[JESII]

JES II,

Maintainance FAVORS the long hitter, it doesn't penalize him.

Pat,

Please explain what you mean by this.

[Patrick_Mucci]

JES II,

It means that an L-Wedge will outperform a 7-iron or 4-iron every time.

The firmer and faster you make the golf course the more the player hitting an L-Wedge has an advantage.

And, if you grow the rough high, the player trying to drive the green who misses has a clear advantage over the player who lays back and misses the green with his approach, and, the long player may very well have an advantage by hitting his L-Wedge from deep rough as opposed to a 7-iron from the fairway.

[JSlonis]

It was mentioned on the telecast that Mickelson was back to playing a standard 45" driver.  Although he wasn't very accurate with his current driver this weekend, he thought the 47" driver that he used a couple of weeks ago was just too inaccurate compared to the distance gained.

Mickelson's claims of yardage gained have now become something of a running joke with players. For about the last 4 years, every time he switched companies, balls or to another driver he has claimed a 10-20 yard gain.  If this was even remotely true, he'd be flying it 370 yds by now.  

[JESII]

Patrick,

Did you read Tom Paul's account of the 2005 Nebraska State Amateur that featured two players of exactly the difference you mention. The Cliff's Notes version is, the short hitter won by hitting consistently controlled, accurate shots. An L-Wedge may or may not be better than a 7-iron, but if the hole is presented in a manner that rewards accuracy (ie: firm ground with a significant advantage for position) the advantage will be strongly in favor of the player with better control over his ball and understanding of the game.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Patrick,

Did you read Tom Paul's account of the 2005 Nebraska State Amateur that featured two players of exactly the difference you mention. The Cliff's Notes version is, the short hitter won by hitting consistently controlled, accurate shots. An L-Wedge may or may not be better than a 7-iron, but if the hole is presented in a manner that rewards accuracy (ie: firm ground with a significant advantage for position) the advantage will be strongly in favor of the player with better control over his ball and understanding of the game.

JES II,

I didn't need to read about it, I was there.

And, your conclusions are erroneous.

In addition, if it wasn't for me, TEPaul would still be roaming the Denver airport, like Tom Hanks in "Terminal"

TEPaul needs to get control of his intinerary and tickets and a better understanding of airport terminals when you have to change planes.

In addition, the long hitter was a young high school kid, the other player, who was NOT a short hitter was a seasoned golfer who had played College golf on the team at USC.

Distance in golf is like speed in other sports.
If you don't have speed you'll never make it.
If you do, the rough parts can be ironed out.
It's the same with distance.
He'll acquire more finesse with time, but TEPaul and I will never hit it like him no matter how much time we work on it.
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[JESII]

Well, I can certainly understand and appreciate your responsibilities there. Perhaps that explains how you forgot the match.

[Bill_McBride]

A great recent example of a short but accurate hitter beating a long, less accurate hitter was Gary Wolstenholme's 1 up victory over Anthony Kim at last summer's Walker Cup at Chicago Golf Club.  Kim outdrove Wolstenholme by 60-70 yards all day.  #5 was revealing:  Kim drove into the gnarly rough, maybe the bunker front left, on the short par 4.  Wolstenholme laid up out front and hit a SW to 4' for birdie.  Kim chopped it from the bunker into the rough and had a testy par.  This went on all day.  It was wonderful to watch the chess player beat the flogger!

[Doug Siebert]

It was mentioned on the telecast that Mickelson was back to playing a standard 45" driver.  Although he wasn't very accurate with his current driver this weekend, he thought the 47" driver that he used a couple of weeks ago was just too inaccurate compared to the distance gained.

Mickelson's claims of yardage gained have now become something of a running joke with players. For about the last 4 years, every time he switched companies, balls or to another driver he has claimed a 10-20 yard gain.  If this was even remotely true, he'd be flying it 370 yds by now.  

Well, it isn't like he'd go out of his way to talk about changes he makes that cause him to lose distance!

Its like a couple friends I have who go to Vegas every month or two.  One guy only talks about it when he wins, you'd think he should move there, all the times he comes back having won 40 grand.  The other guy only talks about it when he loses, because he's just the type of guy who likes to complain and I guess doesn't want anyone to hit him up for a loan

[Patrick_Mucci]

Irrespective of the veracity of Phil's comment, physics and high tech will conspire to get more distance from drivers with shaft lengths of 48 inches.

Years ago, Wedgy Winchester (sp?) won the long driving contest with a 50 inch driver.  It's only a matter of time until the techies figure out how to develop the shafts to make 48 inch drivers the norm, with another quantum leap in distance.

If Archimedes can lift the world, PGA Tour Pros and others won't be far behind.

[ForkaB]

The best thing about a 50" driver is that when they disallow those broom-handled putters, those 50" will come in handy when you are measuring a drop from the cabbage after hitting one of those 350 yard off-line drives.....

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