Better athletes=Better scores

[Jim Hoak]

I  just finished reading the discussion on what happens to the Old Course if someone shoots 60, and I wondered if it would really be all that bad or all that surprising.
I hear it all the time--as I assume you all do--"We have to do something to our course, because the elite players are shooting too low scores."
But aren't records being broken all the time in most sports?  Every 4 years or so, running and swimming world records fall.  Someone scrores 130+ points in basketball.  Pole vaulters go higher.  Babe Ruth's homerun record is broken (although maybe steroid-aided).  Football and soccer players get better.  Marathoners go faster.  Etc.  You get the idea.
So why should we not expect golf scores to go lower and records to be broken?  I know that the improvement of the ball and equipment has contributed to this.  But most sports have had improving equipment.  Is it really all that bad for golf to be like other sports and have records broken by better, modern athletes with improving techniques?

[Dustin Ferrell]

I think it was my post you read...and yes, I agree.  With the money involved in the Elite game in the modern era, I honestly think in 25 years from now, most guys are going to be 6'4" and built like outside linebackers.  I'm not a old guy at 31 years old, but even when I was growing up, athletes didn't play golf for the most part.  I play in some Am events from time to time, and a lot of college players etc are smaller than myself, but at the Elite level, they seem to be getting bigger.

Records will fall, and it won't have anything to do w/ the course or equipment.  Imagine a Tiger woods that has his eye hand coordination, but is 6' 5" 220.  That guy is out there somewhere right now as a 12 year old learning how to hit a ball far, but also getting the coaching to hit finesse wedge shots and be a great putter.  That same guy will be in the gym from his teen years on getting his body built right for GOLF, not football or basketball.

Its still a game of skill and imagination which is why I love it, but as I stated....w/ the money in the game, at some point a legit "1st round pick" will find its way to the game and records will fall.  Like i said in the previous thread....cap the ball, cap equipment, and let the courses be.  If they shoot 59s, great for them....more birdies might even make the game more exciting for the general public (although I love a major occasionally where Even par wins, but I think you need weather to make that happen anymore).

[Terry Lavin]

This is doubtlessly true, which is why you have to focus on that which can be controlled by rulemaking.  You can't legislate physical fitness, Rotella training or the ability to forswear bad food and booze.  I really think the answer is bifurcation, despite what Mike Davis says. 

[John Kavanaugh]

I think it was my post you read...and yes, I agree.  With the money involved in the Elite game in the modern era, I honestly think in 25 years from now, most guys are going to be 6'4" and built like outside linebackers.  I'm not a old guy at 31 years old, but even when I was growing up, athletes didn't play golf for the most part.  I play in some Am events from time to time, and a lot of college players etc are smaller than myself, but at the Elite level, they seem to be getting bigger.

Records will fall, and it won't have anything to do w/ the course or equipment.  Imagine a Tiger woods that has his eye hand coordination, but is 6' 5" 220.  That guy is out there somewhere right now as a 12 year old learning how to hit a ball far, but also getting the coaching to hit finesse wedge shots and be a great putter.  That same guy will be in the gym from his teen years on getting his body built right for GOLF, not football or basketball.

Its still a game of skill and imagination which is why I love it, but as I stated....w/ the money in the game, at some point a legit "1st round pick" will find its way to the game and records will fall.  Like i said in the previous thread....cap the ball, cap equipment, and let the courses be.  If they shoot 59s, great for them....more birdies might even make the game more exciting for the general public (although I love a major occasionally where Even par wins, but I think you need weather to make that happen anymore).

Interesting, so do you think the Asian girls that are dominating the LPGA are better "athletes".  They sure as hell aren't bigger.

[Alex Miller]

I think it was my post you read...and yes, I agree.  With the money involved in the Elite game in the modern era, I honestly think in 25 years from now, most guys are going to be 6'4" and built like outside linebackers.  I'm not a old guy at 31 years old, but even when I was growing up, athletes didn't play golf for the most part.  I play in some Am events from time to time, and a lot of college players etc are smaller than myself, but at the Elite level, they seem to be getting bigger.

