Nicklaus suggests a 20% rollback in driving distance - Page 4

At the Father -Child Tournament, Nicklaus was complaining about hitting his 5-wood  only 180 yards. With a 20% rollback, Jack would be booming that 5-wood 144 yards.

Quote:

Originally Posted by dave67az 

 

That's kind of simple, well, at least from a theoretical standpoint.

All they would have to do is come up with a ball that has a minimal benefit from swing speeds over 100mph.

That's really unfair though. Swinging over 100mph is a skill, not just a casual benefit of being a pro. What is the punishment for being shorter, say 95 mph? If the ball is nearly as long for a player of that speed, he's getting a huge advantage from being lousy. Just move up a set of tees. Or use the handicap system to make the competition fair if there's a skill difference. Don't use equipment, an added expense for everyone involved and a point of controversy, to adjust this.

In professional competition, as a rule maker you shouldn't drastically change anything that could destroy a career's worth of experience, like how they let established spitballers throw the pitch years after outlawing it. But as long as everybody can use the advantage equally, it's still fair. You don't go to the NBA and say, OK Dwight, we moved the free throw line up to like 2 feet, now you can just dunk. Sorry it was so tough before, but everyone else still has to stay at the line except the ones who suck. And Kobe, you can take a break every 2 minutes, as long as you need. You're old buddy, you play better when you're rested. This game of head to head skill is too hard for you and we are fixing it by hurting your opponent's strengths.

Can't cut the corner? Don't worry, we cut the ball back 30 yards so your long hitting opponent will have to lay up too. But because you're under 100 mph, you won't lose much at all. And we give trophies for second place so no one feels left out.

These sorts of attitudes remind me of steroid use in baseball more than anything; once the short ball comes out people will give the same skepticism to the scramble opponent who hits a 280 yard drive as they would Barry Bonds hitting a 280 yard home run. Oh, he must be using one of the older, long balls, like all the pros secretly use to make it seem like they're superhuman. There's no way he's just as long as Tiger, even on one drive. He probably sucks like me, because it's normal to only drive 200 yards. Anyone good will immediately be questioned, and the relatively identical appearance of balls means you can't really prove yourself innocent. Because there must be something that lets you do what I can't, and it certainly couldn't be skill, right? But one word against you, and you're branded a cheater. 

By the way, back in the day the US and Britain had different size balls as their standard, the British balls being smaller (1.62 inch diameter vs 1.68) and longer, especially in the wind. Before 1974, all notable golfers who played in the British Open, including the likes of Nicklaus and Palmer, used the smaller ball in that tournament. You could get cheated in match play by a sly opponent with a British ball, much the same way as our current balls should the change happen; it's too hard to notice. Obviously playing internationally, the professionals aren't going to use an inferior ball when a better one is available and being used by everyone else. This issue should be dealt with in the same way, by letting each event decide for itself effectively. Once the Open, the most prestigious international event, decided to ditch the smaller balls, they fell out of favor and disappeared within a decade. 

So Nicklaus used every advantage he could get in winning at least two of his majors, yet now that he's done playing and has gone to building courses, the ball goes too far. Ego. Hypocrite. Just doesn't want people shooting low scores at his courses, IMO.

Quote:

Originally Posted by iacas 

So you're going to punish the long hitters now? Speed is a skill.

 

Yeah, I really wanna watch the guys on my TV bombing it out there 240. Please.

Just so.  The longer you hit, the more accurate you have to be to stay in the fairway - or even in light rough.  For me, part of the pleasure of watching the modern pro game even more than watching Jack in his prime is that guys have a narrower target off the tee today (fairways aren't made any wider to compensate).   In the extreme, trying to hit a green from the tee on a short (e.g. 320 yard) par 4 is something pretty remarkable to behold - they never did THAT back in the day!

So it isn't just the distance bombed, it's the accuracy required that is cool about the modern game.  Personally I wish I could have watched Jack booming them out there with a 460, as he undoubtedly would have done in superb fashion.  No, let's not turn this particular clock back.

Quote:

Originally Posted by iacas 


Taking a variable percentage isn't fair.

I've been trying to find a good reference for this but the quote below is the best I've been able to come up with so far but my understanding is that the use of COR to restrict the modern driver has less of an effect on a faster swing speed than on a slower swing speed. 

