BOMB: Have you seen the recent Wall Street Journal column by John Paul Newport in which he details his experience playing a round with a wooden driver and balata golf balls? Mr. Newport was clearly in a near state of rapture from the experience, which, having conducted similar experiments in the past, I’m not quite sure I understand.
OK, I get it—there is a certain part of me that loves looking at the old wooden clubs and even playing with them once in a while. But only once in a while. And although you can debate the nostalgic merits of playing with such equipment, there is no debating the performance difference, which Mr. Newport appears to do when he says, “But how much have we really gained? This is a philosophical question with no definitive answer.”
Actually, there is a definitive answer. As we wrote on the very first page of this year’s Hot List section, the average handicap of all golfers has decreased almost two strokes in the last 15 years, from 16.5 in 1994 to 14.6 in 2008. The drop for women was even greater at 2.5 strokes. These figures also coincide with the greatest explosion in technology that golf has witnessed.
Mr. Newport goes on to say, “I’m not sure I’d mind going back to wooden clubs and less modern balls, provided everyone else did the same. (You can keep balata, which cuts too easily.) In terms of challenge, based on my experience, there really isn’t that much difference between the old and the new. Trying to keep a short, spinny ball in play with a wooden driver is not easy, but it’s no more formidable a task than trying to keep a longer ball in play with a metal driver.”
And a record player is as good as an iPod. And a betamax is as good as a DVD player. And I guess Mr. Newport is still banging out his copy on a typewriter. No more formidable a task? Let’s be serious. In fact, I issue this challenge to Mr. Newport. I just looked up your index and I see it’s a 3.6. Well done—certainly beats my current 4.7. Play your next 20 rounds with the wooden driver and less modern balls and let’s see the number at the end of it. I guarantee you that it won’t be 3.6. Using these clubs may warm the heart and soul and that is fine—but to say it is no more formidable a task than trying to keep a longer ball in play with a metal driver? I don’t think so. But feel free to prove me wrong.
GOUGE: Not to defend ill-constructed logic, but our friend Mr. Newport might be onto something, even though he doesn’t know it. The latest modern technology isn’t always better for everyone. Now, that doesn’t mean we need to go back to playing that old vaudeville act of balata and persimmon, but it does mean we need to raise an eyebrow when somebody tries to claim their new product goes farther. Those claims may be justifiable because they can be reproduced on a robot, or they may be possible in theory, but for many golfers those new technologies may do more harm than good.
Ultralong driver shafts (anything at 46 inches or more) are a case in point. A longer, lighter shaft with a big forgiving titanium face may produce more clubhead speed and subsequently more ballspeed, but there's no guarantee that average golfers will make decent, repeatable contact with such clubs. That might be why tour players don't use shafts in the 46-inch range. ANd I doubt you'd find a club fitter who'd recommend that kind of driver shaft length to anyone but the rarest exceptions.
Here's another modern trend that's somewhat infuriating. Iron sets that have jacked up lofts in the short irons and bunched up lofts in the long irons. No wonder average goflers can't get good distance spacing. When you have just two degrees of spacing between long irons, average golfers just won't hit them consistently different distances. Therefore, in all but the most gifted hands they're dang near useless. That's why you need to get with a good fitter, and not just click and grab your next set of clubs.
Despite the quest for greed, modern technology is miles better and decades smarter. That should be obvious. It's made most of us pathetic golfers actually not want to shoot ourselves and/or quit. Has it made golf courses have to add length (and expense?). Some, certainly, but I haven't played a golf course yet that needed to be lengthened for me, and my handicap is better than the national average. Will modern technology ever make the game easy? No. Way. Unless you practice every day, the game's impossible, no matter how much perimeter weighting you have at your disposal. Modern technology just lets us think it isn't every once in a while.
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