"Why would anyone bother trying to design a course for us?"

For those of you new readers who haven't followed the technology debate and its impact on the game, John Huggan offers a juicy primer that is also filled with some fresh quotes and thoughts for those of you who have tracked this key issue.

The other day, former US Open champion Geoff Ogilvy played a round with friends at the splendid Kingston Heath course in his home city of Melbourne. When they came to the 567-yard 14th hole, which was playing downwind, admittedly, Ogilvy hit a good drive... before striking a 7-iron approach through the green.

That's not a misprint. How long does a hole have to be before one of the game's leading exponents is unable to reach the putting surface with two full-blooded shots? Given that Ogilvy hit a drive and 7-iron around 575 yards, he was capable of reaching a green about 200 yards further on with his 3-wood.

Let's make the hole 800 yards in length, just to make him think a little. As the world No.11 asked companions rhetorically: "Why would anyone bother trying to design a course for us?"

Fast forward... 

"I don't pay too much attention to distance statistics, because most of my courses are not being built for the professionals," says leading designer Tom Doak. "But I try to stay abreast of what's going on, because the governing bodies don't!"

Wow, the Doakster finally speaking out forcefully! Better late than never.

And from Huggan: 

The typical response to this new breed of tour player has been predictably, and disappointingly, one-dimensional. Most courses have resorted to golf's most boring hazard - longer and thicker rough - and ever-increasing length, and in the process have destroyed any semblance of strategic choice for players who are supposed to be the best.

In other words, thinking and planning have largely been eliminated from the game at the highest level. On almost every hole there is but one choice of shot, with the creation of interesting angles for the approach something those old guys did before technology ran amok. It is tedious and heartbreaking to watch and, no doubt, to play.

The danger is that the average golf club committee will imagine that growing more and deeper rough and creating longer holes by way of more back tees offer the way forward for their course. Big mistake. That approach ignores the fact that the average golfer gains little or no advantage from modern technology. Largely starved of the club-head speed that is yardage's fuel, his drives have "stretched" by only a few measly yards. Besides, there is a better way.

"On most of the courses we work on, we put in back tees for the good player only on those holes where the green size is appropriate," says former European Tour player Mike Clayton, now a much-respected course designer. "We would not, for example, make a 310-yard hole 40 yards longer just because we could.

"In fact, par-70 is the answer to many tour course design questions. By reducing the par by two shots, you create two less vulnerable holes. Throw in a couple of great short par-4s and a short par-3, and it is possible to keep a course around 7,000 yards in length while still making it both difficult and thought-provoking for the professionals, and playable for the members without having tees they never go anywhere near."

Of course, all of that could be achieved by hauling the ball back 50 yards. Come on guys, get it done!

50? Shoot, I'll take 20 at this point. 

"The sport that already lost complete control of the equipment manufacturers who have juiced the tools and taken a certain element of skill out of the game is now trying to regulate what its performers put into their bodies."

Scott Michaux in the Augusta Chronicle is the first major columnist to note that we have equipment on steroids and golf is opening up a major can of worms with drug testing first. He doesn't quite go all the way and ask why the folks in charge aren't taking a look at equipment in conjunction with the drug testing, or perhaps asking if they may be encouraging performance enhancing drug use by attributing distance gains to athleticism, but he still earns big points for at least noting that it got away from certain governing bodies.

In short, golf was forced to act like every other sport in the modern era.

One simple question - why?

It doesn't make much sense. The sport that already lost complete control of the equipment manufacturers who have juiced the tools and taken a certain element of skill out of the game is now trying to regulate what its performers put into their bodies.

If this was just about illegal steroids, it would be understandable. The whole idea of creating artificial strength - at a potential cost to personal health - is unseemly. Since other sports are failing every day to try to regulate that brand of performance enhancers, why not join the club for appearances sake.

But golf is stepping into an even murkier realm trying to regulate drugs that decrease heart rate, sharpen attention or increase stamina - basically all the things the pharmaceutical companies have trained us to do in our everyday lives. This is where the whole system leaves the rails.

It's The Dimples!

Thanks to reader Graeme for this:

AUSTRALIAN golf great Peter Thomson has suggested golf balls should be redesigned to harness the distance they are being hit by pros and amateurs. In an article in the Australian Financial Review last week Thomson suggested the solution lies in the ball’s dimples. Ten years ago, testers found that the greater the area of the ball covered by dimples, the more aerodynamically effective it became and the better it performed in cross winds. They changed the dimple pattern to cover 100 percent of the ball. “If we restricted the dimple pattern to cover 40 percent or 50 percent of the ball, it would return the distance of the drive to 250 yards [228.6 metres],” says Thomson. “This would also reduce the incidence of balls flying over fences into neighbouring houses and onto roads.” The rules of golf state that every golf ball must comply with three things: its weight must not be greater than 1.62 ounces, its diameter must not be less than 1.68 inches and its initial velocity, when fired from a testing cannon, must not be greater than 250 feet (76.2 metres) per second. Manufacturers have been able to tinker with the ball’s cover, internal composition and dimple pattern to comply with these rules, and yet still get greater distance.

