Davis Love's Magic 1-Iron....

[TEPaul]

TomB:

I believe that "wedge-driver" story happened on the last hole of a course and produced a birdie that he knew on the tee he needed for something like his 19th course record.

I believe that "wedge-driver" story happened on the last hole of a course and produced a birdie that he knew on the tee he needed for something like his 19th course record.

Thanks Adam

Thanks Adam

[Adam Clayman]

TePaul, You should'a it post twice in honor of Moe.

Ryan's tiger example shows how trees affect the gca and the outcome of shots.

It makes me wonder if trees are calculated in the Slope/rating formula as hazards (or add difficulty to the courses numbers?
Because, it's obvious that on the surface, having trees culd be considered difficult, but in reality, they make the golf easier. There's no better example than Ryan's for this.

One day sitting around the caddy shack at Spy, another caddie and I were lob wedging 7 seven irons off of concrete about 10-15 yards. Until we did it, I'd have thought it couldn't be done.

Once at Pinion Hills I was matched up with the world's oldest teaching pro. He was 87 at the time and hit the ball straight but no farther than 150 yards. I think it was On the Par 4 13th, originally the 4th, (coulda been the 15th) I drove it left onto the little peninsula of scrub and bushes. My ball was at the base of a bush so the only way to hit would be left handed or, as I do, back handed with my back to the hole. The pin was on the tiny shelf right center of the green, and there was water between me and the green. I hit the back handed shot which skipped off the water up the bank and came to rest 5 feet from the pin. The old pro walked about 75 yards over to me, stuck out his hand and said he had to shake it because that was the greatest shot he had ever seen.  

Do great shots only come from the most unusual spots? Can someone hit a great shot from the middle of the fairway off a flat lie?

[Mark McKeever]

I will hit explosion shots with everything from a lob wedge to an 8 iron.  It eliminates the tricky distances when I hit explosion shots with longer clubs.

Mark

[JR Potts]

Adam:  How is that?  If there were no trees, the ball would have landed in the 16th fairway and Tiger would have had a 30 yard pitch to a pin on the other side of the green....a shot 7 times out of 10 he gets up and down.

[Adam Clayman]

Ryan, Or, it could've just kept going to the rough . My theory on trees influences are not limited to Medinah. But on most tree lined course the ball that strikes a tree is either headed out of bounds or to nether regions where difficulty is compounded.

[JR Potts]

Ryan, Or, it could've just kept going to the rough . My theory on trees influences are not limited to Medinah. But on most tree lined course the ball that strikes a tree is either headed out of bounds or to nether regions where difficulty is compounded.

I hear you.  But, tree-lined courses are usually tree lined for several reasons: (1) they were built in the forest; (2) they provide hazards where no other natural hazards are present (3) a lot of people like them; (4) I'm sure there are other reasons.

The ball was going to land safely in the 16th fairway as it runs parrallel to 14th hole at the green.  I was standing there.   And the rough - he would have been just fine out of that as well.  The 85 yard bunker was the worse place he could have landed other than right behind a tree.

[George Pazin]

Lots of great stories, thanks for sharing, especially Phil Young and Greg Tallman.

The only time I've seen a shot while playing that was just unreal was with a young high school kid and his uncle at my home muni. The kid had hit a crap drive, duck hooked it, and was in the left rough well over 200 yards out on a very uphill par 4 (about as uphill as I've ever seen, within reason, easily 2 or 3 clubs).

This kid flew a 5 iron onto the middle of the green. Had to be 220 easy, maybe more, very uphill. Sure, maybe a slight flyer lie, but still. I wish I had paced it off, I was too blown away.

His uncle told me the kid was on the golf team, but he was really better at wrestling and would be joining the Army Rangers in a couple weeks, if I remember correctly.

[Tom_Doak]

On TV, the most amazing shot I've ever seen was the chip shot Seve Ballesteros hit between the greenside bunkers in the last round of the Open in 1976 at Royal Birkdale.  He had to get up and down to tie for second, and there was no way to stop his ball within ten feet of the hole if he put in the air ... so he lands a chip shot on a narrow strip of grass between two bunkers.  Nobody else would have even seen the possibility.

