[Garland Bayley]

...All the modern ball did was get the low-spin characteristics of the distance balls from decades ago but retain enough spin that they offered control to good players with their shorter clubs.

Remove that bit of engineering, and I believe most of the problem will be solved. The ball should spin directly proportional to he loft of the club striking it!

[Garland Bayley]

...
Little Ricky Fowler reached the 681 yard 18th with a driver-long iron.   The hole is not downhill.
...

It is downwind.

[Peter Pallotta]

Peter,
Any idea what the lofts were on those clubs? I'll bet that the modern 6 iron is more like a 1950s 3 or 4...

Sam - that's certainly true. I have and sometimes play with some old sets of irons; the ones from the 70s are 1 club less lofted than the ones from the 90s (with variations: some Hogan sets from earlier on - aimed at the recreational golfer - seem lofted stronger than later sets aimed at the good players). When I move back to something from the 50s, not only are the lofts closer to 1-2 clubs weaker, but the shafts tend to be 1/2 inch to an 1 inch shorter...and the lie angles certainly flatter.
Which is to say, when I see Snead's list, I do think of his "5" as my "7".

[MCirba]

...
Little Ricky Fowler reached the 681 yard 18th with a driver-long iron.   The hole is not downhill.
...

It is downwind.

Yes, indeed it was.

Perhaps in still air Ricky's driver, long-iron would have only traveled 650.   What a wimp! 

[Garland Bayley]

...
Little Ricky Fowler reached the 681 yard 18th with a driver-long iron.   The hole is not downhill.
...

It is downwind.

Yes, indeed it was.

Perhaps in still air Ricky's driver, long-iron would have only traveled 650.   What a wimp! 

If I can gain 50 or more yards downwind, then Ricky should be able to gain 75 or more.
The wind not only carries the ball longer, it levels off the ball flight so that it runs longer when it lands.

At least that is what I have seen playing links courses in the wind.

[cary lichtenstein]

With all the discussion about the state of the game and how the best golfers are managing to reveal Erin Hills, it made me think about what changes could be made to the ball, and how that might affect the game.


Ball size- A slightly larger ball would have more surface area, meaning more wind resistance. Also, it would have some effect on rolling resistance, which, I assume, would mean putts would break more on grades.


Aerodynamics- Is there any regulation on this attribute? I would think it would have a huge impact on the game if the ball reacted more to the wind. A 350 yard drive would be a lot less appealing if a 10 mile per hour wind would move the ball significantly. I think this is overlooked as a contributing factor in why these young guns swing so hard.


Velocity- The attribute that gets talked about, and no one in the golf world wants to address.


None of this is new thinking, but it seems like a good time to bring it up again. Thoughts and additions?

The ball is ridiculous today, what's next? 300 yard par 3's, 800 yard par 5's?

[Doug Siebert]

Peter,


Any idea what the lofts were on those clubs? I'll bet that the modern 6 iron is more like a 1950s 3 or 4.

Loft is definitely a factor. I've been playing the same irons since 1989, and my PW is 49*. I've seen sets where the PW is as little as 42* - only 1* less than my 8 iron! I don't have a gap wedge, because there's no gap to fill. Nowadays every set has a gap wedge, and I've seen a few with two wedges between PW and SW! Plus on the amateur side at least, you have more and more people playing graphite shafts in their irons, and because they're lighter the shaft is longer to preserve the swingweight. Between loft and length my 8 iron really is some people's PW.


And that's over less than 30 years. I don't know what the lofts Nicklaus was playing with in the 60s, or Snead in the 40s, but I'll lay money they were weaker than mine.

[Doug Siebert]

...All the modern ball did was get the low-spin characteristics of the distance balls from decades ago but retain enough spin that they offered control to good players with their shorter clubs.

Remove that bit of engineering, and I believe most of the problem will be solved. The ball should spin directly proportional to he loft of the club striking it!

I've been saying this for years. Just introduce some standards on spin rate, and they could undo the last couple decades of ball engineering and take back control of the game.


