Bomb & Gouge - When did it really start?

[Matthew Mollica]

Golf Digest in June 2006 featured an article by Peter Morrice titled -
"Bomb & Gouge: there's a new way to play, and it's all about power".

The opening paragraphs are below.

ON A RECENT VISIT TO THE PING Fitting Center in Phoenix, tour rookie Bubba Watson was hitting the ball so far his drives were flying the range and bounding into a city bus depot next door. The company has since erected a six-story net to contain Watson's tee shots, which were traveling up to 360 yards. On the fly.

Today's tour bombers are not only crushing drives, they're establishing a new style of play: Bomb & Gouge. The thinking goes, bomb driver as far as you can and, if need be, gouge the ball out of the rough and onto the green. Golf's long-held ideal--fairways and greens--is giving way to this aggressive new style. Even from the rough, these power hitters say they can take advantage of shorter approach shots and create more birdie opportunities.

"I like hitting driver as much as possible because it gets me closer to the hole," says J.B. Holmes, another superlong rookie and winner of the FBR Open in February in just his fourth start on tour. "Hitting driver gives me the advantage of being 50 yards past other guys. If I hit 3-wood, I'm back where everybody else is."

That simple logic sums up the strategy of many long-hitting tour players today. Hotter, more-forgiving drivers and straighter balls allow big hitters to fire away without much risk. The best evidence that Bomb & Gouge is for real is the success of Watson, Holmes and a third rookie, Camilo Villegas, who together have created a serious stir on tour.

THE TITANIC TRIO

Watson, a 2005 graduate of the Nationwide Tour, tied for fourth in his tour debut at the Sony Open in January, averaging 336.3 yards off the tee. Six weeks later, Watson shared third at Tucson, playing the event without a bogey, the first time in 30 years that has happened on tour.

Holmes, the PGA Tour Qualifying School medalist last December, won the FBR by seven strokes with an average drive of 321 yards, including eight in excess of 350. Through early April, he ranked second in driving distance at 312.7 yards, seven steps behind tour-leader Watson.

Villegas (b-JAy-gahs), who also came up this year from the Nationwide Tour, ranks fourth in distance and had two second-place ties in five weeks, including one to Woods at Doral. Not to be outdone, Villegas has hit five tee shots more than 375 yards so far this season.

But there's more to this new breed of bombers than hitting moon balls off the tee. They're finding the greens, too. Watson hit 61 of 72 greens at Tucson, Holmes hit 69.4 percent in his win (the tour average is 64.9 percent), and Villegas has been the most consistent of the three, knocking it on 75 percent of the greens in his two runner-up finishes. The point is clear: These rookies are using massive tee shots to hit more greens and get on leader boards.

HOW THE NEW BOMBERS DO IT

The stats suggest that Bomb & Gouge can be an effective strategy on tour, but why now? Advances in club and ball technology are playing a part, but some players see it as an inevitable shift in the game. "You're going to have advances in technology, but also advances in the human body," Woods says. "Guys are bigger, stronger, faster with added technology; hence, they're going to hit the ball farther."

Phil Mickelson agrees: "We talked about this five years ago, that the next generation of player was going to be an athlete who can take advantage of the technology and hit bombs, but can also chip and putt. Basically long-drive guys who can play."

Each of our three rookies represents a different part of Woods' "bigger, stronger, faster" philosophy. Watson, who is 27 and grew up in Bagdad, Fla., is the "bigger" player. He stands 6-feet-3 and creates an enormous backswing arc, swinging the club well past parallel at the top. "I just swing it real hard and use all my arms," says Watson, who hit a drive 422 yards in a Nationwide event in 2004. "I swing it long, like John Daly. All that put together is going to make a powerful swing."

Is 2006 really when Bomb & Gouge first started? Or was it much earlier?

Looking at old footage of Seve in the last few days, I'd suggest he was following the same modus operandi. And there may have been someone adopting the same philosophy before him - I don't know.

Seve hit driver often, and hit it as hard as he could. Often erratically, only to rely on his escape skills, imagination, sublime short irons, great chipping and very good putting. Was Seve 30 years ahead of his time? Are the new guys of today, (ably assisted by technology I might add!) just following Ballesteros' lead?

Matthew

[Greg Tallman]

Bomb and gouge has been around forever. Tiger brought it to the forefront and every kid thereafter jumped on board as did those instructing would be professional golfers.

[Travis Dewire]

What about major championship winners, and the best players on both tours? With the exception of Watson, Holmes career has declined from where it was a few years ago, same with villegas. Watson I think is the only "bomber" putting any sort of rounds together, as it stands today.

What about zach johnson? Won the masters laying up to every par 5? Trevor Immelman? Mike Weir? Is Schwartzel a bomber? Lucas Glover? Stuart Cink v. Watson? Loius Oozster(spl plz)? Tim Clark 2010 players champ? Lots of guys playing the bomber style, not many winning

I agree Kaymer hits it very deep, but we saw at the match play when he even tries to keep up with Bubba he starts spraying it. Luke Donald, Lee Westwood, bombers?

