Bifurcation, splitting hairs?

[Tony_Muldoon]

Whenever there’s talk of reeling in the technology the pro’s play someone will step up and say, no it’s not right we golfers have always used the same equipment.

Well Bud it just ain’t so.  

Today (if BombSquad.com is to be believed) the Taylor Made R7 in the top pro’s hands is not made by the same factory that your one is.  

The guys that custom fit the pro’s really understand what all those numbers on the launch monitor mean – again anecdotally that’s not always the case for the guy fitting the rest of us. I know of a young pro who recently spent five days at Nike HQ getting his clubs built for him.  The difference was probably even more marked when in the not so distant past, clubs were hand made.

The balls they play are designed for their game –not yours – and behave differently when they hit them.  If you are No ! in the world they'll make a ball just for you.

The gear they use when prototypes is not available to you in any form for at least a season.

Hell even the courses they play are set up different to when you or I get to play them.


There are other differences and if you are really obsessive about this then you can obtain some of this stuff and minimise some of the difference. But the differences are real and the gear they have gives them an advantage.


“So Tony what’s your point?”


I would conservatively estimate that a pro gets 3% distance advantage from technology and a level of fitting that is just not available to us.  As soon as someone proposes a 10% roll back for pro’s the protests start. Isn’t it a reality that bifurcation already exists and has always existed?  If you want to focus on the technology then why not admit the pro’s  have it different and making a ‘Pro’ ball that goes 10% less far in the air is not going to change the specialness of golf one little bit.

[Brent Hutto]

There is a big difference between maximizing ones equipment within the letter of the Rules and playing under ones own set of Rules. There's only so far that a touring professional can push things while staying within the Rules, once the principle of bifurcated Rules is put in place the differences will no longer be small ones at the margins.

If not immediately then eventually I am certain Hacker Golf and Professional Golf would become two qualitatively different games.

[Matt_Cohn]

If not immediately then eventually I am certain Hacker Golf and Professional Golf would become two qualitatively different games.

Brent,

I'm happy to debate the point with you on either thread!

Do you believe that Hacker Golf and Professional Golf are not qualitatively different, currently? I believe that they are.

PS, splitting hairs would be "bifollicating", not bifurcating.

[Brent Hutto]

The quality of play is different. The nature of the game is the same.

It is with a sense of wonderment and appreciation that I watch my fellow competitors in each year's (stroke play) Club Championship. For some of them it is the only two rounds of the year actually played under the Rules of Golf and those fellows are mystified and mortified by the unfamiliar ways in which they are expected to handle routine situations in order to avoid disqualification.

I would hate to find myself one day competing in the hacker flight of that event under dumbed-down Rules implemented under the assumption that double-digit handicappers shouldn't or can't be held to the same standard that has applied to all golfers for the last couple hundred years. With the exception of a few (lamentable IMO) Local Rules that the tours generally implement, you can watch the guys on TV playing at the highest level of the game and then go out the next day and approach things exactly the same. For my game it matters not that I don't have a Tour Spec Ball or perfectly fitted adjustable driver...but the Rules I play under matter to me a great deal.

[Matt_Cohn]

Brent,

What if there were two sets of rules for balls:

-You could play either one, any time you felt like.
-You had one handicap, to which you could post scores played under either set of rules. (A simple formula could take care of that.) You could use your index to come up with a course handicap for whichever set of rules you chose to play that day.
-You had one set of clubs. At most, you'd need two different boxes of golf balls. No big deal. The pro's are the only ones who would want to fine tune their clubs to the two different kinds of balls - but it wouldn't matter, because they'd only play the Rollback Ball anyway.

[James Bennett]

PS, splitting hairs would be "bifollicating", not bifurcating.

LOL

Tony (and I) would probably find it easier to split atoms than to split hairs.  We are both 'bifollically' challenged.

James B

[Doug Siebert]

Well rather than waving the white flag because we appear to be bifurcating now, how about heading that off at the pass and changing the rules to require that equipment used in USGA competition has to be identical to equipment available for sale on the open market?  No more "prototypes" so the pros are always playing something we can only buy a year later when its already been replaced, no more building special clubs for Tiger and Phil.

