Excuse us, Bomb's a Giants' fan
BOMB: I know, I know--where have we been? Sorry, but after celebrating each of the New York Giants' playoff wins I was hardly in shape to blog. But now that the season is over and a photo of Eli Manning is appropriately adorning the door to my son's bedroom, we're back in business.
So, what's happened in the equipment world since the last time we put fingers to keyboard? A few interesting tidbits, actually. First thing to catch my attention was ShotLink's addition of Trackman radar stats to its bevy of information. Although still in its infancy, looking at numbers such as hang time (forgive the shameless plug, but it is the subject of my Golf World equipment column this week), smash factor, ball speed, clubhead speed, flight apex and more is nothing short of fascinating for a golf junkie.
Next up for me has been watching how well Titleist's new AP line of irons has been accepted on tour. When we spoke with the company back in November about these clubs they said they expected a number of their tour staff to gravitate toward the forged, cavity-back AP2 and even some to take a turn with the larger-headed, cast AP1. Well, a few weeks into the season Billy Mayfair is using the AP1s and players such as Ben Crane, Ben Curtis and Tom Pernice Jr. are in the AP2, along with Adam Scott?a long-time muscleback blade guy. For a company that has long been known simply for producing better players clubs, Titleist may have finally turned a corner in its equipment line by producing an iron for players that do?and more importantly, do not?have their tour cards.
And the last thing to intrigue me was something that didn't get a lot of play but in the long run may be significant. Last week before the start of play in Dubai, Tiger Woods cracked the face of his driver. Now, Mr. Wonderful went on to win the event with a backup, but lets not automatically assume everything will be fine and dandy going forward. Fact is, finding backups that are exact replicas of the original is virtually impossible. You can get close, but every head, every shaft, every grip has slight variances that make an exact match difficult. Don?t believe me? Ask Jim Furyk, who was going along just fine with a Srixon driver until he cracked it early last season. Unable to get comfortable with any of the backups produced?despite it being built to the exact same specs of his gamer?Furyk has been using a different make and model ever since. Given that, it will be interesting to see how Woods drives the ball going forward.
Now please, don't make me (and our readers) want to return to a drunken stupor by droning on about moment of inertia or specific gravity or, good grief, cis content.
GOUGE: I could get all self-promotional, but I see you've cornered the market there, so I'll move on. Let's start with what's fresh: J.B. Holmes' repeat mauling of the 18th hole at the TPC Scottsdale?s Stadium Course has caused all sorts of consternation among the intelligentsia (or is it cognoscenti?) that the ball is going too far again. You know what? Maybe it really is. If you?re worried about freaks dominating the game that is. Because that's what J.B. Holmes is: A freak. By my study of the numbers, J.B. hit one 385 last week. He had eight drives longer than 320 yards during the final round. He only averaged 302.5 off the tee, which dropped him out of the top 10 in driving distance average for the week. He is averaging 125 miles per hour clubhead speed, about 14 mph more than the tour average. His ball speed in 184.14 mph, which is 3 mph faster than second-place Bubba Watson. His slowest measured ball speed (182.4) would still lead the tour. J.B. Holmes could still spawn a horde of bomb-and-gouge copy cats--as long as the tour continues to set up golf courses that don't demand accuracy. What did J.B. Holmes have at the TPC that caused him fear and uncertainty? Nothing on the 18th hole, that?s for sure. But the real tragedy of Holmes' win continues to be that grotesque bastardization of the rules he uses on the greens. Say it with me now: The Belly Putter and all who use it should be banned from the game.
Another thing: J.B. might be resorting to the cheater putter because his forearm muscles have been damaged by the brute force of his swing. Check out this report from Bob Prichard at flexibility specialists Somax Sports. This is the sort of biomechanical freakazoid that no governing body could ever anticipate. It also illustrates the difficulty in legislating based on the absolute extremes. You never know the limits of human potential. Until it crashes. Usually on the putting green. It does make one wonder, though. Frank Thomas once suggested that when the USGA changed its ball test parameters and upped the robot swing speed to 120 mph, it might have to keep changing those parameters to match up with tour players' increasing potential to generate clubhead speed. I'm not suggesting a super-race of 130 mph swingers are on the verge of arriving on the PGA Tour. But the potential is there I suppose. But it all comes back to the same defense: The golf course can be made harder--not necessarily miles longer--but harder. That approach is working fine in the tournaments that matter, though.
One final thought: We've been getting a lot of complaints regarding the price of golf equipment, sparked by this year?s Hot List. While I'll be the first to admit that the golf industry is not hesitant about pushing the financial envelope, there are opportunities to trade in your last purchase for your next purchase. But don't expect miracles. Those Wilson 1200 GEs from 1990 aren?t going to trade in at $200. If you haven't bought a new set in 10 years, you're due and you're due to pay a fair, full price. But if it's only been two or three years, and you're itching to upgrade, it's not unusual to get $100-$200 back in trade. You can get $190 for some Callaway X-18 irons, which landed on the market three years ago. For crying out loud, you get $140 in trade on a set of Ping G2s, which were introduced five years ago. If you've got a top-five brand name set of irons that's 5 years old, you're more than likely to get at least $100 for it. The point is, if you want it, you have options. But don't get greedy. If you've got crap in your bag, don't expect diamonds in return. Wake up.
