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Peter Pallotta

Re: They’re athletes who have chosen to play golf
« Reply #100 on: June 17, 2019, 08:01:49 PM »
I read recently that someone managed to determine Bobby Jones' clubhead speed via old film footage. For a fellow who was remarkably stylish but didn't look like anyone's idea of a great athlete (especially a modern one), it might come as a surprise that it was clocked at 113 mph...with a 43 inch hickory shafted driver! Anyone want to argue that Snead's and Hogan's and Nicklaus' clubhead speed was any less than that? And if not, then we'd probably agree that all the greats -- from 80 and 60 and 40 years ago -- would today with modern drivers be swinging at the top of the elite range.
Which is to say: golf is unlike any other sport. It's 'athletes' can and always have come in all shapes and sizes. It's the equipment -- that's all.

archie_struthers

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Re: They’re athletes who have chosen to play golf
« Reply #101 on: June 17, 2019, 10:15:37 PM »
 8) ::)


Crazy crazy crazy to think that tour players could play a professional sport other than golf. Just like its ridiculous to think that an elite athlete in another sport could play the tour.  I remember someone on the Phillies network talking about how Mike Schmidt would be a professional golfer if her wasn't a baseball player.  I caddied for him and there was no chance that was true, he would have trouble winning our Monday game at the shore. Might never win it.  LOL    and this guy was a great baseball player no argument. Great !!!


To think that one of these guys could play football at the college level let alone pro is a real crazy stretch.

Keith Phillips

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Re: They’re athletes who have chosen to play golf
« Reply #102 on: June 17, 2019, 10:52:38 PM »
Time to wake up and smell the coffee.  My favorite tennis player was Rod Laver; my favorite hockey player was Guy Lafleur.  Both were dominant in their eras but neither would be competitive today...and not because of the equipment!  Athletes are bigger, stronger, faster...BETTER in every sport, and it's ludicrous to argue otherwise.  To complete the thought, JACK was my favorite golfer in the 1960s through the 1980s...as he played then, I can't imagine he would be competitive with today's players (why would golf be different from EVERY other sport?  Unless you want to argue that golf isn't a sport?)


Having said all that, all you can ask is 'who most clearly dominated their own competition?', and that is why Laver, Lafleur and Nicklaus remain 'truly GREAT' to me.

Erik J. Barzeski

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Re: They’re athletes who have chosen to play golf
« Reply #103 on: June 17, 2019, 11:47:36 PM »
Which is to say: golf is unlike any other sport. It's 'athletes' can and always have come in all shapes and sizes. It's the equipment -- that's all.
I disagree. Bobby and Jack were outliers. Today, the average guy on the Tour swings 113+.

Keith, right on, though the outliers can still be outliers in a different generation.
Erik J. Barzeski @iacas
Author, Lowest Score Wins, Instructor/Coach, and Lifetime Student of the Game.

I generally ignore Rob, Tim, Garland, and Chris.

Peter Flory

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Re: They’re athletes who have chosen to play golf
« Reply #104 on: June 18, 2019, 12:27:43 AM »
Time to wake up and smell the coffee.  My favorite tennis player was Rod Laver; my favorite hockey player was Guy Lafleur.  Both were dominant in their eras but neither would be competitive today...and not because of the equipment!  Athletes are bigger, stronger, faster...BETTER in every sport, and it's ludicrous to argue otherwise.  To complete the thought, JACK was my favorite golfer in the 1960s through the 1980s...as he played then, I can't imagine he would be competitive with today's players (why would golf be different from EVERY other sport?  Unless you want to argue that golf isn't a sport?)


Having said all that, all you can ask is 'who most clearly dominated their own competition?', and that is why Laver, Lafleur and Nicklaus remain 'truly GREAT' to me.


In 1998, when Tiger was defending his '97 Masters domination that ushered in the new era, Jack Nicklaus beat him and the other 3 major winners from 1997 and finished 6th in the Masters at the age of 58.  That was 9 months before Jack had his hip replaced. 


That to me is a strong indicator that Nicklaus in his prime would still be winning majors today. 

