Lorne: Kite v. Pate On Equipment Influence

Lorne Rubenstein writes about an interesting Champions Tour roundtable, where surely to the dismay of the Tour, a technology debate broke out between Jerry Pate and Tom Kite.

"If you take 20 years ago, [and look at] the best 20 players in the world and analyze their swings," Pate, the 1976 U.S. Open and Canadian Open champion, said, "the swings are better today. They're on plane more and they repeat more often."

Kite cited the equipment as the main reason players are hitting the ball crazy distances. "You've got equipment out of control," he said. Kite, the 1992 U.S. Open champion, blamed the ball in particular, arguing that it's got out of hand.

Pate didn't disagree that the ball is an influence, but argued strongly that personal influences are also significant and even the more important factors. He said today's players "have better training habits, there are better orthopedic surgeons [to help golfers recover from injuries], they work out every day, and they have better personal habits.

"The golf-course conditioning is much better," Pate added, "and yet we still pick on equipment."

See, someone buys into those talking points!

The day moved to Liberty National, where Rubenstein monitored play.

Pate teed it up with one group on a long par five, and ripped his drive nearly 300 yards. He laughed and tried to argue that he's in better shape than he was 20 years ago. Pate did look in good shape, and he's recovered from injuries that kept him out of competitive golf for some 15 years.

Pate then hit his next shot with a hybrid club just short of the green. He carried most of a lake to hit this shot of about 240 yards, and acknowledged that he was hitting the ball a long way past where he did years ago. Ah, an admission.

Kite came along a while later, and dropped a ball at the right edge of a fairway, 175 yards from the hole, with water intruding most of the way. He launched a 7-iron way up in the air, over the water, with a little draw. It finished 15 feet from the hole.

"Could you have hit a 7-iron that far and so high in your 30s?" I asked Kite, although I guessed the answer because Kite was a low-ball hitter and maxed out at about 155 yards with a 7-iron then.

"Not even close," Kite said. Asked whether the loft on his 7-iron then was the same then as the 7-iron he uses today, Kite answered, "My lofts haven't changed."

He added, "When Jerry said it was less about equipment than other factors this morning, I turned to Rick [Rick George, the Champions Tour president, who was sitting beside Kite] and told him I didn't believe that. I don't care how fit a player is or how good his swing is, he couldn't hit it further in his 50s than in his 30s."

And...

The winner of the debate? Kite, no question. One more thought about distance: Hitting the ball into the stratosphere didn't help Tiger Woods make the cut in the U.S. Open last week, and Phil Mickelson hit only two of 14 fairways the last round and couldn't conjure a swing to put the ball into the last fairway. He double-bogeyed the hole from the boonies, lost his one-shot lead, and handed the tournament to Geoff Ogilvy.

Conclusions from this corner: The ball is indeed the culprit for the distances Tour players are getting. Thankfully, control still matters, at least on U.S. Open courses with rough-like grass as high as a cornfield.

But something's wrong when it matters hardly anywhere else.

6200 Yards Obsolete On The LPGA Tour Now?

Sal Maiorana at the LPGA event in Rochester:

Karrie Webb may have felt like biting her tongue after completing a disappointing 2-over-par 74 in the first round of the Wegmans LPGA on Thursday.

During a pre-tournament interview, Webb was asked if Locust Hill Country Club — with its lush rough and fast greens — would be an ideal prep course for next week's U.S. Women's Open.

"I think it's perfect for driving the ball because it's really a tough challenge driving the ball," said Webb. "We're going to be facing a lot longer second shots (at Newport Country Club in the Open) into par-4s than we do here. But it's always good to touch up the wedge game and the short irons because if you are missing a few fairways at the Open, you're probably chunking it out to about that distance anyway."

Ouch.

However unintentional her backhanded swipe at Locust Hill may have been, Webb's assessment was right on. Locust Hill, set up the way it is for this tournament, is too short at 6,221 yards by today's standards, and that was definitely proven during the second round Friday.

Yes, the course has built-in defenses with its thick rough bordering firm and narrow fairways, and greens that are fast and often difficult to read. Then there's the fickle Rochester weather. Thursday it was swirling winds.

I get all that. But how do you explain this? During the first round, when the wind was whipping and many of the players said it was really tough to judge distances and select lubs, there were 35 rounds under par of 72, nearly double the first-round average of 19 over the first 29 years at Locust Hill.

