Cure or prescription for smash and gouge

[Greg Murphy]

Is long, lush, manicured rough and narrow fairways the cure for smash and gouge or the ultimate prescription for smash and gouge?

I just read Cabrera hit only 9 fairways on the weekend at Oakmont. Three quarters of the players who made the cut hit more fairways over the tournament than his total of 27. But he was second in driving distance, averaging 310 yards. He made 13 birdies to Tiger’s 8. Besides Cabrera, only 6 players had a round under 70. Cabrera did it twice.

As Bob Harig points out in his column on espn.com:

“It was Ogilvy who pointed out earlier this year that being a straight driver is overrated in the U.S. Open these days because the fairways are so narrow that everyone is going to find the rough. The point: It’s better to be long and crooked than short and crooked. . . The formula for winning the open, it seems, is changing right before our very eyes. Cabrera is just the latest example.”

[Michael Dugger]

I hear what you are saying Greg, but I think it is fair to give props to a player who has excelled from the rough.  Fairways seem to make the game easier, but don't discount that Cabrera outplayed Tiger, plain and simple.

On one of the holes on the back, Tiger flat out missed the green from 122 yds.  How can he fail to birdie a 307 yd par 4?  The ability to hit a good shot from the 1st cut surely favored Cabrera, and he showed that in a game of smash and gouge, he was the best.

[Kenny Lee Puckett]

The cure or prescription for "Smash and Gouge"?  

How about hit the gym, the launch monitor, and oh yeah, learn how to swing harder!?!

Smash and Gouge is not a sickness, it is a cure unto itself.  What feels better, nutting a drive, or crafting a lay-up to a perfect club yardage?  If you said perfect lay-up yardage, you should also try bocce bowling and shuffleboard - games that require great strategy and distance control.

The gutta percha didn't ruin the game.  The steel and graphite shafts did not ruin the game.  The two piece ball did not ruin the game.  Fairway and greens thinking ruined the game by turning it into a one-dimensional parade of grinding and "Taking Double Bogey out of Play".

Why does everyone want to penalize length?

Do we go out of our way to penalize any other facet/talent of the game, e.g. good putting, quality short game, accurate driving and iron play?

I am over the moon that a long hitter won the U.S. Open in spite of all of the tricked up rough, narrowed fairways and lengthened long holes.  Perhaps being able to gouge short irons from the hay was THE winning advantage.

The USGA has a "Cost of Rough" stat.  I would love to see a "How much did it cost to create and graduatedly mow this stuff" cost statistic?

If the USGA's definition of "Par" is the score an expert golfer should score on each hole, I guess we have no experts left as the winning score of +1 (Par 71 as the course is normally played) is a testement to the USGA's abilty to turn a fun and exciting game into a torture test.  

Expanding the widths of the rough was another colossal lapse of judgement by the USGA.  I'll bet that the 46,000+ people who were even further away than normal really enjoyed watching their heroes look just like them, only really far away.  All this effort to penalize 18-30 shots a day that would have ended up on the walk paths, while taking the paying fan out of the action.

Length is a skill, just as any other part of the game.  Conditioning, Abilty and Timing are all coordinated to produce spectacular results.  The potential for a really dramatic and penalized error comes with all of that clubhead speed.  At least Furyk had the stones to try to get the ball close on 17 on Sunday.  We can debate as to whether or not this strategy fit his ability or skill set, but who wants to watch lay-ups, especially when they screw it up because the fairway is 22 paces wide?  

We loved Arnie because he went for it.  The most popular players of today including Tiger, Phil, John Daly, Bubba, etc. are bombers.  Angel is in the same mode:  "I am going to pound it and make a lower score than you.  And after I kill it off of the tee, I am going to light up.

So there you have it.  The cure or prescription for smash and gouge is really simple:  Lie back and enjoy it!

Not many of the powers that be (And their dogmatic, fragile egos) can handle or bear to see their beloved courses hammered by the very best.

JWK

 

[Brent Hutto]

Smash and Gouge is not a sickness, it is a cure unto itself.  