Sean_A

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Re: They’re athletes who have chosen to play golf
« Reply #105 on: June 18, 2019, 04:59:15 AM »
The problem with all cross generational comparisons is we see the old guys as they were without the massive advantages of better equipment, conditions, training, medicine, travel conditions, money incentive etc etc. I have complete faith in the theory that the best of any generation are as good as future generations. In golf we are lucky because many of us group watching the immediately past generation or two. There is ample proof of champions of one time are champions of all time.


Ciao
New plays planned for 2024: Nothing

David_Elvins

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Re: They’re athletes who have chosen to play golf
« Reply #106 on: June 18, 2019, 05:06:12 AM »
The last 4 US Opens have been won by Dustin Johnson, Brooks Koepka and Gary Woodland. They are big, strong guys who hit the ball a long way and have the strength/power to muscle a wedge 100 yards out of shin deep rough. They also know how to pitch, chip and putt. The future is here.


Has been interesting to learn that the physical screening test that correlates greatest with club head speed in players under 40 is the vertical jump.


It's touched on a bit here.
https://youtu.be/zeFCPaYFTzo


Former college basketballer Gary Woodland is the latest slam dunking major winner.


They are not athletes first but it's great that the top players are understood more as athletes.


And I think it is fundamentally good for the average golfer to bow have a better understanding of how their athleticism defines their golf swing.  Not so good for the instruction industry that for 50 years pushed the myth that golfers were primarily limited by their technique.
Ask not what GolfClubAtlas can do for you; ask what you can do for GolfClubAtlas.

Thomas Dai

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Re: They’re athletes who have chosen to play golf
« Reply #107 on: June 18, 2019, 06:15:48 AM »
Takes strength to hack balls out of rough let alone play regular full shots from even slightly longer grass.
atb

Mike Sweeney

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Re: They’re athletes who have chosen to play golf
« Reply #108 on: June 18, 2019, 06:55:47 AM »

Has been interesting to learn that the physical screening test that correlates greatest with club head speed in players under 40 is the vertical jump.


It's touched on a bit here.
https://youtu.be/zeFCPaYFTzo



Amazing video, sent to my son who is already 50 yards past me... Thanks
"One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us."

Dr. Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

jeffwarne

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Re: They’re athletes who have chosen to play golf
« Reply #109 on: June 18, 2019, 09:27:59 AM »
To complete the thought, JACK was my favorite golfer in the 1960s through the 1980s...as he played then, I can't imagine he would be competitive with today's players (why would golf be different from EVERY other sport?  Unless you want to argue that golf isn't a sport?)



To some degree, I completely agree, but Jack was a powerful man, who hit it a long way, and really long as a young man, while being a great putter.
he would be successful in any era, and his competitive nature would've forced him to improve his below average wedge game (a la Woodland) to acheive his goals if facing more competition week in week out.


hard to say Kisner,Brian Harmon,Rory 5 foot 9 161 pounds(formerly skinny fat-yet still a bomber then) etc. are part of some generation shift in size amongst pro golfers.
Scott Parel at 5 foot 5 leads the Champions Tour in driving distance


Golf remains the sport to play if you are small in stature, but taller players are emerging on Tour more frequently than 25 years ago.
This might even be more true if a 5 foot 4 guy couldn't grab an ultralight face caving driver and optimize it to his Prov ball of choice (i.e. there's a point where you only need to hit it so far and you don't have to be Long Drive Tour size to bomb it far enough on the PGA Tour-diminishing returns)
IMHO if they were playing less hot equipment you'd see more larger athletic players as the equipment is an equalizer.


One of the reasons golf still continues to be attractive to people smaller in stature, is there is no coach blocking the door to their participation/development due to size-in other sports.
How many smaller kids are ever give a chance as they progress towards the next level but are eliminated and not recruited by certain size metrics?
In mediocre High School baseball I was truly shocked at how many shitty athletes were chosen by narrow minded coaches for positions based on size when there were far more skilled, athletic players that I had coached and knew their abilities, available for those positions.(who could actually hit and run also :( )


In golf, you just need to shoot a number-and hopefully a high school coach is just looking at those for selection.