Ogilvy: "golf is a better game when the ball goes shorter for us profiessionals"

Geoff Ogilvy talking to Reuters:

"I think golf is a better game when the ball goes shorter for us professionals," the 29-year-old from Melbourne said.

"I don't understand why we have to get to the point where we change the Augusta National... we had it for 70 years so why change it? Courses like that make golf more interesting."

 "We (professionals) are the top 1 per cent of golf and, at the most it's 1 per cent of that 1 per cent who really benefit. It helps the guys who didn't need the help.

"Guys who used to be able to drive 300 yards (274 metres) can now hit it 340 (310 metres). Long term it's not good for the game."

Golf as Antidote To Bonds, Enron and Abramoff!?!?!

The Wall Street Journal's Daniel Henninger pieces together many beautiful sentences in somehow relating the no cell phone policy at Winged Foot (except for the USGA President's PDA), no cargo pants at Congressional and other "traditions" that show golf is above the sins of other sports and politics.

It's just a game. But a game that defines the conditions of its experience with words like "fairway" and "rough" may have something useful to tell the wider world in a time when tradition seems old hat.

We might agree, for instance, that a sense of personal honor, at the most basic level, appears to be an eroding tradition. Enron, Abramoff, Bonds are words that define a new, at-the-edge world of business, politics and sport. Baseball almost surely will admit into Cooperstown several users of steroids because, as any lawyer will tell you, there was no formal rule against it at the time.

Golf, unlike most everything else, is by and large scandal-free.

Oh right!

The Open at Winged Foot last week enforced, with metal detectors, a rule of nearly unimaginable harshness: no cell phones anywhere. "That is a rule which is almost universal in golf at traditional clubs," says Robert Trent Jones Jr., the golf-course architect. "You are out of touch while you are on the property so you come into touch with the game of golf, its friendships, yourself and nature."

And the inevitable technology stuff. I'm not really sure what he was going for, but I suspect it messed up the theme and that's why he brushed right over it.

Of course change comes to golf. Technology can't be capped. Course layouts adjust. Fear persists that the USGA will cave in to the promoters -- the "Taco Bell Shinnecock Open"? Winged Foot's members rolled their eyes at the 36,000-square-foot merchandise tent atop their driving range (not the one Mr. Mickelson hit).

Change in golf is similar to the Founding Fathers' view of new constitutional amendments; it is supposed to be hard, to keep the silliness out. "New ideas have to pass the test of the traditionalists," says Mr. Jones, the architect.

Uh huh.

And when change comes, what was left behind remains in memory. "I miss some of the old sounds," says Kevin O'Brien, a member at Congressional. "The sound of metal spikes on pavement or the sound that a good persimmon driver made."

Golf is a 500-year-old institution. In the U.S. it has 25 million adherents. It is vital not in spite of its traditions but because it refuses to abandon them. Tradition is its wellspring. Other institutions, under great pressure these days, might take note.

Yes, like the USGA for starters! 

An Important Victory For Golf

John Huggan says Geoff Ogilvy's win was an important victory for golf because the Australian has "the potential to be just the sort of wise, high-profile spokesman the professional game needs if it is to rescue itself from the technological black hole into which it is currently headed."

So many great quotes to pull here, so just read it. Some you've read before in other Huggan stories, but to see them all together really makes a powerful statement about Ogilvy's fresh take on things.

And after you read it, contrast it with this nonsense. 

WSJ Story: "Maybe the problem isn't the ball, after all"

Thanks to reader John for this Conor Dougherty story in the Wall Street Journal, where the USGA continues to try desperately to shift the distance issue to a grooves debate:

Is the long debate over golf balls cooling off?

One day after the Masters Tournament last year, the U.S. Golf Association, golf's U.S. rule maker, sent a letter to ball manufacturers requesting prototypes of balls that wouldn't fly as far as those in use today. The announcement, which came amid claims by traditionalists including golfing legend Jack Nicklaus that longer drives on the PGA Tour were changing the game for the worse, sent waves through the industry.

The USGA emphasized it wanted only to get a better understanding of golf-ball technology, in case "the need to change the rules arises," but the move was viewed by some as a first step toward a dead-ball era.

Now the rhetoric from some of the most vocal traditionalists has softened, and the USGA says changing golf balls may not be the best solution to curbing longer drives. What happened?