I do agree that many younger players are going to the bomb and gouge style, but is it an effective way to play golf for the long term? I would say no. Greg is right that bomber's have been around forever, but when we are comparing the best of the best, now and current, I would guess it would be a small % playing this style of golf

[RSLivingston_III]

It definitely existed during the early 20th century, but was not common. Alister MacKenzie reported an Open Champion that carried six Niblicks (equivalent of wedges), probably safe to say this guy was playing that form of golf.

[Bill_Yates]

Sports Illustrated - May 29, 1961

"Hardly a golf course where George Bayer has played during his six years on the professional golfing circuit is without a legend about one of his enormous drives. On the 250-yard 8th hole at Tam O'Shanter he scored a hole in one, using his one-iron. On the 445-yard 7th hole at Tucson, where the air is thin and a 15-mph wind was in his favor, Bayer drove his tee shot 10 yards past the flag-stick. On the par-5 13th hole at Las Vegas he hit a drive that traveled 420 yards.

At Cypress Point in California club members marvel over a drive Bayer once hit on the 334-yard dogleg 18th. Helped by a tail wind, the ball sailed over some cypress trees and, still on the fly, struck a startled contestant on the far edge of the green alongside the clubhouse. "I'd have been in trouble if it hadn't hit him," Bayer says with a slight wince that is the closest he ever comes to a grin. "It would have gone off into the parking lot and been a rough shot to play back."

... hitting it far ad wildly with small-headed persimmon drivers, no perimeter weighted irons and no Pro V1's.

[Mark Pearce]

Of the Europeans Quiros is the longest who might be a contender.  Casey is very long (I remember at the Ryder Cup in 09 he was in a 4-ball against Holmes, who hit an enormous drive on, I think, the 17th or 18th, to whoops and hollers from the crowd.  Casey then carried it past Holmes, to silence).  Ross Fisher is long too.

Perhaps the most promising European though is Mannessero and he's short.

[Matthew Petersen]

Matthew,

I think you're right about Seve, though as others point out bomb and gouge has really been around forever. It's not a technology thing at all ultimately, just one strategy to get it around.

You do remind me of a conversation I had with a friend of mine recently, though. This friend didn't get an interest in professional golf until the last decade or so and thus while he knows Seve's name, he had no real memories of him playing. I found the best way to describe Seve was to say he was the Phil Mickelson of his generation ... beloved for his charisma, able to hit it anywhere and somehow get it out of there too.

[Steve Burrows]

Somewhere in Sam Snead's autobiography, "The Education of a Golfer," he wrote something to the effect that he would always prefer to have an 8-iron out of the rough than a 5-iron from the fairway.  That sentiment is a clear manifestation of the bomb & gouge attitude, so it has obviously been around (if only in theory) since the 1930's, when Snead was coming on to the scene.  Clearly, it's not a modern phenomenon.

[Sean_A]

Wasn't the success of the Haskell about bomb n' gouge?

Ciao

[Tom Yost]

Couldn't the beginnings of the bomb and gouge be attributed to the post-war rise in popularity of tournament golf and the influences of the RT Jones style that was targeted as a "test" of the pro golfer but just more encouraged bomb and gouge and less shot making?

 

[Garland Bayley]

Trevino's quote about Seve, would seem to indicated that bomb and gouge is the real golf, as all the position players are strategizing and playing "chess".

[Kalen Braley]

While there are very clear pre-cursors that pre-date it...

I've always felt it never went "main-stream" until John Daly popped out of nowhere and let the cat out of the bag for the masses.  After his appearance at the PGA, everyone wanted to go big off the tee, not just the good players.

[Jeff Shelman]

I think it really began happening when kids began growing up with big, forgiving titanium drivers. They learned to hit it far and accuracy wasn't as important.

Today is my final day in my 30s and I actually grew up during the transition from wood to metal. I had some persimmon woods at one point. I had some of the early TaylorMade metal woods. The Callaway Big Bertha, Great Big Bertha and Biggest Big Bertha -- which I think are the clubs that really changed the game -- came out when I was in college. 

[Brent Hutto]

There has also been a (well founded) change in teaching philosophy for kids between Jack's day and the present. There used to be a theory, not just in golf but in other stick and ball sports, that kids should learn "control" until they've totally mastered accuracy and only thing be encourage to develop speed and power.

It turns out there's substantial research into developmental processes and learning that demonstrates such an approach is completely backwards to reality. It will result ultimate attainment of less speed and power than the opposite. So nowadays the most common teaching approach is to tell kids to go ahead and swing as hard as they like as long as their setup is correct and as long as they can finish without losing balance or footing. Once they're well on the way to being fully developed physically, if needed they can modify their swing for better accuracy.

[Phil McDade]

There has also been a (well founded) change in teaching philosophy for kids between Jack's day and the present. There used to be a theory, not just in golf but in other stick and ball sports, that kids should learn "control" until they've totally mastered accuracy and only thing be encourage to develop speed and power.

