[DMoriarty]

I was researching something else and came across a statistic I found fascinating, so much so that I am reposting it as a thread hoping more will see it and think about it.

We've all heard that the Haskell Ball revolutionized golf, making the game much more accessible to the masses but also making some courses completely obsolete, forcing others to lengthen and stretch, and others to be abandoned for relocation where there was more room . . .

Well guess how much distance golfers gained with the new Haskell?  According to Frank Hannigan,the haskell ball gave all golfers 15-20 yards extra distance overnight.

The recent gains havent exactly been across the board or overnight like the gains caused by the haskell.  Nor were they all the result of just the new balls.  But still they were relatively abrupt and even greater in magnitude than the haskell.  In the past decade, distance on the PGA Tour has increased 25 yards.  Many of the faster swingers have gained that many yards is just the past 6.

Moreover, I have read that with the haskell allowed everyone to hit the ball longer.  In this the changes brought on by the haskell were much more benign than the changes wrought by balls like the ProV1x.  Unlike the haskell, the ProV1x doesnt help most golfers in the least.  Only the longest hitters benefit.

So next time someone accuses me of wanting to go back to the feathery, maybe I'll express a longing for the comparatively minor problems brought on by the change to the haskell instead.

[Phil McDade]

I'd still make the argument that the Haskell ball was a distant second to the gutta-percha ball in truly revolutionizing golf. Golf was very limited as a sport prior to the gutty's introduction in 1848, primarily because its predecessor -- the feathery -- was so expensive and un-durable. It was the gutty -- relatively cheap, and most critically much more durable -- that brought golf to the masses, first in Scotland and then exported throughout the world.

Sure, golf was played in many quarters of Scotland prior to the gutty, but it was almost exclusively an upper-crust sport, played only by those who could afford the expensive equipment and the very expensive feathery balls. There were only a handful (20-some) established clubs prior to the gutty, and almost all of those were in Scotland. Fifty years after the gutty's replacement (the Haskell, @ 1900) came along, golf courses could be found in literally every single corner of Scotland, played by lowly fishermen as well as the landed gentry. And the game had been exported throughout the UK, Ireland, many places in western Europe, and -- yes -- the US.(Yes, sure, there were other factors at work resulting in the game's explosion, including the increasing distribution of of wealth ((small w)) brought on by the Industrial Revolution. But I'd argue the gutty was the catalyst). That's truly a revolutionary product, dwarfing any relatively minor changes in length brought on by the Haskell.

[Peter Galea]

Eddie Haskell?

http://www.litb.com/eddie.htm

[ForkaB]

Dave

Hard to believe that the change was only 15-20 yards, when Horace Hutchinson described 250 yards holes in the guttie age as a "drive and an iron" and 340 yard holes as "two drivers."  Most top courses that remodeled in the early 20th century added 1000+ yards, or about 25-30 yards per full shot.  I presume the architects were trying to maintain "shot values" in the process.

Pete

Thanks for the link.  Now I wonder who is the Eddie Haskell of GCA......??  Imagine this scene:

"Good morning Mrs. Cleaver.  Don't you look lovely today! "
"Well thank you, Eddie. "
"Hi, Mr. Cleaver.  Looks like you're off to the golf course.  I'll bet you can really rip the ball!"
"Thanks, Eddie.  I'm not that bad, if I say so myself. "
"You know, Mr. Cleaver, I spend hours behind my Dad's garage hitting stones with some sticks I've found in the woods, and I really love it, but I've never ever played a real golf course, particularly one as fine as yours...... "
"Really, Eddie?  Well.......why don't you join me today?"
"Oh I couldn't, Mr. Cleaver.  Golf is so expensive and I spent the last of my allowance giving $1.50 to the March of Dimes.... "
"Oh, that's all right, Eddie.  Be my guest!"
"Gee thanks, Mr. Cleaver.  I'll go get my sticks and see you at the car! "
"Bye, Bye, Mrs. Cleaver! And thank you for the piece of cake! "

[Mike_Sweeney]

Thanks for the link.  Now I wonder who is the Eddie Haskell of GCA......??  

Richard,

Now that would be an interesting contest, but I feel confident that we could find more that one Haskell winner here at GCA!

[Ed_Baker]

A piece of WHAT ?  

[Alfie]

Phil,

Good post, and I'd agree that the introduction of the gutta was more revolutionary to golf than the Haskell. IMO - the Haskell was the first invention that started the process of simplyfying the art of striking the shots !

David,

One of the biggest assets for the average (not so average) golfer with the Haskell was that it was much more forgiving to the duffed, or mis-hit shot. The gutta / gutties were much more difficult to get airborne and very unforgiving to any bad shot !

There were important lessons to learned from the Haskell which were not. And a century on - and we still don't learn !

Alfie

[TEPaul]

Interesting point about the transition from the featherie to the gutta percha ball.

I'd submit that golf was so rudimentary and so limited back in the pre-guttie days that the thought of any real revolution in distance is nothing much more than a sidebar.

It appears that one of the most interesting aspects of the playability of the old featherie is that it was so light even relatively accomplished players of that day almost had to keep it near to the ground if there was any wind about.

As a reliable source of the effective distance increase from the guttie to the Haskell I don't think I'd rely too heavily on information from Frank Hannigan. I'd simply comb the old periodicals from around 1900 to the teens. There's a ton of opinion and information in those old periodicals on the Haskell and the transition to it, the distance increase and what those back then thought it meant to golf and particularly architecture.

My sense is it had a greater impact, relatively speaking, than the distance increase amongst elite players that we've seen in the last decade.

[Tags:]

Tags:

[Tags:]

Tags:

Call to undefined function theme_linktree()