In person, the best I can remember is the little wedge shot Anthony Kim hit to the 14th green at Cape Kidnappers a couple of years ago.  He had driven in THE WORST POSSIBLE spot, leaving him no choice but to play a 50-yard shot over a very deep bunker with a ridge behind it, and land it in about a two-foot circle on a green sloping away from him, if he was going to stay on the green at all.  And he landed in the middle of the two-foot circle and made a three-footer for birdie.

[Dan_Callahan]

The best shot I've ever seen came at the GHO a few years ago. On the 13th hole, a par 5, Jonathon Byrd was off the green to the right in 2. He was about 3 feet from the green in a very tightly mowed area. He has an awkward stance on some mounds and the hole was only about 15 feet away. If he putted, the ball probably would have rolled straight downhill and off the green (as we watched happen to some players earlier). To make matters worse, anything hit long would either go into a pond or would go OB past some train tracks.

Byrd opened up his lob wedge, took a full swing that produced a monster divot. His ball hung in the air a few feet off the ground, hit about an inch from the hole and stopped. It didn't bounce, suck back, or pitch in any way. It's like it landed on velcro.

Paul Azinger was in the same group. He stared at Byrd for a minute and then said, "What the fuck was that?"

[JMEvensky]

On TV, the most amazing shot I've ever seen was the chip shot Seve Ballesteros hit between the greenside bunkers in the last round of the Open in 1976 at Royal Birkdale.  He had to get up and down to tie for second, and there was no way to stop his ball within ten feet of the hole if he put in the air ... so he lands a chip shot on a narrow strip of grass between two bunkers.  Nobody else would have even seen the possibility.

Anytime the topic is "most amazing shot",Ballesteros should get mentioned.I once watched him hit bunker shots before a round.It was like auditing a PhD level course in Short Game.

[Mark Smolens]

Marco Dawson at the Western Open on a Friday morning some time in the 90s. Duck hooked his drive on #9 left into the trees. Dead (or so we all thought). No path through the trees at the green, heavy rough, and those of us in Marco's massive gallery -- about 4 of us -- were thinking pitch out. Instead, takes mid-iron and hits massive cut/slice up over the trees, landing in middle of the fairway at about the 150 marker. Took my group over there the next weekend in our regular game, and no one believed me. We didn't even try to hit the shot from that rough. . . it was not possible.

Those guys, even the bottom-rung tour pros are not just good, they're FRIGGIN' GOOD!

[TEPaul]

By the way, D. Malley has just confirmed it----Davis Love's Magic 1 iron on the 10th at Merion back in the mid 1980s has landed!! He drove the green with a 1 iron, and that would surely qualify for the subject and TITLE of this thread!

[JR Potts]

That's true it would qualify and it is quite amazing.

But tell me, did it hit a sprinkler head?   

[Wade Schueneman]

What about Tiger's bunker shot on the final hole of the 2000 Canadian Open?  An amazing shot to win a tournament.

[Phil McDade]

The most impressive ones I've seen on TV belong to Tiger -- no one's close.

I haven't seen that much tournament golf in person, and interestingly two of the more impressive displays in person were on the driving range:

-- Vijay Singh on the range at Carnoustie prior to the '99 British Open, hitting 5-iron after 5-iron with such grace, fluidity, length, and accuracy, it was almost inhuman.

-- Lee Trevino, as a senior golfer, pretty much joking around before a senior tourney down at the PGA golf course in West Palm Beach, hitting every variety of 7-iron imagineable -- knock-downs, low punches, high fades, running draws. Whatever he wanted to do with a club and ball, he did. Just amazing.

[TEPaul]

"But tell me, did it hit a sprinkler head?   "


Ryan:

Now that it's been confirmed that it happened I know I can probably get just about every detail of what actually happened from those 3-4 guys who were in that group who are still around. If he hit a sprinkler head I'm sure they could tell me that too, particularly Poncho, Love's caddie. One particular reason is because of the way #10 is caddies don't go up the tee on that hole (unless I guess the player wanted them to), they go from #9 green right up to the top of the 10th fairway.

I'm sure I could get them all to tell me how firm and fast the course was that day too.