Records will fall, and it won't have anything to do w/ the course or equipment.  Imagine a Tiger woods that has his eye hand coordination, but is 6' 5" 220.  That guy is out there somewhere right now as a 12 year old learning how to hit a ball far, but also getting the coaching to hit finesse wedge shots and be a great putter.  That same guy will be in the gym from his teen years on getting his body built right for GOLF, not football or basketball.

Its still a game of skill and imagination which is why I love it, but as I stated....w/ the money in the game, at some point a legit "1st round pick" will find its way to the game and records will fall.  Like i said in the previous thread....cap the ball, cap equipment, and let the courses be.  If they shoot 59s, great for them....more birdies might even make the game more exciting for the general public (although I love a major occasionally where Even par wins, but I think you need weather to make that happen anymore).

Interesting, so do you think the Asian girls that are dominating the LPGA are better "athletes".  They sure as hell aren't bigger.

I think the understanding of swing mechanics and the efficacy of practice time has also played a role in the improvement of golfers, and this may apply to LPGA players to a greater degree.

[Jim Hoak]

Terry-- I would bifurcate, but not on pro vs. am, but on age.  At age 50, I'd allow some differences--like the anchored putter, etc.
John--I don't know if the Korean women are better athletes, but they sure have had better training.

[Jim Hoak]

An interesting opinion I heard recently is that the most important improvement in equipment to the golf game is the swing monitor.  It allows the right combination of club and ball, which may have improved less than commonly thought.

[Peter Pallotta]

If they just made a lot less damn money everything would work out perfectly: without the allure of the $10 million year, most of the best athletes would go back to pursuing other sports, and few others would commit/dedicate themselves to a golf-only training regiment, and so the ones who made it to the PGA tour would be exactly the guys we (and golf architecture) need, i.e. guys who have not forsworn booze and smokes and late nights and double bacon cheeseburgers, and who travel in car caravans and hit it 280 yards. There, problem solved...and the irony is, with the economy being so crappy for so long, it could have happened so easily already!! The problems that good gca faces are not caused by owners/clients or ruling bodies or better fitness or runaway technology, but by the dumb-ass companies/sponsors and tv networks that kept pouring in billions of dollars even as the economy went into the tank (and with CEOs making bad business decisions just so they can play a round whith Phil and Vijay).  In short:

Get rid of the money - Save golf course architecture.

[John Kavanaugh]

The lack of booze has been replaced with sports psychologists.  I can't accept this simple argument that the Korean girls are better trained and work harder.  Why is it so hard for everyone to admit that they are the superior athlete?  I don't think the perfect golf athlete will ever be 6'4''.

[Garland Bayley]

The fallacy of this thread is that better athletes are not making better scores. Changes in equipment have allowed better athletes to perform at levels that brings them to the top of the game. The game has been deskilled so that better, but less skilled athletes can compete. I would argue that Dustin Johnson would be hindered by the old equipment enough that he would not have risen to his current level. However, Tiger, (who is not really an athlete on the level of DJ, as the ridicule he receives when he tries basketball would indicate) would rise to his current level, because of the golf specific skills trained into him from almost birth. Bubba trained his golf skills over other athletic skills, and would be drubbed by his wife at basketball.

[Dustin Ferrell]

Interesting, so do you think the Asian girls that are dominating the LPGA are better "athletes".  They sure as hell aren't bigger.

I also referenced stuff like 6'5" and 220.....1st round draft pick...etc.  I thought it would be obvious I'm talking about the Elite game...the mens game.  If I can outdrive all the Asian girls you referenced, I'm not considering them elite.  I also don't see anyone feeling the need to move teeboxes back 50yds on the LPGA.

[Phil Benedict]

The lack of booze has been replaced with sports psychologists.  I can't accept this simple argument that the Korean girls are better trained and work harder.  Why is it so hard for everyone to admit that they are the superior athlete?  I don't think the perfect golf athlete will ever be 6'4''.

The best player in the world is 5'9" and weighs 160 pounds, pretty much the same size as Ben Hogan.  He driving average was 310 yards this year, probably 40-50 yards more than Hogan in his prime.  Equipment (and the ability to swing with abandon with the modern equipment) and fitness are more likely to explain the distance disparity than Rory's superior athletic abililty.