It turns out there's substantial research into developmental processes and learning that demonstrates such an approach is completely backwards to reality. It will result ultimate attainment of less speed and power than the opposite. So nowadays the most common teaching approach is to tell kids to go ahead and swing as hard as they like as long as their setup is correct and as long as they can finish without losing balance or footing. Once they're well on the way to being fully developed physically, if needed they can modify their swing for better accuracy.

Brent:

Jack Nicklaus' longtime teacher -- Jack Grout -- always encouraged Jack to swing hard at the ball, even in his early teens. He carried less about accuracy with Jack off the tee -- thinking that trying to interfere with Jack's natural swing would mess it up -- then he did in "freeing" up his natural athleticism, and argued Jack's accuracy off the tee would develop in time. Ahead of his time, perhaps.

[RSLivingston_III]

Thinking more on this since my last post, I think there is a good chance that Young Tom Morris might have been the first and it might have been what distinguished his game from all the others of the time.

Or are we only talking about players that were/are alive within the lifetime of this panel?

[Adam Clayman]

Chasing the loing ball has been around forever. The question should be; When did the addiction for length continue in the face of adverse circumstance? My answer would be around the time of the original ProV1. So mid nineties

[Garland Bayley]

Chasing the loing ball has been around forever. The question should be; When did the addiction for length continue in the face of adverse circumstance? My answer would be around the time of the original ProV1. So mid nineties

An adverse circumstance was wiped away by the prov1! Before the prov1 you had to be really good in order to play bomb and gouge, e.g., Sam Snead. So if the answer is the time of the prov1, then the question is when did it become easy to play bomb and gouge?

[Adam Clayman]

You speak to the individual. I was speaking to the health of the sport.

[Kalen Braley]

From wiki:

"The Pro V1 made its debut on the PGA Tour at Las Vegas on October 11, 2000, the first week it was available to the pros. A longtime Titleist user, Billy Andrade, won that first tournament with the new ball. The Pro V1 was available to the public by December."

[Adam Clayman]

Another great example of how the memory of old men can't be fully trusted. Surely Wiki is more reliable


Are you guys a tag team?

[John_Conley]

Mark Calcavecchia came out of college and quickly arrived on Tour.  His style was to take two cracks at every par 5 and bank on being able to get up and down often from a short distance in the rough.  At first, his wins were met with skepticism because he was using Ping irons with the box grooves.  In fact, one writer commented with disdain, "it's gotten to the point that any Tom, Dick, or Calcavecchia can win out here."

Other players took note of his hard-charging style when he was runner-up in the Masters at age 27 and winner of the British Open shortly after turning 29.  It was his 4th PGA Tour victory in 10 months.  The critics were silenced.

I've been told Calcavecchia's success signaled a radical change in how aggressive Tour players approached par 5s.  Gone were the days players laid back to their favorite distance in the fairway.  If you want to see that, check out the LPGA.  I think the modern "bomb and gouge" style can trace its roots back to the late 80s and Mark Calcavecchia.

[mike_beene]

Though it seems strange now,I will argue Tom Watson.He was a much wilder ball striker in his younger days and very long.He responded to pressure by playing more aggressively and made come backers by the fist full.

[Jim Nugent]

Looking at old footage of Seve in the last few days, I'd suggest he was following the same modus operandi. And there may have been someone adopting the same philosophy before him - I don't know.

Seve hit driver often, and hit it as hard as he could. Often erratically, only to rely on his escape skills, imagination, sublime short irons, great chipping and very good putting. Was Seve 30 years ahead of his time? Are the new guys of today, (ably assisted by technology I might add!) just following Ballesteros' lead?

Matthew

I can dig the "gouge" part wrt Seve.  But was he ever a bomber?  I thought he was not one of the long-ball hitters off the tee.

I remember reading that Arnie's father raised him to hit the ball as hard as he could. 

[Phil McDade]

Mark Calcavecchia came out of college and quickly arrived on Tour.  His style was to take two cracks at every par 5 and bank on being able to get up and down often from a short distance in the rough.  At first, his wins were met with skepticism because he was using Ping irons with the box grooves.  In fact, one writer commented with disdain, "it's gotten to the point that any Tom, Dick, or Calcavecchia can win out here."

Other players took note of his hard-charging style when he was runner-up in the Masters at age 27 and winner of the British Open shortly after turning 29.  It was his 4th PGA Tour victory in 10 months.  The critics were silenced.

I've been told Calcavecchia's success signaled a radical change in how aggressive Tour players approached par 5s.  Gone were the days players laid back to their favorite distance in the fairway.  If you want to see that, check out the LPGA.  I think the modern "bomb and gouge" style can trace its roots back to the late 80s and Mark Calcavecchia.

John:

You beat me to it; I was working on a post along the same lines but got distracted! I once read an article in one of the golf mags, I believe, where Calc talked about the advantages of aggressive play and a solid wedge game -- essentially that accuracy off the tee was over-rated.