Dustin Johnson's 432-backyard "almost a hollow-in-one on a par-four" force at Kapalua's 12th hollow Sunday has started out the new spherical of debates over the cutting-edge golfing ball and how some distance it flies. GC published this piece with the aid of Randall Mell on Monday that sums up a number of the troubles.
I must admit that at instances I locate this all a chunk funny. The history of golf is packed with gamers who appeared to be ungodly long with a motive force, irrespective of the ball they used.
For example, in an article in The American Golfer (dated 7 May 1921) O.B. Keeler wrote:
BOB JONES is an extremely long hitter. He has been a long hitter since he was thirteen years old. At Merion, in the national championship of 1916, Bob being then fourteen, he drove some of the longest tee-shots in that tournament, and, incidentally, traveled thirty holes against Frank Dyer in a matter of four strokes under 4's, if my memory is not at fault—the best stretch of golf shot in that tournament. He hit one or two tee-shots of better than three hundred yards. [p7]Hmmm... a 14-year-old Bobby Jones could hit one of those old Haskell rubber balls -- essentially a balata ball -- over 300 yards with a persimmon-headed, hickory-shafted driver that would have been about two inches or so shorter than the current standard. And Jones was only around 5'10", about Rory McIlroy's height. Interesting.
Even more interesting is an article Keeler wrote in the same magazine later that year, in the 17 December 1921 issue, the tenth in a series called Why These Fads and Fancies? titled simply Ballistics. Here is a short section of that article, which began on page 13 and continued on page 30:
Recently we have got the golf ball in our strength in at least one path?We've got the wretched factor standardized. That is, it should not weigh greater than a certain weight (1.62 ounce); and it must no longer be smaller than a sure diameter, which I assume is that identical quantity in inches; while it can be as tons lighter or as a whole lot large as desired?Which doesn't seem like lots.
It seems we had been tending closer to a pellet about the scale of an old skool quinine pill, with a soupcon of radium in it, or something to present it a variety that might bring about the scrapping of all our trendy golf publications and making them over at the Great Plains of the Middle West or the Desert of Sahara, or somewhere wherein there was greater room.
The Royal and Ancients and other golfing arbiters determined something ought to be carried out approximately it?Steps should be taken, resolutions followed; measures taken, or some thing. It became out to be measures; weights and measures, you would possibly say. And now we've got the standardized golf ball, with out a especial sacrifice of energy, speed or range, if the classified ads may be credited.
As a matter of truth, they stopped the revision of the ball downward proper approximately in which it was; I think that a few brands have been a color smaller and a shade heavier than the prevailing standard; however I do no longer don't forget a season with greater punishment administered to lengthy-hitting records than the beyond one.
So the golfing publications are stored, it seems; and we slight gamers may not ought to war our manner with a force and five screaming brassies to get in variety of the eight hundred and nine hundred and thousand-yard holes, expected no longer goodbye in the past via the greater excitable pessimists as the logical outgrowth of the smaller and heavier and better-powered projectiles became out yr by way of year.
Six hundred yards will, for the nonce, remain the approximate limit — that is to say, a drive and two screaming brassies for the gentler players to get in pitching distance; for it generally is agreed that a brassie shot should not be expected to scream unless it travels more than one hundred and fifty yards. Bear in mind, this was written in 1921. It laments the (at that time) extreme distances which the ball traveled -- note that a 600-yard hole was considered "the approximate limit" at that time, although there weren't many of them. Note that Keeler says that others before him have lamented that the situation would be even worse!
And in the modern day? A 2013 Golf Magazine article said there were 20 holes over 600 yards on the PGA Tour and included pictures of the ten longest, the longest being the 667-yard first hole at Firestone.
So, despite all the advances in golf ball design, club design, course architecture, agronomy and player size -- that last is rarely mentioned as a significant change, although I would expect 6'4" DJ to hit the ball a bit longer than most players who weren't that tall! -- despite all that, the longest hole on Tour was still only 60-some yards longer than in 1921. (Please note that, while there are longer holes in the world, they aren't par-5s.)
And other players besides Jones had been lengthy hitters regardless of the use of "inferior" device. Jack Nicklaus -- the above picture comes from 1966 -- received the 1963 PGA Championship at the Dallas Athletic Club with the aid of photographs. In the lengthy force competition held on Wednesday that week, Jack gained with a 341-backyard power. Like Jones, Jack used a balata ball and persimmon-headed driver, albeit with a metallic shaft. (I observed that information in both this USA Today article -- wherein I were given the image above -- and Wikipedia's article on the 1963 PGA.)
Don't misunderstand me. I'm not arguing either for or against how far the ball travels. Personally I'd like to see something done to keep the older courses in play. Longtime readers of this blog may remember a 2009 post called Why Not a Par 67 Course? where I suggested the (apparently) blasphemous idea that par is a relatively meaningless concept and we could set it at any number we chose. These days I don't think that would make any difference, simply because Tour events have become so large that those courses don't have enough room for all the tents and parking and such.
I'll depart the ones debates to the analysts and officials who get paid to discuss such things.
I suspect the powers-that-be will should placed a lid on improvement sooner or later -- longer guides are simply becoming economically and ecologically unfeasible in recent times. But it appears to me that, whilst you keep in mind simply the primary issue of distance, the golf ball debate hasn't changed a lot in as a minimum a century. The pros have always been mentioned as "proof" that the ball flies too a ways, at the same time as the average newbie can not even power the ball 2 hundred yards constantly.
Perhaps this says less approximately the gadget and greater about our incapability to make a easy swinging movement with a membership.
But whatever else it method, I guess we can sit up for an extended war over golf ball requirements this year. And that's approximately par for the direction.
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