[Dustin Ferrell]

The best player in the world is 5'9" and weighs 160 pounds, pretty much the same size as Ben Hogan.  He driving average was 310 yards this year, probably 40-50 yards more than Hogan in his prime.  Equipment (and the ability to swing with abandon with the modern equipment) and fitness are more likely to explain the distance disparity than Rory's superior athletic abililty.

Thats fair relative to size, but relative to fitness...I know some guys back in the day were very fit (Gary Player,etc), but I'd still contest Rory more built for golf.  And I do still say Rory has been playing great golf since he was a child.  Imagine a child w/ his gifts and early start that is much larger...I'd say the ball will go further.  No doubt there are some freaks a la Jamie Sadlowski though that make you wonder if size is a limiting factor,,,but to swing that hard and make good contact in my opinion is the essence of athleticism.

[Garland Bayley]

,,,but to swing that hard and make good contact in my opinion is the essence of athleticism.

This ignores that good contact is not nearly what it used to be. It used to be that good golfers made good contact, and good athletes hit RockFlites, which were not so demanding in the contact required. Now that good golfers have been forced to play balls analogous to RockFlites, athletes have caught up with them somewhat. However, they still find it difficult to beat the Rorys and the Tigers that have developed golfing skill from day one.

[David Davis]

First of all since this was about scores, the Old Course and many other links courses are designed along the sea and in places where the wind and elements are blowing like crazy all the time making hard fast conditions far more difficult. When these great scores are posted in most cases it's when there are benign conditions. When you see them super low on the PGA tour in most cases it's right after some wetter weather and the greens are soft and perceptive, some times they are even placing it in the fairways and again weather conditions are benign.

Occasionally there are and will always be amazing rounds where guys are spot on and holing every single put. Want to change that, simple disallow anchoring...(oh wait, they've done that already :p). Now only the really good players will make low scores.

As for the athletes, not sure if bigger stronger faster is the case but certainly healthier, fitter and easier access to mental coaching helps, no doubt, as does improvements in the quality of instruction, computer analysis, new bionic equipment and balls that fly miles.

John, the Asians win not because they are better athletes, I don't believe that for a minute. However, they more focused, don't let other things in life distract them, start disciplined, regimented training routines that effectively cause them to forgo childhood activities etc at young ages and are brought up focusing on 1 thing and one thing only. Complete and total commitment, while US women also want to be girls, go to school, have fun and in general are brought up in completely different, far more luxurious pampered conditions.

Wait until some of our female soccer talent starts switching to golf, different mentality than the big break/model wannabe who chooses golf because she couldn't catch a softball, dribble a basketball or kick a soccer ball, plus the country club has a cool pool and is full of cute guys.

[A.G._Crockett]

If any of you think that Tiger Woods is NOT an elite athlete, you're nuts.  There a lot of ways to measure athletic ability, and Kenyan distance runners and Jamaican sprinters and MLB players and Nascar drivers and pro golfers all qualify one way or another.  If you think otherwise, you just have NO idea what is really going on at that level.  General rule: if you see somebody playing a sport for money on TV, they are NOT like you or me.  They are physically gifted in ways that you probably can't completely imagine.

The OP's original point, I think, is that many more people play golf now and that many more of them are elite athletes in whatever ways make for great golf.  It is a simple matter of probability that there will be more long hitters AND more low scores, and so on. 

As is so often the case, some of you insist on going from the instance to the generalization.  Is Dustin Johnson a better pure athlete than Tiger Woods?  Is Rory McIlroy a better pure athlete than Ben Hogan?  These are not only unanswerable questions, they are irrelvant to the original post or for making informed judgements about the state of the game.

[John Kavanaugh]

Interesting, so do you think the Asian girls that are dominating the LPGA are better "athletes".  They sure as hell aren't bigger.

I also referenced stuff like 6'5" and 220.....1st round draft pick...etc.  I thought it would be obvious I'm talking about the Elite game...the mens game.  If I can outdrive all the Asian girls you referenced, I'm not considering them elite.  I also don't see anyone feeling the need to move teeboxes back 50yds on the LPGA.