It can't be good for the USGA that one of the R&A's biggest supporters isn't talking up the grooves.  

"In the end it was just too easy at Easy Lake."

Based on the link, I believe this is Jim Moriarty's East Lake/Tour Championship game story for Golf World.

Besides evaluating the FedEx Cup as somewhat of a success, he writes:

In the end it was just too easy at Easy Lake. Poor Bobby Jones must have been weeping somewhere for the honor of his home course. Rain Thursday turned the greens from semi-dirt to soft dirt, and Tim Clark, one of the 24 non-competing markers in the field, tied the then course record on a rain-interrupted day with an eight-under-par 62, highlighted by a pitch-in for eagle on the 15th. The real rain, the remnants of Hurricane Humberto, was scheduled to hit Friday, but the worst of it took the I-285 bypass around Atlanta, and it was Woods who reigned instead.

In a six-hole stretch from the fourth through the ninth holes, Woods went seven under par for a front-nine 28 and felt pretty darn bad about it, too. He holed a bunker shot from a semiburied lie on the fifth and made a 70-footer for eagle at the ninth. "The ball was bouncing every which way. It was left of the hole, it was right of hole, left of the hole, right of the hole, and then it went in," he said. No fist pumps or finger-pointing this time, just a bowed head and a sheepish "gee-I'm-sooooo-sorry-about-that-guys" grin.

And skipping a bit...

Easy Lake, formidable only when someone drove it in the wet Bermuda rough, was so defenseless that through 36 and 54 holes only two of the 30 players were over par. It really bared its gums in the third round, however, when Johnson's 60 and Geoff Ogilvy's 62 were proof that even though the slow, soft greens were bad, they weren't unputtable.

Now I understand the situation with the greens.

But did this tournament also serve as a reminder that extreme, even outlandish measures would be necessary to keep a land-locked venue like East Lake relevant in today's game where a 6-iron is some players' 210-yard club and 3-woods carry 300? 

Now I know our friends Bacon and Grease over at Golf Digest think that it's okay for classics to become irrelevant, because you simply move to another venue that's 7,600 yards. But considering all that has been invested in East Lake and will be invested soon with the greens resodding, should there be some discussion at PGA Tour headquarters about the long term viability of this venue? And dare I say, some discussion about possibly asking the USGA when it's ball study will be wrapping up?

I sure don't see a U-groove ban making East Lake more relevant no matter how firm the new greens get, do you?  

"At home all the miles I log on the road and run in that heat, granted it's not as hot as this but it's certainly more humid. And that's what you do. You pay the price. You go outwork everybody and days like today or weeks like this week, it shows."

Some great stuff came out of Tiger's post-PGA Championship win press conference, though shockingly, no one asked about the pressure of being the FedEx Cup points leader.

Q. This is a great victory on Thai Mother's Day. Would you like to make a special message to children in Thailand that look up to you?

TIGER WOODS: Well, every time I go back there it's been fantastic. We do junior clinics there and my mom helps with a few shelters there in Bangkok. So we try and help the kids as much as we possibly can. And what my mom's done back there no one really knows about it, but she's done a lot for a lot of kids. And awfully proud of her.

Tiger note to self: tell Steiny to send mom flowers asap for Thai Mother's Day.

Q. Just to get back to Steve's question earlier, the television crew seemed to indicate they thought perhaps you had hurt yourself when you fist pumped on 8 after that birdie and might have hurt you going into 9. Talk about that. Secondly, a local question: Your thoughts on Southern Hills, Tulsa, and Oklahoma hosting this major this week?

TIGER WOODS: As far as hurting myself, no. All good. The only thing that hurt me on 9 was I didn't trust the wind up there. The wind was right to left all day, and you look at the flags up behind 18 and 9, they were left to right. And Steve says the wind's off the right, you gotta trust it's off the right. I just kept telling myself, Look at those flags behind 18. It's off to the left. So we just shoot it more down the left side so the wind will bring it back and actually took it the other way, took it left. So that was my fault for not trusting Stevie and trusting how the wind was all day.

As far as Tulsa hosting the Championship, I mean, this has been a great crowd. For them to come out and support this event with the temperatures the way it was, absolutely phenomenal. I don't know how they could have been enthusiastic being that hot and that tired, but they were. And they were supporting all of us and want to see great shots and they applauded. It was just a great atmosphere all day, all week, especially today. Especially given the temperatures.

Hey, granted he was gimpy, but an admission that he hurt himself doing the fist pump would mean he's human. 

