When you come to think of it that is the secret of most of the great holes all over the world. They all have some kind of a twist. C.B. MACDONALD
Tiger Woods at the Buick, his 47th career PGA Tour victory in 186 starts:
Driving Distance 309.8 yards (all drives, 3rd for week)
Driving Accuracy Percentage 46.4% (26/56, T55)
Greens in Regulation Pct. 73.6% (53/72, T/9 for week)
Putting Average 1.774 (GIR Putts - 94/Greens - 53, T36)
George White compares 2000 Tiger to last year's edition.
OK, let’s go to a stat which is fairly meaningless when you are bombing drives out there that distance. Let’s compare driving accuracy. He hit 71.2 percent of his fairways in 2000. And last year he hit – just 54.6? His ranking last year was 188th, while in 2000 he was 54th.
OK, fair enough, but the fairways-hit figure is fairly inconsequential when one is hitting wedges and 9-irons into virtually every par-4 green. So let’s compare greens hit. In 2005 he hit 70 percent, good for sixth on tour. And in 2000 he hit – a little better than 75 percent, which was first on tour.
This has probably been covered before on this web site, or maybe it was just something I obsessed over in a book proposal that was met by some of the most hilarious rejection excuses of all time. Anyway, his fairway hit percentage drops nearly 17% in 2005 and his green in regulation number only drops 5%.
Flogging man, it works!
White also writes:
Now, let me tell you what is wrong with all this analysis: golf courses have gotten longer and tighter than in 2000; and equipment has changed dramatically. Not to mention that the men who are playing this year – heck, the men who were playing LAST year – are much different from 2000. Are they a better group than 2000? Undoubtedly they are. Golf in 2006 is not the same game as Golf 2000.
At the pace we're on, imagine how much different golf in 2012 will be than golf 2006?
SI's Chris Lewis takes on the Bubba Watson and his eye-opening drives, but instead of focusing on Bubba and what car he drives or what he thinks of yoga, Lewis actually explores the concept of how the game is played (really!). Even more scary? He considers the ramifications.
Lewis says the main 2006 PGA Tour plotline will be "the Bashers vs. the Artists."
Subtitle: In which the ever-growing ranks of PGA Tour dogleg-cutting, tree-flying, dimpled-ball bombardiers finally and forever vanquish the ever-shrinking number of short-hitting, fairway-dwelling, shot-shaping sissies.
Besides Bubba, he looks at other bashers and artists. And he explores why John Holmes changes his Tour name to J.B.
Reporter: Why go from John B. [Holmes] at Q-school to J.B. [Holmes] here?
Holmes: You know the answer to that.
There have been (not too subtle) hints that the governing bodies believe improved grooves encourage the flogging approach to championship courses.
The USGA's David Fay recently told a gathering of regional golf association heads that grooves may even pose a greater threat to golf's integrity than optmization-fed distance increases. He also shrugged off the distance issue as something only impacting the sport at the "highest level." (As opposed to grooves having an effect on all levels!?)
And now according to Douglas Lowe in The Herald, the USGA and R&A are going to study grooves. And all because of 2005's hip, edgy, cool and might I say, quite 18-34 approach to golf, better known as flogging. Lowe writes:
To make it more difficult for the world's top players to reach for the stars, the R&A is using specially modified missile-tracking equipment to keep a check on the progress of the ball, with the help of Dr Steve Otto.
Dr Otto said the radar had revolutionised equipment research, despite the difficulties. "Tracking a small, white ball with very little metallic compound is a lot harder than tracking missiles."
The profile of a winning golfer 20 years ago used to be one whose drives found the fairways and whose iron shots found the greens. Now the world's top golfers are blazing away with abandon from the tee, with scant concern about direction, and more often than not getting safely on to the putting surfaces from long grass.
In a free market world, what's wrong with a new progressive approach? You can't legislate progress!
Dr Otto, the R&A's assistant director with responsibility for research and testing, said: "Players are not worrying so much about whether the ball is on the fairway. That has led us to look at different aspects of the game, and not just distance.
"We are looking at a player's ability to recover from the rough and whether that is based on their skill and strength, or whether equipment changes have helped."