Not sure which "vocal traditionalists" have gone quiet, judging by this site's listing of recent remarks from famous golfers calling on a rollback.

The USGA says its research has caused it to look beyond the golf ball. The issue may be not the changes in the golf ball, the association now says, but rather the way players have reacted to those changes.

Dick Rugge, the USGA's senior technical director, says pros have probably changed their style of play to accommodate newer golf balls that fly far but are also easy to control. In generations past, players had to make precise shots onto the fairway to win. Now they're increasingly trading accuracy for distance, hitting powerful drives that land in the rough more often and then hitting shorter irons to the green.

And...

These very visible changes, coupled with the new, sloppier style of play, angered traditionalists. Rather than lengthen golf courses each year, they argue, why not wind back the golf ball instead? "We've noticed that, in a lot of cases, [technology] makes our golf courses play quite a bit differently than they were intended when they were originally designed," says Alan Fadel, who is on the board of governors of the Ohio State Golf Association.

At its Champions Tournament in August, the association will issue a single kind of ball to all of the competitors, a high-spin model with a soft cover. This, in theory, should even the playing field for players with slower swing speeds. "It's more of a political statement than anything," Mr. Fadel says.

Dougherty recalls the 2002 Joint Statement of Principles, often forgotten these days in Far Hills:

In 2002, the USGA, which governs golf in the U.S. and Mexico, and Scotland's R&A, golf's ruling body for the rest of the world, said that if driving distances continued to increase they would consider changing the specifications for balls. Three years later, the USGA sent the letter asking manufacturers for prototype short balls.

Naturally, ball manufacturers oppose a rollback, and they argue that a change wouldn't be easy. Golf balls are built to an "overall distance standard" of 320 yards, which is defined as the maximum distance the ball will travel when hit by a titanium club, at 120 mph, under certain launch conditions. To change the standard, companies would have to fiddle with variables including the weight and size, as well as the cover and dimples, to change how the ball spins during flight.

"Then all iterations must be tested off the tee, as well as through the green, to confirm how the prototype is going to perform with all golfers and with all clubs in the bag under all conditions and types of shots to be faced," says Wally Uihlein, chief executive of Acushnet, based in Fairhaven, Mass.

Uh huh. Here's the part where somehow they think that changing groove specs will be less complicated and more important than a ball change:

The USGA has been busy researching hard data on the performance of golf balls. It crunched statistics on everything from the accuracy of drives on the PGA Tour to the correlation between accuracy and winning. The USGA made some discoveries that went against conventional wisdom -- and strengthened the case for keeping the balls as they were. The growth in driving distance, for instance, has tapered off in recent years. More important, distance alone doesn't help pros win. The longest hitters, the USGA found, do not win a disproportionate amount of tournaments, although they do win slightly more than in the past.

For now, the USGA is experimenting with new ways to penalize sloppy drives. For its U.S. Open Championships, the organization has traditionally had courses cut a narrow band of shorter rough along the fairway, and the rest of the rough -- called the primary rough -- cut to a uniform height of around three to five inches. But for this week's U.S. Open at Winged Foot Golf Club in Mamaroneck, N.Y., the USGA varied the primary rough: It will start with a 20-foot-wide band about three inches high; beyond that out to the spectator ropes, it will be at least five inches high. This deeper rough will hurt the least-accurate drivers the most, while rewarding cleaner play.

"We noticed that a shot that barely trickles into the rough has a similar penalty as a ball that goes 15 yards into the rough, and that just didn't seem fair to us," says Marty Parkes, a USGA spokesman. "We were trying to match the penalties with the crime."

And, just in case you weren't sure that these people have lost their golfing soul...

Another way to force golfers to be more accurate, Mr. Rugge says, would be to modify irons to make shots from the rough harder to control. The key to this is a series of small grooves on the face of irons: When the ball is struck from deep, wet grass, the grooves allow water trapped between the club and the ball to disperse, increasing the friction between club and ball and allowing a more controlled shot. Changing the guidelines to require smaller grooves would make for less friction, and more erratic shots, thus giving golfers more incentive to keep the ball in the fairway.

One advantage of a change in iron specifications would be that it would affect only those players who can shoot from the rough with pinpoint precision -- the top percent of golfers. And while the USGA suffered a contentious lawsuit about an iron change in the 1980s, it might be able to sidestep the issue by grandfathering in older-model irons.

And does this also mean that the message is: harvest more rough?

