David Feherty on Baltusrol #17

[Mark_Fine]

For 99%+ of all players this is an exciting golf hole.  For the pros, however, it is essentially a short par three.  

We stood and watched players come through for about an hour or so on Friday and frankly it is a boring hole to watch - hit it in the fairway, layup and wedge on.  

I watched Adam Scott and Daly hit 325 yard drives and then layup to sand wedge range with mid irons.  The risk to go was not worth it and I admired Daly for playing smart as he is (and was at the time) still very much in the golf tournament

[Phil_the_Author]

I am somewhat surprised that not a single comment so far has identified the true problem here - technology, and I'm not refering to the driver or length off the tee.

Among the "great advances" that technology has brought to the game is artificial accuracy and ability to hold greens by controlled ball spin rates.

In many ways Tillinghast was prophetic as he pictured technology increasing length, so much so that he was calling for 440-460 yard par fours in the 20's to combat it. NO ONE foresaw that golf ball and clubface construction would get to the point where a 90 to 110 yard shot would be this easy for even the top players.

This is what should also be spoken of when talking technology and its effects on the game. In the future, even more so than it has become now, the only way to test these players will be through 480 to 530 yard par-fours, and nothing else, for no par-fives will present a challenge and no par-threes will be long enough.  

[TEPaul]

"Among the "great advances" that technology has brought to the game is artificial accuracy and ability to hold greens by controlled ball spin rates."

Phil:

That's true. But lower spinning balls have been around now for about forty years. It's just that until about 10-15 years ago good players and professional golfers virtually never used low spinning balls. Now the old higher spinning balls they virtually all used up until about 10-15 years ago basically don't exist anymore. I'm not sure that vast change could be layed at the feet of the USGA/R&A though, as they've never had any limitation at all on the spin rate of a golf ball. But that shouldn't mean they can't create a limitation on spin rate now. (What they would need to do is create a limitation on the MINIMUM amount of spin a golf ball can have).

[Ted Kramer]

Tom,

The like the "shot tester" description.
Bethpage Black has a lot of holes that fit into that category and it is one of my all-time favorites.

-Ted

[TEPaul]

TedK:

It very well may be that someone on here like Tom MacWood will ask where the term "shot-testing" came from and if it's accurate and if we can PROVE some of the architects back in that day such as Crump or Wilson or Flynn or Tillinghast used that term or concept because it's not written in one of the old magazines and newspapers. (When it suits Tom MacWood's purpose he implies if someone can't find written proof from an old architect it can't possibly have happened!).  

So, I should say again, it very well mY be that someone like Wayne or I came up with the term--but I'll check to see if teh term was used by some of the old guys. The reason we used it is because of the detail used to describe by Tillinghast and others about Crump precisely what they were attempting to do with the concept on various holes.

[Brent Hutto]

If you put a minimum spin rate on golf balls, that's a real kick in the nuts to some guy who plays once a week, has a reverse-pivot wide open clubface slice swing and uses a Pinnacle so it won't sidespin into the next zip code on every tee shot. Hardly seems worth it just to make Tiger Woods pull an occasional Norman and suck one back off the tenth green at Augusta.

[TEPaul]

So Brent, I guess that means that everyone who played golf from around 1900 until about 1965 got kicked in the nuts, hit the ball sideways into the next township and hated golf because they thought playing the same ball as Ben Hogan was unfair, huh? No wonder the USGA/R&A is slow to act----everybody seems to have their own gripe about everything today.

[Craig Sweet]

TE Paul..what I find curious is how we all react to technology. In a sport like skiing, technology has made the sport safer and easier. Shaped skies and "smart" bindings have been embraced by the masses. People learn to ski faster and enjoy the sport more thanks to new technology. Ski areas have evolved as well. Terian parks, faster lifts, wider ski trails, different grooming and snowmaking practices, have all evolved and made the sport better.

On the other hand, a very small handful of people seem to think techology is ruining golf. But technology has made the sport fun and easier for the vast majority of golfers. Golf course design has evolved with the technology, and that would seem to be logical. Older courses are just that..OLD. They were not designed in an era of "better", easier hitting, more fun equipment.  How THEY respond to technology is THEIR problem, not mine.  Is it a shame, is it sad, that many classic courses can no longer be considered for hosting a  pro tourney? Sure it is. But should the golf industry and technology be turned back 10-20 years, or more, to satisfy the supporters of classic golf courses? No!