Q. You disproved the belief that your game wasn't meant for Southern Hills, do you believe that your ability to hit the 2-, 3- and 4-iron the way you did all week really made this a golf course that was really well-suited to your game?

TIGER WOODS: I don't understand why people kept saying that. If you watched the way I hit the ball in 2001, I wasn't hitting it very well. But if you look at where I was hitting it, I was hitting it to exactly the same spots I did this week. I just wasn't able to hit the fairways.

I played to the same spots, Stevie and I had the same strategy. Nothing's changed. The only difference is we're hitting less club because the ball's going so much further this year because of temperature and also the improvements in the golf ball in the last six years.

Uh, don't  forget to include the grooves. They make you more likely to bomb driver and, oh, I don't even know. Just remember, it's the grooves, not the ball!

Q. In hindsight, what advantage might you, your conditioning advantage have you in this heat, and also does this change at all your intentions to play all four of the playoff events?

TIGER WOODS: As far as the last part, yes, my intent is to play. As far as your first part of your question is physical fitness is always a huge advantage. And when you play any sport and you have heat and anything that wears you down mentally and physically, the more in shape you are, the more fit you are -- I feel when I walked up 18 I felt the same way as I did going off the first tee. I felt great.

At home all the miles I log on the road and run in that heat, granted it's not as hot as this but it's certainly more humid. And that's what you do. You pay the price. You go outwork everybody and days like today or weeks like this week, it shows. I felt fresh all week. And I felt great.

Other guys may have gotten tired and you see their shoulders slumping and dragging a little bit; I feel fine. I think that's how you should always be. You should always train hard and bust your butt. That's what a sport is, is to do that. And not everyone considers golf a sport and they don't treat it as such.

Take that boys!

Q. You've won your last three majors using a long iron off the tee, a 5-wood off the tee, primarily Medinah. Here you made your birdies with irons. In the back of your mind, do you get frustrated with your driver and the driver swing, and is it any different, could you explain to the rest of us, than your regular swing and why is it a struggle?

TIGER WOODS: I feel the same. The only difference is when you're hitting it, especially this week, 330-, 340-yard fairways 20, 22 yards wide, that's not a lot of room.

And most of the tournaments, if you look at the configuration of how they design the golf courses now for us is that they pinch the fairways in about 280. 280 to 320 is kind of like the major number where they start pinching fairways in.

So a lot of times they're more narrow at that distance than they are shy of 280. And sometimes I see a lot of guys hit driver down there try to play out of the rough. Some golf courses you can, some golf courses you can't. And as far as my swing being different, I feel it's the same.

The only difference is not a lot of room for error when you're hitting it that far. And that's one of the reasons why you see a lot of longer hitters hit 3-woods off the tee because the 3-wood nowadays goes as far as it used to when I first came out here as far as a driver went. I had no problem hitting 3-wood this week over 300 yards, just because it was so hot. And every week is different. It really is. It's kind of a feel thing.

And a groove thing too, right? No? It can't be the combination of narrow fairways and a ball going longer. Just can't be!

Q. You said a little bit earlier you feel by far you're a better player than you were in 2000 which is the year when you won the last three majors, and people were wondering if anybody else would win another tournament you were entered in. This year you had to grind it out in the last major of the year to get your first major and I'm wondering just what that says and maybe in terms of the challenge that it becomes over the years to keep winning these majors?

TIGER WOODS: Well, everyone's not going to stay stagnant. Everyone is going to try to improve and they all have. Everyone's worked hard to improve their game through technology, through fitness. Look back when I first came out here on Tour, how many guys had personal trainers. I don't think any of them did.

Now going to the fitness van everyone has a trainer there. So the game has changed and everyone's gotten stronger, more fit. They're hitting the ball further. Technology has certainly helped that out. Your dispersion patterns aren't as wide.

Well that'll all change in 2009 when you are playing with V-grooves!

And guys are shooting a lot better scores. And it has become a lot harder to win tournaments. And that's the fun of it. That's the challenge.

And finally, a jab at the scribblers...

Q. Stephen Ames said there wasn't as much craziness inside or outside the ropes when he played today. He said there just wasn't the mayhem. Has Tiger mania changed that much or has everybody's concentration levels so much more concentrated now?

TIGER WOODS: No, I think you guys are lazy (laughter). I didn't see a whole lot of you guys walking with us like you normally do. It's a little hot. And I think maybe the buffets are good in here and air conditioning is nice (laughter).

No, it was different. We didn't have as many media inside the ropes, being whether it's you guys or it's photographers or TV crews. There weren't just as many.

"But keep banging your shoe on the table, Khrushchev. I'm sure you'll get your way for a cause that makes just as much sense as his."

Bowell and Gout had me fooled for a minute. They actually posted negative thoughts on the USGA's preposterous concept of regulating grooves to make pros throttle back and therefore, hit the ball less far. GolfDigest.com's finest bloggers make several fine points about the number of problems this will create, particularly on the enforcement end. Great stuff.

