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By billchao ·
New 3W is pretty good I hit a good drive actually but straight into a headwind so it left me far enough back from the trees to attempt something stupid. So naturally, with a new 3W in the bag, I wanted to see what it could do. Hit a high draw directly over the trees and couldn't see where it ended up from the fairway, but I knew I hit it well. I doubt that's the optimal play for scoring well in the long run but it felt good to do. -
By csh19792001 ·
I'm sure you've read this, but I just have to post it, here, again, for everyone who hasn't. It changed my thinking forever and irrevocably on this exact topic: "We don't say "the golfers are more talented" today. We say "there are more talented golfers today." "More" meaning they are far more numerous, not more talented. Talent is random. Only a small percentage of people win the talent lottery --- for world class golf, way less than 1%. And there's no telling whether the most talented player of any period, including this one, was more talented than Jack, or Jones, or Vardon. It's absolutely unknowable. What IS knowable, though, is that the base population is larger, so whatever percentage of people are born with golf talent, there are a lot more of them today than there were 50 years ago. What is knowable is that training and coaching is vastly improved. Hogan had to, in his words, "dig his swing out of the dirt" by hitting millions of golf balls. Today, they have radar and laser and the Minolta super duper high speed swing cam, and they know exactly how every little swing tweak affects their spin rate and launch angle and apex height -- stuff nobody had any clue about in Jack's day. So 50 years ago, if you had 100 guys born with golf talent take up golf, maybe 30 of them would find their optimal swing. Today, it's probably over 90. What is knowable is that the huge purses, and the fact that Tiger was the world's richest and most famous athlete, and not just the world #1 golfer, is making golf the first choice of more young athletes, rather than just the guys who couldn't make the "real" sports teams in school. So if you had 100 guys born with multi-sport talent 50 years ago, most of them played golf for fun, if at all. Today, a lot more of them concentrate on golf as their main sport. And what is knowable is that travel is much faster and cheaper now, so almost every world class player shows up for almost every major and WGC, and for many of the regular PGA events. 50 years ago, the second or third best player in, say, Australia, often didn't even play in the British Open, let alone a PGA event. So all the PGA events, and three of the four majors, had only a handful of international players, and the fourth major had only a handful of Americans. None of that is speculation. It is a verifiable fact that there are over twice as many people in the world today than there were 50 years ago. It's a verifiable fact that the purses today are hundreds of times as high as they were 50 years ago --- Tony Lema got about $4200 for winning the 1964 Open; today, it's about $3.5 million. It's a verifiable fact that virtually all the world top 100 play every major they are eligible for, instead of only a handful playing any events that require overseas travel. It's not knowable exactly how all of that combines, but a good indication is the number of entries in the US Open. To enter the US Open requires both top 1% talent for the game, and a serious commitment to it. There were about 2400 entrants per year 50 years ago. This century, it's consistently over 9000, well over three times as many. It's true that, mostly because of the time and expense, the number of duffers recreational players has declined, but they never had any influence on field strength, anyway. High school kids on the golf team still play all they want, for free. What do you have to counter that? Nothing but your belief that there were half a dozen golf phenoms all at the same time in the 60's, and none today, now that Tiger's past his prime. You're entitled to that opinion, but what facts do you have to back it up? Only the number of majors they won. But how many majors would Phil have won if the fields were like they were 50 years ago? Mickelson finished second in the US Open to Goosen in 2004, to Ogilvy in 2006, and to Rose last year. 50 years ago, odds are that none of those guys would have even tried to qualify for the US Open, since it required shutting down their schedule for a minimum of three weeks to travel to the US for sectional qualifying, with no guarantee that they would make it into the actual tournament. Michael Campbell, who beat Tiger with some amazing putting down the stretch in 2005, said that he would not have entered that year if the USGA hadn't established overseas qualifying sites, so he didn't have to travel to enter. How would Phil look next to Arnie with those three US Opens? Eight majors, and a career Grand Slam. And how would Tiger look if Michael Campbell, Trevor Immelman, Angel Cabrera, and YE Yang had stayed home, like most international players did in the Jack era? I'll make it even simpler for you, since you follow women's golf. How much better would the US women look today, if there were no Asians on tour? Or even just no Koreans? Well, it looks like you're going to crow about the lack of current talent every time a guy backs into a win for the foreseeable future, but come on. The Valero was a 40-point tournament, which makes it one of the weakest regular PGA events, barely above the John Deere Classic. And the tournament committee knows that most top players don't like to play right before a major, so they try to attract the few who do by making it as close to major conditions as possible, to help them fine tune their games. A weak field facing a tough setup is not a recipe for low scores, but you still insist on taking one bad week and comparing it to the majors of your hazy memory, even though you seem to have forgotten epic collapses by the likes of Arnie, who managed to lose a seven shot lead over the last 9 holes of the 1966 US Open. And who knows how often something like that happened in a low-rent event? I don't know if Tiger was more talented than Jack, or even Trevino. All I know is that there are many solid reasons to believe that in order to win a tournament, he had to beat around three times as many talented golfers, even in most of the regular tour events he's won, as Jack did in a major --- especially the Open, where Jack only had to beat as few as 8 other Americans, at a time when probably 60-70 of the world top 100 were Americans. I don't say it's true by definition, as you claimed, but I say it's the way to bet, based on facts and logic." -
By billchao ·
Shot 50/41 today. I didn't hit the ball particularly well but not as poorly as the score would indicate. I just happened to hit it in some really punishing places that wound up taking one or two strokes just to hit back into play. The undergrowth and the fescue are really growing in at the course. Lipped out and burned a few edges on putts, too. I always say when I miss putts by that small a margin that they're eventually going to drop as long as I don't deviate from the process and that's exactly what started happening on the back 9. I ended up making a couple of mid-length putts. Five over on the back included a triple bogey on 17. -
By billchao ·
Birdied the par 5 #14 at Quail Brook GC. Hit a high draw 3W just short of the green on my second shot, chipped just right of the back right flag to about 12' and made the putt. It's starting to look like I'm going to get at least 20 rounds at Quail Brook for it to qualify as my home course but I've been adding the birdies there to my away composite for so long that I don't feel like separating it all now. So the away composite will simply be an aggregate of all my birdie holes for the year. -
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