Comparing Golfers of Different Eras
It's good to hear again from Dave Riffey of Shell Lake, WI. He's taken a break from shoveling snow and wants to talk about the endless comparisons of today's players (especially Tiger) with those of years gone by:
Every week it is the same old thing. someone comparing Tiger and the current players to the old guys and gals. Why hasn't anyone set up a tour for the current players that required them to use the old wooden headed clubs. Call it the 60's & 70's tour. Each pro would be required to use clubs, balls, and putters only available from that era. Put the greens at the same speed, the distance the same as back then.This would really be an interesting test to see how good the NEW players on the PGA and women of the LPGA tours would react and play.
Send them to Pebble, Augusta, the Old Course, Doral, Wing Foot etc. If the old players had the technology of today, back then, they would be better than the players of today.
Dave, we were just talking about that today after someone mentioned Mark Frost's book, The Match, the new book about the great match among Hogan, Nelson, Venturi and Ward, that Bo Links wrote about in Golf World recently. How would those guys fare with all of this new equipment?
My thought: Tiger could play with bamboo and win and so could Hogan, Nelson, Nicklaus and a few others. Just how far down the list you'd go is why it's a great question.
By the way, I'm not wishing for the old days. We have one of those throwback events at the club from time to time. Man, golf gets hard when you're playing persimmon and balata!
--Bob Carney
On the topic of old verses new equipment, i would like to weigh in on acouple of angles.
The topic is very good to me, because, when I was 5 to 10 yrs old, I was trained by a neighborhoods friends-dad who was an exccentric trainer-to the point that he mention once, that my friend (his son) and i were trained in the finest skills of golf. Mind you, this was just childs play to me.
I remember rhymse of golf that he used, "one two picking up sticks" (apple stickes).
So, this lead me to my question, why is it that 7,8, and 9 irons as well as pitching-wedges are not required to be made out of wood?
"Modern tech on all the rest"!
As for my training-this was supposed to be developed, along time ago, back when started to caddy at the country club.
This did not happen with me, but, I did start to practice 35 years latter.
The first nine months, the memories where forgot about all the elementary training.
After the ninth month, these memories began to return. So I suppose I'm a bit of a whip-van-winkle.
Its kind of nice to have had this experience, untill I turn on the golf channel.