And then, that sensitive subject of the golf ball was brought up by a commenter Chuck, and Gout flew into his traditional tizzy.

Here's Chuck:

Yes, you guys are right about these kinds of rules seeming to be incomprehensible to the average golfer.

And yes, you guys are right to worry about the confusing effects of this kind of 'bifrucation' of the rules, in grandfathering older model clubs for 10 years or so.

And yes, you guys continue to miss the boat on coming to the realization that better regulation of golf balls would probably avoid both of the aforementioned problems.
Fix the problems with the golf ball regulations. Period.

Okay, strap in, here's Gouge/Stachura in full-blown Ted Stevens mode, almost as fun as his last meltdown where he said we need to move on stop worrying about protecting Augusta and St. Andrews.

GOUGE responds: Chuck. You are the ultimate one-note song. Changing the ball regulations is a pursuit only justified if you think it important that we keep certain major championship courses relevant. I don't care how far the ball goes. And I'm never going to care until I hit 400-yard drives. At the PGA Championship, there are nine players under par at the shortest major championship course of the year. What do we do? Roll the ball back 10 percent, 15 percent? What does that accomplish other than letting us go to Merion and a bunch of other courses that time has passed by.

Oh boy.

They don't run the Indianapolis 500 on bricks. They shouldn't play major championships on venues that don't demand the ultimate skills from the competitors. But I'm bored by this argument. Roll the ball back. See if it makes you pedantic luddites feel better.

Getting personal! That always makes your case.

I know it won't make a dang bit of difference to anything that happens in the game at the elite level, but you'll feel better and superior.

No, it wouldn't make any impact at all to see guys hit drives and to have courses no longer getting narrower and longer at their own expense. Nah... 

Great. Let's see if we can get everybody to hit it no farther than 285, what does that accomplish? Reduces the game to a second shot exercise, big deal. Take 15 percent off every tee ball? What does that do other than shift the same rank order down 30 or 40 yards? Why, why is that better off? So we can go back to Myopia Hunt? So we don't have to stretch old courses outside their current boundaries, destroying the charm of these layouts? But keep banging your shoe on the table, Khrushchev. I'm sure you'll get your way for a cause that makes just as much sense as his.

Wow, such passion. I wonder if the new logo has anything to do this passion? Is that a paid placement? Or just a happy coincidence?

Huggan Scoop: Crenshaw Regrets Brookline 17th Green Antics!

...and next week, John Huggan learns from Roberto De Vicenzo that regrets signing an incorrect card at the 1968 Masters!

Sheesh, now I know why Ben has avoided the Senior Open Championship!

Seriously, once we cleared up the earth shattering revelations from three Ryder Cup's ago, Huggan got Crenshaw to say some interesting things about the state of the game, technology, the PGA Tour and Augusta.

"What mystifies Bill and myself is seeing courses being built that hardly anyone can play properly," he observes. "We want our courses to be enjoyable for as many people as possible. We would not know how to set up a course for a high-end tournament. That would just mystify me. If you do that, how can you reach anyone else?

"In America the set-ups are becoming unbelievable. They are trying to stay ahead of technology, and sometimes that doesn't produce enjoyable golf. The danger is that the PGA Tour can become stylised a little bit. They are just so difficult week to week.

"The road we are on is a dangerous one. It's one thing to build five different tee boxes, but somewhere along the line you lose the feel of the hole, and what makes it interesting. You compromise the hole. If you don't go straight back and start changing angles, things get a bit off.

"We are trying - and failing - to come up with interesting ways to combat how far the ball goes. You put obstacles out there at certain distances, and players just fly them. I don't know what you do. We try to make doable holes. I like players to shoot really good scores. That's fine with me."

How Crenshaw would definitely not go about tackling the technology issue is by the mindless growing of long grass, which is how the green jackets at Augusta National have chosen to 'protect' their course.

"I heard this a long time ago, although I'm not sure who said it first: 'Interest supersedes length.' If a course is not interesting and you don't bring people back, what is the point? I look at the way Augusta was set up this year, and everyone was forced to play more defensive golf, no question about it. There's now a limit to what the top players will try there.

"To an extent, I can understand what is being done. I'm not saying all of it should be thrown away. There is no question the course needed to be lengthened. But I've never really agreed with the growing of the rough. That is so entirely different from the way it used to play.

"To get players to try shots they maybe shouldn't try was what used to set Augusta apart. Now it's different. A lot of the places I used to aim for off the tee are now in the rough. Those spots used to open up angles to the pins. But now the course is more prescribed. All the shots are decided for us.

"That's not what [Bobby] Jones and [Alister] Mackenzie intended. They wanted it to be reminiscent of St Andrews. To open up those angles, you had choices to make. And to have choices, you need width. There's no choice when the fairway is narrow. I can't believe some of the set-ups on the PGA Tour. Everything is so narrow."