Retro Skills Challenge

Thanks to reader Marty for this Michael Vega story from the Boston Globe on a retro skills challenge at the Concord Champions event, where a few guys played 1950s and 60s clubs.

Certainly, in the field of 79 who will tee it up Friday for the 54-hole Bank of America Championship, there are some whose careers were rejuvenated by those advancements.

``Oh, absolutely," said Baiocchi, 59, of South Africa, who will be paired with David Edwards and Mike Sullivan in the first round. ``I played a lot of European Tour golf, so I didn't play a lot of regular [PGA] Tour golf with a lot of the guys out here. But talking to the guys, they all seem to be driving the ball further now than they did in their heyday, in their prime. Again, that's because of the equipment.

``It's basically made the game a lot easier and more enjoyable to play. Now, instead of driving the thing 220 with Hoganesque-type clubs, now we can drive the thing 270 and 280, which makes a big difference even for us."

And this from Andy Bean...

After hitting a 50-yard shot into the 18th with a throwback wedge, Bean said, ``I looked at that wedge and went, `Did we really play these?' But we did play clubs like that."

No matter the size and shape of your swing, the sweet spot is now much easier to hit with perimeter-weighted irons, fairway woods, and drivers of all makes and launch angles. And that's without even addressing the matter of the golf ball, and its myriad technological advancements.

``For the average player, the give is good," said Bean, 53. ``I think it takes away from the scoring on the professional side, because it puts more technology in the game and we can take a little more advantage of technology than the average player."

Bean figured the advancements have ``let 50 percent more players compete to win.

``A lot of the guys who normally wouldn't be hitting the fairways, now they're hitting the fairways with more regularity, and they're hitting it longer, which means they're going to have shorter clubs into the greens and it's just easier for them to compete. The long players, the strong players in any sport, they're still going to be strong and the fast ones are still going to be fast.

``But you still have to have the feel, and you still have to have the touch, and you still have to have the dedication -- no matter what sport you're in -- to go out and win.

``With golf, though, the good part about it -- the big-headed drivers, fairway woods, and technology with the perimeter-weighted irons -- it allows the amateurs to score better and that's what it's all about."

It Never Ends...

...this picking on the golf ball. Add Mark Brooks and Tom Lehman to the list of anti-golf ball technology types, but as Sam Weinman writes in The Journal News, they believe it flies too straight. (Of course, we know it's really the grooves):

"The direct result of the ball going too far and too straight has been to back the tees up, and to me, that's not the answer," said Mark Brooks, the 1996 PGA champion and a veteran of two decades on the PGA Tour. "The difference with doglegs is guys either have to learn how to shape the ball or fit it in the fairway. It's a huge difference in how people play."

Though Westchester will certainly play easier than Winged Foot, especially if it continues to be softened by rain, this week's site presents players with the challenge of needing to shape the ball in either direction. There was a time when that was standard practice. But if there's one area in which technology has been a detriment, it's that today's low-spin balls fly straight even when players don't want them to.

"My eye always wants to see the ball draw," Tom Lehman said. "That's my shot, right to left. So the starting spot is almost the same today as it was 15 or 20 years ago. It starts to the right, but now it doesn't hook. It starts to the right and stays there."

It might sound absurd, complaining about a ball that doesn't slice or hook. Most golfers would love to have that problem. And yet at Westchester and Winged Foot, it's a problem nonetheless.

With Today's Equipment...

Reader Chris correctly surmised that I do not subscribe to Tiger Woods's email newsletter, and shared this little nugget from the current edition:

And no, I won't carry two drivers. I can shape my driver both ways, so I don't need to carry two, although I can understand where Phil Mickelson is coming from. With today's equipment, the ball goes straighter and it's hard to move it from right to left...

Tiger's Distance Secret

Thanks to reader George for ruining the excitement of receiving my July Golf Digest by revealing the very first thing I read in non-Buddies Issue months: Tiger Tips!

Apparently July's Tiger Tip goes something like this, and it really, really puts a crimp in the argument wheeled out by writers, announcers and manufacturers: 

Tiger Tips: How I got my power advantage back

A couple of years ago I didn't need stats to confirm a disturbing new reality for me: Guys were blowing it by me off the tee. Power can be a huge advantage on tour, but mine appeared to be static.

