they are marketing primarily to men, "such is life".

On the technological disadvantage:

"how much game improvement am I going to get for those additional 550 to 1000 MOI points? ... If you're currently playing with a smaller-sized driver that has been accurately fitted for length, loft, face angle, shaft, swing weight, and grip size, then you might see a smidge of distance improvement with off-center hits. The operative word here being "smidge"." Tom Wishon, The Right Sticks, pg. 14.

[Mac Plumart]

Interesting posts guys.  To be frank, although I am not as dumb as I look...I haven't studied COR, MOI, launch angles, or whatever.

But I do know this...

I played with my hickories Sunday and was hitting it 150-170 off the tee.

I played later with an r9 that I got for Christmas and was hitting it 250-270.

Now, am I swinging the hickory incorrectly...probably.  But nevertheless, that difference is certainly significant and without a question makes the game much easier to play. 

Also, the r9 was going right down the middle 8 out of 10 times, while I got the hickory in the fairway 3 out of 10 times.

So...that is what I know for a fact.  How much COR, MOI, etc these clubs have or measure at...I haven't the foggiest.

[Jim_Kennedy]

Mav,
That's all it really comes down to, and all you really need to know. Advances in technology allow you to hit it longer and with more consistency.

While arguing about all the factors is fun, the bottom line shows itself on the tee, and nothing even comes close to the performance gains afforded the average player by the relatively new materials used today, period.

It still is a lot of fun playing those hickories, no matter how incorrigible they seem at first.

[Garland Bayley]

...
Would I be just as far behind Bobby Jones as I am to Paddy Harrington...probably more.  My 11.6 handicap with modern clubs is not good at all.  Throw in hickories, bumpy greens, etc...and I would be lucky to break 100

What I wrote was that if you had grown up and learned to play golf in that era. That means you would have learned the swing used with the whippy hickory, and would reach your current relative standing amongst the golfers of the world.

I don't see what bumpy greens have to do with it. I would suggest that bumps would bounce as many bad putts in as good putts out. IMO there can only be a negligible difference there.

[Mac Plumart]

Garland...

I think I agreed with you on that one, didn't I?

[Garland Bayley]

Garland...

I think I agreed with you on that one, didn't I?

Why ask me? You could go back an look at what you wrote.