The best part about playing golf is playing

[Mark Chaplin]

Pat so unless you class width as acres of hay, most old links architects failed us?

Come and bring your son for Deal week in August 2014, ten days on the links with competitive singles medal, singles match play and foursomes match play throughout the week. Now that's an education!

I forgot to say the visitor fee is around £160 for up to ten days golf.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Pat so unless you class width as acres of hay, most old links architects failed us?

Mark,

Where did I define width as "acres of hay" ?

Come and bring your son for Deal week in August 2014, ten days on the links with competitive singles medal, singles match play and foursomes match play throughout the week. Now that's an education!

I think we'd both enjoy that.
A good friend, who's also a member of St George's has extended a similar offer

I forgot to say the visitor fee is around £160 for up to ten days golf.

Tough to beat that deal (pun intended)

[Roger Wolfe]

You are spot on Pat.

Two of my favorite golf experiences can be attributed to wind...

1.  Seaside course at Sea Island with Tropical Storm George bearing down us in 2007.  Hilarious test of survival with 40 mph winds
2.  LaQuinta Mountain with late afternoon, sunset, desert winds wreaking havoc.  What a blast.

[Doug Siebert]

Anyone still routinely carry a 1-iron or have we all gone over to hybrids?

I still carry one in my bag most of the time, and use it for certain shots even on days when there isn't any wind, since I'd always been far better with my irons than with woods/hybrids. I had gotten away from it a bit the last couple of years due to some chronic issues mishitting nearly all my iron shots, but late this summer I think I figured that stuff out so the 1 iron made a resurgence.

The big headed driver removed most of the reason I used to hit a 1 iron off the tee on half the par 4s/5s, but at minimum it'll get in a couple whacks on a windy day as there's nothing better for the layup on a par 5 into a strong wind than a well struck 1 iron!

A friend of mine corralled me into playing in a scramble on a cool windy late September day, and on the last hole we faced a long long approach on a par 5, mostly over water and straight into the wind.  Our short hitter safely laid up, the other two guys flailed away with a 3W but couldn't get there, so when my friend saw me lining up an iron, he asked why I wasn't going for it.  I just kept my mouth shut, because I didn't want to tell him I was trying to get there and look like an idiot if I mishit it from swinging as hard as I knew I'd have to and came up 80 yards short.  They were all in disbelief when I put it on the front edge with an iron, and when I showed my friend the sole of the club he gave me this look the people who were burned at the stake for witchcraft probably got

[BCowan]

Doug, great story

  I hit my 2 iron better than my 9 iron.  Haven't had good luck demoing hybrids either.  Long irons are still good for traditional courses, the modern ones it is a disadvantage IMO...

[Patrick_Mucci]

BCowan,

I just have a hard time getting my 2-iron and 3-iron into high trajectories like I used to.

I think I've finally found some rescue/hybrids that I like.

Time will tell.

[Thomas Dai]

Regarding 1 and 2-irons, I reckon quite a bit of the trajectory issue has to do with the modern generation ball.

With a balata ball you could get a higher trajectory from a 1 or 2-iron. The modern generation ball doesn't spin in the same way so doesn't seem go as high with 1 and 2-irons. Just MO. Plus there's an element of maintenace/weather involved in that 1 and 2-irons are generally more of a F&F ground game - windy track based club and were maybe never really that suited to softer-lusher courses which have become a bit more prominent over the period since balata was phased out.

Good point about the newer size drivers Doug. A 1-iron used to be a regular lay-up club for me but the modern 460cc driver is relatively easy to hit so there's now less need to lay-up. An old wooden driver with a steel shaft used to be just about the hardest club in the bag to hit well, hence lay-ups with 1-irons. Now, the jumbo headed 460cc driver may debatably be the easiest to hit club in the bag.

ATB

[Michael Ryan]

I've hung onto my Tommy Armour 845 2 iron and only bring it out every other year when a trip to the UK comes up.  Last May we played Ballybunion in sustained winds of 25 mph with gusts north of 35.  On #6 and #7, I ditched the driver I had attempted to hit on 2 and 4 into a strong headwind off the left and hit the 2 iron.  To end up 20 yards past my buddies hitting driver due only to the trajectory of the shot was a great feeling...

Mike

[Doug Siebert]

Regarding 1 and 2-irons, I reckon quite a bit of the trajectory issue has to do with the modern generation ball.

With a balata ball you could get a higher trajectory from a 1 or 2-iron. The modern generation ball doesn't spin in the same way so doesn't seem go as high with 1 and 2-irons. Just MO. Plus there's an element of maintenace/weather involved in that 1 and 2-irons are generally more of a F&F ground game - windy track based club and were maybe never really that suited to softer-lusher courses which have become a bit more prominent over the period since balata was phased out.

Good point about the newer size drivers Doug. A 1-iron used to be a regular lay-up club for me but the modern 460cc driver is relatively easy to hit so there's now less need to lay-up. An old wooden driver with a steel shaft used to be just about the hardest club in the bag to hit well, hence lay-ups with 1-irons. Now, the jumbo headed 460cc driver may debatably be the easiest to hit club in the bag.

ATB

I agree 100% with what you say about the balata ball being a big difference.  The new ball is expressly designed to spin less at a higher impact speed, and a 1 iron is a pretty long club, so there's little doubt a longer hitter would see less backspin off a 1 iron using a Pro V1 than the Tour Balata or even the Professional used to get.  That's not to say that age related decline in swing speed isn't a possible factor as well, that will turn the best of us into short knockers eventually, and short knockers have no use for a 1 iron!

I've been saying the same thing about the big drivers.  Back in the days before metal woods, being able to hit a driver well was the mark of a good player, because it was the most difficult club in the bag to master.  Now it is the easier club to hit, by far.  Before the big drivers appeared, I was deadly off the tee with my 1 iron, able to hit it about 260 versus maybe 280 with my driver (some days better, some days worse, you know how it goes) The 1 iron was almost always straighter and more consistently struck and a lot of people wondered why I even bothered with my driver.  I often wondered myself, and there were days I'd be hitting 1 iron on pretty much every hole, even the long par 5s

The Pro V1 definitely changed that, by making really bad outcomes for the driver less likely and increasing distance with it without really affecting my 1 iron distance off the tee at all (I still don't understand how the pros started hitting 5 irons 230 with the Pro V1, I used to hit my irons as far as the longest pros, but gained maybe 5 yards with my irons from the Pro V1, nothing like what some of them did)