But considering the front of that green is really about 280 in a straight line that definitely is not out of reach for Love and that 1 iron of his. I sure saw enough of it to know at Pine Valley and a few other places back then. If he could hit his 4 iron effectively 255 (over the green) on PV's #5 from where he played it, he would have no problem hitting his 1 iron 280 on Merion's 10th.

I wonder if you remember what golfers in the know (like a lot of pros) thought of Love back then. They saw it at the Atlanta Classic when he was just a sophmore or junior at UNC and got a sponsors exemption. On the range they were bouncing the ball off the fence or whatever and Love was just launching drives way over it. That's when the dubbed him "The Human Launching Pad." It wasn't just that he was in the long player category, it was apparently that literally no one had ever seen anything like that.

I once asked that Peter Persons and another good college player back then exactly how long Love really was and with totally straight faces they said; "About as long as he wants to be" and then they told me a story or two of some of the virtually shocking things he had done with length at Pinehurst and such.

But what I really want to know is if that second part of the story is true---that he hit another ball on #10 with his driver and flew it right over Ardmore Ave onto #1. Now THAT would be more shocking to me than him hitting his 1 iron onto #10.

I have talked to Poncho in the past about Love that day but all I remember him saying was Love was sort of impossible for him to club which he may've been trying to do since Love had never seen Merion before, because he hit everything so far. I mean I think he may've said he would recommend a club and then Love would hit it too far, but when you consider that round that day, it's definitely not just about stories of unimaginably excessive length; we have to remember he also shot a 64 at Merion East that day, one shot off the course's present record!

[Ken Moum]

In 1970, I was a student at the Univ. of Minn. and my dad had tickets to the Open at Hazeltine.

He couldn't get down to Mpls until Thursday or Friday, s he sent me the practice round tickets.

During one of those days i was following Chi Chi, and he was goofing around, showing off for the gallery.  On the ninth tee, be dropped a ball and pull out his pitching wedge.  With an long, fluid swing, he popped the ball off the tight turf of the tee, to about head height.

Then he turned away from the ball, pulled out his right rear pants pocket with his right hand, and tipped the ball into his pocket with the wedge, which was in his left hand.

He tried if twice more, missing once and succeeding once.

Forty years later, I still remember my amazement.

K

[Brett Morris]

The longish bunker shot is in most people's estimation the hardest shot in golf.  I, most often, will either catch it heavy with a wedge or too thin with a PW....mostly always with very poor results.

On this day, Tiger did not grab a SW, LW or a PW....but an eight-iron.  It was a shot I've never heard of, thought of or dreamed of.  He opened it up, swung at it like a greenside bunker shot and the ball floated in the air with grace landing 20 feet from the hole and checking.

Curtis Strange recommended that play in the telecast from Oakmont where one of the players drove into the front bunkers on 17.  I've never heard of it either.

Best in person I've seen is again Tiger in 1996 at Augusta.  End of the Tuesday practice he was the only player on the range with Fluff late in the day, and was drilling long irons which had the most amazing ball flight I've ever seen.  They would start low and then just start gradually climbing like a jet taking off, which then were hitting the net at the end of the range halfway up.  His consistency and repetition were just remarkable.  I couldn't help but just stop and watch.

[Tim_Weiman]

The most amazing shot I ever saw was by Al Perry, a two time Michigan state amateur champion or so I was told.

Al was about 240 yards from an up hill triple tiered green blocked out by a thick set of trees. As he lined up his shot I had no idea what he was even trying to do.

Playing a 1980's balata ball ball with a persimmon 4 wood, Al hit his shot about two feet off the ground under the trees. Then it appeared the ball applied some rocket boosters and it took off as if heading out to space but it settled just off the back of the green.

The shot was so unbelievable that Al's putt which happened to go in just seemed silly.

I happened to see Davis Love play his 1 iron at the 1985 Walker Cup at Pine Valley, but those were nothing to that one shot Al Perry hit at some club course in Michigan whose name I can't remember.

[Adam Lawrence]

I've never seen Seve's three wood from the fairway bunker during his singles match with Fuzzy Zoeller in the 1983 Ryder Cup, but have always wanted to - if anyone knows where a clip of it can be found (have searched Youtube extensively and fruitlessly), I'd be extremely grateful.