[James Bennett]

Mike Cirba

those clubs would be mid 70's - i recognise the Wilson anti-torque steel shaft, with the twist near the hosel.  That idea didn't last.

I remember the 1200 irons that had those shafts, parallel tip to allow the spiggot hosel iron to attach (the iron went inside the shaft, not over the shaft). Some years later, Iron heads were snapping off at the stress point and flying down the fairway as far as the ball!

Re advertising - George Archer was the first I remember with the big 'Amana' on his cap. They made fridges didn't they?

I remember the Watson wedge set (by RAM) - that was expensive.  Who would pay for three wedges?  Scoring system indeed. Hmmmph, what did I know.

James B

[Bill_McBride]

Is the stylish lady noshing on a Chuckwagon?

Peter, you would have loved my standard frat party pants - while polyester with par, birdie and bogey written all over them in different primary colors. 

I'll bet those pants looked good under a toga!


TOGA, TOGA, TOGA!

[Garland Bayley]

Didn't read the thread to here to see if others recalled it, but the thing I remember most was the slow greens, and the necessary wristy putting stroke. It seems today's wristless putting strokes would get the ball to the hole from 20 feet on those greens.


Then of course there were all those small town cow pastures with sand greens where the local rule was improve all lies in the fairway.

[jeffwarne]

Didn't read the thread to here to see if others recalled it, but the thing I remember most was the slow greens, and the necessary wristy putting stroke. It seems today's wristless putting strokes would get the ball to the hole from 20 feet on those greens.


Then of course there were all those small town cow pastures with sand greens where the local rule was improve all lies in the fairway.

Garland,
We just didn't know they were slow!!


Interestingly I played yesterday on greens that hadn't been cut in a month-maybe 5 on the stimp.
I saw more lipouts in 13 holes with 2 players than I would usually see in 5-6 rounds.
Because the ball was travelling MUCH faster when it got to the hole (That's right Pat-faster) the ball had to be dead center exactly to go in.
Why is the ball going faster? Because with the assumed safety zone of say a 2 foot circle creating at least a 2 putt, coupled with the desire to not leave it short knowing it wouldn't roll far by, demands balls be moving at a faster pace on average when/if they reach the hole.
On fast greens it is much easier to trickle a putt in, and the ball isn't going fast at all to stay within the 2 foot circle.


As i have always said, slow greens are much more difficult as they allow/demand more slope, more solid contact, and better judgement to get the speed right, and as mentioned above, are MORE likely to lip out.


But we keep building superfast, flat (though tiered) greens and hundreds of generic bunkers,
because vapid, fair demanding better players condone and demand such for acceptance of the course.

[Peter Pallotta]

Jeff - re: "...better players condone and demand such..."

My guess is that of that group only 1 out of 10, maybe even only 1 out of 100, call for faster greens because they honestly believe such greens are more challenging/pure; the other 9 (or 99) call for them because in their heart of hearts they know to be true exactly what you just described: i.e. that is it harder to make putts on slower greens.  The so-called "better player": concerned above all else that their 78s be 75s instead...  

[jeffwarne]

Jeff - re: "...better players condone and demand such..."

My guess is that of that group only 1 out of 10, maybe even only 1 out of 100, call for faster greens because they honestly believe such greens are more challenging/pure; the other 9 (or 99) call for them because in their heart of hearts they know to be true exactly what you just described: i.e. that is it harder to make putts on slower greens.  The so-called "better player": concerned above all else that their 78s be 75s instead...

Peter,
You nailed it.
And fast greens have the added benefit for them of torturing lesser players.


I was watching a Tour event the other day and the commentators were talking (positively) about how despite the tiering of the greens, if you hit it on the right shelf, you nearly always got a straight putt

[Patrick_Mucci]

Peter,


In the 60's you had to have a much better touch in bunkers and around the greens.


Ergo, you had to put a premium on avoiding bunkers.


The L-Wedge changed all of that

[James Bennett]

Jeff Warne

what was the pace of play like with those slower greens?

I suspect it was a lot quicker than when the greens are fast.

James B

[Thomas Dai]

Agree with you Pat about the effects of the introduction of the L-wedge.

I recall using the back of a club in an attempt to leave a bunker in decent (or probably more accurately semi-decent) shape for the next player.

Can't really recall though when it become the norm to have a rake in every bunker, both fairway and greenside. Maybe it just kind of slowly evolved?