For those who think golf ball technology has peaked, I disagree. I bought a few dozen Pro V1x balls last year and still have a bunch of them. I played in a scramble a month ago and lost one of mine but while poking around in the long grass I found another one. I played that for a few holes and hit several shots into a 20 mph wind much longer than I'd expect - including a 280 yard drive on one hole and a 3 iron from 250 that I was trying to 'lay up' that reached the front edge. After that second one I was really wondering what was going on, then I noticed it had a different dimple layout. Turns out it was the 2017 model, and I've since mentioned this to a few friends and they said they've seen the same thing. Now I almost want to lose the older ones I have left


The USGA won't, because they're afraid of the ball makers suing them. If not for legal fees, what's with the giant cash pile the USGA has been building up? At least I remember back five years ago there was a thread noting the USGA had a quarter billion socked away, unless they've gone on a spending spree that's probably a half billion now.

[Garland Bayley]

I was hoping the USGA would be doing something about the spin engineering about 2017, because the original patents on these engineered spin balls should be about all expired now.

[Erik J. Barzeski]

I am curious to as to why you don't think guys hitting 378yd 3 woods is hurting the game.

I should ask you the same: how is that fact alone hurting the game? The ball rolled quite far, was downhill and downwind. Mike Austin hit a ball 515 yards or 545 or something decades ago.

I find pro golf pretty boring these days, it is smash it, wedge it, putt it and declining attendance and TV viewers seem to support that.

If audiences are declining (I wouldn't take your word for it just like that, but maybe it's true), there are certainly a lot of factors at play in that. Pinning it all on "the ball goes too far" is convenient to say the least.

The balance even for a "short hitter" on Tour is very much towards the power game but perhaps most importantly the distance they hit the ball is just not something that I can associate with.  I'm not sure that the gap between a touring pro and an amateur has ever been this big and whilst you can admire it for a while, it ends up being a very different game to the one most of us play.

I'm not sure the gap between the average person and the average player in ANY sport is any different - wider now than ever. Athletes get bigger, stronger, faster. Money attracts more athletes, and weeds out more and more people. In Jack's day the best 0.01% of golfers might make a good living on the PGA Tour. Now it's maybe the top 0.0005% or something.

I also worry about the additional land required for 8,000yd courses and the additional maintenance cost of all that extra acreage, after all they still need tees for regular humans to play off.  Perhaps it comes down to something simple, has all that extra distance made the game better or more entertaining?

It's a small concern of mine as well, but the simple fact of the matter is that even if you add 1000 yards to a golf course, you're adding that distance to the fairways, which are at least cheaper to maintain than the greens and tees. And if people are carrying the ball farther off the tees, you're not even really adding much to the fairways.

Plus, most courses are not redesigning themselves to be 8000 yards. Most courses are still < 7000 yards. Most courses aren't ever going to host a PGA Tour event, and couldn't care less about it. Their weekly Tuesday and Thursday leagues are still enjoyed by guys rolling the ball in the fairways and playing from 5900 yards.

Do you think the game is better today and if so why?

You think it's worse… so the same question to you: why? What actual reasons have you got?

I think the game is cyclical, like many things. I think we're coming out of a small down period, and the game is back on the upswing.

The longest guy at the Open was an amateur and we haven't seen the generation born with Trackman yet so potentially a 378yd 3 wood will be considered one of the shorter hitters on Tour in 5 years time.

I think your fears are completely unfounded. I think you're latching on to one extreme example. John Daly reached a 600-yard par five (uphill) at Baltusrol with an iron decades ago. I'd bet you a ton of money that a 378-yard 3-wood will NOT be considered "short" or even "average" in five years.

[Garland Bayley]

I am curious to as to why you don't think guys hitting 378yd 3 woods is hurting the game.

I should ask you the same: how is that fact alone hurting the game? The ball rolled quite far, was downhill and downwind. Mike Austin hit a ball 515 yards or 545 or something decades ago.

The farther the ball goes, the more real estate required by courses, the larger the cost for golf.
For every tour pro hitting the ball long, there are many many young men that when they pure it, are hitting it just as far. Unfortunately, young men don't have the financial resources to help pay for that extra real estate. They would barely have the financial resources to pay for shorter courses. If you are not serving the young men that could be the future of golf, then you are hurting the game.