Why does everyone want to penalize length?

Bravo, well said! I've been working up to posting a similar comment for some time now.

Don't get me wrong. I think there would be beneficial effects on the ball flying perhaps 10% shorter than it does now in terms of the length, expense and resource utilization that a modern golf course requires. But the reactionary fervor evoked every time a stronger, fitter, faster, better trained golfer hits the ball long enough to overpower a hole is just bloody-minded and irrational.

I wish I could trace back the history of just when it became an accepted way of "respecting the traditions and integrity of the game" to trick up golf courses in any way possible so that hitting it Far and Sure is not an advantage[1]. I don't think the mainstream opinion reacted that way to Jack Nicklaus' abilities. Is it just in the past 10-15 years that self-appointed guardians of the game have adopted this belief?

The recent broadside by the USGA concerning the grooves on irons and wedges was the ultimate expression of this new mindset. They declared that the biggest problem facing the game is the weak correlation between percentage of fairways hit and scoring among elite players. What the hell, it's fine with me if they just outlaw grooves and we all play smooth-faced clubs. I guarantee you that Angel Cabera ain't gonna turn into a banjo hitter just because you make him hit flyers out of the rough.

[1] And BTW that effort is completely futile. Even if you water hazard across every fairway at 280 yards off the tee the guy who can hit a shorter iron from there to the green is at a big advantage. As he ought to be.

[Jeff Doerr]

I guess I'm in favor of a "Bomb and Play" theory.

The setup at Oakmont was awesome. The only changes I would want are the thickest rough cut down about an inch, the bunkers groomed with old rakes, and fairways cut to feed into a number of bunkers.

It was great fun seeing Angel pound it out to 390!

I wish Furyk had enough of a lie on 17 to get it on to the green with his 2nd.

Great drama on Sunday. I'm sure the USGA is very proud of how the course turned out.

[JESII]

I think it's worth noting that Angel was in the first cut more than a few times...while it does not count as a fairway, it was every bit as playable so it could.


JWK,

I understand your position on artificially altering par, but when you consider Angel hit sand wedge into the hole Friday afternoon, and Tiger hit three wood off the tee Sunday and a mid-iron into the green, it's tough to call it a three shot hole...

[Garland Bayley]

The cure or prescription for "Smash and Gouge"?  

How about hit the gym, the launch monitor, and oh yeah, learn how to swing harder!?!

...
Length is a skill, just as any other part of the game.  Conditioning, Abilty and Timing are all coordinated to produce spectacular results.  ...
 

I think you can drop the hit the gym and conditioning stuff when it comes to Smash and Gouge. The two headliner Smash and Gougers that finished high in the open (Angel and Bubba) disdain the gym and wouldn't be caught dead in one.

Make them play 36 on Saturday like the old days, and I will take Tiger. But if 18 is all you require, they will do just fine.

[JESII]

Garland,

Do you not view Tiger as a "bomb and gauger"?

I thought he was the proto-type...

[Greg Murphy]

JWK

Enjoyed your post very much. I agree the ability to bomb it ought to be celebrated not demonized. In fact, the reality is as you pointed out, we do celebrate it. Tiger would be an entirely different phenomenon if he only hit it 270 but never more than 10 feet off line. He'd be a Larry, not a Tiger.

We seek dimension in our games, usually a balance of force and finesse, power and precision.

Sometimes it seems the balance gets out of whack. Dimension is lost.

Hockey lost its dimension in the seventies when the broad street bullies ruled and again in the recent past when clutch and grab and defensive systems took offense out of the game. Introduce Sidney Crosby. Now there's dimension! He can do it all.

I haven't followed squash for some time, but there was a time when retrievers were so good, it became a fitness test. I remember speaking once with an international referee and he said it all boiled down to anerobic capacity. Every player could rally more or less equally, without more than a couple points being scored for maybe 20 or 30 minutes, until one player simply could not get oxygen to his muscles and the more fit player would run off a string of points and win the game in a matter of minutes. The less fit player would be virtually completely recovered in the couple minute break between games but the same scenario would play out the next game. At that point, the game of squash had lost dimension.

