Joe Sponcia's IMO piece entitled Golf Equipment: A Case Study

[Ran Morrissett]

 https://golfclubatlas.com/in-my-opinion/sponcia-golf-equipment-case-study/

Joe Sponcia's latest In My Opinion piece is a clever look at the ball and club and how technology has changed the game. In a highly personal way, he addresses the issue by exploring how distance gains have affected his beloved Holston Hills. His conclusion? To hit the same clubs in today vs. 93 years ago, the course's length needs to be increased by over 20%, adding 1,399 yards to Holston Hills’ original distance of 6,623 yards. That would take Holston to over 8,000 yards, a thought that is repugnant to me as it goes from being an easy 3 hour walk to something close or over 4 hours. Talk about going in the wrong direction.

His thesis is simple: golf is more enjoyable the greater the range of shots that you are asked to hit. The requirement to hit every club in the bag is indisputably a design virtue, but Joe demonstrates hole-by-hole how distance gains have turned Holston Hills into a wedge-a-thon for the good player. His inclusion of the famous photograph of Hogan hitting that long iron into the 18th at Merion says it all: the glory of the moment is found in coolly executing a difficult long iron shot vs just merely hammering a stock short iron.

Joe further personalizes his piece by highlighting that he, at age 48, hits it past some of the game's greats in their prime. Tellingly, he takes no satisfaction in that but logically concludes that the time to act is now.

To paraphrase, ‘If not now, when? If not us, who?’

[Thomas Dai]

Plenty of good stuff here. You can lead a horse to water though, but you can’t make it drink.

Lots more to the distance issue though than golf architecture and golf related matters especially now that there are 7.7 billion people in the world all needing to be fed and watered and clothed etc.

As Mike Cirba’s says in his April 2019 interview with Ran - https://golfclubatlas.com/feature-interview/feature-interview-with-mike-cirba/ -

“A game dependent on so much of the earth’s acreage on a shrinking planet with finite resources is inevitably going to be on the wrong side of history and a game where the balls and implements aren’t effectively controlled within certain parameters befitting the challenge is similarly going to become antiquated, much as that may seem counter-intuitive.”

Atb

[Jay Mickle]

Once again Joe brings common sense to an issue that challenges the foundations of golf course design. His treatise on trees is classic. I play with a college golfer who’s longest second shot into par 5s at Mid Pines is an 8 iron. He is fully aware that his club selection is not greatly affected by hazards and angles. Architecture as we have known it is insignificant. Another long hitter I play with has dialed back to persimmon woods to better appreciate the intent of the design. I don’t believe that courses should be changed to accommodate that small percentage of golfers who choose equipment that neuters the architectural intent. Let them satisfy themselves in quest of scores in the 50s.

[Peter Pallotta]

To me there is an analogy with a game of chess. The very constraints -- e.g. pawns, after their openings, able to inch along just one square at a time; bishops forced to move along diagonal lines only etc -- is what makes the game what it is. Sure: sometimes when we're in a jam, we feel it would be nice if knights could race across the board like the queen, or if the king could scoot along into safety as quickly as a rook. But then there wouldn't be much of a 'game' left at all -- the 'board' as constructed/designed would lose its original meaning and purpose, and a good part of the inherent challenges and choices would be eliminated, and the break with history and tradition would be definite and final: no one would ever be playing 'chess' as Bobby Fisher or Gary Kasparov did, ever again. Some might say: 'no, the game would still exist, but it would merely be *different* than the one you grew up with; times change, get with it.' But I'd say: 'at some point, different is different enough that you can no longer call chess 'chess'.' The traditional rules and constraints and 'limitations' (i.e. placed on the movements of individual pieces) didn't *hamper* the game, they *created* and *sustained it* for a very long time. Allow that to be thrown out the window and I don't know what you'd have left. And, being able to move a pawn like a queen or a knight like a bishop or a king like a rook might be 'fun' for an hour, or a day, but I think it would lose its appeal pretty quickly after that. As Jay suggests above, the ones having 'fun' would be those  who are stoked about shooting a 51, even though that score doesn't mean almost anything anymore.

