My White Feather

Golf has a problem.

No, I’m not talking about the time it takes to play. This, too, is a problem; most young people refuse to invest 4 hours or more of their time for a single round of golf. This is the reason that Top Golf has become so popular. But that’s not the problem I’m talking about.

No, the problem is one that has been moaned about for decades: length.

Now, before we begin the discussion of why this is a true problem, we must acknowledge the fact that increasing length has been a problem for a long, long, LONG time. When the Old Course at St. Andrews became an 18-hole track in 1764, the game was still played by most people with wooden balls and wooden clubs. “Feathery” balls (made of boiled goose feathers stuffed into stitched cow-hide covers) were used only by the wealthy (they cost more than a golf club did!), and wooden-shafted iron clubs were also used only by the privileged. Not shockingly, a wooden club hitting a carved wooden ball did not produce a huge distance in the air.

In the early -to-mid 1900s, players were using steel-shafted clubs, and rubber-cored balls (in essence, modern equipment). Bobby Jones, who was the king of the 1920s, would hit his drives about 250 yards. These distances slowly increased as equipment got better. Slammin’ Sammy (Sam Snead) was known for 270 yard drives in the ’50s. Jack Nicklaus averaged that distance in the ’70s; his longest drives were consistently over 300 yards.* That meant that Fat Jack had a considerable advantage over Bobby Jones playing a course like Augusta National; par fives that Bobby would have had to lay-up to were within Jack’s range for getting home in two. Over time from the 1700s to the Jack/Arnie/Gary era, there was a progressive march to longer play, enabled by improvements in equipment.

And, yet, despite this consistent improvement, courses that had been laid out by 1900 continued to be a challenge for even the best golfers. The Old Course didn’t change its length hardly at all between 1764 and 2000. Obviously, the scores on the course got better. Bobby Jones in 1927 was the first winner of The Open Championship** with a score under par (285 for four rounds at St. Andrews). By 1978, that was down to 281 (Jack Nicklaus). But good courses were commonly producing winning scores of between -8 and -15 for four rounds (example 1975: Pebble Beach -8; Torrey Pines -9, Riviera -9, Doral -12, Harbour Town -13, Augusta National, -12, etc.). At that point, it was expected that, for a par-72 layout, a good pro could score in the -2 to -4 range regularly; a good amateur would average par; and someone like me, a regular weekend golfer, would score in the mid-to-low 80s. In short, the equipment at the time did not over-whelm the courses.***

That has changed.

Last weekend, they held this year’s Tournament of Champions on the PGA Tour at Kapalua Resort, Hawaii. The winner was Cameron Smith, who finished the four rounds at -34! But that’s not the most amazing part. After all, Ernie Els won the tournament in 2003 with -31. But the runner-up was -33, third-place was -32. That means that three players beat the old record. And the fourth-place player’s -26 would have won the tournament all but twice in the preceding 22 years the tournament has been at Kapalua. Yes, the course was “defenseless”, because there was no wind. But even without wind, the players of the mid-70s would not have managed -34. THREE players shot rounds of 61 (-12). In short, the course is not designed for these modern professional golfers.

This change is reflected in scoring averages. In the mid-70s, the LEADING scoring average on tour was consistently about 70.5. That meant that, for a standard tournament, the top scores would be about 282, or -6, or better. Now, those top scoring averages are 69 or better. That means, the standard tournament sees top scores of 276 (-12) or better. Even more importantly, in 2021, the 100^th player in scoring average had an average of about 70.5. That player in 1975 would have been at about 72.5. The modern average player on the tour is shooting two strokes a round better than 45 years ago.

Let’s look at driving statistics.**** In the early ’80s (the oldest stats on drive distance measured the same way), the leader was consistently between 275 and 280 yards. Bryson DeChambeau, the last two years, has averaged over 320 yards. That means he’s consistently 45 yards closer off the tee than the best driver of 40 years ago. So, even if he wasn’t hitting his irons any longer, he’s hitting between 3 and 4 irons less into the green. But, of course, DeChambeau isn’t just hitting his drives longer; he’s hitting everything longer. On a hole where the player of 1980 had a five-iron in his hand at 200 yards, DeChambeau is sitting 160 yards out with a WEDGE in his hand. And that sort of difference is consistent throughout the whole Tour.