[Matt_Ward]

Jim Nugent:

The short answer = yes!

When you have high heat (temps in the mid-90's for the last couple of days and the picking up of a southwest wind that is helping much more than the press alludes to the possibility exists for about half a dozen guys to have a shot at the green in two provided they hit the fairway.

Even Tiger said himself at the Tuesday morning press conference that minus major changes (downwind and dry fairways) that no one -- including himself -- could get there in two blows.

[Brent Hutto]

Tom,

I suspect if I had tried the game in 1960 (which would have been difficult since I was wearing diapers and couldn't walk) it would not have been something I liked very much. Give me a Titleist Balata and a set of MacGregor Tourney blades or whatever and I'd have quit after about the tenth bone-rattling thin shot that destroyed the golf ball.

My point is that if there's a problem at the highest levels of the game that doesn't exist for the 15-handicap weekend golfer, then the rational approach is to change the equipment in a way that has maximum effect on the guy who hits it 320 and shoots around par and the minimum effect on the guy who can't break 80 and has never seen the left side of the fairway. Your suggestion of a simple minimum spin rate on golf balls does exactly the opposite.

It's a real nifty piece of advanced analysis to conclude that the second-order effect of low spin is as big a deal to Tour players as the obvious effect of springier balls and clubfaces. Heck, it's even probably correct. Don't confuse the existence of a secondary effect with an imperative to address it first. Roll the ball velocity back 15% for high clubhead speeds and if low spin still makes the game "too easy" then we'll talk about addressing that parameter.

[TEPaul]

"It's a real nifty piece of advanced analysis to conclude that the second-order effect of low spin is as big a deal to Tour players as the obvious effect of springier balls and clubfaces. Heck, it's even probably correct. Don't confuse the existence of a secondary effect with an imperative to address it first. Roll the ball velocity back 15% for high clubhead speeds and if low spin still makes the game "too easy" then we'll talk about addressing that parameter."

Brent:

You sure lost me there.

Roll the velocity back 15% for high clubhead speeds? How do you do that? Tell Tiger he can't swing at 132mph anymore---that he can't swing any faster than 112mph. Or maybe create some weird science in ball manufacturing where guys who swing that fast get handicapped by ball technology somehow.

It's too bad you were born so late Brent. Around the time the lower spinning two piece ball came into being was around the time you were in diapers. I sure wasn't in diapers then and it definitely doesn't seem to me that it was the two piece ball (the beginning of the low spinning golf ball) that saved the game of golf.  

Craig:

Fine post above. Not that I necessarily agree but it's nice to see someone make a point or a case around here that's a difference from most of the me-tooism on this website.

[Brent Hutto]

"It's a real nifty piece of advanced analysis to conclude that the second-order effect of low spin is as big a deal to Tour players as the obvious effect of springier balls and clubfaces. Heck, it's even probably correct. Don't confuse the existence of a secondary effect with an imperative to address it first. Roll the ball velocity back 15% for high clubhead speeds and if low spin still makes the game "too easy" then we'll talk about addressing that parameter."

Brent:

You sure lost me there.

Roll the velocity back 15% for high clubhead speeds? How do you do that? Tell Tiger he can't swing at 132mph anymore---that he can't swing any faster than 112mph. Or maybe create some weird science in ball manufacturing where guys who swing that fast get handicapped by ball technology somehow.

No, the clubhead speed is what it is. Using your example, compare the ball velocity of a 112mph clubhead speed versus the same ball at 132mph clubhead speed. An old Titleist Professional will run out of ability to spring back efficiently when you get up in the 132mph range (ignoring for simplicity the spin rate although it is not a negligable effect). Now do the same comparison with ProV1x. The newer ball can more efficiently utilize that extra 18% of clubhead speed than could the old balls.

So if everyone went back to a Titleist Professional spec ball, the guys swinging at 132mph would lose more from the change than would the guys swinging 112mph and either of them would lose enormously compared to me swinging at 88mph. For my swing the difference in a ProV1x and a Profesional is maybe a couple of percent of ball velocity. For Tiger it's 10-15% or maybe even more.