Atb

[Peter Pallotta]

Pat - I'm just an average golfer, but I like the looks and sense of history and challenge/fun of playing with older equipment, i.e. persimmon and blades. Partly because of this, and partly because I carry a two iron along with the 1-3-4 woods, I don't carry and there is no room in my bag for a L-wedge. Folks here like to talk about manufacturing shots and using their imaginations etc -- I'm not really a good enough golfer to do either of those very often; but in my experience, the single best way to ensure that you have to manufacture shots (and a lot of them) is to take the L-wedge out of the bag.  That causes me more challenge/fun by far than the distance I sometimes lose using persimmon woods off the tee.
Peter

[Sean_A]

I only caught the tail end of the 70s...first set was a half set...something very cheap from Kmart or some such place.  My first full set was Jack Nicklaus Golden Bears.  I used those through high school.  Didn't buy my Tommy Armour 845s until maybe 1992ish.   

I don't have any real memories of courses being any different than today.  I am sure the greens were slower, but it obviously didn't matter because there were courses which had fast greens and those with slower greens...just like today.  I think fast greens were about 9ish for the time, probably a bit faster here and there.  On interesting greens it was plenty fast enough.  And interesting enough, I don't play many times in a year on greens which are much quicker than 9ish.  I hear bout the fast greens in thes US, but I don't encounter them very often....Old Town was the last time I thought greens were a tad too fast for the design.

A big memory was the old putters...there weren't that many different basic styles.  Loads of people were still using the putt putt style putters...basically a lump of metal on a stick.  I recall not doing much about this until I bought a blade putter in a barrel (jeez...the barrel is probably the thing I miss most about that time  ) for $5 around 1992ish (must of decided on a complete obverhaul of my spanners  )...still using the damn thing and many woud say its just a lump of metal on a stick  . 

Ciao

[Patrick_Mucci]

Peter,

I think the neat thing about the 60's was the ability to really work the ball.

Today, you have to make an exaggerated effort to get the same movement that was easy to produce in the 60's.

I think that enhanced the element of fun

[Thomas Dai]

Peter,
I think the neat thing about the 60's was the ability to really work the ball.
Today, you have to make an exaggerated effort to get the same movement that was easy to produce in the 60's.
I think that enhanced the element of fun

I can't comment on the 60's as such but for decades thereafter, until really the demise of balata balls, I'd go along with this.


Atb

[jeffwarne]

Jeff Warne

what was the pace of play like with those slower greens?

I suspect it was a lot quicker than when the greens are fast.

James B

James,
Pace of play was quicker because
1.Courses were shorter-6800 yards was considered long  back tees and few played the back tees, and you generally had to walk back to those tees-Now you have to walk further back on those same courses-and more play them
2.There were less real estate courses and cart ball courses so real estate used was less
In both of the above cases you still have to walk the larger acreage regardless of tees chosen
3. Stupid Preshot routines weren't in vogue, and pros NEVER took practice swings
4. Courses weren't as hard to find balls due to maturity of courses, better golf land used, and minimal wetland restrictions on older courses-as well as the ball not going so far
4. you were scared shitless of old men yelling at you if you dawdled
5. Golf wasn't cool and less douchebags played
6. Greens were slower so probably less comebackers on severe greens-but maybe not as more severe pins could be used

[Tim Martin]

I remember carrying a lot of big Burton bags(points for alliteration) in the early 70's for $6 a pop and that's if you were a designated "A" caddy while the "B" caddies got $5. When you got the bump up to "A" status it was a big sigh of relief because that asension also was required to carry doubles. I had regular bags depending on the day of the week and it occurred to me that Dentists and Insurance guys had an awful lot of free time to play.    We got to play on Mondays and there was a Damon Runyon type lineup of characters that made up the crew. I remember playing in the caddie tournament in 1973 which was prior to the annual caddie banquet held every Summer just before Labor Day. We were allowed in the pool and there wasn't a member within a hundred miles of the club. After the pool we headed inside for the banquet and I won a Poloroid camera in the raffle where the picture printed right on the spot(don't remember the model). Good times.

[John Kirk]

I sure enjoyed these last few posts.

I'm a newbie, starting slowly around 1980, and not getting deeply into golf until I couldn't run around (play basketball) anymore.  However, by the early seventies I was looking at golf picture books and playing dice-based golf games like Thinking Man's Golf and Sports Illustrated Golf, where hole diagrams were used for playing golf.  That's where my interest in this stuff started.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Jeff,
 
That's a pretty good list.
 
I think that accentuated ball flight had its pros and cons.
 
I liked it because it allowed you to recover from places that would be very difficult to recover from today, although, there are those that would refer to Bubba's recovery on # 10 at ANGC.
 
As miraculous as that seems, it was fairly commonplace amongst good golfers in the 60's.

[Kalen Braley]

I think #4 and #5 probably had the most to do with it.

Look at old footage of the pros playing, there was none of this pre-shot routine nonsense going on for 30 seconds.  Do your thinking as you walk up to the ball, get over the ball, and hit it.  If todays current weekend warriors did all that standing around and chit chatting and calculating to the yard of their shot back then, they'd have a chili pepper right up there backsides from the old coots within a couple of holes.