I've heard it said in tennis, technology and resulting ball speed have given the game less dimension.

One valid concern about smash and gouge is that, by adding a dimension to the game, it may remove even more.

Golf has many dimensions.

Length. Direction. Trajectory. Spin. Roll. Slope. Ground surface. Angles. Wind resistance.

The USGA set up for its Open Champonship would seem to be all about rewarding precision and patience. It does so by trying to remove certain dimensions from the game.

For example, the sloping terrain at Oakmont appeared incredible on TV in HD but didn't the set up make every hole play as if it was flat?

The ultimate irony, though, is that in trying to remove or harness one dimension of the game, the set up may have the unintended consequence of doing just the opposite. Tiger will be in the hunt again and again but he may have a tough time winning if most of the rest of the field are going to go play the odds and go for broke. Cabrera likely won't. Campbell likely won't. Ogilvey likely won't. But odds are if enough guys say screw it, I'll never beat the favorites head to head, I'm going to grip it and rip it and hope for the best, we'll see one of them rise to the top most years.

JES II

Your point is well taken. Stats as we all know may not tell the true tale. I think Cabrera was straighter than the fairways hit number would suggest. A more reliable stat would be how often he was hitting it out of the deep stuff compared to the other guys.

Greg

[Garland Bayley]

Garland,

Do you not view Tiger as a "bomb and gauger"?

I thought he was the proto-type...

To borrow Greg's term, he is not that one-dimensional. Must I remind you of Royal Liverpool?  

[SL_Solow]

This is not the first time we have had posters who suggest that this group is overly critical of length as a virtue.  At the risk of rehashing some earlier posts I'll take a shot at responding.  In so doing, I'll try not to repeat much of Greg's most recent post which I think is quite insightful.

First, no one with any sense denigrates the value of length.  All things being reasonably equal, a longer drive yields a shorter approach.  Since accuracy should increase as distance to the target decreases, it stands to reason that the long hitter will have a better chance to hit the ball closer to the hole and make birdies.

Of course the caveat is that all things should be reasonably equal.  If there is little or no penalty for being inaccurate off the tee, then the balance of skill which required that a good drive be both far and true is lost.  The concern is that the new equipment has altered the balance and made the game at the highest levels less interesting.  The new balls which generally go farther and straighter (less spin) are contributors.  The larger perimeter weighted drivers with ultra lightweight shafts which can be built longer also add to the effect.  Higher lofted square grooved wedges reduce the penalty for off center hits.

The results are at least two fold.  First it is a different game with fewer dimensions of skill being tested.  It is a matter of taste in determining which game you prefer.

Second, it obsoletes many of the great playing fields for championship golf.  It also makes the game more expensive for courses aspiring to test top players because it requires more land and all the attendant maintenance costs.

The question the rules makers should have asked and should ask today is "when is the game mature and worth protecting?"  To use baseball as an example, many people loved the game during the deadball era.  But the rabbit ball was introduced, trick pitches were outlawed and the game improved.  But baseball held the line regarding wood bats as opposed to aluminum or composite and kept the dimensions of the game the same. Focusing simply on the equipment issue, there is little doubt that the game would be less interesting if bats or balls were introduced which allowed routine flyballs to become home runs or as in the college game, allowed balls off the handle to be hit like rockets thus negating much of the advantage of pitching inside.  Granted there is minor tinkering but baseball recognized the maturity of the game and preserved its basic characteristics.

Golf has always been a game where players sought help through innovation.  Many innovations were decried by purists. Limiting the number of clubs was universally accepted, although some would reduce the number. I doubt there are many who believe the game was hurt by changing from the guttie to the Haskell.  Steel shafts helped create mass appeal.  But the question now raised is how has the game been improved by the latest innovations?  It may be too late to do much but I submit the game is somewhat less interesting than it was when a greater variety of skills were needed.  Moreover, the loss of the old courses as true challenges in their unaltered form is unfortunate.