Plus we'll head off some things that are fast approaching, like having shafts engineered to the exact specs of a particular swing.  That's something that would be deadly in the hands of a guy with a truly repeatable swing like Tiger, would be of perhaps some limited usefulness to a mid single digit like me, and would be of absolutely no use whatsoever to your typical bogey golfer.

Perhaps there's no way around this for Tiger, they can design the exact clubs Tiger wants and then put out the "Nike Tiger 2007" and lots of suckers with more money than sense will buy and play worse because they'll be totally ill-suited for them.  Even if the public wised up and quit buying them, they'd happily lose money having one set in every pro shop in the country just so people could try them out just to see what Tiger uses and probably sell plenty of their "made for you because you are not Tiger" lines.

[Steve Pozaric]

Doug:

What you are proposing is similar to the homologation rules various car racing bodies had for a time - rules that created the GTO (the real one), the Porsche 959 and so on.  Depending on the series, the manufactuer had to build a certain number (200 or so depending on the class).  It created a lot of fantastic vehicles that were beyond the grasp of all but a few, and, as you say in your last paragraph, unsuitable for most who tried.  

[Tony_Muldoon]

PS, splitting hairs would be "bifollicating", not bifurcating.

LOL

Tony (and I) would probably find it easier to split atoms than to split hairs.  We are both 'bifollically' challenged.

James B

Lets include Brent here.  The GCA'ers who have nothing between them and heaven.

[TEPaul]

Tony;

Brent Hutto's first paragraph in post #2 basically says it all.

However, a real technical bifurcation in effect will be present if the R&A/USGA goes too far down the line in this "conditions of competition" thing that they seem to be proposing right now on a groove change. If you look at their suggested timing (Jan 1, 2009 vs 10 years for the rest) there could in effect be equipment standard bifurcation (on grooves) for up to eight years.

There's no question at all that kind of thing will complicate matters down the line (at the state, regional and local levels).

[Tony_Muldoon]

I am truly mystified by this.  Brent we played Walton Heath together and I've seen the flat bellies play it.  ON the second on the old course we were barely at the top of the valley, they cut a bit of rough off and are playing from half way up the other side.  We weren’t really playing the same game as them.  I’ve also played the K club and when I went to the Ryder Cup I was observing a totally different game, a game that you and I are not familiar with.

Balls and equipment have always been subject to rules and rollbacks.  On Geoff Shackleford today Jack N. is quoted as saying the small ball died because the big ball was made the tournament ball.  That wasn't the first change to the ball and it won’t be the last. Why do people feel further changes in this area would be an attack on the fundamentals of golf?  It’s just updating things and not particularly important things at that.

The reasons for my mystification are that on another technological 'challenge' my feelings are exactly the opposite.  Having computers on the course that’s a fundamental change to me, but JK feels the opposite on both counts!

Oh well perhaps we could set a good example and be the first to agree to differ on GCA this Feb?

[Brent Hutto]

Tony,

Alls I can say is that if strong players play a different game even while abiding under the same Rules we do, one can only imagine how different the game will be if/when they are no longer constrained by that commonality.

As for agreeing to disagree, this is small potatos. It isn't like I'm trying to convince you that Someone Like You is a great Van Morrison song or something important like that.

P.S. And yes, I know it is not a great song.

[Powell Arms]

The link below has an inetresting interview with J. Nicklaus.  It appears that he views the current ball as the bifurcation of the game, albeit not a bifurcation of the rules.  If one could engineer a rollback in such a way that it was a greater deduct of distance for a higher clubhead speed, (which is certainly plausible) this gets very interesting.

http://www.geoffshackelford.com/homepage/2007/2/28/is-the-chair-off-the-titanic.html

[Doug Siebert]

I don't get Jack's comment where he says that the technology causes average golfers' bad shots to lose more distance than they would have in the old days?  I guess he's talking about hitting it just right in the sweet spot to get the full effect of the driver's COR, but he's ignoring the fact that if the average guy misses the ball 1/2" off the sweet spot on a modern driver it doesn't hurt too bad, maybe leaving you a few clubs longer on the approach, but if he did that on a persimmon he's just given up his chance to reach the green in regulation on longer par 4s.

