Power or Flair where is the future taking us?

[allysmith]

Gentlemen,

I have folowed the thread on length being golf's Nirvana and totally disagreed but thougth it raised more questions.

Harking back to earlier days I wonder if there is a comparrison to be made with Tennis.

In days gone by we had players like Vijay Amritraj, Ken Rosewall and John McEnroe who could make a ball almost talk with their skill in the spin and placement department. I seems to me, generalisation aside, that power has overtaken silky skills and we now see modern players blasting their way to victory with 40mph serves and baseline hiting that measures on the richter scale.

Golf has seen shot making skills diminish in recent years especially with long Irons. I fully admit Tiger has skill in abundance but is the 'pack' erring for power over accuracy and shot making?

Will we ever see the likes of Seve, Trevino and the like purvey their artistic tallents to Major Trophys.

Is distance the levelling factor which negates shotmaking and allows the journeyman to compete with the true champion??

[Bob_Huntley]

I wish you wouldn't refer to my devasting 40mph serves as the ruination of tennis, gosh, even at that speed I have a tough time getting it over the net.

[allysmith]

So whats a hundred between incompetents?

You should see my 10mph swing speeds.

[Michael Dugger]

Interesting analogy between tennis and golf.  I think there is a fundamental difference that needs to be addressed, however, and that is golf is a different variety of competition.  What I mean by that is while golfers are indeed competiting head to head with one another, they aren't exactly across the net hitting the golf ball back and forth.

Imagine a game like football that is played with golf clubs and balls.  The goal is to hit the ball through the goal posts.  Let's say the "playing field" in this case is the length of ten football fields (1000 yards).  Let's say the fifty yard line is the "net", we start at our own "30" and we alternate shots.

In this format a long player will slowly but surely get into position to "score" because of their length.  Similar to a tennis player's huge first serve.  Indeed power is rewards in this scenario.

But this game isn't the game of golf as we know it.  Our game of golf whittles everything down to a teeny tiny hole.  

Flair will always prevail, IMHO.  A six inch putt counts the same as a 350 yards drive....one stroke.  A wonderful short game will always keep the shorter players competitive.  For all this talk we hear about power and technology ruining the game, how many of the big boppers won majors this year?  Did Mickeal or Furyk or Curtis or Weir attribute their victories to length?  No, it was good sound golf.  Fairways and greens.  Good short games.  

[A.G._Crockett]

The tennis analogy is indeed an interesting one, but one that may be too early to draw conclusions from.  Sports tend to go in cycles in terms of styles, and tennis may be in one now.  In baseball in the 60's it was a power game until rules changes brought back pitching late in the decade; then speed and defense ruled for several yrs.  In the majors this yr., I think around 55 stolen bases is going to lead the majors; that wouldn't have been top 5 in Brock or Henderson's heydays.

Tennis may (or may not) see a stylistic change away from the current way the men's game is played, but for me the problem with watching tennis now is not the serve or the power game. You'd be hard pressed to find a more dominant serve than Gonzales in his prime, or than Ashe when he was on, or Sampras, but they weren't boring to watch.  A lot of the problem with tennis seems to me to be the disorganized nature of the tours (who knows what the tournaments even are besides the 4 Slam events) and the personality-less nature of the players.

Having said that, I do think that equipment change has hurt tennis, because the big rackets simply cannot be controlled off the ground without excessive topspin, and that just limits the stylistic possibilities.  Rosewall's backhand was flat or slightly sliced, and that is really hard to do off a giant racket face.  Too early to tell, though, if the pendulum will ever swing back or not.  If somebody starts winning with a smaller racket head design, which I don't think is out of the question, then we may see a return to days of yore.

I'm very conflicted as to how any of this applies to golf.  I don't think we will see players EVER go back to small clubheads.  I still think that the need to work the ball in golf can be influenced by GCA, and that is where golf differs from other sports, as pointed out by mdugger.

[ChasLawler]

Corey Pavin will NEVER be able hit it as far as Tiger, or 3/4 or more of the guys on tour, but all those guys who hit it further than he does could go on a great putting streak at any time.

Furyk, Weir, Mckeal and Curtis may not be the longest guys on tour, but they're long enough. In today's profesional game, it takes a certain amount of power to consistently compete. Where that line of power is drawn - I'm not sure, but I'd venture to guess somewhere around the 285-290 yard driving average.

It may still take flair to win golf tournaments, but one needs power to get in position to capitalize on that flair. IMO the days of the 275 yard driver (or less) winning a major golf tournament are over, regardless of how good his recovery or short game is.