So yes, the competition is much deeper today, and some of these current players could've played other sports, but Nicklaus would've been great in any era. Just look at the scores he shot at the same places with -15% equipment (maybe worse as his MacGregor ball sucked)
« Last Edit: June 18, 2019, 10:27:05 AM by jeffwarne »
"Let's slow the damned greens down a bit, not take the character out of them." Tom Doak
"Take their focus off the grass and put it squarely on interesting golf." Don Mahaffey

Wayne_Kozun

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Re: They’re athletes who have chosen to play golf
« Reply #110 on: June 18, 2019, 09:45:59 AM »

Has been interesting to learn that the physical screening test that correlates greatest with club head speed in players under 40 is the vertical jump.
And this might simply be a spurious correlation.  For many years the time series with the best predictive ability for the S&P500 was Bangladeshi butter production.

Jim Nugent

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Re: They’re athletes who have chosen to play golf
« Reply #111 on: June 18, 2019, 09:48:07 AM »
o complete the thought, JACK was my favorite golfer in the 1960s through the 1980s...as he played then, I can't imagine he would be competitive with today's players (why would golf be different from EVERY other sport?

Then tell me how Tom Watson, several weeks less than 60 years of age, came within an inch on the 72nd hole of winning the 2009 Open Championship? 


William_G

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Re: They’re athletes who have chosen to play golf
« Reply #112 on: June 18, 2019, 10:03:40 AM »
thank you for the Youtube link David


cheers
It's all about the golf!

Jeff Schley

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Re: They’re athletes who have chosen to play golf
« Reply #113 on: June 18, 2019, 10:38:44 AM »
T  To complete the thought, JACK was my favorite golfer in the 1960s through the 1980s...as he played then, I can't imagine he would be competitive with today's players (why would golf be different from EVERY other sport?  Unless you want to argue that golf isn't a sport?)

I can't let this slide as Jack is my favorite golfer of all time and feel compelled to protect that pedestal I have him on.
This is only taking into account the long game.  Jack had an above average (not elite) short game, but was a great clutch putter. I think he certainly would have been among st the longer hitters in the game, maybe not the longest as he was in his era, but he would have still had huge success.  I certainly can't argue he would have more than 18 majors if he played in this era, but he wouldn't of had a whole lot less.
"To give anything less than your best, is to sacrifice your gifts."
- Steve Prefontaine

jeffwarne

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Re: They’re athletes who have chosen to play golf
« Reply #114 on: June 18, 2019, 11:31:19 AM »




Published: Thursday, November 02, 2017 | 10:36 a.m.




In a fourball match at the 2016 Ryder Cup, 6-foot-5 Thomas Pieters belted a drive 324 yards. His ball was the shortest in the group. Rory McIlroy pounded a 383-yard tee shot on another hole. Drives exceeding 350 yards are seemingly routine for Dustin Johnson.
These days in pro golf, power is prevalent.
Today’s era benefits from lighter shafts, larger clubheads with springy faces and a solid core multi-layered golf ball. Players are bigger, stronger, more athletic, pay close attention to nutrition and hone their bodies in the gym.
Still, the question lingers, how far would golf’s legends hit the ball with today’s equipment? Grainy, black-and-white footage on YouTube, books, magazine articles and anecdotes provide a starting point.
First, let’s hear from a six-time major champion who starred in the 1970s.
“If we had (the new) golf ball in my day," Lee Trevino told USA Today in 2007, “The best of us would have hit it 300 yards and Jack Nicklaus would have hit it 360.”
It’s not a stretch to believe Trevino. Nicklaus cranked a 341-yard blast to win the PGA Championship’s long drive competition in 1963 with the “old ball.” When he was 18 years old, he and Arnold Palmer drove the green on a 330-yard par 4 at Athens (Ohio) CC, a story Nicklaus shared at Palmer’s memorial service.

Today, such drives are routine. According to shotlink data, there were 200 measured drives of 375 yards or longer during the 2015-16 PGA Tour season, including eight surpassing the 400-yard barrier.
Study the career of Fred Couples to grasp the impact technology has made on driving distance at the game’s highest level.
In 1982, Couples was a limberbacked 22-year-old with immense flexibility. He averaged 268.7 yards in driving distance, which was eighth on the PGA Tour.
In 2009, Couples was a 49-year-old with a decade-and-a-half battling serious back problems. He averaged 297.5 yards in driving distance, which was 24th on the PGA Tour.
His former World Cup partner, Davis Love III, led the PGA Tour in 1986 at age 22, averaging 285 yards per drive. Two decades later, he’d gained 13 yards. This year at age 52, Love was one of the eight golfers who had a 400-plus drive.

