Whicker On Scoring, Distance And A Changing Game
Mark Whicker talked to players at the Careerbuilder Challenge about Justin Thomas' record scoring in Hawaii and what the increase in 59s all means for the game. 
Many things stood out, so I'm just clipping the most intriguing. The entire piece is worth your time.
From Jason Dufner:
“Larry Nelson won the U.S. Open at Oakmont (in 1993),” Dufner said. “He told me that on the first hole, he’d hit four-iron into the green. Last year I hit pitching wedge three days, sand wedge the other day.”
William McGirt has many great insights about distance and Trackman.
In 1998, John Daly led the tour by averaging 298 yards. Last year, there were 27 pros who topped 300. This year, Smylie Kaufman leads with an impossible average drive of 322.
Any course with mundane par-5s is helpless. Luke List is already 50-under-par on the long holes this season.
“People will say the golf ball doesn’t go any farther, but they’re wrong,” McGirt said. “The drivers can’t get hotter. The ball is the only common denominator with all the shots.
“They’ve basically taken an old two-piece, hard-brick ball and made it spin. That benefits the bombers. They can get to the core and compress it better than anyone. I can’t do that, but I have a ball I know I can control.”
Oh boy, blaming the ball. That'll get you sleeping with Luca Brazi and the fishes!
But as I noted this week on Golf Central (below), Trackman is now an underrated element in the overall improvement of player skill and distance.
“It detects a flaw before it gets out of control,” McGirt said. “If your swing is a degree and a half steeper than it should be, you can fix it before it becomes four degrees. You look at it and scratch your head and say it looks the same, but it’s not. Video doesn’t pick everything up.
“Because of this, I don’t have to have my teacher (John Tillery) with me all the time. I can hit 40 shots and e-mail them, and he can pull the numbers and say, here’s what the problem is. But some guys get caught up in it. They might start playing numbers instead of playing golf.”
John Feinstein and I discussed this very topic on Golf Central, including the Trackman component in today's improved scoring.
Thursday, January 19, 2017 at 09:50 PM 35 Comments | in 2017 PGA Tour, State of the Game, Technology
Reader Comments (35)
“They’ve basically taken an old two-piece, hard-brick ball and made it spin. That benefits the bombers. They can get to the core and compress it better than anyone. I can’t do that, but I have a ball I know I can control.”
BINGO!
But seriously, I don't want the ball dialed back, I need every bit of distance and spin advantage the modern golf ball gives me. So many bemoan the achievements of pros, but they make up a very small percentage of the actual people who play this game. Let them bomb it, I can't so I want my equipment to help as much as possible. I love watching the pro's do things I cannot. That's why I watch. Every time I see DJ smash one over 330 I don't get upset about equipment, I marvel at his skill. I watched Justin Thomas destroy drives in Hawaii with my 9 year old son who often feels bad because he is plays hockey as well as golf (I'm from Canada) and is small for a hockey player. He watched JT and then I showed him JT's physical stats and when he realized that JT was smaller than I am he was pumped "You mean I don't have to be huge to hit it far?"
I say we don't worry about what the equipment is doing for Pro's and be happy with how it is helping the rest of us.
Sadly, today's players could frankly be limited to 10 clubs, 4 of which would be wedges and a putter and they would probably have one or two gathering rust.
Web.com average drive distance leaders in:
2002 Victor Schwamkrug 328.5
2003 Victor Schwamkrug 339.3, Scott Gutschewski 320.8, Bubba Watson 319.3
2004 Victor Schwamkrug 330.9, Bubba Watson 323.5
2005 Bubba Watson 334.0
With todays optimization of balls/shafts/clubs/lauch monitors guys would still hit the ball just as far even if golf went back to a wound ball. Recall what distance Tiger averaged in the 1997 Masters with the Titleist Professional and a 43" steel shafted driver. He was hitting a 69* PW 150 yards. Tigers first tee shot as a professional was 338 yards. Wound ball. Was the wound ball going too far in 1996 and earlier?
There are many many more players today with a club head speed the same as or greater than what Tiger had in 1997 on tour today. You can not legislate club head speed. Again the distance the ball flies is only PART OF THE ISSUE.
If the game has become so easy why do so many players continue to shoot over par each week? The game is still hard even for the best in the world.