[BCrosby]

Peter -


Good analogy. As with chess, there are boundary conditions in golf which, if exceeded, golf ceases to be golf. You can exceed those boundaries in several ways. You can make radical rules changes. You can build odd/radical golf holes. Or you can allow more powerful, straighter balls and clubs.


Any one of those changes render golf no longer recognizable as the traditional game played for centuries. It becomes a different game.   


Bob   

[Ryan Coles]

I really liked Joe’s pieces on trees and have shared them with many people.


One of the points in arguing for tree removal was the fact that the pga tour aren’t pitching up anytime soon and so what if the scratch player gets round a stroke or two easier if it helps those at the other end of the handicap range.


This article seems to do the opposite. Has his course really been ‘ravaged’? The PGA tour should be of little relevance to his Club.


So a few meat heads hit it further? I’d guess those not good enough to make a living from the game still don’t. And those who had average handicaps still have average handicaps. If he keeps talking like this, the answer will be to replant the trees just in case the Tour turns up......

[Joe Sponcia]

Ryan[/font]

Thanks so much for the feedback and in particular, on the tree essay.  [/font]

We’re hosting a Korn event in May 

As Ran pointed out and I attempted to illustrate...the course is a wedge-fest for good players already and old guys like me rarely have to hit long irons.  Donald Ross would be aghast.

More trees?  Hell no.

Our Super, Ryan Blair, is a huge Ross protectionist, however, I fear the "Tour" will ask for a few less passes in the fairways and for bunkers to disappear into the rough.   It's a shame.  The design has big shoulders.  Angles would have mattered a bit more with what Ross intended, but with today's equipment, not at all.  Not for me either.  As with most Ross designs, the run up shot was planned from the start. 

I'll be on a golf trip when the KF tour comes.  Sadly, my yardage averages will be woefully inadequate for the essay.  I'm really not worried about low scores one week per year, more concerning is the chance to disfigure with smaller fairways.  As many of us have seen, once mow lines shrink they rarely return.   

[Steve_ Shaffer]

It's not the ball alone...


https://mygolfspy.com/dean-snell-weighs-in-on-the-distance-debate/

[Jason Topp]

Thanks Joe.  My only quibble with your analysis is that iron lofts have strengthened over the last 20 years.  Thus a 2 iron back in the day most easily equates with a 4 iron today.  I would adjust the approach distances to account for that difference. 

Here is one article with an illustrative chart - https://www.todaysgolfer.co.uk/news-and-events/general-news/2015/november/if-you-ask-someone-what-club-they-hit-youre-either-vain-an-idiot-or-both/

Even with this adjustment, the difference in yardage will still be huge but a little less than your essay suggests.  

[Mike_Clayton]

Jason,


Maybe with more forgiving and hot faces a 4 iron plays like an old 2 but has the loft really changed 6 degrees? My 5 was always 30, the 4 was 27 than 24 (3), 21 (2) and 18 for the 1 iron.
Proper players aren't using 21 degree 4 irons - not when I look in their bags anyway.

[Sean_A]

At the moment it is very easy and convenient to blame equipment for course changes.  What/who do we blame when/if there is a rollback?  At some point, the folks who make decisions to alter courses and those that do the altering have to look in the mirror and ask themselves the hard questions.  For those who think a rollback will solve the problem of courses being altered...if only people were so easy to understand.

Ciao

[Thomas Dai]

It's not just about golf.
There's a much bigger picture here than that and golfs footprint on the landscape needs to adapt.
There are now approx 7.7 billion people on the planet. 50 yrs ago there were approx 3.7 billion. 100 yrs ago there were approx 1.7 billion. And whilst the 30-40-50 million golfers in the world may care about golf and how far the ball goes the other 7.65b or so don't give a damn about golf but they do care about where their and their families next drink and next meal are coming from.
Golfs footprint on the landscape needs to adapt and the ball/distance issue is a good place to start.
atb


PS - a re-quote of MC's brilliant sentence - “A game dependent on so much of the earth’s acreage on a shrinking planet with finite resources is inevitably going to be on the wrong side of history and a game where the balls and implements aren’t effectively controlled within certain parameters befitting the challenge is similarly going to become antiquated, much as that may seem counter-intuitive.”