Could you imagine some of the slow players today being on tour back then?  They'd get an ear chewing from the vets, I don't doubt it for a second

[Thomas Dai]

I think #4 and #5 probably had the most to do with it.

Look at old footage of the pros playing, there was none of this pre-shot routine nonsense going on for 30 seconds.  Do your thinking as you walk up to the ball, get over the ball, and hit it.  If todays current weekend warriors did all that standing around and chit chatting and calculating to the yard of their shot back then, they'd have a chili pepper right up there backsides from the old coots within a couple of holes.

Could you imagine some of the slow players today being on tour back then?  They'd get an ear chewing from the vets, I don't doubt it for a second

Wasn't there some big bloke originally from Columbus Ohio who came out on tour in the early '60s who was known for being less than swift when he played. Maybe he speeded up, maybe others just speeded down.


Did Rory Sabatini's walk-on when playing with Ben Crane do any good in the long term?


Atb

[Kalen Braley]

I think #4 and #5 probably had the most to do with it.

Look at old footage of the pros playing, there was none of this pre-shot routine nonsense going on for 30 seconds.  Do your thinking as you walk up to the ball, get over the ball, and hit it.  If todays current weekend warriors did all that standing around and chit chatting and calculating to the yard of their shot back then, they'd have a chili pepper right up there backsides from the old coots within a couple of holes.

Could you imagine some of the slow players today being on tour back then?  They'd get an ear chewing from the vets, I don't doubt it for a second

Wasn't there some big bloke originally from Columbus Ohio who came out on tour in the early '60s who was known for being less than swift when he played. Maybe he speeded up, maybe others just speeded down.


Did Rory Sabatini's walk-on when playing with Ben Crane do any good in the long term?


Atb

If memory serves me right, Jack had a lot of frenemies back in the day.  Nice to his face cause he was so damn good, but hated the son-of-a-you_know_what behind his back.

If I was a betting man, Jack probably still played much faster back then than 95% of the players do today....

P.S.  As for Rory, You could make an argument it did.  At least now groups and players can be put on the clock during tourneys...that's a relatively new rule on the tour.  Hasn't gone nearly far enough, but it was a good start.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Kalen, et. al.,
 
I think money and the desire to know the exact yardage, rather than eyeball it, caused play on the Tour to slow down.
 
If I'm not mistaken, Jack adopted Gene Andrews system after playing with him at Pebble Beach.

[Peter Pallotta]

Patrick - you are probably right, but yet I dare say that the Sneads and Nelsons and Mangrums and Hogans and before them the Hagens and Sarazens, all of whom played through or were born during the Depression and who had hard-scrabbled upbringings were concerned about/needed to make money as much as and even more so than the JN's of the later generations. And yet to a man, watching the old footage, you saw them step up to the tee box, put the ball down, step up, take a look, and swing -- all in about 20 seconds, shot after shot, round after round, and eyeballing just about every shot, distance-wise. And it strikes me that it's not a coincidence that all their swings were unique -- each of them found their swings, and trusted them precisely because they'd found them (and not had them drilled into them by instructors), and they made those old persimmons and blades work for them, not the other way around -- including when it came to distance control through feel. It was when teaching and technology took over that the game slowed down -- and not surprisingly:  if your confidence and your game is dependent on that technology (to bomb the ball 310 yards down the fairway, any fairway) and the training (to get into very narrowly prescribed "positions"), your mind and spirit are not where they should; you are thinking about golf  rather than playing it.

At least that's the way it seem to me, in my (necessarily) humble opinion.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Peter,


When you walked up to your ball and eyeballed the distance it took a lot less time than looking for identifying features.  I.e. A tree, rock, bunker, then pacing off the distance to your ball.


No one got rich playing golf in the 40's, 50,s and 60's if they didn't win a tournament, or not


Today you can finish 25th every week and be rich in a short time.


What would Byron Nelson have won today, in cash, bonuses and endorsements, for winning 11 in a row ?


And 18 in one year ?

[Sean_A]

Somebody posted old footage of tournaments....and Jack was incredibly slow.  I didn't remember it that way, but the footage didn't lie.  I fouund myself fast forwarding it was that bad.  On the plus side, the commenators did comment on the slow play in typical British around the track style  .  One may have been Longhurst.


Ciao

[Colin Macqueen]

Sean,
I always liked the rather droll pronouncements by Henry Longhurst.


Apropos of your thoughts in reply #98 I thought, until today,  that  it was Longhurst  who said " By the time you get to your ball, if you don't know what to do with it, try another sport." But in fact it was Julius Boros.


So true, so true!


Cheers Colin

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