[Ben Hollerbach]

If you look at home runs per game per team per year, there has been noticeable inflation since the beginning of the league.

If you hold contact and bat speed constant, when hitting a straight pitch does a baseball fly further when the pitch is at 90mph vs 80mph vs 70mph, etc...? this is a physics question, but at some point the elastic return of the ball and momentum towards the plate can greatly affect the distance the ball travels. Is it possible that as pitching speeds have gone up, when good contact is made carry distance has also gone up?

[Ben Hollerbach]

I hit my 1980's steel shafted, persimmon headed driver just 10 yards behind my modern Taylormade when I hit it well so club advances are not so significant for me though I suspect you are correct about the tour pros. I am now longer off the tee than I was 30 years ago despite hitting the ball much worse and being far less athletic than I was.

to me, these two points are the crux of the matter. Players have been hitting 300+ yard drives ever since the day golf holes were built longer than 300 yards. The game is not built around that upper 20% of all swing, its build for the middle 60%. While I've hit 300+ yard drives with my modern driver and my 1920's hickory driver, I can say with pretty good certainty that I've never hit a less than 200 yard drive with my modern driver. Sadly the same can not be said about my hickory driver. The sweet spot is, and always will be, the sweet spot. Catch it with a good swing and the ball will go for days. The difference is on the misses, the middle 60%, an average miss with a modern club will produce minimal distance loss and shot dispersion. An older club has a much greater loss of distance and shot dispersion. This reduction of standard deviation from our shots has affected how people play, as control has been transferred to the club we swing and is no longer about how we swing the club.

[Garland Bayley]

I hit my 1980's steel shafted, persimmon headed driver just 10 yards behind my modern Taylormade when I hit it well so club advances are not so significant for me though I suspect you are correct about the tour pros. I am now longer off the tee than I was 30 years ago despite hitting the ball much worse and being far less athletic than I was.

to me, these two points are the crux of the matter. Players have been hitting 300+ yard drives ever since the day golf holes were built longer than 300 yards. The game is not built around that upper 20% of all swing, its build for the middle 60%.

Good, let's eliminate 20% of the market, and just serve the remaining 80%. That'll teach them!

While I've hit 300+ yard drives with my modern driver and my 1920's hickory driver, I can say with pretty good certainty that I've never hit a less than 200 yard drive with my modern driver. Sadly the same can not be said about my hickory driver. The sweet spot is, and always will be, the sweet spot. Catch it with a good swing and the ball will go for days. The difference is on the misses, the middle 60%, an average miss with a modern club will produce minimal distance loss and shot dispersion. An older club has a much greater loss of distance and shot dispersion.

Gotta say, this is the first time I have heard someone claim the modern clubs can correct for not squaring the clubface. And, I thought only the (illegal) polara ball could do that.

This reduction of standard deviation from our shots has affected how people play, as control has been transferred to the club we swing and is no longer about how we swing the club.

It is and always will be about how we swing the club.

[Ben Hollerbach]

Gotta say, this is the first time I have heard someone claim the modern clubs can correct for not squaring the clubface. And, I thought only the (illegal) polara ball could do that.

This reduction of standard deviation from our shots has affected how people play, as control has been transferred to the club we swing and is no longer about how we swing the club.

It is and always will be about how we swing the club.

Ok, here's an example for you. When I'm trying to get a little more out of my drive I'll periodically get a little quick from the top and am prone to a toe hook miss. With my hickory driver this could be a fatal shot, going as far left as it seems to fly out, and one I have to be very diligent at avoiding. But with my modern driver that shot ends up being a simple draw, 15 yards left of my intended line. If I'm playing a long hole with danger down the left, with hickory I have to select a shot and swing that will keep my ball in play, with modern this is of little concern.


Nicklaus use to talk about a heel cut drive he's play when he absolutely had to hit the fairway. he lost some distance playing it but he knew exactly what it was going to do and he could find the fairway with it. He hit a shot he could control. On today's tour, there is little need to play a designed control shot as the modern driver is forgiving enough to control nearly all shots and players are able to swing away without fear.