Nothing gives me more satisfaction than bombing a drive, especially when it's shaped the way I pictured it. I felt to regain my edge and keep up with the young guys, I had to find more yards in the same place they did: equipment. By switching to a lighter and longer shaft (45 inches instead of 43 ½), a larger driver head (460 cubic centimeters) and a new ball, I've caught up.

Kostis: Where's The Cry For Wie-Proofing?

Maybe one too many weeks doing CBS infomercials telecasts has blurred his vision, because Golfonline columnist Peter Kostis (and Titleist "Golf Products Design Consultant") publishes a doozy with his latest attempt to tell traditionalists that they have it all wrong:

...Tiger Woods won the 1997 Masters and courses felt they need to become Tiger-proofed. Many facilities around the world added length and started cutting holes closer to the edges of the green. For golf traditionalists, the idea of playing par 4s with a driver and a wedge was just blasphemy, and boring as well.

Have those purists bothered to watch an LPGA Tour event lately?

Actually, not really.

Sorry, you were saying...

Proportionate to the length of the courses they play—typically between 6,300 and 6,500 yards—the women on the LPGA Tour are getting as long off the tee as the guys. Just look at this chart:

Longest Hitters on LPGA and PGA Tour by Year
1999     260.7 (Jean Bartholomew)     305.6 (John Daly)
2000     270.1 (Caroline Blaylock)     301.4 (John Daly)
2001     265.8 (Wendy Dolan)     306.7 (John Daly)
2002     269.3 (Akiko Fukushima)     306.8 (John Daly)
2003     269.7 (Annika Sorenstam)     321 (Hank Kuehne)
2004     270.2 (Sophie Gustafson)     314 (Hank Kuehne)
2005     270.3 (Brittany Lincicome)     318 (Scott Hend)
2006     288.7 (Karin Sjodin)     321 (Bubba Watson)

Now let me ask you this: Have you heard anyone say that the LPGA needs to do anything to its courses in response to players getting longer? I certainly haven’t.

How do I explain this deep, very complicated concept?
 

You see, your typical LPGA tournament course is 6800 yards from the tips and the LPGA is playing it at 6300 yards.

So let's say they need to add some length to offset the advances in agronomy and instruction, so they just go back to the 6600 yard tees, and they have another 200 to spare.

Cost? $0. Nada. Zilch.

Shocking as it may seem, people are irked when courses add length, take out trees, shift bunkers, blowing up rock and in general, spend ridiculous amounts all so that the grown men can keep shopping free of regulation.

In fact, Michelle Wie is creating a global fan base and earning millions in endorsements because she is not only young (16) and attractive, but overpowering LPGA courses exactly the way Tiger overpowered Augusta back in ’97.

Now, I think the world of Wie and tire of the "she needs to learn how to win debate." But uh, Tiger was winning in 1997 and doing it in a way that was clearly going to change the men's game, and therefore, the courses tournaments are played on. 

Is there an outcry that Sjodin is hitting it 18 yards longer than the 2005 distance leader like there was for Kuehne in 2003? I don’t think so! Are people blaming a new golf ball for the sudden 18 yard increase in distance at the top of the LPGA stats?

No, it must be the agronomy and improved diet that helped Annika pick up, oh, 50 yards.

Nope! Is anyone complaining that LPGA play has become boring? To the contrary, it is more exciting than ever!

So to conclude this dark conspiracy? Get ready to laugh...

This is yet another sign of just how sexist golf can be.

Oh, it gets better.

Seriously, there are only about 40 men in the world capable of overpowering a course. But the knee jerk reaction to these players has created a call not only for courses to be lengthened, but restrictions be placed on equipment and the golf ball.

Only 40 men in the world capable of overpowering a course? A knee jerk reaction has created a call? Uh, it's not 40 and it's not a call anymore, just ask the course owners who've spent millions and millions of dollars or the Winged Foot members who spend $500k to build a new tee on No. 12 that will be used twice next week. 

If you are going to talk about what’s good or bad for golf, please have the courtesy to remember that women play too.

This could be one of those turning point columns that awakens even fence-sitters to just how far-fetched and comical the pro-distance shilling has become.

Update on 2006-06-06 18:20 by Geoff

Speaking of knee jerk reactions, this might be a nice time to point out a Kostis's 2002 declaration that Augusta National's changes were all things wonderful, and his change of heart this year.