Still, one thing too much rough and longer holes cannot affect is the famed Crenshaw putting stroke. Into his 50s, he has retained the silky touch that carried him to those two Masters titles - most of it anyway. Only last month he was runner-up at the US Senior Open.

"I don't putt quite as well as I used to. I have days where I feel just a little tentative. At my age I sometimes lack the authority you need to putt well. I hit a lot of nice putts that have about a foot less speed on them. That often makes the difference between making and missing."
 

"One more time, it's not technology that makes golf courses obsolete. It's a lack of imagination on the part of the architect."

Blooper and Gaffe over at GolfDigest.com apparently had nothing better to do so one of them put together a "Ryder Cup-like" team of short hitters to compete with the other one's team of semi-bombers to prove that, uh, apparently a Ryder Cup squad can include any nationality!

Oh, and it's a completely useless opportunity for their bi-weekly subliminal message that distance isn't harming the game, we don't need to regulate the ball because our friends in the equipment industry must be free to create more products to boost third quarter earnings.

Of course, it's fascinating to read B&G they break out their pom-poms for the new USGA groove regulation, which is being forced on the golfing public because the USGA claims there is no correlation between success and driving accuracy on the PGA Tour (remember that when you buy a new conforming wedge in 16 months).

Even more fun is this post about how it's all the architects fault that courses are becoming obsolete, not the equipment.

The model that architects should be following to allow grown men to continue to shop unfettered by common sense regulation?

Brown Deer Park! Where they say some Parks and Rec dude had the vision to see it all coming and designed a bunch of holes that take driver out of your hand.

One more time, it's not technology that makes golf courses obsolete. It's a lack of imagination on the part of the architect. You don't need 7,400 yards to test the best. Last week, 6,759 proved more than enough.

Yes, legions of viewers will tune in to watch the Brown Deer Parks of the world. That'll really lift the PGA Tour ratings to new heights!

Oh, and Tiger doesn't play the Brown Deer Parks of the world boys. So give it up.

I Guess That's Where The Tour Stands...

Oh I know there's all that legal mumbo-jumbo at the end of the PGA Tour's junk emails (which I so enjoy receiving) about not being responsible for an "advertiser's content." But I also bet the lawyers and VP's could say no to an ad campaign that puts the PGA Tour in an uncomfortable position.

Apparently the Titleist NXT ads, which were very funny for about a year--unfortunately that was three years ago--do not concern the PGA Tour, even though they are part of a campaign suggesting that proponents of equipment regulation are uh, batty!

(click to enlarge) 

"Altering the way we make wedges is not the solution to this problem."

Terry Koehler of Eidolon Golf wrote in response to the USGA's proposed rule change on grooves:

“The USGA has long held to the principle that if it is good for average golfers, and good for the game, then you support the evolution of equipment.” It’s quite apparent that you have determined that “the chickens are out of the hen house” regarding drivers and balls, but altering the way we make wedges is not the solution to this problem.”

"Mis-hits with his current equipment meant off-line landings of 5-10 yards; with the old clubs, as much as 50 yards off-line."

Steve DiMeglio of the USA Today got Brandt Snedeker to play a retro set of golf clubs with the help of Bridgestone and Taylor Made, presumably to tell us how lucky we are while they're in the world. Snedeker's assessments are particularly interesting in this lengthy piece.

Snedeker arrived at this approach as a test subject for USA TODAY. The 6-1, 190-pound former Vanderbilt All-American enthusiastically agreed to play a round of golf with a set of previous-generation clubs.

Obviously figuring his round would be made more difficult, Snedeker was nonetheless surprised how drastically golf had changed in just a matter of years.

"I don't know how to explain the sound" at impact with the old clubs and ball, he says. "It feels like the ball is getting stuck on the clubface. The old ball feels so soft, like a marshmallow."

His oversized metal woods, perimeter-weighted irons and state-of-the-art shafts and golf balls were pitted against woods actually made of wood; heavy, steel shafts and diminutive irons that were far less forgiving than today's advanced sets and balls last seen 20-25 years ago. Snedeker last hit a wood driver when he was 8 and then only in goofing with his dad's set.

The test came just hours after Snedeker secured his future by cashing in for $182,000 for his 12th-place tie at The Players Championship in May to earn his 2008 card.

Snedeker stepped back in time here by the Atlantic Ocean at the par-72, 6,687-yard Plantation Course where LPGA Hall of Famer Louise Suggs and PGA Tour star Davis Love III honed their games.

On a traditional course that unfolds among oak and cedar trees 300 to 500 years old and presents wide fairways and relatively flat greens, Snedeker experienced the game of golf as played by his predecessors.