And this is a crucial difference. Although the difference between Jones and Nicklaus is much the same, both of them were playing within the design parameters of the courses. On a typical course of the ’70s, the designer would have arranged for things like traps or water to impact drives of about 225 to 270 yards in length. A really long drive might get over those impediments, but at the risk of being in the rough. Jones’ crowd would have been affected same as Nicklaus’ crowd. But the modern player doesn’t even bother worrying about those impediments. He simply plays over them. And, even if he’s in the rough, he’s using a much shorter iron, so the penalty for being in it isn’t so great. Courses can, of course, try to compensate by putting in new teeing areas further back from the green, but often they are constrained by available land.

There is no indication this trend will stop anytime soon. Improved materials for equipment will increase distance and accuracy. Sooner or later, older courses will be so over-whelmed, that they will have to be abandoned as sites for professional golf.

Which means it’s time to re-think how professional golf, at least, is played.

Golf is unique among major sports. Unlike football (any version), baseball, basketball, hockey, tennis, etc., golfers play on a non-standardized “field”. And they do it with few restrictions on the equipment they can use. Every other major sport has specific dimensions, and has standardized equipment ***** But golfers play on a different “field” every week. And while there are some limits on equipment, those limits are not stopping manufacturers from making improvements that add length. It’s like allowing baseball players to use bats made of any material they like, causing their hfly balls to travel 40′ further in the air.

So it is clear that any solution to the problem of distance must be focused on equipment. And, while there are ways to try and limit the impact of changes to clubs, the best idea is to reign in the golf ball. After all, that’s exactly what tennis has done. A modern tennis ball is clearly better to play with than the balls used by Jimmy Connors, but they aren’t allowed to become so bouncy, so explosive off a racquet that the modern server becomes unreturnable. Similarly, the golf ball could be limited in how responsive it is off a club face. If the golf ball was standardized so that no golf ball would travel more than 190 – 200 yards off a properly struck 5-iron swung by Iron Byron, old courses would have their defenses back. Further, all pros playing in a tournament should be required to use the same make of golf ball. After all, you don’t go to Wimbledon and see some players using Penn and some using Wilson.

If we make this change, then we can know for sure how much better one generation of player is than another. No more apples to oranges comparisons would be offered. And we won’t have to suffer the misery of watching someone shoot -34 at Pebble Beach.
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* In the mid-70’s, I could hit a drive of 300 yards plus. I was doing that at an elevation of 2000′ above sea level, so probably at sea-level, I could have hit consistently in the 295-yard range. Accuracy, of course, was another issue.

** If you are an American, we called this the British Open. It should still be called that by us. Insisting on calling it “The Open”, as the British authorities have decided to do (much like The Ohio State University), makes it seem like it is somehow the pre-eminent “open” tournament. Which relegates all the others to second-class status. Like the United States Open Championship (the U.S. Open). We shouldn’t have to put up with such nonsense.

*** In 1980, I watched the PGA Championship at Oak Hill CC in Rochester, NY. I sat on the 18^th tee one day and watched the groups come through. At that time, the PGA invited the top 50 finishers in their club pro championship to play. As those club pros came through, they routinely smashed 275 yard drives up the middle like clockwork. Most amateurs were still hitting “good” drives of 250 or so. The massive 300 yard drive Jack hit that day was very impressive!

**** Caveat: long drivers on the PGA Tour do NOT consistently score the best. Bryson DeChambeau is a rarity in this. But note that the longest drivers of the last several years have included Cameron Champ, J. B. Holmes, and Luke List.

***** Tennis allows racquets to vary somewhat, but the balls are very standardized, negating much of the impact of equipment difference. Keep this in mind as we investigate what to do about golf.