Backspin imparted by the grooves on a club allows a player to stop the ball on the green, but top golfers have been making a nonsense of the idea that it is more difficult to do that from long grass.Dr Otto said that, in the 1980s, about 50% of a golfer's earnings could be credited to accuracy from the tee. By the 1990s, that figure had fallen to 25% and currently it is running at as little as 5%. As a result, there is concern that brute force in golf is taking over from skill.
And it's all the grooves fault!?
"This trend has made us look more carefully at how grooves on the face of wedges are evolving," he added.
"They used to be basically ground out, but now they are milled with much greater accuracy, using computers. Perhaps they [manufacturers] are able to make sharper edges and better groove profiles."The current rules on the grooves on wedges have been in place for more than two decades when non V-shapes were allowed, but the distances between them were at the heart of a legal dispute with the Karsten Manufacturing Company.
Sales pitches of greater length and control and the need to maintain skill levels have always been a conflict. Now the possibility of limiting the shape and the distance between grooves is under the microscope again.To monitor the latest advances, the R&A and its partner organisation, the United States Golf Association, have employed this radar device developed by a Danish company that specialises in missile tracking.
Yes, I think it's safe to say the game is in trouble when you are using missile tracking radar to determine how the ball is coming out of the rough.
Hate to break this one to them, but golf did fine for 300 years without crops of rough being harvested to keep golfers gingerly teetering down a narrow center line.
I've started a thread over on the Discussion Technology page asking if you think grooves are significantly better than a few years ago and if you think it's something the USGA/R&A should be studying.
Tiger Woods met with some of the games great scribblers on Tuesday to kick off the Target World Challenge week. Beforehand, he bombed drives out of the Sherwood Country Club range despite a headwind. More impressively, he then hit slice and draw wedges on the range for a handful of lucky folks, including his mom who had endure some annoying instructor telling her his life story. She's a saint.
Anyway, I've never seen anyone draw or slice a wedge. These were not gently falling cuts or slight right-to-lefters helped by the wind. Draws and slices to a target 80 yards away. Amazing stuff.
The relaxed press conference took place in the claustrophobic Sherwood cart barn, where yours truly was on hand to take in the proceedings. The highlights:
Q. When did you know you wanted to open the learning center? How old were you and why is it so important to you?
TIGER WOODS: I really wanted to do it once I got out here. I wanted to have something tangible that kids could touch, kids could feel, they could be inside of. I thought what we were doing by going around the country and trying to inspire youth was great. We're just starting. We're in infancy stages. But I didn't think we were doing enough. We were kind of a circus, coming in for one week and we're gone. What about the other 51 weeks?
I wanted to do something that was going to be there permanently, something we could call home as a foundation for kids to come in, for kids to learn and grow, and I wanted them to create their own programs. The entire curriculum is based on their wants, their desires and their needs.
Now, some of us have been a bit skeptical about the learning center because of its cost ($25 million). Listening to Tiger talk about it in person and hearing his passion for the project, it is clear he has genuine pride in the Learning Center and how it has a chance to impact young people.
So yes, I feel like a jerk.
Later, a few questions were asked about the bomb-it-out-there-and-worry-about-the-consequences-later approach to golf, better known as flogging.
TIGER WOODS: It's how the game has changed. It's evolved. In essence, it's evolved in the fact that we're able to hit the ball greater distances. But again, the long hitters are still able to carry bunkers that the average guy can't carry. And that's how it used to be anyway.
I think technology now has spread out the guys a little bit more with the added physical strength of guys, too, guys getting to the gym and really working on becoming stronger and more flexible, are able to get a lot more speed. Add to that technology, in the shaft and heads. And more importantly, be able to marry up the shaft, the head, and the ball, because that was never the case. We all had persimmon drivers and let's just go play and hopefully we can get it out there.
After a few more questions about turning 30...
Q. There was a story in Golf World last week about performance enhancing drugs and steroids in golf and the possibility of it. Do you think there is a possibility that players are using anything and should there be perhaps a Tour policy or testing on that, either steroids or any kind of enhancing drug?