I would be willing to wager that the LPGA has lengthened their courses in the Wei era.  The good thing is that they are moving back a set of existing tees.

Are you aware that women's basketball uses a smaller ball that makes shooting much, much easier?  You gotta give women golfers credit for using the same equipment as the men.

[Phil Benedict]

Don't get me wrong - Rory is a phenomenal athlete.  I'm just not sure superior ability accounts for all or even the majority of his distance advantage vs.  Hogan.

I agree with JK that bigger guys aren't necessarily going to take over the game.  It hasn't happened in tennis, which has had a similar advance in technology favoring power.  The top players are generally 6'1'' or '2, the same as a generation ago.

[John Kavanaugh]

It's only natural that the bigger the guy the harder the choke.

[John Kavanaugh]

Is there another sport where the defense has remained static.  How would Babe Ruth hit against modern pitching.  Would the Galloping Ghost go boo when he was hit by Ray Lewis?  The reason most modern sports continue to thrive is because as the offense becomes bigger, stronger, faster, the defense matches up perfectly.  If golf is a sport and not a hobby then it's defense must do the same.

[Garland Bayley]

If any of you think that Tiger Woods is NOT an elite athlete, you're nuts. ...

Did anyone say Tiger Woods was not an elite athlete?

However, put him on a TV show where top athletes from many sports are contesting a wide variety of athletic skills, and he would finish near the bottom.

Put Dustin Johnson on the same show and my estimate is that he would finish well above Tiger.

My hypothesis is that if you give Dustin Johnson and Tiger balata ball equivalents, the golfing differential between them would increase over the current RockFlite analogs they are using now.

Contrast that with someone like Corey Pavin, where it is my hypothesis that the golfing differential between them would not change.

[A.G._Crockett]

If any of you think that Tiger Woods is NOT an elite athlete, you're nuts. ...

Did anyone say Tiger Woods was not an elite athlete?

However, put him on a TV show where top athletes from many sports are contesting a wide variety of athletic skills, and he would finish near the bottom.

Put Dustin Johnson on the same show and my estimate is that he would finish well above Tiger.

My hypothesis is that if you give Dustin Johnson and Tiger balata ball equivalents, the golfing differential between them would increase over the current RockFlite analogs they are using now.

Contrast that with someone like Corey Pavin, where it is my hypothesis that the golfing differential between them would not change.

You've set up yet another straw man, and then succeeded in knocking him down; congratulations.

The issue is NOT whether Dustin Johnson is a better athlete than Tiger Woods, or where Tiger Woods would finish on a fictional TV show.  (Neither of which you can measure except in your own brain space, by the way.)

The issue that the OP raised is whether or not it is reasonable to believe that at least some of the lowering of scores is due to an improvement of the number and quality of athletes playing professional golf vs. years ago, rather than just the equipment they use.

And of course the answer is "yes".  Pro golfers today are better trained, better conditioned, stronger, have corrective lenses or eye surgery, understnad nutrition, don't smoke, and on and on.  That they shoot lower scores is axiomatic.  The funny thing here is how much energy is spent blaming ONLY the ball for that.

[Wayne_Kozun]

The other thing that has to help is jus that the sheer number of golfers is so much higher than it used to be as golf is now played in many more countries.  Fifty years ago it was pretty much only played in the UK, US and the former British Empire.  We now are getting superstars from other countries, including China, given the adoption of the game in these markets.

[Wayne_Kozun]

Did anyone say Tiger Woods was not an elite athlete?

However, put him on a TV show where top athletes from many sports are contesting a wide variety of athletic skills, and he would finish near the bottom.

That sounds like the Superstars competion, but you never know with these types of events.

The guy that won the Superstars three years in a row was a Canadan soccer player named Brian Budd.  He wasn't a great soccer player but he was a great all-around athlete and did well in this type of competition.

I am willing to bet that Tiger would do very well in this sort of competition.

[Garland Bayley]

...

I am willing to bet that Tiger would do very well in this sort of competition.

The question posed was whether he would beat DJ. What say ye?