Technology made gradual progress for more than 60 years, according to Nicklaus. In the last 20 years, it exploded.
“Once we got into a wound golf ball and once we got into steel shafts, the game from basically the early 1930s until 1995 changed very little, and all the golf courses that were built needed very little adjustment to be able to handle any kind of a tournament," Nicklaus told USA Today in 2007.
Ben Hogan hit his driver 265 yards, according to an article in the June 10, 1949 issue of Time Magazine. Even 15 years later he still hit drives that distance in a Shell’s Wonderful World of Golf match against the equally long-hitting Sam Snead. Considering their length off the tee would’ve put them in the top 10 in 1980, it’s fair to assume they’d rank at least as high today.
Snead remained flexible and powerful into his 60s due to a daily yoga routine. With his size, strength and fluid golf swing, he’d challenge J.B. Holmes, who led the PGA Tour in driving distance in 2015-16 (314.5 yards).
As Nicklaus states, the ball has played a large role. Driving distances changed little over decades.
IBM recorded driving distance data at 11 PGA Tour events in 1968. The top 10 players averaged 270.2 yards, the average was 264.0 yards and Nicklaus led the Tour at 276.0 yards. Adding 35 yards for increased speed, hotter driver and better ball, Nicklaus would've averaged 311.0 last season.
When Tour pros put the Titleist Pro VI in play in late 2000, they automatically hit the ball 10-15 yards farther with each iron.

A recent study also sheds light on the subject.
Chad Campbell averaged 291 yards off the tee in 2009, ranking 70th on the PGA Tour. At the Byron Nelson Classic that year, he hit Titleist Balata 100 balls on the driving range with a persimmon driver supplied by noted golf author Curt Sampson, according to a blog post published at GolfDigest.com.
The results were startling.
His average drive with the Byron Nelson wooden driver went 247 yards. The ball carried 270 yards off his driver, which measured 45” and 230 off the relic, which measured 43”.
He swung the 150-gram steel shaft in the persimmon at 106 miles per hour. He swung the 75-gram graphite shaft in his driver at 113 miles per hour. A driver two inches longer and two ounces lighter enabled Campbell to generate more speed. According to golf club designer Tom Wishon in a post on GolfWRX.com, each mile-per-hour of clubhead speed equals 2.8 yards of carry. He wrote that advancements in golf equipment account for at best, 25 percent of the distance increase.
The average clubhead speed increased from 104 mph in 1980 to 113 in 2016. Andrew Loupe led the PGA Tour with 125.5 average clubhead speed. He recorded a top measured speed of 130.9 mph. In all, 14 pros averaged 120 mph or better.
Using high-speed film analysis, experts estimate legendary amateur Bobby Jones had a swing speed of 117 miles per hour in the 1930s - using hickory shafts. Only 27 players on the PGA Tour in 2015-16 had a faster average. It’s reasonable to assume Jones, who was one of the longer hitters of the day and the game’s greatest amateur, would have no trouble keeping up if given modern equipment.
While the distance a golf ball carries is important, Wishon also makes another key point. Fairways are mown at roughly ½ inch on the PGA Tour now, significantly lower than in the past, although courses benefit from extensive irrigation.
Brandt Snedeker, who is slightly shorter than average, played back-to-back rounds on the Sea Island Plantation course for an article that appeared in USA Today. He played one round with his clubs and the next with steel-shafted persimmon woods and irons and a balata ball from the mid-80s. With the driver, he observed a 25-30 yard difference on well-struck shots. The gap stretched to 50-60 yards on mishit shots.
Needless to say, Snedeker and his cohorts are glad they don’t have to play for a living with equipment from a previous era. And, the legends from the past would’ve loved to tee up their graphite/titanium beauty and swing away.

"Let's slow the damned greens down a bit, not take the character out of them." Tom Doak
"Take their focus off the grass and put it squarely on interesting golf." Don Mahaffey

John Foley

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Re: They’re athletes who have chosen to play golf
« Reply #115 on: June 18, 2019, 01:08:16 PM »
The last 4 US Opens have been won by Dustin Johnson, Brooks Koepka and Gary Woodland. They are big, strong guys who hit the ball a long way and have the strength/power to muscle a wedge 100 yards out of shin deep rough. They also know how to pitch, chip and putt. The future is here.