TIGER WOODS: There's always a possibility. Unless you're tested, there's always going to be a shadow of doubt on any sport. I don't see anyone out there who I would think would have finds of it, but who's to say there aren't. We don't know. We don't see any guys out there, 6 5, 240, 250, in shape, cut up, all ripped up. We don't have guys out there like that.
Q. Are you in favor of testing or do you think that's something that should be treated with a little more study?
TIGER WOODS: I think we should study it a little bit more before we get into something like that. Obviously it's a path that where do you draw the line? Do you do it on the PGA Tour nationwide but don't do it on any other tours leading up to that, or all professional golf.
Obviously there is a lot to it than just, okay, there's mandatory testing. Where does it start? Who does it? Who is in control of it? What are the substances that you're looking for. In the Olympics you can't take aspirin. A lot of guys live on aspirin out here.
Poor Tiger. No matter how many times he tells the golfing scribblers that his game is better than it's ever been, they refuse to believe him.
Bob Casper over at SI.com has been looking at Tiger's swing change patterns and equates the 1999-transition season with 2005, another transition year.
FYI: 1999 Tiger in the majors: T18-T3-T7-1; 2005 Tiger: 1-2-1-T4.
But Casper says 2006 will not like Tiger's 2000. Why? Five reasons, here's #1:
Earlier this year Tiger said, "driving accuracy means nothing these days, it's a non-stat." He had better reconsider that statement with two of the four majors being contest at traditional old -style layouts with majestic tree-lined fairways.
They've taken out a ton of trees at Winged Foot and apparently have done a fair amount of trimming over at Medinah, which may neutralize the whole "majestic tree-lined" thing. The USGA's David Fay has said he would like to see 8-inch at Winged Foot (because this flogging thing is really shining a big annoying light on optimization), but they can't do that if the men in blue want to finish on Sunday.
In 2000, Tiger hit 71.2 percent of his fairways. If he gets close to 70 percent in 2006, watch out. But that's a big if. Great scoring on golf courses is set up off the tee and Tiger needs to do a better job.
Sorry, that was five years ago. The game has changed and Tiger has not only kept up with the times, but established how the game will be played in the future.
It will be interesting to see how long people go before they realize the absurdity of grinding out tee shots and worrying about hitting fairways when 340 yard drives and proficiency with 15-footers far outweighs tee-shot accuracy.
On another note, just in case you have an interest in meaningless trivia, reader Jon reports that "flog" (golf backwards) is a member of the palindrome family. It is a semordnilap.
A popular motivational saying goes, "Desserts is stressed spelled backwards." This is an example of a reversible word, which when read from the right yields another word. All of this week's words exhibit this quality. Just like reversible clothing that changes pattern when worn inside out, reversible words result in other usable words. A special case of reversible words are palindromes, which spell the same when reversed. So palindromes are a subset of reversible words which in turn are a subset of anagrams. Another name for reversible words is semordnilap, a self-referential word coined by reversing the word palindromes.
How about that news flash from the city!
Oh no, not more stats! Sorry, but it's fun to see how flogging is the way to play the PGA Tour. (For you newcomers to this site's rantings, flogging is the bomb it out there and worry about the consequences later. You can read more about it here and here.)
Flogging has become such a big part of the sport that the graphics department here at gs.com developed a logo.
Anyhow, here is a list of the top 30 money winners, with their driving distance rank followed by their driving accuracy rank. I've included where Padraig Harrington would have ranked if he had enough rounds to qualify for the final statistic lists.
