They don’t put cork in golf clubs, but there are ways to juice them up.
The scenario: A player goes to the first tee using a driver with so much spring it exceeds regulations set by the U.S. Golf Association. Be careful if you’re standing 350 yards down the fairway.
Call it golf’s version of what happened to Sammy Sosa last week.
Johnny Miller believes it might be happening already. Miller, the 1973 U.S. Open winner, outspoken NBC analyst and Callaway Golf rep, worries that the push for length might push a few players and some equipment makers over the line.
“Who’s to say when you make 20 to 30 [models of] drivers that one of them doesn’t have too much spring?” Miller says. “The player will find the one out of 10 that tends to be illegal. It’s going 10 to 15 yards longer. I know that’s happening. Not knowingly by the player. All he’s thinking is, `Boy, this baby goes. I love this driver.'”
Just like baseball, golf now is about power, especially at the highest level. Constantly evolving equipment, along with evolving athletes, has transformed this week’s U.S. Open at Olympia Fields Country Club into a whole new ballgame.
Where the emphasis used to be on long and straight, it now seems to be on long and longer. The popular two-piece balata ball has been replaced by a softer ball that spins less, making it fly longer. Thus the players are taking the distance boom to another level this year, knocking the logo off the ball.
The numbers tell an explosive story. The PGA Tour driving average has jumped from 260.3 yards in 1993 to 284.6 yards in 2003.
Even more dramatic is this statistic: In 2000, only John Daly and Tiger Woods averaged more than 290 yards off the tee and 29 players exceeded 280 yards. In 2003, those figures have jumped to 49 over the 290-yard level and 129 past 280 yards.
Sure, the players are stronger, in keeping with an emphasis on fitness. But pumping iron only goes so far. A pumped-up golf ball goes much further.
Retired CBS analyst Ken Venturi ran into a player at the Bob Hope Chrysler Classic last winter who marveled at his newly found windfall.
“The player said he hadn’t changed his swing and he hadn’t gone on a workout program,” Venturi says. “All he did was change his ball. He says, `Kenny, I’m 15 to 20 yards longer.’ So what does that tell you?”
Cartoonish lengths
Players are reaching lengths that seem almost cartoonish in their dimensions. Announcers are marveling at one drive after another that travels more than 350 yards. A wimpy 300-yarder must have been hit off the toe.
To accommodate the length of the current players, Olympia Fields had to be extended nearly 300 yards to 7,190 yards, using virtually every last blade of grass available. If more real estate is needed for another Open in 10 years, the club could be shut out.
“Every course that was done in 2002 is already obsolete,” says golf great Jack Nicklaus, a noted course designer too.
Nicklaus, 63, has been a leading critic of golf’s technology boom. He believes it has had an adverse impact on the game.
“If they controlled the golf ball and equipment, I probably would not have been playing a lot of golf during the last 20 years, which is probably the way it should have been,” Nicklaus says. “I’m playing shorter clubs than I played 20 years ago. That’s not right.”
Nicklaus has plenty of allies. There are concerns the finesse part of golf is going the way of the mashie, that if steps aren’t taken to slow the evolution, a 7,500-yard course could be considered quaint in a few years.
“The greatest thing about golf is that it’s always been the ultimate test of David versus Goliath,” says Nick Price, who made his reputation as a shot-maker, not a bomber. “It’s not that way now. It’s all moving to Goliath.”
Miller is among those concerned that a Goliath or two could be getting too much help from the equipment companies.
“I’m afraid of the company that will make a driver that is slightly illegal so players will use it,” Miller says. “Then they’ll say, `Oh, I didn’t know.'”
Equipment companies maintain they are playing within the rules, but the PGA Tour is working on implementing a test at tournament sites to determine whether the springlike effect of drivers exceeds USGA specifications. The testing was supposed to begin at the Western Open, but has been postponed.
Tiger Woods, who hits it as far as anyone, supports testing.
“We need to get together to make sure [the drivers] are not over the limit,” he says.
Modern equipment is pushing the envelope. Drivers are built from titanium and other space-age metals, and balls are being aerodynamically engineered by rocket scientists.
It’s a big contrast to what Miller faced in selecting clubs during the 1970s.
“For us it was blind luck,” he says. “We used to go through 40 to 50 drivers to find one that was good.”
Now computers determine the “perfect” shaft, loft, length and everything else for a player. It’s almost like a genetic scientist working with a golfer’s DNA.
“I always make this comparison,” Davis Love III says. “You give me Dale Jarrett’s racecar and I’m not going to do a lot with it. I’m going to slow in the turns. But he’s going to get every ounce of speed out of the car, and he’s going to tell you what’s wrong so they can make it faster.
“That’s what we can do. We can say if you had a just a little bit more flight in that ball or just a tiny bit more spin, I could get another two, three yards. They can build a golf ball to fit Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson, Davis Love . . . right down the list.”
Technology critics argue the ball is getting so hot it might burn up in flight, and they say the United States Golf Association and the Royal&Ancient Golf Club have been lax in enforcing standards on equipment.
“If you sat down the USGA guys with a lie detector and asked them, `Did you let it go too far,’ they’d all say, `Yeah, we let it go too far,'” Miller says.
Nick Faldo is a bit more colorful in his assessment.
“The USGA and R&A have just blown it,” he says. “The horse has bolted so far past the gate that it’s gone to stud.”
Age determines attitude
USGA executive director David Fay has a ready response to criticism of the association’s handling of the technology issue. He asks for the age of the critic.
“When people make those observations, I can guess in which decade they were born,” Fay says. “People of a certain age want to see the game played like it was when they were at their peak. If you asked somebody who was 28, `What’s wrong with the game?’ they’d scratch their heads and wonder what you’re talking about.”