2016-2017 season - Events played 4, 2 missed cuts, 2 made cuts with finishes of T45, T72
Driving accuracy percentage 52.98%, Rank 243rd
Greens in regulation percentage 68.06%, Rank 196th
Putting Avg GIR - 1.782, Rank 203rd
Overall Putting - 1.657, Rank 213th
Scoring Average 72.307, Rank 185th
Money List $33,336 Rank 170
REC Points Rank 175th
As always the game is more about how far your tee shots travel.
Bomb and gauge simply makes golf look stale. As for the ball, most of us 100mph driver speed or less don't compress the ball enough anyway. Roll back the pro ball 10 % please and watch them hit those long irons again...
Golf has to decide whether it's a game of skill or power. When good players say their most confident club is their driver, I have to wonder if skill is being shorted. Power off the tee and skill on the putting green isn't golf -- but putting is what shows up on TV. TV entertainment should not be deciding the path of the entire game.
Make kiddie/old lady/geezer clubs for amateurs who need a little help. Everybody else plays blades, 300 cc drivers and balls that spin like 70's balatas.
Ah. But you see, you can't play like that when you're drunk, can you? Those shovels, VW's on a stick and balls that don't fly offline work great for beer sales. So nothing's going to change.
Play your own game and forget the TOUR. Unless it wants to present a sports entertainment product that displays skill -- because trying to present power is ludicrous compared with other sports.
While I do have issues with the ball, I feel that in part some blame must be focused upon the course and its total lack of being prepared for these top players.
We have known for years the ball is going further and further, yet as we move down this line, golf course design has totally failed to either keep up or bothered to counter the designs of a Hole (that may require a totally different approach that is to the problem). Then there is the old fall back of reinventing hazards that actually make the golfer think rather than just have his ball fly over.
Modern designers seem to feel it’s a weakness to learn from the past (the R&A are certainly guilty on that point), however it’s better than doing next to nothing or again seeking to use island Greens as a distraction to the problems facing today’s game.
As in so many things the answer lies with the use of a combination of things, rather than concentration on one i.e. the ball.
The greatest disaster facing today’s game is to refuse to accept there are problems, yet we seem to do just that, satisfied with a little moan then we proceed as usual instead of grasping the core values of the game and trying to eradicate those aspects that not just fail the game, but also take us further away from the true game of Golf - that of walking and thinking through the hazards ahead.
There is no easy option, you can’t pull out an aid and the problem is resolved – this will take commitment and determination to resolve, however, I feel we lack the very spirit to even get off our backside to do anything – I fear that we have today the game we deserve
So the ball doesn't go further than allowed previously, they designed a pinnacle that good players like.
But...
yes, the ball goes further, especially because it is fit to fly more effectively with drivers that are bigger lighter and longer.
Everything is optimized and players, as they are in every sport are bigger and faster. Please note I'm not saying better!
I dont have a real world solution that wouldn't impact the business of the game, which IS different from the actual game but harping about ball all the time while dismissing the other gains hurts finding a solution that could be effective.
"Golf has to decide whether it's a game of skill or power. When good players say their most confident club is their driver, I have to wonder if skill is being shorted."
Agree with this. In my junior days (late 90's) I hardly hit driver and opted for 3 wood because the driver was much harder to hit. Now I blast driver everywhere and feel confident I can it 75% of fairways. I hardly hit 3 wood off the tee.
Now this is related to the clubhead but I also believe the lower spinning ball allows for players to get 100+% at a driver. The Rickie shot with the persimmion last week was interesting. Claude said he could only really go after it at 80%. If we went full out like his does with his current driver the mishits became greater.
There should be a pro ball and a amateur ball.
Ball goes to far; game takes too long to play. They are interrelated.
The reliance on toys, aids and carts may now be added to by two balls - God, if only the R&A had a pair between them the game would still be recognisable as Golf.
It is more than just the ball, but after considering all the options, the Tournament ball seems to me to be the best option. Bomb and gouge is pretty boring. I want to see some of the same decision making off the tee that I have to make on proportionally longer holes, and the occasional par 4 that requires a 4 or 5 iron for a pro to reach. I want them to realize a mishit can be costly - right now, a mishit tee shot goes 280+ yards, and barely off line. Yes, Jack and a few others could pound it out 300 yards back in the day, but they really thought about the consequences before attempting that shot...it seems to me there is very little thought on most tees these days.
None of this will happen, but I wish it would.
FWIW, Old Tom. If you believe forcing the players I see on the links to play a cerebral game deeper than "don't hit it there," be prepared for 6-hour rounds.
Ball? You bet it is.
That is absurd............