[Doug Siebert]

I am curious to as to why you don't think guys hitting 378yd 3 woods is hurting the game.

I should ask you the same: how is that fact alone hurting the game? The ball rolled quite far, was downhill and downwind. Mike Austin hit a ball 515 yards or 545 or something decades ago.

Sure, it rolled a long way, but that's a 3W on a course that had seen a lot of rain all week. This isn't a burned out course with turf on the verge of death. Imagine how much longer that drive would have been if they hadn't had any rain in the previous week? No way you'd get anything like that roll in Austin's day, because the ball had a lot more backspin and stopped a lot more quickly. It also didn't fly nearly as far in the first place.

[Garland Bayley]

Gotta say, this is the first time I have heard someone claim the modern clubs can correct for not squaring the clubface. And, I thought only the (illegal) polara ball could do that.

This reduction of standard deviation from our shots has affected how people play, as control has been transferred to the club we swing and is no longer about how we swing the club.

It is and always will be about how we swing the club.

Ok, here's an example for you. When I'm trying to get a little more out of my drive I'll periodically get a little quick from the top and am prone to a toe hook miss. With my hickory driver this could be a fatal shot, going as far left as it seems to fly out, and one I have to be very diligent at avoiding. But with my modern driver that shot ends up being a simple draw, 15 yards left of my intended line. If I'm playing a long hole with danger down the left, with hickory I have to select a shot and swing that will keep my ball in play, with modern this is of little concern.


Nicklaus use to talk about a heel cut drive he's play when he absolutely had to hit the fairway. he lost some distance playing it but he knew exactly what it was going to do and he could find the fairway with it. He hit a shot he could control. On today's tour, there is little need to play a designed control shot as the modern driver is forgiving enough to control nearly all shots and players are able to swing away without fear.

They have been building driving clubs from the 19th century at least onwards with the bulge necessary for this. The toe hook and heel cut are nothing new.

[Thomas Dai]

"Gear effect" is the techie term for toe hooks and heel cuts I believe.
And then there's the term "out of the screws".
The sound of a balata ball hit properly by a persimmon driver....delightful and traditional and sadly missed by some of us.....a bit like the sound of metal spikes on a surfaced path.

Atb

[Ben Hollerbach]

Gotta say, this is the first time I have heard someone claim the modern clubs can correct for not squaring the clubface. And, I thought only the (illegal) polara ball could do that.

This reduction of standard deviation from our shots has affected how people play, as control has been transferred to the club we swing and is no longer about how we swing the club.

It is and always will be about how we swing the club.

Ok, here's an example for you. When I'm trying to get a little more out of my drive I'll periodically get a little quick from the top and am prone to a toe hook miss. With my hickory driver this could be a fatal shot, going as far left as it seems to fly out, and one I have to be very diligent at avoiding. But with my modern driver that shot ends up being a simple draw, 15 yards left of my intended line. If I'm playing a long hole with danger down the left, with hickory I have to select a shot and swing that will keep my ball in play, with modern this is of little concern.


Nicklaus use to talk about a heel cut drive he's play when he absolutely had to hit the fairway. he lost some distance playing it but he knew exactly what it was going to do and he could find the fairway with it. He hit a shot he could control. On today's tour, there is little need to play a designed control shot as the modern driver is forgiving enough to control nearly all shots and players are able to swing away without fear.

They have been building driving clubs from the 19th century at least onwards with the bulge necessary for this.

Necessary for what? correcting these shots?

The toe hook and heel cut are nothing new.

the existence or removal of them is nothing new?


I'm not denying the existence of these shot, in fact the opposite, what I was speaking of is the removal of those shots from common possibilities, thus my comparison to the preponderance of the toe hook found with my hickory driver to the near obsolescence of the same shot with my modern driver. Bulge and roll still exist and still plays a factor in the movement of the golf ball, but it is so much less prevalent on modern clubs than the persimmon of the 40's-80's. Primarily because technology has made it obsolete in controlling the modern golf ball. The weighting and face designs of today drivers make it all but impossible to hit a ball way off line. Where B&R from 40 or 50 years ago could have been up near 14 or 16 degrees, today's drivers are rarely build over 11. Many of them only roll away on the edges as they want the center of the face to be as flat and uniform as possible, especially on the low spinning heads that have become so popular.