Finally the myth that the increased length is about better athletes should be addressed.  I will concede that more good athletes are attracted to golf than in prior years.  I will concede that good instruction is more widely available.  I will concede that more players are seeking good physical condition(with notable exceptions Mr. Daley).  But I am old enough to have seen Nicklaus swing a club in his prime and to have watched Snead after his prime.  They were swinging 43.5 inch drivers with steel shafts and persimmon heads with tiny sweet spots and low COR.  Nicklaus swung the club as fast as any great player (not any great long driver) and kept the ball in play.  Yet due to the equipment he rarely had short or mid irons to par 5s even playing on the same courses as our modern heroes.  So the equipment has changed the game.  I am not saying Jack or Hogan or Nelson were better than Tiger but it would be a lot more interesting discussion if Tiger had to hit a greater variety of approach shots.  I think he could do it, witness last year's Open Championship.  But the bomb and gouge game test fewer skills, it is less interesting and it obsoletes many outstanding courses.  If a player could play that way with equipment that was comparable to the older equipment then he would indeed be a phenom and would likely dominate.  But I don't believe it would happen and the balance of skills that have always been inherent in golf would be restored.

A final note; for most of us the challenge remains and the courses are fine.  Its simply a shame that the game is less intersting as a spectator sport at the highest level.  I still watch, its just not as compelling.

[Wayne_Kozun]

Finally the myth that the increased length is about better athletes should be addressed.  I will concede that more good athletes are attracted to golf than in prior years.  I will concede that good instruction is more widely available.  I will concede that more players are seeking good physical condition(with notable exceptions Mr. Daley).  But I am old enough to have seen Nicklaus swing a club in his prime and to have watched Snead after his prime.

Are you saying that better athletes have nothing to do with length?  You must concede that better training, fitness, instruction, etc. accounts for at least part of the increased length as any sport that can be quantitatively measured has shown  continually increasing world records and I fail to see how golf would not do so, even if Tiger were using the same equipment as Hagen, Snead, Nicklaus, etc.  But of course the equipment is also a major factor.

The first sub four minute mile was in 1954 and today the record is 3:43 and a four minute mile would not win some high school meets.  It is not like modern running shoes are that much faster.

[rboyce]

The driveable par four, with severe trouble for those who attempt to reach it but miss, seems to be the best type of hole for bomb and gouge proofing. Nothing else has a lot of merit as far as I can tell.

[Brent Hutto]

I would have no objection to the ball coming off the club slightly less energetically than it does now (maybe even 10% or so). I would have had even less objection if the equipment regulations had kept up with the times and avoided that 10% or more increase in the first place.

But even so, today's golfers would hit it farther, higher and better out of the rough than Jack Nicklaus ever could. There is no substitute for clubhead speed and there is no way to put the genie of training, nutrition and technique back in the bottle. Yes, even with balata balls and short steel driver shafts. There are a couple thousand 15-30 year old golfers today who can routinely produce clubhead speed in excess of what anyone could have done when Jack was 20 years old.

My objection is when the people running tournaments and making regulations realize they can't keep 40-something Vijay Singh from hitting the living shit out of the ball so they try to force scoring back to its historic levels in the face of the power onslaught by penal rough enroaching on corridors of play. That does nothing to address the issues of classic course obsolescence or the property, money and resource requirements of new or renovated courses of greater length. In fact, it tends to exacerbate those very issues.

Just wait until today's pre-teens emerge into the game with clubhead speed and technique that's been optimized since they were 8 years old. We ain't seen nothing yet and I'm not talking about bigger clubheads.

[JR Potts]

Finally the myth that the increased length is about better athletes should be addressed.  

Shelly, you need not say one more word.  I will prove your point for you.  

This overweight, non-athletic, non-aerobic, completely unlimber washed up, never-was-been won the long drive at the Cadillac Invitational yesterday (over a field that included a long-hitting former Big Ten Champ who was in diapers the last time I played persimmon) with a drive of 362 on the first hole at Olympia Fields North Course on my first swing of the day after having run to the tee without hitting a single range ball.  