Snedeker appreciated as he never did how good it feels to play with the modern ball — featuring titanium compounds, hybrid materials, softer shells and a more pressurized core — and his TaylorMade r7 driver. That club features moveable weights, inverted cone technology to promote higher ball velocity and an exotic shaft that matches the swing weight, flex point and kick point he prefers.

And thankfully, it helped him score! 

With his technology-driven equipment, much of it devised by those with aerospace and defense industry backgrounds, Snedeker shot 3-over 75 in 15-25 mph winds — five shots better than when he pulled out the older counterparts used by previous generations.

Oops.

Only a red-hot 1988 putter kept matters so close. With the old flat stick, Snedeker made birdies from 3, 4, 25 and 30 feet and holed many par-saving putts of 4-8 feet. With his up-to-date putter he made three birdies but had two three-putts and just missed on five other putts for birdie.

The rest of the round, however, was marked by a one-club difference in length between the old and new irons.

There was a 25-30 yard difference between drivers, 40-50 yards when he mis-hit the old driver. Mis-hits with his current equipment meant off-line landings of 5-10 yards; with the old clubs, as much as 50 yards off-line.

So glad we're going to get those grooves regulated.

"I truly appreciate growing up in the generation that I did," Snedeker says, "because I don't think I would have grown up to be a pro golfer if I had to have played with the old stuff. It is so much different, so much tougher."

That's why Snedeker was so thankful the 80-year-old seaside layout he played isn't bursting with forced carries over water, 15-foot-deep bunkers and large mounds on the greens. Only seven holes bring water into play; his slightest mis-hits on three involving water resulted in two double bogeys and a bogey.

"On the toughest new courses, where you have to fly the ball 200 yards over water or unplayable areas, I might not break 90, 100 with the old equipment," he says.

"But the great equalizer is putting. That's what makes golf so great. Even if I was using 1960s equipment, if I'm putting great that day, I could still spank the best equipment in the world. If I don't make putts, I get killed."

This was nice to read:

"It makes me really appreciate the guys that came before me," Snedeker says of hitting the old clubs. "The way Bobby Jones played golf, Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer, Ben Hogan, Lee Trevino, Johnny Miller. Those guys were phenomenal.

"They had to be unbelievable ball strikers to hit the ball straight and as solid as they did."

Fast forward...

Just as shocking was the once top-of-the-line Rextar golf ball, which featured rubber-like balata-tree material that created a soft cover and yielded more spin. Conducting his own experiment, Snedeker hit one of the Rextar balls with his new sand wedge and shredded the cover of the ball.

"If we had (the new) golf ball in my day," Trevino says, "the best of us would have hit it 300 yards and Jack Nicklaus would have hit it 360."

Don't forget those workout programs Lee!

On the first nine holes using the persimmon driver and the older ball, Snedeker could find the fairway just two of nine times. Each of his drives were low-flying projectiles that snapped to the left and went 200-220 yards — into high rough and behind trees.

On the first hole, he had 188 yards to the pin after his drive with the wood ended near a tree. With his contemporary TaylorMade r7 driver, he had 128 yards from the middle of the fairway to the pin.

On the par-4, 445-yard ninth, he had 200 yards to the pin after his drive with the wood ended up in rough; he had 144 yards from the middle of the fairway after using his modern driver.

"I'm seeing parts of this golf course I've never seen before," Snedeker said on the 12th hole. "I'm trying everything to keep the old driver on this planet."

He finally ditched his normal swing with the old driver and tried something that was supposed to produce a slight fade. By the time he reached the tee on the par-4, 409-yard 13th, he was pleading to the golf gods to find a fairway. He figured he needed a slice-swing to make it go straight.

"The biggest difference is the new ball doesn't curve as much anymore," Snedeker says. "It was a more precise game back then. The ball was spinning so much more, and it was so much harder to control vs. today's golf ball. The ball wanted to curve 20, 30, 40 yards.

Damn ball! How dare it not do what you pray for it to do!

"That's why you see guys hit the ball so much farther now, because we can go at it so much harder than they were able to do so back then. Back in the '60s and '70s and '80s, you couldn't go at it full bore because you could literally hit it 30, 40 yards off line.

"Every pro on the Tour, the biggest fear is hitting a low draw or snap hook," Snedeker adds. "Now the equipment is set up today where the ball won't spin enough to hit that draw. I have no fear. I really saw that today."

Progress baby!

The irons Snedeker used in this experiment were certainly some old fuddy-duddies.

"The old irons take a much steeper divot. Today's irons are built with so much more bounce, which allows you to sweep the ball off the ground," Snedeker says. "I was taking huge divots today with the old stuff, and when you take steep divots, it affects your speed and affects the way the club works with the ball.

"The players in the past had to have great tempo to control the ball back then. It was a lot of fun to draw the ball 30 yards into a pin or cut the ball 30 yards into a pin. It proves the old guys were so much better course managers. They had to think their way around the golf course so much more because of the way the ball moved.