So my point is, any reasonable rollback is golf ball initial velocity will be implemented by measurement at 110mph, 120mph or even higher clubhead speeds. A ball that loses 15% at 120mph+ will not lose that much for slower speeds, assuming the test protocol stipulated as part of the ball specification is a reasonable one.

[TEPaul]

Brent:

In post #36 you seem to be contradicting what you said in post #30 as far as hurting or not hurting golfers with slower swing speeds.

Firstly, I don't believe I understand the technical ramifications of altering or reducing the initial velocity of a golf ball from the present rules and regs on initial velocity of the golf ball that have been in effect for years. The USGA/R&A have monitored and regulated five factors or characteristics of the golf ball. Initial velocity has been one factor they've regulated for years. Spin rate is a factor and characteristic of a golf ball they never have regulated.

Today long hitters and pros are using golf balls that're much more low spinning than they used to use ten years ago. This fact has dramatically changed flight patterns---eg the trajectory of the ball. Higher spinning balls have a very different trajectory when hit at high mph swing speeds than a lower spinning ball hit at higher mph swing speeds.

If the USGA put a limitation on the spin rate of the golf ball (for the first time)---eg a rule or regulation LIMITING the MINIMUM amount of allowable spin rate what they would in effect be doing is creating a situation where high mph swing speeds would produce a much lower initial trajectory. That trajectory is far less distance producing than the very high initial trajectory the high mph swinging golfer puts on these low spin rate balls today.

[Brent Hutto]

I don't know why I'm not speaking your language. To sum up...

My point in #30 was that a minimum spin rate hurts short-hitting slicers. The proper response to a concern about the distance better players hit the ball today is to directly address that distance through ball initial velocity first before making everyone (including weaker players) play a ball that spins too much.

Then in #36 I pointed out that the old initial ball velocity specification was at what is now an unrealistically low clubhead speed. If there's going to be a rollback of initial velocity, I assume it will be measured at clubhead speeds of more than 120mph to reflect the big hitters for whom the problem is believed to be most objectionable. If that is in fact how it's implemented, someone who hits the ball at under 100mph will be affected relatively less than someone who hits it at 120-130mph or more.

So a minimum spin for all golf balls affects the weaker player more than the better one. Conversely, lowering the initial ball velocity properly specified with a high clubhead speed test will affect the longer hitters more than shorter ones. Therefore, an initial velocity limit is the better way to address the "problem" of the best players overpowering golf courses. QED.

[TEPaul]

Brent:

I have an excellent information source at the USGA tech department who's told me he has no problem answering strictly technical ball and club performance questions of this type (he says he will not and cannot answer questions of I&B future policy---and for that me or anyone should talk to tech director Dick Rugge). In any case he could answer the validity of your point about limiting initial velocity a whole lot better than you or I can. I've already asked him the technical question of what a potential limitation on minimum spin rate on the golf ball would accomplish regarding distance.

(It would effect initial vertical height of the ball with high mph swings more than it would effect side to side performance).

[tonyt]

"I'll be surprised to see if this tee isn't moved up....This is playing 650 yards today, Jimmy.  Kind of an experiment.  You know, it's really a 90-yard par 3."

He's got a good point; if everybody is laying up, then almost all of these guys are going to hit their 2nd shots to about the same area, 90 to 100 yards away.

So is the length they added to tis succeeding in at least one way?  Daly and Woods can't hit it in 2, so their huge distance advantage is neutralized?

And is the rest of the hole make for a challenging layup?

I guess we'll know more if they move the tee up 35 yards tomorrow.

 

I thought this way a couple of days ago. Now that I've seen a player miss the fairway into the cabbage and then hit an iron over the back, I'm shaking my head.

Like Gary Player said, there aren't any par 5s anymore. The great exceptions to this rule that are still three shotters do it without raw length, because raw length won't do it.

[mike_malone]

 I was there Saturday. As I walked the course I got the feeling for the terrain and the doglegs --left and right--. When you consider the water on #18  as the interest there,  the choice of crossbunkering on #17 is an interesting way to create a hazard  for a straightish tee shot.

    I think a feature on one hole should be seen in the context of the whole course. In this light it is good.