His actual comment during the 2002 telecast was that the pre-Hootie course was "one-dimensional" and that the addition of rough and trees had made it a stronger test. But after seeing more trees and rough this year he wrote that the course "now dictates more forcefully what shots the pros must to play" and that you don't like "those strategic qualities being taken away."

Knee-jerk or just...

Achenbach Says Distance Changes Cause Costly, Unnecessary Course Changes To Layouts He Likes!

Look for a makeup column from Golfweek publisher Jim Nugent after yet another awakening column from Jim Achenbach:

Here is another good reason why the U.S. Golf Association eventually will cut back the distance of the golf ball: Eugene Country Club.

One of the best golf courses on the face of the earth, Eugene CC has followed an all-too-common path for bolstering its credibility and reputation.

Out of fear it was becoming too short and too easy, Eugene has constructed 10 new tees. Five already are open, and the other five will be playable by the end of the month.

The new tees will push the overall championship tee distance from 6,847 yards to about 7,050 yards. Among other changes, a new back tee will transform the fifth hole into a 235-yard monster of a par 3 –all carry, over a pond, with a green that slopes perilously back toward the water.

I love this golf course. While I am not opposed to additional yardage, I am sad that contemporary golf has forced courses such as Eugene to expand or perish. Courses that want big-time tournaments need big-time length.

This next part landed on my lap like a big Christmas gift, since I was searching for a July Golfdom column topic:

The club maintains a committee called The Top 100, which helps promote the course among the various publications that rank courses.

Lengthening the course is just as important for rankings as it is for tournament play, so the 10 new tees serve a dual purpose.

The issue of distance has affected Eugene and many other courses. Some members of the USGA's 15-person Executive Committee – the body that makes all final decisions for the rulesmaking organization – are known to be supporters of reducing the distance of the golf ball.

According to the Joint Statement of Principles, issued in 2002 by the USGA and the Royal & Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews, Scotland, rules changes can be made at any time to confront the threat of increased distance or any other factor that might alter the historical foundation of the game.

No one should be surprised if the USGA and R&A ultimately decide to cut back the performance of the modern golf ball.

This would make it more important than ever for golfers to play the appropriate tees. While macho men would continue to head to the back tees, many golfers would realize that the joy of the game can be enhanced by playing the forward tees.

Golf does not have to be all about length.

It's Going To Be The Athleticism...

Brad Faxon, in an interview with Jason Sobel of ESPN.com:

Q: Should golf's governing bodies develop a scaled-back, uniform golf ball?

A: No. There's no way. The ball gets too much blame. There's a lot of other factors. Any gain you see in distance over the next few years is going to be athleticism more than technology.

I guess I didn't change Brad's mind at that little SI roundtable we did a year ago last week! I tried!  

Woosnam: "You've got to be more like anywhere from five foot ten to six foot four to play this game now"

Ian Woosnam at the BMW Championship, with help from the assembled inkslingers:

Q. What do you think of the modern obsession with fitness regimes, diets, coaches, all the stuff that goes on, head coaches?

IAN WOOSNAM: I think obviously once you see some players doing it and if you want to get to that standard, and they are successful at doing it, everybody has got to go along with it.

I think obviously these times and days, professional golf, it's a highly, highly tuned sport and very physical now. If you want to hit the ball a long way, you've got to be very, very fit. I think most probably in the modern time of golf now, being my size is probably gone. You've got to be more like anywhere from five foot ten to six foot four to play this game now I think. I just don't think you can generate the speed. You could look at maybe there will be an exceptional small player, but I think the taller player with the golf clubs are going to hit the ball a lot further now.

Q. Is it a much more interesting game, though?

IAN WOOSNAM: I think with the modern equipment you sort of aim straight and hope it goes straight. When we used to play the game, you used to sort of try to fade it, draw it; there was more a variety of shots. It was more like tee to green and then hope you 2 putted. But now there's such a variety in the game, really.

Q. Do you think you've had more fun than the guys have now?

IAN WOOSNAM: Yeah, definitely. Oh, yeah. You go in the gym for two hours before you go off, play your game of golf, do a bit of practice and then a couple more hours in the gym, I don't think that was for me. (Laughter) I don't think I would have been making it.

Q. You've been on the Tour for a long time, what do you think in historic sense of the standard of golf now, is it as good as it was or better than it was?

IAN WOOSNAM: I think you can look at it two different ways. The equipment has changed such a lot, everybody is working out. As you say, it's a different game all together. I think you've got to look at the way the game is played now and what it was played before. You know, if you watch any of the histories or videos or anything, there has been time where equipment has changed the game completely and we're going through a phase now where the game has just been completely changed.