The only reason I am posting this is so that I can stare at it for a couple of hours so that it sinks in...    

I assume you waited until the green to take that ball with the cart path scuff out of play.  Afterall, we wouldn't want you using that scuff to align your putts.  

[Glenn Spencer]

Finally the myth that the increased length is about better athletes should be addressed.  

Shelly, you need not say one more word.  I will prove your point for you.  

This overweight, non-athletic, non-aerobic, completely unlimber washed up, never-was-been won the long drive at the Cadillac Invitational yesterday (over a field that included a long-hitting former Big Ten Champ who was in diapers the last time I played persimmon) with a drive of 362 on the first hole at Olympia Fields North Course on my first swing of the day after having run to the tee without hitting a single range ball.  

The only reason I am posting this is so that I can stare at it for a couple of hours so that it sinks in...    

362 what?

[Kenny Lee Puckett]

I applaud the insight and thought that went into the responses to my post.

SL & Greg, well reasoned points.

Personally, I much prefer the airshow of bombers and always have:  Jack, JD, Tiger, Bubba, John (Not the incurable romantic) Holmes.

Shiv, my friend, great work on a Willie Park, Jr. course!

If you really want to dial back the distance, make the ball 1.78" in diameter...

I am now going for my third cigarette of this morning...

Jim (Not Gym) Keever
Playing in the 12 Noon time off of the 10th tee at TPC River Highlands in the Travelers Pro-Am with Joe Durant.

[Garland Bayley]

Are you saying that better athletes have nothing to do with length?  You must concede that better training, fitness, instruction, etc. accounts for at least part of the increased length as any sport that can be quantitatively measured has shown  continually increasing world records and I fail to see how golf would not do so, even if Tiger were using the same equipment as Hagen, Snead, Nicklaus, etc.  But of course the equipment is also a major factor.

The first sub four minute mile was in 1954 and today the record is 3:43 and a four minute mile would not win some high school meets.  It is not like modern running shoes are that much faster.

IMO Tiger would be longer than Sam, because he is taller, that's all. Sam, especially when he was young,  was finely conditioned as is Tiger.
I believe Jack could have been longer if better conditioned, but had no need to be.

Shel,

That was I believe a well reasoned and insightful post. Thank you very much for your time and effort.

Shivas,

Why don't you fess up to being 6' 20" or somthing like that and let everyone know where your advantage comes from.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Why does everyone want to penalize length?

James,

The issue isn't one of penalizing length, it's one of restoring the connection between the architectural features and the play of the golfer.

The interfacing of those two elements has been lost due to excessive length.

When Cabrera hits a drive on # 12 that was around 397 yards it indicates that many, if not most, features placed by the architect have become vestigial in nature.

When you combine the growing irrelevance of the tee to green architectural features with the flattening of greens that has taken place over recent years, I think you'd agree that golf is headed in the wrong direction.

Proposals/recommendations have been submitted to flatten some of Winged Foot West's great greens.  The same is happening at Merion.

Some would  respond that only the PGA Tour Pro is affected, but, that's not true.  Oakmont not only narrowed their fairways, they moved the bunkers in to match.  And, they're not alone, Baltusrol narrowed their fairways and proposals/recommendations were made to move the bunkers in to match, as well.

One could say that the jump in length, at almost every level, has resulted in alterations to the field of play that are not in the best interests of the game.

The fear is:  Monkey see, Monkey do.
How many local clubs will follow the lead from the Oakmont's, Winged Foot's and Merion's of the world by narrowing their roughs and moving their bunkers in to match ?

In which direction will the trend go ?
Wider fairways ?   Narrower fairways ?

I see the trend toward narrower fairways and I don't believe that's a good trend.  And, I say this from the perspective that I was a very straight driver, so, in theory, narrower fairways would seem to favor me, yet, I find them far less appealing in the play of the game.[/color]

Do we go out of our way to penalize any other facet/talent of the game, e.g. good putting, quality short game, accurate driving and iron play?