[John Mayhugh]

We’re hosting a Korn event in May 

Our Super, Ryan Blair, is a huge Ross protectionist, however, I fear the "Tour" will ask for a few less passes in the fairways and for bunkers to disappear into the rough.   It's a shame.  The design has big shoulders.  Angles would have mattered a bit more with what Ross intended, but with today's equipment, not at all.  Not for me either.  As with most Ross designs, the run up shot was planned from the start. 

Congratulations on ruining my day. I guess I'm just naive, but hadn't thought anyone would be insane enough to modify Holston to suit the f-ing Korn Ferry Tour. I was thinking the worst of it would be not having the course available for a week or more, and no more than I get down there, wasn't that bothered. Now I am.

[Kyle Truax]

With regard to the pros coming to play in May...I am less worried about the length of the golf holes and more concerned about the firmness of the greens.  The turf is bentgrass and if temperatures heat up significantly, Ryan will have to keep them moist and hydrated, thus creating a dart fest.  Hopefully we get some favorable conditions to ultimately create a suitable test for the pros...but whatever happens, I am certain Ryan will have the course in the best shape possible.  Having spent the fall of 2018 working on his crew, I know first hand how much devotion and respect he places into the course and club.  It should be an interesting week. 

[Jason Topp]

Jason,


Maybe with more forgiving and hot faces a 4 iron plays like an old 2 but has the loft really changed 6 degrees? My 5 was always 30, the 4 was 27 than 24 (3), 21 (2) and 18 for the 1 iron.
Proper players aren't using 21 degree 4 irons - not when I look in their bags anyway.

Mike - here are the lofts on mine:


5 iron - 24
6 - 27
7 - 31
8 - 35
9 - 40
p - 45


Some tour pros play my clubs but might use weaker lofts.  My recollection is that a standard 3 iron was 38" and 24 degrees back in the day and a pitching wedge was 50 degrees. 

[Mike_Clayton]

Jason


So your wedge is a 9, your 9 is an 8 -1, the 7 is a 5 +1 ,the 6 a 4 and the 5 a 3.


Here's my conspiracy theory - aside from the obvious that they are trying to fool amateurs they are better clubs because they can hit a wedge 130 yards when it's really a 9.


There is no money selling sets of irons but plenty in over-priced drivers, fairway woods, hybrids, wedges and putters.
The manufacturers therefore reduce irons sets down to 6 clubs - 4-9 - and sell the rest as specialty clubs.

[JMEvensky]

So your wedge is a 9, your 9 is an 8 -1, the 7 is a 5 +1 ,the 6 a 4 and the 5 a 3.

And the shafts are longer and, most likely, lighter.

[Joe Sponcia]

Hey Jason,


For 20 years, my Pw was 47-48 degrees.  I was looking at new irons last night and now even good players irons (I'm currently a 1 handicap) start at 45 degrees for the most part.  I frankly don't understand the 5 to 5.5 degree gapping, other than to back up what Mr. Clayton suggested, which is to sell more 'speciality' clubs.  My yardage for this essay was based on the 9 stamped Pw current sets.  When Taylor Made and Callaway started aggressively turning down lofts about 10 years ago, the corresponding irons flew too low.  That's no longer the case.  The window for my current 9 flies like it should. 


That aside, the driving distance for the modern player, which for good players at my club I actually erred on the shorter side is the GAP to focus on.  I routinely watch the University of Tennessee players hit lob or SW into the 432 yard 10th, where I hit 9 iron in the summer (again, I'm 48!)  Some holes at my club, with ample run up options WERE designed for 4 woods or 3 irons, not Driver-7iron.  This is the thing that nauseates me.  I don't think so much about missing it by an iron on the essay, but more that a short iron is being used where Ross intended a long one.  A run up 4 or 5 wood vs a towering 6 iron that stops on a dime.  Walking backwards on several holes because of equipment is a further annoyance I intend to speak to on a follow-up. 