Q. What do you think about the standard of golf on the Tour today, is it better than when you won the Masters?

IAN WOOSNAM: Well, I wouldn't say so, no. What I would say is that there's more people got a chance of winning these days than what there used to be.

Q. Because of the equipment?

IAN WOOSNAM: Don't get me into that one.

Q. Because of the equipment or because of the new attitude?

IAN WOOSNAM: I think the equipment is so good. With a wooden driver and bladed clubs and other kind of golf balls, it was very difficult to get the ball in the air. Even a wooden club, you get the ball in the air, you would hit it a long way. I think that's why I hit it a long way was because I managed to get the ball in the air and it went a long way with a strong driver. Nowadays the clubs are so big, the clubs just automatically get the ball in the air for you. Everybody has a better chance of scoring better really.

Furyk: Limit the Ball

Looks like we've got another wacky, liberal, biased, anti-America, anti-golf ball technology man in Jim Furyk. He's joining The List after comments (below) at a teleconference to plug the Western.

But first, on the lack of shotmaking in today's game:

One of the things we get criticized for in our generation is a lack of shot making, and I think that some of the modern architecture has actually called for a lot of shot making. It calls for hitting the ball far, hit with a lot of spin, and it doesn't really matter which way you work the ball, right to left or left to right.  I think sometimes my era or my era of player basically gets criticized a little unfairly with the style we need to play, when really the courses that we play -- we play what the courses call for, if that makes sense.

No argument there. Could mention the lousy setups too. But, hey, why be picky when he says stuff like this:

 Q. One of the things that's been kind of operating under the radar is the USGA has asked some of the equipment manufacturers, the ball manufacturers, to come up with a ball that doesn't travel as far as what we have today, and of course golf is the only sport that doesn't have a uniform ball. Where do you stand on that? Is there something there that needs to be fixed or should it be left alone?

JIM FURYK: What do you mean by uniform ball? I have a very strong opinion, but I need you to clarify uniform ball.

Q. You show up at a tournament site, like what Jack Nicklaus has talked about, and when you're checked in you're given five boxes of balls and that's what you're playing with.

Of course Jack Nicklaus has never advocated the idea of everyone playing one manufacturers ball, but we'll let the scribbler slide because at least he or she is asking about the issue, a rarity:

JIM FURYK: With all due respect to my idol, who I really respect Jack Nicklaus, one of my two favorite people in the game of golf along with Byron Nelson, I strongly disagree with that theory. The reason I say that is what ball would we use?

We as players have the opportunity to play different styles of ball, and I'm not talking about the distance; I don't mind that the distance gets reined back. I have no issue with that. Courses with millions of dollars of renovations, they don't always go over real well. I would say more often than not when you renovate a golf course, the changes aren't liked rather than liked, if that makes sense.

I wouldn't mind seeing the golf ball getting reined back or pulled back a percentage. But when you make every player play with one ball, I think you're treading a thin line there.

What I mean by that is -- I'll pick two players out. Tiger Woods, probably the ball that he plays on the PGA TOUR is probably the softest ball played on Tour. I had an opportunity to hit it at the Presidents Cup. I heard what other players said about it and how they felt it flew, and it's very soft and very spinny. He has a lot of power, generates a lot of club head speed and he wants a soft ball because he feels he can control the ball better with a lot of spin on it.

And...

I don't mind, and I know our commissioner has worked with the USGA and has worked with some of the governing bodies to try and come up with plans for the future so that if the world of golf feels like we need to limit the golf ball, they're trying to put a plan in place so we can do that down the road, if needed. I think that's what the USGA is doing right now with some of the manufacturing companies, and I am all for that.

But I'd like to see the companies have a little leeway what they can do with the balls as far as making them softer, harder, spin rates, up, down to try to fit golf balls to players. It's one of the reasons I'm with the company I'm with right now, Srixon, is they can make a ball for me that I'm comfortable with.

You hear Tiger talk about it. When I hit a shot and I look up in the air, I want to see the ball where I expect it to be on a good golf shot. Companies are good enough now that they can adjust hardness, softness, launch angle, spin rate to give the ball a feel and look of how we want it to look in the air. I think that's very, very important.

Limiting it is fine; one golf ball, I would strongly disagree with.