The problem would appear to be that: length is rewarded and accuracy, absent great length, is penalized.[/color]

I am over the moon that a long hitter won the U.S. Open in spite of all of the tricked up rough, narrowed fairways and lengthened long holes.  Perhaps being able to gouge short irons from the hay was THE winning advantage.

It was one of the advantages.

But, being able to globally avoid architectural features meant to interface with the golfer shouldn't be rewarded.[/color]

The USGA has a "Cost of Rough" stat.  I would love to see a "How much did it cost to create and graduatedly mow this stuff" cost statistic?

If the USGA's definition of "Par" is the score an expert golfer should score on each hole, I guess we have no experts left as the winning score of +1 (Par 71 as the course is normally played) is a testement to the USGA's abilty to turn a fun and exciting game into a torture test.  

Expanding the widths of the rough was another colossal lapse of judgement by the USGA.  I'll bet that the 46,000+ people who were even further away than normal really enjoyed watching their heroes look just like them, only really far away.  All this effort to penalize 18-30 shots a day that would have ended up on the walk paths, while taking the paying fan out of the action. [size=8x]
?[/color][/size]

Length is a skill, just as any other part of the game.  

No doubt, but, it's become less of a skill due to the equipment and the ball.

Huge club heads make it all but impossible to mis-hit the ball, and even mis-hits go far and straight.  That's not skill.

Let's see the best players in the world swing so hard that they fall of their feet with a persimmon, shallow faced, Power Bilt Citation driver.

The USGA does a wonderful job in so many areas, but, they let the horse out of the barn on I&B.[/color]

Conditioning, Abilty and Timing are all coordinated to produce spectacular results.  

Could you send me Cabrera's work out schedule.
Also, send me his diet and daily habit routine.

Timing is less of a factor when you play with tennis racquet sized heads.

I certainly don't want to take anything away from Cabrera, but, let's not posture that his ability to drive the ball long is a result of the many hours he spends in the gym.  It's the I&B.[/color]

The potential for a really dramatic and penalized error comes with all of that clubhead speed.  

Not when you're hitting the ball with a tennis racquet sized head.[/color]

At least Furyk had the stones to try to get the ball close on 17 on Sunday.  We can debate as to whether or not this strategy fit his ability or skill set, but who wants to watch lay-ups, especially when they screw it up because the fairway is 22 paces wide ?

Didn't Cabrera lay up ?
Wasn't he one of the longer players on Sunday ?
Did you ever see or play the hole before they removed the trees ?

Didn't Tiger hit a 3-wood off # 17 tee on Sunday ?[/color]  

We loved Arnie because he went for it.  

I think Palmer had a charisma that had nothing to do with his length.  Nicklaus was longer but not a fan favorite.
Initially, he was the "King" killer.
Palmer had some legendary charges that weren't length related.  He was one of the elements that comprised the perfect storm in American Golf.[/color]

The most popular players of today including Tiger, Phil, John Daly, Bubba, etc. are bombers.  Angel is in the same mode:  "I am going to pound it and make a lower score than you.  And after I kill it off of the tee, I am going to light up.


The long ball has always been revered, but, when everybody is long, it tells a different story.  Some, are just longer than others.[/color]

So there you have it.  The cure or prescription for smash and gouge is really simple:  Lie back and enjoy it!

Not many of the powers that be (And their dogmatic, fragile egos) can handle or bear to see their beloved courses hammered by the very best.

That's not the issue.
The issue is how I&B have eliminated the architectural features from intended play and interfacing with the golfer.

Given the land and the mandate any architect could present a challenge to the best golfers in the world, unfortunately, the golf course would have to be in the 8,000 yard range, with the spacial relationship of the features in harmony with the distance potential of PGA Tour Players.[/color]

[Doug Siebert]

But even so, today's golfers would hit it farther, higher and better out of the rough than Jack Nicklaus ever could. There is no substitute for clubhead speed and there is no way to put the genie of training, nutrition and technique back in the bottle. Yes, even with balata balls and short steel driver shafts. There are a couple thousand 15-30 year old golfers today who can routinely produce clubhead speed in excess of what anyone could have done when Jack was 20 years old.