Thanks for the feedback!

[/size]Thanks Joe.  My only quibble with your analysis is that iron lofts have strengthened over the last 20 years.  Thus a 2 iron back in the day most easily equates with a 4 iron today.  I would adjust the approach distances to account for that difference.  Here is one article with an illustrative chart - https://www.todaysgolfer.co.uk/news-and-events/general-news/2015/november/if-you-ask-someone-what-club-they-hit-youre-either-vain-an-idiot-or-both/Even with this adjustment, the difference in yardage will still be huge but a little less than your essay suggests. [size=78%]

[Jason Topp]

Hey Jason,


That aside, the driving distance for the modern player, which for good players at my club I actually erred on the shorter side is the GAP to focus on. 

 


I agree you might be a bit conservative on driving distance.  I played in a two person scramble last fall from the tips of our back boxes which is 7720 yards.  My partner was a 25 year old who played Division III golf - a good player but not otherworldly.  I am guessing his carry distance was 300 yards.  I will have to ask him when I see him next season.     

[jeffwarne]

Hey Jason,


That aside, the driving distance for the modern player, which for good players at my club I actually erred on the shorter side is the GAP to focus on. 

 


I agree you might be a bit conservative on driving distance.  I played in a two person scramble last fall from the tips of our back boxes which is 7720 yards.  My partner was a 25 year old who played Division III golf - a good player but not otherworldly.  I am guessing his carry distance was 300 yards.  I will have to ask him when I see him next season.   

and such a player is facing an entirely different SCALE than the architect intended.
Too many think this is about score or protecting par(and propose absurd or costly game slowing ideas)-or that it affects .01% or 1% (the number is much greater in terms of rounds played (experts play more golf) and it affects more than just experts as I play with many 8's and 10's that hit it long and wrong.
It's about getting our game back, where strategy didn't consist of which wedge to use, or whether to lay up or go for(after waiting for the green to clear) a 350 yard par 4.
Sadly the governing bodies have allowed this to normalize and thse case weakens every year.


Iron lofts-less of an issue-usually a club to a club and a half-it's the cup face that's a game changer. Played with a guy last week with a cup face 2 iron who was averaging over 280 with it, barely any longer than his driver

[Garland Bayley]

...Joe demonstrates hole-by-hole how distance gains have turned Holston Hills into a wedge-a-thon for the good player. His inclusion of the famous photograph of Hogan hitting that long iron into the 18th at Merion says it all: the glory of the moment is found in coolly executing a difficult long iron shot vs just merely hammering a stock short iron.
...

And of course the USGA is preaching play-it-forward so all of us hacks can engage in wedge-a-thons too.

[Peter Flory]

I keep thinking of a passage in Mackenzie's "The Spirit of St. Andrews" (from manuscripts written in or before 1933 I believe) about this:

FLIGHT OF THE BALL

"On the other hand I am a strong believer in limiting the flight of the ball.  Pleasure in obtaining length is only a matter of relativity.  One got quite as much fun in driving the old Haskell ball twenty yards further than one's opponent as today one gets in hitting the small heavy ball twenty yards further.  Quite as big a thrill is obtained in hitting a baseball or cricket ball a hundred yards as a golf ball two hundred. 

Something very drastic ought to have been done years and years ago.  Golf courses are becoming far too long.  Twenty years ago we played three rounds of golf a day and considered we had taken an interminably long time if we took more than two hours to play a round.  Today it not infrequently takes over three hours. 

(paragraph advocating the floater ball)

Similary, today many are trying to obtain a temporary advantage by buying the latest far-flying ball on the market.  it is often suggested that we have already got to the limit of flight of a golf ball.  i do not believe it, as there is no limit to science.  During the war, experts told us we had got to the limit of flight of cannonball; then the Germans invented a gun which propelled a shell three times as far as it had ever been sent before. 