"You had to know every trouble spot," he says, "because the slightest mis-hit, you were in big trouble."

But at least he knows who signs his checks...

As Snedeker signed his scorecard, he had little trouble recalling every shot. He smiled at some of the recollections.

"Technology certainly makes the game easier for everyone to play, and that's great for golf," he says. "It makes the game easier for the pros to play. But don't think it's easy out there for us. The courses are getting longer and longer, the bunkers deeper, the rough deeper, the greens faster.

"Golf has always been a great game. Today it's still a great game, too, with all the new technology. I can't wait to see what comes next."

“The game has changed, and you can’t go backwards.”

Thanks to reader Sean for this Neil Amdur-New York Times story on science making bowling easier and how it's driving not impacting participation levels. Hmmm...

Twenty-five years ago today, Glenn Allison bowled three consecutive 300 games, the first to record the feat in a sanctioned league. But nothing has been the same in the sport since Allison’s 36 strikes in a row were initially heralded, then, after a protracted legal fight, disallowed because of what officials cited as noncomplying conditions at La Habra 300 Bowl in California.

Fast forward...

Four other bowlers as far back as 1931 preceded Allison with 900 scores, but none were in a sanctioned league or under tournament conditions. Allison said he was not upset that noncompliance with oil distribution on his lanes left him as an asterisk in bowling record books. If Allison rolled a 900 series in a league tonight, it would be approved without an inspection. Rule changes now allow for season-long certification of lanes, another accommodation that rankles traditionalists.

But as tennis and golf have had technical and tactical shifts in their sports with the introduction of new equipment, science has found bowling. Allison used one ball for every shot, but many league and pro bowlers now have three or four. The new balls “grip the lanes better,” he said, creating a coefficient of friction that is much higher than years ago. “You can buy a hook with these new balls, and it’s so much easier,” Allison said.

Therefore...

“It’s an altogether different game,” said Mickey Curley, who has worked at the lanes for 44 years and whose son Dennis bowled with Allison on the night of his perfect series. “Fitting and drilling bowling balls now is a science.”

Roger Dalkin, the chief executive of the United States Bowling Congress, said: “One of the difficulties we have as a governing body is trying to manage the technology and not eliminate it. There’s always a debate: What’s too much, what’s too easy?”

Registered membership in the bowling congress fell to 2.7 million last year from close to 10 million in 1982. But according to Simmons Research, 70 million Americans (37 million men, 33 million women) bowl at least once a year, and many are prepared to spend $10 a game and more for the lively social activities at places like Bowlmor Lanes in Manhattan.

The bowling congress has also initiated Sport Bowling, a division that tries to emulate pro tour-type conditions for more serious competitors. Begun three years ago, it has 40,000 members and has doubled in membership each of the last three years.

“Thirty years ago, 90 percent of bowling was leagues,” Mark Miller, a bowling congress spokesman, said by telephone from Las Vegas, where the Bowl Expo, which ended Friday, attracted 5,000 exhibitors, including bowling center proprietors and product manufacturers. “Now, 60 percent of all bowling is recreational. The game has changed, and you can’t go backwards.”

Wait, it's going backwards in terms of cost and participation? No? 

Mac Agrees With USGA: The Grooves Must Go!

The USGA Executive Committee will be comforted to know that Mac O'Grady wholeheartedly agrees that V-grooves must be returned to stop the flogging we've seen a recent majors.

The Detroit News' Krysten Oliphant turned on her tape recorder and let Mac do this thing after Monday's Buick Open qualifying. First, on Tiger's driving and grooves.

"When Nicklaus and Palmer played, when (Ben) Hogan played and Sam Snead played, on a scale of zero to 10, they were a nine-plus," he said. "Tiger Woods is not even a one-plus."

O'Grady said technology is the reason for players' success today. A change in the drivers' grooves from a V shape to a box shape allows golfers to hit the ball farther with more spin.

When in the rough, players go straight for the hole instead of just trying to reach the green. This, he said, has ruined golf.

"The reason why (Woods) can hit it on the green is because he has square grooves," he said.

"He doesn't have that, he's dead. He cannot do it -- it's impossible. For him to go after Nicklaus' records is cheating. This is like steroids."

Mac, do you really think that Tiger would have approached Augusta or Oakmont differently this year had his grooves been V-shaped? Maybe he wisely lays up on 15 at Augusta Sunday(he was in the second cut, right?)? Maybe.

Anyway, Mac then talks about the ball.

"Balls used to have what he called a concentric arc dimple configuration, meaning their indentions were in a circular shape and each dimple was the same size, allowing for even dispersion of air across them. Now dimple sizes and positions vary, eliminating the balls' curve.

"It allows all these guys to come into the game that ordinarily couldn't do it," O'Grady said.