If this is true, and the physics are a little bit beyond me right now, then I'd think there is a good argument that recent rules have changed the balance in favour of the faster swinger and that a little rebalancing may be a reasonable. Certainly not to the degree that it devalued the skill of swinging the golf club fast, but back to some middle ground that may also let us roll back distances a bit without leaving the old boys down the club hitting 100 yard drives.

Cutting back the distance for faster club head speeds doesn't ONLY effect Pros.

Plenty of amateurs (even some that are fairly bad golfers) can bomb the golf ball. I know a few that presently compete fairly well in our local games only because of the long ball. I also know people (one in particular) that is usually 40 yards behind the bombers but can beat them with accuracy, iron play and chipping.

I'm in between the two and can't compete with the bombers for distance (but can come fairly close) and can't compete with the ball strikers (but can come fairly close) but I can putt better than either group.

All of us learn what we bring to the table and develop what gives us a chance to win the game. If any of us could do all three we wouldn't be playing in a local game.

This thread is getting esoteric. 

How about the amateurs who have 'more length than they should', i.e. modern equipment gets them 240-280 instead of 210-230 but they can barely hit the side of a barn from 50 yards.   Like the very amusing fellow I played with a few days ago.  He was a star baseball player in his youth (according to his partner), has a big handsy swing with no directional control at all but most impressive clubhead speed.  Someone like that would benefit greatly from imposed shorter distance.   

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chas 

Just so.  The longer you hit, the more accurate you have to be to stay in the fairway - or even in light rough.  For me, part of the pleasure of watching the modern pro game even more than watching Jack in his prime is that guys have a narrower target off the tee today (fairways aren't made any wider to compensate).   In the extreme, trying to hit a green from the tee on a short (e.g. 320 yard) par 4 is something pretty remarkable to behold - they never did THAT back in the day!

 

So it isn't just the distance bombed, it's the accuracy required that is cool about the modern game.  Personally I wish I could have watched Jack booming them out there with a 460, as he undoubtedly would have done in superb fashion.  No, let's not turn this particular clock back.

And geometrically, at a fixed fairway width a player who hits it 320 has to be significantly more accurate to hit the fairway than a player who hits it 280.  People seem to think that the tour's short hitters are more accurate than the long hitters, but actually they hit a higher percentage of fairways because they have a greater margin of error.  If you think about the angles to the right and left that define the maximum spread to be just inside the left and right rough, the 280 hitter has a wider angle, and hence a greater margin for error, than the 320 hitter.

Kind of makes me wonder how I EVER miss a fairway hitting it 210-225.  LOL

Sine of an angle = opposite / hypotenuse. 

Ergo, for a given angle of deviation, the longer you hit the ball (the length of the hypotenuse), the further you deviate from the target line (the right angle distance to the adjacent).  It's all right there in the trig tables

This is one reason that I hit a 3W when there's woods to right and OB to left.  Of course I also deviate a bit less with the shorter club so both factors are favorable.  However, I can still hit it into in the woods with the 3, I'm talented that way ....

That fellow I spoke of told me that he hits balls to places noone else does on the course.  I believe him.

Quote:

Originally Posted by turtleback 

 

And geometrically, at a fixed fairway width a player who hits it 320 has to be significantly more accurate to hit the fairway than a player who hits it 280.  People seem to think that the tour's short hitters are more accurate than the long hitters, but actually they hit a higher percentage of fairways because they have a greater margin of error. 

Precisely.  Two days ago we were playing a short par 4 at Twin Oaks and someone said something like, "if we were pro's we'd be going for that green!".  There was a moment of awed silence.  It wasn't just the distance to that green (around 320 iirc), it was the small angle subtended by the blasted thing.  Of course pros don't actually hit that type of target very often but noone laughs when they give it a try.

Which reminds me, one of my favorite things is to stand about 300 yards from the green on the right sort of par 5 and watch the big hitting pros go for the green with driver off the fairway, after a booming drive of course.  Such as on Torrey Pines North, forget which hole (back nine ....).  I've seen them get to within a few feet of the green.  Vijay hit through it once as I recall - great stuff.