8 Retief Goosen 44 157
9 Bart Bryant 147 6
10 Sergio Garcia 10 153
11 Fred Funk 197 2
12 Justin Leonard 128 74
13 Davis Love III 8 165
14 P. Harrington 54* 188*
15 Adam Scott 23 175
16 Scott Verplank 59 9
17 Luke Donald 135 75
18 Sean O'Hair 23 127
19 Ben Crane 61 182
20 Chad Campbell 52 122
21 Tim Clark 140 58
22 Billy Mayfair 103 21
23 Stuart Appleby 19 155
24 Ted Purdy 45 88
25 Mark Calcavecchia 91 49
26 Olin Browne 173 4
27 Brandt Jobe 11 178
28 Tim Herron 65 122
29 Charles Howell III 56 170
30 Lucas Glover 12 138
Top 30 Average: 70th in Distance, 105th in Accuracy
Top 10 Average: 69th in Distance, 111th in Accuracy
My latest Golfobserver.com column is now up. Lengthgate looks at the accusation many players are making privately that the Tour is encouraging the extension of courses to produce star-studded leaderboards.From Sunday's AmEx WGC telecast, as the leaders were on the short par-4 7th:
PAUL AZINGER: Nick, you mentioned in the break about strategy and the way these guys are just banging the ball up by the green. But [Henrik] Stenson left himself right there by the front of the green. Tiger missed left and had to play a miraculous shot and Stuart Appleby, the same thing. It's different than when you were dominating.
NICK FALDO: Well holes of this length, yeah, we really looked at the pin position. You always determined your strategy from the pin position. This one is tucked in the lefthand corner. It really makes sense to hit your 2-iron down the fairway, hit that 9-iron in to get that maximum spin. It's amazing how the guys now just blast away, you know, chance their luck with a lie. And they're able to produce some sheer magic around the greens.
Sergio Garcia soon holed out his approach, to which Faldo declared a wee bit sarcastically, "Strategy wins!"
George White at The Golf Channel isn't a big fan of flogging and looks at some of Michael Campbell's recent comments on the deregulated power game and the impact it's having.
"It's no fun there. It's just a smash, just a slog. It's a power game. There's no finesse in the game,” [Campbell] says.
Campbell says he isn’t going to be playing professional golf much longer. So, to him personally, it’s really almost a moot point.
“I could retire by seven years' time - so 2012,” he declares. “After that, I don't really care, to be honest.”
That isn’t entirely truthful, to be honest. He cares a lot. But the people who matter don’t. And those people hold the game’s future in their hands.
Bill Livingston in The Plain Dealer of Cleveland writes about flogging and the impact of power in golf. 
Fairways have been narrowed so much at Firestone that it's hard to even tell when the players are flogging! Because maybe they really aren't flogging it down there when the landing area is firm, 25 yards wide and sloped. Q. Can I follow up briefly and just ask you, DiMarco was in here talking about the style of play that's being played out there now and it's so much of a power game. I know you're trying to hit the fairway. Do you worry less about hitting the fairway because of how far you hit it?Ah hah! He feels like he's not missing fairways. Here's what DiMarco said after the round.
TIGER WOODS: You know, I have so much more confidence now in my driving ability than I ever have in my career. I pull out driver on every hole because I know I can put the ball in the fairway. I've never had that ability before. If you look at my days when I had some good years there, I was always hitting 2 irons off the tee and 3 woods and trying to get the ball in play. Now I know I can drive the ball. Look at how well I drove it this week. I hit some bad shots, yes, but they're not like they used to be. As far as I'm hitting it and as many fairways as I'm hitting and as many balls that end up in the fairway and roll through, that was never the case before. I've never had so much confidence to be able to pull out driver. I did it at Baltusrol, I did it here, and I've done it at major championships, and that's cool.
Q. But you don't worry about it if you miss fairways?
TIGER WOODS: Because I feel like I'm not. That's the big difference. That wasn't always the case.
Q. Tiger got in trouble half a dozen or eight times during this tournament. He just hit an amazing shot to get back in it. When you watch it do you applaud it or is it frustrating to watch?
CHRIS DiMARCO: I don't know if it's frustrating to watch, but I mean, it's the same thing that happens that we've been talking about for weeks and weeks. If you miss fairways by 15 yards, you usually have a lie. If you miss the fairway by a yard, you're usually chipping out. If you look at the way everybody at the PGA last week played coming down the stretch, they were ripping it, hitting it as far as they could, hoping they could chop it on the green somehow and make birdie. That's not how we're used to playing majors. I am, but those guys aren't. I have to because I'm chipping out but then I'm hitting a 60 yard shot after that.
Geoff Shackelford is a Senior Writer for Golfweek magazine, a weekly contributor to Golf Channel's Morning
Copyright © 2022, Geoff Shackelford. All rights reserved.