[TEPaul]

"If one could engineer a rollback in such a way that it was a greater deduct of distance for a higher clubhead speed, (which is certainly plausible) this gets very interesting."

Powell:

Technologically is could probably be done. The method would be to comprehensively analyze what has caused the distance differential in the last decade or so and write new I&B rules and regs to reverse it. It's pretty obvious the USGA has attempted to do that analysis in the last four years. What they intend to do about their analysis is the next question.

[Matt_Cohn]

Isn't that what the OGA did in Ohio last summer? It wasn't well received because it brought long hitters back to the field; even some shorter hitters conceded that it wasn't really fair to players who had worked hard to gain a distance advantage.

[TEPaul]

Matt:

Long hitters have always had a distance advantage, just not so big an advantage as in the last decade.

Interestingly enough I just found a rather long and comprehensive article in the 1902 Brooklyn Eagle newspaper outlining the pros and cons of the Haskell ball vs the gutta ball and those who were against the Haskell didn't endorse the ball because they felt it narrowed the distance differential between long hitters and short hitters.  

Ont the other hand, the broad scope of history seems to suggest the Haskell ball was a big contributor in popularizing the game of golf in America.

[Phil Benedict]

TEPaul,

Was the Haskell as revolutionary in its time as the ProV1 (and its counterparts from the other manufacturers) and Titanium has been in modern times.  What was considered a long course in 1900 (ie right before the introduction of the Haskell)?  What was considered a long course after the Haskell achieved pre-eminence?

[Tony_Muldoon]

Phil I would rank the most important ‘new’ balls in the development of golf since the featherie as


1   Gutta 1840's
2   Haskell 1902
3   Pro V1

Although it's too early to fully assess the last change, I would say each new ball only had half the revolutionary impact on the game as a whole, that the previous one had.

An example of courses?  It would be interesting to know the length of the original Sunnigdale 1901 as it was considered very long before the invention of the Haskell and Darwin said it was improved by the new ball. If someone can find this and then compare with Walton Heath 1904 it would give a good comparison.

I can find these figures.  Vardon laid out Woodhall Spa and in 1895 the course measured 5449.  In 1911 Colt revised it to 6404.

[Phil Benedict]

Tony,

Thanks for responding to my question about the Haskell.  I asked basically the same question on another thread and TEPaul had an interesting response.  Woodhall Spa was lengthened by over 1000 yards, more than rwice what has been added to ANGC since 1998.

[Tony_Muldoon]

Phil I'll keep scratching around on this one.  It's hard to compare two different courses E.G. why was Princes desgned to play over 7200 yards in the early 1920's?
Another one I can find is Park's Huntercombe which according ot the Centurians of Golf opened at 6522 in 1901  (that's 200 yeards longer than it plays today so it may not have been that accurate a measure to start with.)

[Mark_Rowlinson]

I cannot see the word bifurcation without thinking of marsupials.  Don't they have bifurcated penises, apart from some kangaroos?  Perhaps the zoologists among you could elucidate?

[Tony_Muldoon]

Tony

I read somewhere that Princes made their course long because they wanted an Open and had the sufficient pulling power in the membership to get an Open.  Secondly, the two neighbouring big guns (Deal & Sandwich) were VERY long courses for the time and Princes was looking to keep up with the Royals.  

Ciao

Sean Princes is a hard one to understand. It definately started long (exactly how long I don't know) but was also designed with the ladies in mind as it's two neighbours were not terribly enlightened at the time.  Early on it hosted a Ladies Open. It may well have been the only course opened with the elite ladies game in mind but after WW1 it was a serious challenge for all golfers.

[Mark_Rowlinson]

I seem to recall that Southerness was designed to play much longer, but that it was decided that it was simply too hard and that something around 6,500 yards was altogether better - and it's still about that length.  It's quite long enough for me, thank you.