Equipment companies have long viewed the USGA as a roadblock to improving technology. During the 1998 U.S. Open at the Olympic Club, top executives among the club manufacturers marshaled their forces against a perceived USGA crackdown.
These companies need to market the latest innovations to generate business. Golfers are suckers for anything “new and improved.”
Fay’s opinions seem to run counter to those perceptions. He’s not sure the critics’ argument is even valid.
“Do you want to lessen the distance for everybody playing the game?” he asks. “Will it make the game as appealing? Do you want to drive your father’s Oldsmobile, or do you want something different?
“When people say there is a need to protect the integrity of the game, what is it they are trying to protect? What is it you find troubling?”
Fay is not an advocate of a special scaled-back ball being considered for the pro game. He believes it would cause chaos among the different governing bodies.
“What would it accomplish?” he asks. “Would you be more inclined to watch Fred Funk if he was hitting fairway woods into par 4s rather than 6-irons? I don’t know.”
Fay also doesn’t buy the notion that the game would be better if the ball were slowed down for everybody. Arnold Palmer has pushed for that, maintaining the poorer golfer “won’t notice the difference.”
Fay disagrees. “While Arnold might be correct, subjectively everyone would feel like they got short-changed.”
Fay views what’s happening now as a natural evolution of the game. Golf has been in a constant state of change since its inception. If it stayed the same, people would still be swinging hickory shafts.
“You’ve got better equipment and better athletes who have a better approach to the game,” Fay says. “When you see a sport frozen in time, you’re looking at an unhealthy sport.”
Fay believes golf is healthy, especially at the elite level. The top players are winning, and it’s not just the long hitters. Mike Weir has won three times this year, including the Masters. Justin Leonard has won, and Price remains ranked in the top 15 in the world.
Miller contends the current equipment innovations are worth 1 1/2 shots per round. He says his fabled round of 63 in the final round of the 1973 U.S. Open at Oakmont would have been a 60 or 61 today.
Player’s the thing
Miller doesn’t have a problem with how far technology has gone. But he hopes the limits come soon.
“It can’t go any farther,” he says.
Love believes it won’t make a difference even if technology has reached its limits or the ball is rolled back. At the end of the day, it still comes down to the player swinging the club.
“If you roll the ball back 20 percent, Tiger still is probably going to hit it a long way, be the leading money winner and we’re still going to be chasing him,” Love says. “You give everyone the same ball, and we’re going to figure out a way. Don’t make it seem like technology is making us play good, because in the end, no matter what equipment we have, we are going to play extremely well.”
Woods sacrificing length for accuracy
Tiger Woods still is using technology from the 1970s.
This isn’t a Phil Mickelson-like knock on the Nike clubs Woods carries in his bag. Rather, it is the specifications he uses for those clubs.
In an era of longer shafts made from graphite and strong lofts for irons, Woods goes in the other direction. He uses a 43 1/2-inch steel-shafted driver. Most players are in the 45-inch range, and many use graphite. He also uses the same lofts in his irons that Jack Nicklaus used during his prime.
Woods has dialed down his clubs to put a premium on accuracy, not distance. He stands only 35th in driving distance with 291.7 yards; he never has been lower than sixth at the end of a season.
“My equipment is old standard,” Woods said. “I like hitting the ball further, but I want to keep it in play. If I can keep it in play, I like my chances that week.”
Woods, though, is trying to find the right combination of ball and driver. He’s playing with a new Nike ball that he says is terrific in the wind. Now he hopes to come up with a Nike driver that works with the ball.
Woods has struggled off the tee this year. He has hit only 64.3 percent of fairways, ranking 108th on the tour.
Part of it has been an adjustment to his new equipment.
“I have gotten long with this new ball and driver where you’ve got to hit it more accurately,” Woods said. “You can’t just slap it around and expect that the ball be in play. The longer you hit it, the less room you have to miss it.”
— Ed Sherman
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Longer and longer
The numbers tell the story of how technology has given the players greater distance off the tee.
1993
Leaders/Yards: John Daly 288.4
Average tour driving distance/Yards: 260.3
Number of players averaging 280 yards or more: 2
1994
Leaders/Yards: Davis Love III 283.8
Average tour driving distance/Yards: 261.8
Number of players averaging 280 yards or more: 2
1995
Leaders/Yards: John Daly 289.0
Average tour driving distance/Yards: 263.8
Number of players averaging 280 yards or more: 5
1996
Leaders/Yards: John Daly 288.8
Average tour driving distance/Yards: 266.5
Number of players averaging 280 yards or more: 10
1997
John Daly 302.0
Average tour driving distance/Yards: 267.7
Number of players averaging 280 yards or more: 12
290 yards or more: 2
1998
Leaders/Yards: John Daly 299.4
Average tour driving distance/Yards: 270.6
Number of players averaging 280 yards or more: 19
290 yards or more: 2
1999
Leaders/Yards: John Daly 305.6
Average tour driving distance/Yards: 272.4
Number of players averaging 280 yards or more: 25
290 yards or more: 5
2000
Leaders/Yards: John Daly 301.4
Average tour driving distance/Yards: 273.2
Number of players averaging 280 yards or more: 29
290 yards or more: 2
2001
Leaders/Yards: John Daly 306.7
Average tour driving distance/Yards: 279.4
Number of players averaging 280 yards or more: 88
290 yards or more: 13
2002
Leaders/Yards: John Daly 306.8
Average tour driving distance/Yards: 279.8
Number of players averaging 280 yards or more: 100
290 yards or more: 18
2003
Leaders/Yards: Hank Kuehne 315.0
Average tour driving distance/Yards: 284.6
Number of players averaging 280 yards or more: 129
290 yards or more: 49
Antique golf club photo courtesy of Jeff Ellis
Chicago Tribune/Phil Geib