"This ball is designed for the 30-handicap. It's not designed for the pro tour. The 30-handicapper hits the ball and it goes up to the apex, it comes down straight. It doesn't slice. So when the Tour pro gets it, it's robbery. It's not fair."

And he'll be glad to know he shares this opinion with his good buddy, Deane Beman:

He said there should be a special ball for PGA Tour players with the concentric arc dimple pattern, which he said showed who had natural ability and who did not.

"The degree of athleticism has changed," he wrote in notes he took during qualifying. "What was humanly impossible is now technologically possible."

Come admit it, no matter what you think of Mac, you have to love his honesty...

"I still love the game," he said.

"I don't enjoy the technology because what's happening is these kids now are shooting 63s, 62s. What Michelle Wie is doing is not humanly possible. It's technologically possible because the balls go too straight, they go too far."

O'Grady said in the Champions Tour, what he called former "powderpuff" players such as Jay Haas, are defeating "dinosaur guys who had the best technique."

"All those big players, they can't say anything because they're being paid by the manufacturers (for sponsorship). But they know it's wrong. This is the worst dark chapter in the history of professional golf with this technology.

"Steroids (are) not in the athletes today -- (they're) in the balls and the drivers. Guys don't have to hit it far. The equipment is going to do it for them."

"It’s been made worse by technologically advanced golf equipment that makes golf balls go farther — and farther sideway"

The New York Times' Bill Pennington officially becomes a member of the technophobic, liberal biased, anti-corporate bottom line agenda writers of America with this (front page!) piece on increased safety issues at golf course residential communities.

 The intersection of errant golf shots and private property is not a new phenomenon. But with new gear that enables average golfers to hit a ball 250 yards, and with golf communities sprouting nationwide — 70 percent of new courses include housing — it is becoming an increasingly prominent problem. Most homes built near this country’s 16,000 golf courses may not be in the cross hairs of slicing duffers, but thousands are.

“It’s not only an ongoing problem, it’s been made worse by technologically advanced golf equipment that makes golf balls go farther — and farther sideways,” said David Mulvihill, a managing director at the Urban Land Institute, who has studied golf course development.

“So homes that have been on a golf course for decades without incident are suddenly in the path of guys whacking giant-headed drivers. The golf course designers are trying to adjust with wider fairway corridors, but because of liability issues, no one is willing to put on paper what the acceptable setbacks are.”

But don't worry, with V-grooves on the way, all will be well! 

"It's one of the most irrelevant rules ever proposed in golf."

Thanks to reader Sean for catching John Davis's excellent story on the U-groove rule change proposed by the USGA.

In a joint proposal with the Royal & Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews, U-grooves wouldn't be banned, but clubs would have specifications so they performed like V-shaped grooves, which were the standard before U-grooves were approved.

"Does that mean I would have to buy new clubs?" Kevin Largent of Scottsdale said before a golf round last week. "I just got these."

The answer is yes, although not right away. If adopted, the rules would take effect for high-level competition in 2009 and for all new equipment in 2010. Recreational golfers would have a 10-year grace period in which they can use clubs that currently conform.

I wonder how many golfers actually know this?

Tour pros have had mixed reaction to the proposal, but most club manufacturers are strongly opposed, saying it not only would cost them millions of dollars to meet the specifications but also would be costly for golfers.

Oh come on.

"More than 100 million clubs that are being played around the world would be non-conforming. That's a lot of clubs," said John A. Solheim, president and CEO of Ping. "I'm totally opposed to this thing."

An open comment period runs through Aug. 1, during which anyone can send comments to the USGA about the proposal. In recent years, equipment proposals have been "tweaked," but the end result has been a new rule in each case.

If approved, it would mark the first rollback in equipment since the move to a lighter ball in 1931.

And why is it again the ball can't be rolled back? That's easier to replace than a set of irons.

Benoit Vincent, chief technical officer for TaylorMade, thinks the proposal is "disconnected."

"Their point is that golfers aren't concerned about driving accuracy," Vincent said. "How do they control that? By regulating the spin of the ball on shots out of the rough?

"The probability that this rule is going to solve the problem is very low."

Vincent thinks it unfair that clubmakers and regular golfers would pay a steep price simply because of shots being executed by highly skilled tour pros. He estimates that golfers would pay 10 percent more for the new clubs.

"In order to meet those specifications would cost millions of dollars," he said. "This rule is insignificant to the vast majority of golfers in the world except that they would have to change their equipment. It's one of the most irrelevant rules ever proposed in golf."

This argument looks particularly silly after Oakmont:

Rugge doubts that the proposed changes would have much change on the tour's money list. "Tiger Woods is still going to be the best," he said. "We would expect to see some changes, but these guys are so good, they would adapt their games perhaps to focus more on staying in the fairway."

Right, because they are aiming at the rough. Kind of hard not to when the fairways are 22 yards wide.