Has been interesting to learn that the physical screening test that correlates greatest with club head speed in players under 40 is the vertical jump.


It's touched on a bit here.
https://youtu.be/zeFCPaYFTzo


Former college basketballer Gary Woodland is the latest slam dunking major winner.


They are not athletes first but it's great that the top players are understood more as athletes.


And I think it is fundamentally good for the average golfer to bow have a better understanding of how their athleticism defines their golf swing.  Not so good for the instruction industry that for 50 years pushed the myth that golfers were primarily limited by their technique.


It's the ball - yeah right!!!!
Integrity in the moment of choice

Wayne_Kozun

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: They’re athletes who have chosen to play golf
« Reply #116 on: June 18, 2019, 02:00:19 PM »
Using high-speed film analysis, experts estimate legendary amateur Bobby Jones had a swing speed of 117 miles per hour in the 1930s - using hickory shafts. Only 27 players on the PGA Tour in 2015-16 had a faster average. It’s reasonable to assume Jones, who was one of the longer hitters of the day and the game’s greatest amateur, would have no trouble keeping up if given modern equipment.
I find this surprising as I have a set of hickories and I play with them a couple of times per year.  I try to swing slower with hickories as they have so much whip.  Wasn't that the case back in the 30s?

Ben Hollerbach

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Re: They’re athletes who have chosen to play golf
« Reply #117 on: June 18, 2019, 03:41:00 PM »
Using high-speed film analysis, experts estimate legendary amateur Bobby Jones had a swing speed of 117 miles per hour in the 1930s - using hickory shafts. Only 27 players on the PGA Tour in 2015-16 had a faster average. It’s reasonable to assume Jones, who was one of the longer hitters of the day and the game’s greatest amateur, would have no trouble keeping up if given modern equipment.
I find this surprising as I have a set of hickories and I play with them a couple of times per year.  I try to swing slower with hickories as they have so much whip.  Wasn't that the case back in the 30s?


You can swing them just as fast, you just have to build that speed more gradually. Trying to jump on the ball from the top is what gets the club out of sorts at the bottom. As long as you continue to increase the speed from the top through impact your swing speed can still be quite high.

Ira Fishman

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Re: They’re athletes who have chosen to play golf
« Reply #118 on: June 22, 2019, 09:15:30 AM »
If I knew how to post links, I would post the story of Gary Woodland explaining why he gave up his dream of playing professional Basketball. He was a two time All State player for a High School team that won two Kansas State Championships. He says that after his very first college game, he knew he was not nearly good enough. In that game he guarded Kurt Hinrich who ended up a First Round pick. Woodland relates how clear the difference in Basketball talent was so he decided to concentrate on golf.


Ira

corey miller

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Re: They’re athletes who have chosen to play golf
« Reply #119 on: June 22, 2019, 10:10:59 AM »



The fact that Woodland did not have elite level basketball skills does not mean that he can't be an elite level athlete. 

Ira Fishman

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Re: They’re athletes who have chosen to play golf
« Reply #120 on: June 22, 2019, 10:25:41 AM »
He is an elite level athlete. But only once in a generation athletes have a chance of being elite athletes in more than one sport.


Ira

Kalen Braley

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Re: They’re athletes who have chosen to play golf
« Reply #121 on: June 22, 2019, 10:32:39 AM »
Washburn is a DII school, so I'm guessing he had some idea beforehand and confirmed after playing Kansas


But kudos to figuring it out right away instead of being in denial of his actual capabilities...

Tim Martin

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Re: They’re athletes who have chosen to play golf
« Reply #122 on: August 24, 2019, 12:06:53 PM »
Brooks Koepka showed a lot of balls doing the ESPN “Body Issue”.

Garland Bayley

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Re: They’re athletes who have chosen to play golf
« Reply #123 on: August 24, 2019, 01:28:48 PM »
Washburn is a DII school, so I'm guessing he had some idea beforehand and confirmed after playing Kansas
...

Top NBA pros have come out of DII and NAIA schools, so how would that be relevant?

I guess no one made him mad enough about his basketball performance to get him to the highest level. ;)
"I enjoy a course where the challenges are contained WITHIN it, and recovery is part of the game  not a course where the challenge is to stay ON it." Jeff Warne

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