Now anybody using a belly putter should be banned from the game? If you were at least consistent in your opposition to technological development, fine - but you continue to endorse rangefinders. If the fathers of golf would be so horrified by the belly putter, you think they'd be cool with using a machine to figure out your distances?
Get over yourselves and your self-righteous, and baseless, objections.
I do not understand how the USGA has not told manufacturers that clubs attaching to the player other than via the hands are not going to be legal for play. They seem to have no problem with specific definitions and parameters for balls and clubs that manufacturers adhere to. I am surprised that the belly putter has survived this long as legal.
I think you should take a closer look into the trade-in practices of golf retailers.
In my opinion, the trade in values on the PGA.com value guide are misleading.
Take, for example, the Ping G2 iron set you mentioned. With steel shafts, that guide puts the value at $141.36, as you said in the article. The website justifies this with "data" from eBay that says out of 13549 eBay transactions, the average price range for this set is between $124.46 and $159.92.
But a cursory check of completed auctions over the last month on eBay shows several (over 10) auctions for G2 iron sets going for over $300. Two sets sold for $400. It seems to me that the eBay info on the PGA.com guide is erroneous and misleading (my theory is that the system includes auctions for individual clubs, which COMPLETELY skews the data).
Now, I think this is a major problem because it seems that many, if not all, major golf retailers are taking their trade-ins to eBay to sell them quickly and efficiently. That means they are fully aware of the actual value of these clubs at auction.
I know that retailers should be allowed to give a lower credit for trade-ins because of the time, effort and money it takes to sell on eBay, but this practice is still fraud.
Interesting link on the analysis of Holmes' swing. But just answer me one question: How do you decide where to draw those lines? How standard can they be? Even being off by an eighth of an inch will mean many degrees in the radial measurement.
These analyses are intriguing and this one in particular seems to make intuitive sense, but they seem pretty fuzzy to me in terms of accuracy.
I find the comment posted by Mr.Wilkinson baseless and ignorant. To call the author of this blog self righteous etc because he is against the belly putter and a hyprocrite because he favors rangefinders is rooted in stupidity. The belly putter is using an additional means (the belly) to aid in the swing which is no different than the thousands of swing training aids on the market and should of never been allowed in play. The rangefinder aids in the speed of the game and aids the swing 0%, it is information that is available by all golf courses and professional caddies. If you are going to post a response please try to keep the intelligence rational at least above a fifth grader.
Gee, $140 trade in for a set of clubs that cost $900. Be still my heart. The crap in my bag wasn't crap when it was sold to me. In fact, the sales jockey said they were worth their weight in gold. You would say that I am due to pay a fair, full price, but in a day where new products are available for closeout prices less than a year after their introduction only a sucker would pay full price. Since you are obvious shills for your advertisers, I would lump this blog in the same category as the daily horoscope. Mildly entertaining at times, but of no real substance.
I suppose we're all welcome to our opinions, IUPGary, but I stand by mine - the game requires a certain amount of thought. Rangefinders remove that element from the game by reducing your thought to computer generated measurement.
And belly putters speed up the game, same as rangefinders do, because presumably they're used by people who make them work, meaning they take fewer putts because they're making more.
The notion that we'll allow some technology, but not others, is absurd. And baseless.
As for insulting my intelligence, grow up.
"Are we talking about golf" or are we talking about long-shot tournaments?
The course design/designors are skilled in measuring the course layout, I think... and rangefinders sounds like someone forgot to train the pros' how to judge distance.
Harder coarses and better judgement is what I'm about.
Regarding Titleists AP1 and AP2 irons, you can add old-school Davis Love III to the list of converts. I am even more amazed than are Bomb and Gouge at the conversion rate among the tour players. I wonder what is going on with those irons.
As for belly putters, I agree; ban them. It is just a matter of appropriate wording, as far as I am concerned.
As for JB Holmes and technology; how is it the he can so frequently and routinely hit balls in tournament play that go beyond the yardage that is the USGA's testing standard for "Overall Distance"? Could it be that the testing standards are hopelessly outdated and need to be rolled back? Instead of changing golf courses to suit the balls? Naaah, that would be way too easy...
Not to state the obvious, but there is clearly a trend among tour players to go with ever-increasing levels of technology in clubs. At one time, they never would have considered anything but a high-spinning ball for "control." The ProV1 and similar balls are now all they use, and while they spin adequately for these guys on short shots, they spin far less than balata did. This is why you don't see guys sucking balls across greens the way they once did.
There was a day when most pros would never use any sort of cavity back iron. Now, almost all have at least some sort of cavity back. Not Tiger, I know, and there are other high profile players who insist on blades, but you can't deny the trend.
People have told me the pros will never use ultra game-improvement equipment, because it spins the ball too much and hits it too high. I understand this, but I'm not sure this is true. I would think hybrids spin the ball much more than 1,2, & 3 irons, and most players carry hybrids instead of 1 and 2 irons today. If spin were a big issue, they wouldn't carry them.
I don't see why, eventually, players will opt for more and more "game improvement" features in irons, too.
You get $141 for an old set of G2's? F@#king WOW. Too bad a new set can range up to $1500. Now throw in the $500 driver, $250 fairway woods, $200 hybrid, $120 wedges, and $150 putter. What a great deal!!! No wonder so many people play knock-offs.