The Shape of Shotmaking

By Nick Seitz
Photo By GD Resource Center December 28, 2007

Shotmaking is not quite a lost art as classically inclined students of the PGA Tour know and admire it. But it may not survive for another generation at the current rate of change. It's going the way of acoustic music, manual transmissions and the typewriter. Welcome to the new shotmaking: Hit it hard, hit it high, hit it far. At face value, the term shotmaking is as blandly generic as descriptors such as "filmmaking" or "dressmaking" or "newsmaking." But, to the cognoscenti, it traditionally has meant the ability to control the ball by maneuvering it left to right or right to left, high or low, making it stop or roll, from different lies in different weather conditions. The players have always recognized superior shotmakers, even if it is harder to appreciate from outside the ropes.

You hear a story about Roberto De Vicenzo seemingly stymied behind trees in the rough. He called his shot, gesturing that he somehow would make the ball bend left around the trees and then work back to the right with the hole cut on the right -- a hook-slice. He hit a brazen hook that nearly reached the green, then banked sideways off a mound to finish near the hole. Now that's shotmaking.

Today shotmaking shows more around the green than off the tee and into the green, where it consists mainly of controlling trajectory -- always a key aspect of the form but not to the exclusion of manipulating the ball to get it closer to Point B from Point A.

Such is his upbringing and talent level, Tiger Woods can pitch a tent in both the traditional and new-age camps, but he laments the decline in more resourceful play. "Most of today's young players never had to work the ball growing up because they were more concerned about distance," he says. "Shotmaking has changed because of the balls. They're harder to work. They go straighter."

If balata balls and persimmon heads were still in play, Woods might well win even more. "Any time a player understands how to shape a golf ball and can consistently hit the ball flush, you're going to want the ball to move more and the equipment to be less forgiving," Woods says. "It puts a premium on quality."

Tiger's custom golf balls, a version of the Nike One Platinum not available in the marketplace, spin more and are easier to maneuver. "They're the spinniest on tour," he says, showing he can coin words as well as craft shots. He doesn't mind giving up a little yardage off the tee to gain accuracy into the greens. Of course, he still averages 300 yards per drive (302.4 yards, 12th on tour in 2007, to be exact).

Woods, his coach, Hank Haney, and other insiders contend that the new shotmaking consists mainly of varying the height of a shot. It's a matter of how hard to hit it -- whether to try full shots or three-quarter shots or half shots. Faster greens and tighter hole locations force the issue. If the average tour pro today applies a touch of cut or draw to a shot, it's not much. He's probably committed to a go-to pattern of all fades or all draws.

It struck your weathered correspondent that the rainbow arc of his journalistic career extends from the pot of gold that was Tiger's most recent major victory, the PGA Championship at Southern Hills, back to Tommy Bolt's 1958 U.S. Open win at that same time-honored Tulsa venue. Without stretching the point or the memory too thinly, so does the evolution of shotmaking -- or its demise if you prefer.

Take the famous 12th hole at Southern Hills, a hefty par 4 that was a favorite of Ben Hogan and Arnold Palmer. It turns and slopes appealingly from right to left, with water in play to the left on the blind drive and then into the green and right of it. It was listed at 465 yards in '58, about the same in '07.

Tiger relied mainly on his "stinger" tee shot with a 2-iron, a scorching line drive that can travel as far as 290 yards depending on his intent and the firmness of the fairways. He positioned it deep into the bend of the dogleg, leaving himself short-iron approaches. He was one under par on the hole for the week as the field averaged over par.

Bolt hit driver every day on the 12th, usually power-fading it into the hillside on the right. One day he pulled his drive and had only a sand wedge home.

Bolt, closing in on his 90th birthday, says from his home in Arkansas, "Ol' Tom killed 'em all on that 12th hole." Ol' Tom played it three under par as other contenders stumbled over it in '58. He watched on television as Tiger took on the 12th. "It slopes toward that little creek, and he wasn't gonna hook it," Bolt says. "He's one of the very few shotmakers today, but he hits it so far he doesn't need to be. No way to compare the games today and then."

When Woods shot 63 Friday at Southern Hills, missing the lowest score in major championship history by a fraction of an inch when a short putt on the last hole lipped out, he made eight birdies hitting his driver only once. "Tiger's an incredible shotmaker," says three-time major winner Nick Price. "He understands the artistry of the game. That's why he's separated himself. You can't hide pins from a true shotmaker."

But Woods is pragmatic enough to take advantage of the new equipment and course setups most weeks on tour courses. When Vijay Singh won nine tournaments in 2004 and popularized what has become known as a "bomb and gouge" style, he routinely ripped drivers on par 4s with little regard for the rough, ranking 150th in fairways hit but second in greens in regulation and first in scoring average and money.