I don't know that I believe that, at least as far as I'm sure there were some guys who could routinely produce more clubhead speed than Jack at 20 who were around when Jack was 20, and there are some guys who can do so now.

Give 20 year old Jack a 46" driver, 460cc head, and Pro V1x, and I wouldn't be surprised if everyone on tour is away in the fairway, except maybe for Bubba Watson.

I think this business of training and nutrition is overblown and just an excuse for the people who want to believe that nothing has really changed.  I mean c'mon, nutrition....you serious?  I'll bet the average guy on tour ate healthier when Nicklaus was 20 than they do today, what with all the crappy additives and preservatives in just about everything and fast food everywhere these days!  You need a graduate degree in organic chemistry just to read the label of many things you buy in a supermarket.

I got yet another lesson in how much things have changed when I visited a course I hadn't played since the B.P.V. days (before Pro V1)  The course has a few fairways that are always wet so they are a good gauge of carry distance, and on one of them I hit the ball 45 yards further than I'd ever done before.  Complete with the giant ball mark to show my 18" of roll, and the SW approach that the architect did not intended.  Yeah, I'm working out and eating SO much better than I did in my early 30s...

[Brent Hutto]

Doug,

I'm not claiming that other things haven't changed or that those changes aren't important. But there is no comparison between the amount of clubhead speed someone like Tiger can create and what Jack was doing three decades earlier. And the fact that Tiger is twice as strong as Jack was at 3/4 of the weight is certainly a factor in that clubhead speed.

Look at it this way. Guys like Vijay Singh or any number of other Tour players will do a workout a few hours before they tee off that would have left Jack crippled for a week. It's just routine because they've conditioned themselves so well. They aren't doing that just to impress the babes with their six-pack, it makes them able to hit the ball harder.

Of course if Jack were coming along today he'd be working out like a demon along with the others. I have no doubt he'd be the best player out there under the same circumstances but comparing now to then there's a bunch of clubhead speed coming from all those hours of training.

[SL_Solow]

Shiv;  I was out for the day and missed your post.  I have witnessed your superior training techniques and understand the true significance of your mighty blow.  No pulled muscles I trust?

Wayne; the track and field analogy doesn't fly unless you assume that the skill/strength/coordination requirements of the two sports translate.  Improvements in the mile are largely a speed/cardiovacular test which is dissimilar to golf.  Even so, the changes are not nearly as dramatic, particularly when you consider the rapidity of change.

Focusing only on major milestones, Glen Cunningham set the mile record in 1933 at 4:06.7.  Bannister broke 4 minutes 18 years later at 3:59 and change.  Herb Elliot dropped it to 3:54.5 in 1958.  Jim Ryun got down to 3:51.1 in 1967.  Sub 3:50 was achieved in 1975 by Ovett and then Coe..  Sub 3:45 in 1993 and finally 3:43.17 in 1999.  This progressin is nothing like the dramatic change in driving distance since Dan Pohl was leading the tour in the 1980's.  Since Jack was dominating the tour in the late 1970's, the drop is less than 8 seconds and this does not even factor in the emergence of african runners.

If the 100 meters is a better analogy, since it is more explosive, the change is similar.  Jesse Owens in 1936 at 10.3, moves to Armin Hary in 1960 at 10.2 (Olympic records).  Then Bob Hayes in 1964 at 10.0. Jim Hines in 1969 at 9.9 and finally the current olympic record was set in 1996 at 9.84.

In my opinion, notwithstanding advances in training and science, the limits of the human body have not changed that much and training etc. can lead to overall improvement elevating the performance for the field as a whole.  But the elite athletes, those at the very top, benefit only marginally.  Breakthroughs occur with the discovery of new techniques, elimination of barriers to entry (eg elimination of racial barriers) and introduction of new equipment.  This all assumes the game is relatively mature, sports in their infancy can see quantum leaps as technique is established.  In golf, notwithstanding the monthly magazine articles, technique has not changed materially since it was modified to accomodate the steel shaft.  The significant increase in the pace of growth in long driving which occurred at or about the time of the introduction of the new balls and drivers and which far outstrips similar gains in the prior 50 years argues strongly for a conclusion that the correlation is between the equipment and distance and not between increased athleticism and distance.