[Garland Bayley]

Ben,

You need to get out and play with some high handicappers. We hit toe hooks and heel cuts all the time. And, we hit it way off line a LOT.

The new clubs have no way to make a player square the club face. Since they cannot address the main reason for shots going astray, they are pretty much no improvement at all for the average player.

It all comes down to how good you are at swinging the club. The new clubs have small effects that have been oversold by the industry. Remember this is an industry that reduced the loft on the irons so they could sell you irons that hit the ball longer. Not a group of people to be trusted.

[James Brown]

It would be awesome if one of our resident GCA history buffs could find a set of correspondence on this same topic regarding the introduction of the Haskell.

[Brian Walshe]

Erik,


Thanks for taking the time to respond. 


The 378 yd 3 wood wasn't the lone example, guys were carrying 300yd 3 woods into 18 almost every day and probably someone here can pull the total number of 300yd or greater drives at Erin Hills.  It would be a massive number compared to even 10 years ago.  The reality is that there are a lot more people hitting a lot more 300 yd+ shots than ever before.  Adding a 1000yds to a course means you need a lot more land and you will end up with a more fairway which will drive up maintenance costs.   Perhaps even more importantly you are slowing the game down.  In a era where people seem to want to make things quicker, adding a 1000yds means that it is just a longer walk.  It also means that most of our courses today are going to be too short. 


The ball is going to keep going longer.  The guys are fitter, the ball goes further, the equipment is better, Trackman allows guys to dial themselves in and the teachers are better     There are 26 guys on the PGA Tour who average over 300 yds.  There are 78 on the Web.com  The longest guy at Erin Hills was an amateur. There are guys coming through now who will hit it as long or longer than DJ, and lots more of them.  10 years ago we were told that driving distance has maxed out.  It has grown every year.  You are right about Daly reaching the par 5 at Baltusrol with an iron decades ago.  It was such an amazing occurrence that you have heard of it.  18 at Erin Hills was 675yds and there were plenty of guys all week reaching it, a lot with irons. How many of them will be remembered in 24 years?


By the way, I'm happy to have a bet about where driving distance will be in 5 years unless the ball is rolled back. 


Perhaps you can explain why you think the ball going further is a good thing for the game?

[Erik J. Barzeski]

Brian, I feel as though you didn't fully grok my response. I'll assume the blame for that - maybe I was unclear. My bad.

The PGA Tour is not "the game." It's a very, very, VERY small part of the game. Furthermore, if you add 1000 yards to a course, you aren't adding 1000 yards of fairway. Often, you aren't adding any… because the guy playing the 7500 yard tees can carry and reach the existing fairway.

No need to bet. As I said, I've learned to avoid these types of conversations. You won't be convinced, and I'm not going to worry about trying. I'd rather focus on things that are more interesting to me than this.

[Garland Bayley]

Daly reached with a 0 iron. Isn't that about the same as a 3 wood?

[Ben Hollerbach]

Ben,

You need to get out and play with some high handicappers. We hit toe hooks and heel cuts all the time. And, we hit it way off line a LOT.

The new clubs have no way to make a player square the club face. Since they cannot address the main reason for shots going astray, they are pretty much no improvement at all for the average player.

It all comes down to how good you are at swinging the club. The new clubs have small effects that have been oversold by the industry. Remember this is an industry that reduced the loft on the irons so they could sell you irons that hit the ball longer. Not a group of people to be trusted.

I completely agree that no new ball, club, or any piece of equipment will ever make the average player better.


As the initial post was in reference to the US Open at Erin Hills and the 350 yard drive, my comments were focused on my experiences and how it could be translated to the worlds best of today as well as references from the worlds best of yesterday. For those players the newer equipment has allowed them to miss straighter than ever before and changed their way of utilizing the driver.

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