Rickie Fowler's radar numbers w/persimmon driver and modern ball

[nevets88]

14 yards off his PGA Tour average driving distance. Kind of puts all those new drivers getting longer and longer in perspective, only 14 more yards with a 50+ year old club yet it seems like each year the new driver gets longer and longer.

 

[DaveP043]

Some time this year, I'm gunna take my old Cleveland to the range and give it a few whacks, just for fun.  Those clubs were great, sounded and felt amazing, as long as you hit the ball in the center.  Unfortunately, center contact isn't something most of us do all that often.  

[Dave2512]

Interesting considering it's probably a inch or so shorter too.

[Jeremie Boop]

11 minutes ago, nevets88 said:

14 yards off his PGA Tour average driving distance. Kind of puts all those new drivers getting longer and longer in perspective, only 14 more yards with a 50+ year old club yet it seems like each year the new driver gets longer and longer.

 

Honestly though, people are more likely to get longer drives on average from newer gear than older gear. I thought that was generally what was understood. It's more about being able to still get good distance off of strikes that are not perfectly struck. I also wonder if that was an average they are showing or just one of his exceptional shots? Still, pretty impressive for such an old club.

It's like the debate between blades and cavity backs. While perfect struck shots with the blades have great numbers, the average player is going to have better numbers overall with the more forgiving cavity backs.

[GolfLug]

7 minutes ago, Jeremie Boop said:

Honestly though, people are more likely to get longer drives on average from newer gear than older gear. I thought that was generally what was understood. It's more about being able to still get good distance off of strikes that are not perfectly struck. I also wonder if that was an average they are showing or just one of his exceptional shots? Still, pretty impressive for such an old club.

It's like the debate between blades and cavity backs. While perfect struck shots with the blades have great numbers, the average player is going to have better numbers overall with the more forgiving cavity backs.

Yes, 14 yards gain seems low even for someone who needs a sweet spot the size of a dime.

Club makers probably hate tests like these with a passion.

[Groucho Valentine]

Give him a period ball and i bet those numbers come way down. Still pretty impressive to hit a persimmon nearly 300 yards, though. 

[dkolo]

My takeaway from this is that Rickie Fowler is really, really good, not that persimmons are nearly as good as modern drivers.

[Jeremie Boop]

22 minutes ago, dkolo said:

My takeaway from this is that Rickie Fowler is really, really good, not that persimmons are nearly as good as modern drivers.

True, because I think I remember that Jack was known to hit drives out there that far or more using the same clubs and older balls?

[SavvySwede]

1 hour ago, Groucho Valentine said:

Give him a period ball and i bet those numbers come way down. Still pretty impressive to hit a persimmon nearly 300 yards, though. 

Yeah, It's all about the ball.

[Wally Fairway]

1 hour ago, Groucho Valentine said:

Give him a period ball and i bet those numbers come way down. Still pretty impressive to hit a persimmon nearly 300 yards, though. 

Someone would have to make him an old ball, because those wound balls would not keep their characteristic for 50 years; it might be like hitting mashed potatoes at this point (maybe that's why idiots yell that {shrug})

[natureboy]

6 hours ago, Groucho Valentine said:

Give him a period ball and i bet those numbers come way down. Still pretty impressive to hit a persimmon nearly 300 yards, though. 

Absolutely. The difficulty with balata was keeping the spin down.

When I looked at distance stats, it almost looked to me like the drive distance leaders in that era were less spread out than they are now...almost like they were up against a bit of a wall where in order to hit it harder to get it to go farther it added spin which ballooned the ball more and limited what distance you could squeeze out of it. A little like a dog chasing its tail.

I wonder if Jack had figured out a way to 'hit up' on it a bit to reduce spin, but still get a good high trajectory?

Edited January 14, 2017 by natureboy

[Buckeyebowman]

5 hours ago, Jeremie Boop said:

True, because I think I remember that Jack was known to hit drives out there that far or more using the same clubs and older balls?

Not to mention that Nicklaus, for many years, used the old MacGregor Tourney ball, one of the worst golf balls around in that day. But, MacGregor was Nicklaus' sponsor and he was loyal.

5 hours ago, SavvySwede said:

Yeah, It's all about the ball.

That's much of what it's about. Here are some quotes from David Feherty's essay "Rules of Engagement", Golf Magazine, March 2001.

"Some of them, such as Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus, are people I would consider experts in their field...you know, at the cutting edge, maybe? They both know that the game has changed since their glory days and that it's now possible, with all this modern equipment, to hit shots they never would have dreamed of hitting.

Jack suggested a few years ago that the ball should be slowed down, but the experts disagreed, right around the time they figured out that the square grooves lawsuit wasn't such a brilliant idea after all. The fact that Tour players were reluctant to use square grooves should have been a dead giveaway, but there were a bunch of attorneys who would have felt left out if anyone had noticed that."

[nevets88]

I agree on off center hits the modern driver is especially way superior. And that's one drive, they could be cherrypicking and Fowler's off center shots were much shorter. Would be interesting to see the average/median of 20 shots and also other numbers like launch angle.

[SavvySwede]

10 hours ago, nevets88 said:

I agree on off center hits the modern driver is especially way superior. And that's one drive, they could be cherrypicking and Fowler's off center shots were much shorter. Would be interesting to see the average/median of 20 shots and also other numbers like launch angle.

I don't think they have to do much cherrypicking with Fowler. Even I have had some stellar performances on the course with a persimmon and I'm a dirty hobo compared to Fowler.

[iacas]

On 1/13/2017 at 1:59 PM, Dave2512 said:

Interesting considering it's probably a inch or so shorter too.

And heavier.

On 1/13/2017 at 2:43 PM, Groucho Valentine said:

Give him a period ball and i bet those numbers come way down. Still pretty impressive to hit a persimmon nearly 300 yards, though. 

Give him a Pinnacle from the time period and he'd probably also generate similar numbers.

[NCGolfer]

I'm still amazed at the clubhead speed these guys have...10 MPH faster than my best.  I'm sure Rickie was using an older/original shaft as well.  He was averaging over 117 on tour last year so it looks like he gave up a few with the persimmons.