By the way, I agree it will get worse because the current coming crop started with this equipment, learned to play bomb and gouge and thus swing even harder than the last group of newcomers.  This bodes ill for the use of classic courses as tournament venues.

[Kenny Lee Puckett]

Quote from Mr. Mucci:

"James,

The issue isn't one of penalizing length, it's one of restoring the connection between the architectural features and the play of the golfer.

The interfacing of those two elements has been lost due to excessive length.

When Cabrera hits a drive on # 12 that was around 397 yards it indicates that many, if not most, features placed by the architect have become vestigial in nature."


My reply:  It's a real shame that we can't go back and play tennis with wooden racquets as covered in this morning's USA Today.  All of the pros quoted in that article said it took more skill to play with the antiques.  Same goes with persimmon.  Most of the tennis pros said that they wouldn't win a game against the new technology.  Same goes with golf.

In regards to tying into the architectural features, flying bunkers that others can't should be rewarded, especially if it is stoke and distance for O.B. or lost ball.  You can make great efforts to defend at the green to penalize the long hitters.  #18 at TOC is really diminished as the Valley of Sin isn't in play any more...

In regards to 397 yard tee shots, maybe the USGA should try watering the fairways.  Those balls ran over 80 yards down the slope on #12, and they were really talented tee shots.  They firm up the fairways to try to get the balls to bounce into the rough, and then act surprised when someone pipes one Downhill/Downwind...  

Qoute from Mr. Mucci:

In which direction will the trend go ?
Wider fairways ?  Narrower fairways ?

I see the trend toward narrower fairways and I don't believe that's a good trend.  And, I say this from the perspective that I was a very straight driver, so, in theory, narrower fairways would seem to favor me, yet, I find them far less appealing in the play of the game."

My reply:  Pat, I agree with you here.  Wider fairways with more approach options with use of greenside defenses that inlcude more than rough and bunkering are much more fun.  However, the one-dimensional set (Blue Coats in ties and greens chairmen) that believe that narrow fairways and deep rough are great usually have games to match.  It is so much fun to watch them try to recover from places that they are not accustomed to being in.  

The lord(s) of the greens committee of my club are loathe to lengthen the back tees as some of the single digit handicappers will no longer be able to reach some of our par 4's in two.  This anti-lengthening strategy plays right into my hands as I will still have shorter clubs into the greens.

My Quote:  "Expanding the widths of the rough was another colossal lapse of judgement by the USGA.  I'll bet that the 46,000+ people who were even further away than normal really enjoyed watching their heroes look just like them, only really far away.  All this effort to penalize 18-30 shots a day that would have ended up on the walk paths, while taking the paying fan out of the action."

You responded with:  "?"

Pat, so much effort went into moving the crowds as far away from the play by widening the width of the 2nd & 3rd cut of roughs.  This widening took the:  "Gee, he was so wild that he ended up with a lucky break of being on the gallery walk path..." out of the conversation.  Meanwhile 46,000 people at Oakmont could barely see the action on the course.  I have first hand accounts of at least 10 people who stayed for 2 hours and gave up walking at Oakmont because they had real difficulties seeing the action up close.  They either went to the media center or tents to watch it on TV.  

I agree with most of the rest of your posits on the I & B, but why would anyone roll them back?  (Take the bait Mr. Mucci...)

BTW, Angel Cabrera and I share the same fitness trainer (Mr. Porter House) and dietary planner (Ms. Rojo Vino).  Our attorney from Chicago, Mr. Shivas will be retained to negotiate contracts for a new, logoless golf ball made by Vestal Industries in Rome (NY).

Your Quote:  "But, being able to globally avoid architectural features meant to interface with the golfer shouldn't be rewarded."

My response:  Sure it should.  But Icarus's wings usually fall off at some point...

JWK