The Royal and Ancient "rules of golf" committe intimate that they will put a stop to any new ball which flies appreciably further, but the difficulty is how can they?  there may not be any sudden change which would warrant them intervening. On the other hand I feel sure that during the last few years improvements have been made in the manufacture of golf balls which enable them to fly two or three yards further every year.  I have recently been playing with the new English ball for which the manufacturers claim that it will fly twelve yards further than any other.  I believe their claim to be a true one. We have already got to the stage when there is too much walking and too little golf. 

Strange to say the opposition to a drastic limitation in the flight of the golf ball comes from the short drivers.  They would, in relation to the long driver, benefit the most. 

I understand that when tests were made with a ball testing machine of the small ball against the large one there was fifteen yards difference in flight when the machine was adjusted to send the small ball 250 yards but only five yards when it was adjusted to send it 200.  Therefore the larger the ball the less relative advantage ained by a long hitter. 

(then he goes on to advocate the floater golf ball over the smaller ball for a while... I'm skipping those sections)

The only objection I can see to limiting the flight of the ball is a purely temporary one.  Players at first sight would dislike driving an appreciably shorter distance than they had been accustomed to.  they would, however, soon get over this when they found their usual opponents were similarly limited, and particularly when they found they got more golf with less walking. 

The pleasure of hitting a larger ball two hundred yards would be just as great or even greater than hitting a smaller one two hundred and twenty.  This objection could also be eliminated to a great extent by putting the tees forward. "


If he was shocked an appalled by 3 hour rounds, imagine him playing in a modern 5 hour round with a  cart.  He'd quit the sport for sure. 

[Niall C]

Joe


You make comparisons to other sports and specifically cite baseball. Is it not true that in baseball equipment has also got better over the years and that players are more athletic and better conditioned (even by illegal means) ? Likewise american gridiron, basketball, tennis and football. Yet none of these sports that have standard/defined playing fields feel the need to expand the playing area.


Why is that ? Is it because there is an acceptance that how the game is played has simply evolved ? Why should golf be any different ? Just because Dustin Johnston can't play Pebble Beach the same way Arnold Palmer used to back in the day doesn't mean you need to change the playing field. Just a thought.


Niall   

[Joe Sponcia]

Niall

The absurdity is a 48 year old, 5'6, 175lb., software guy who plays 70-80 rounds per year is longer than Hogan, Snead, Nelson, Palmer, Nicklaus, and Norman in their prime.

However, I can't hit a baseball as far as Mantle, Maris, Mays, Killebrew, Reggie Jackson, or Dale Murphy, or for that matter, as far as I did in college?

How is this not a valid comparison?

Joe


You make comparisons to other sports and specifically cite baseball. Is it not true that in baseball equipment has also got better over the years and that players are more athletic and better conditioned (even by illegal means) ? Likewise american gridiron, basketball, tennis and football. Yet none of these sports that have standard/defined playing fields feel the need to expand the playing area.


Why is that ? Is it because there is an acceptance that how the game is played has simply evolved ? Why should golf be any different ? Just because Dustin Johnston can't play Pebble Beach the same way Arnold Palmer used to back in the day doesn't mean you need to change the playing field. Just a thought.


Niall

[Niall C]

Joe

I'm not saying anything is valid or not valid.

I'm asking why when there has been "progress" in equipment and players in other sports that they have still kept the playing fields the same size whereas in golf they have expanded the playing area ? Why has golf (clubs, designers, administrators etc) felt the need to expand courses ? You may note I didn't mention players in the last sentence.

In football the average premiership player can do things with a modern football that Pele could only dream about doing with the ball they used back in his day, yet the pitch is the same size as is the goals. Modern tennis rackets (so I am told) are far easier to hit and impart greater speed and spin than say in Rod Lavers day. Are tennis courts much bigger now to compensate ? No they are not. I could go on but I think you see the point I'm making.

So why the move to expand golf courses and a corresponding move to limit/rollback equipment ? One's clearly a reaction to the other but why expand courses in the first place ? Why not accept the game has changed (as it always has done) the way it does in other sports. In football kick and rush gave way to dribbling which gave way to route one which in turn gave way to possession football culminating in tikki tacki or however the spell it. And now the latest thing apparently is the high press. Tactics changed as equipment and playing conditions changed so why not in golf ?

Niall