I would want any one of their records.
Here’s my guess:… Duvall is doing the best job of using his pivot, that is, keeping it going. Was this taken when he was so good? Nick Price doesn’t look bad. From DTL pics, his hands usually disappear fast . Tiger is doing the worst in this regard…he is slinging.
The knee action is interesting, with no gap in Duvall’s. Does this tell us anything?
I would think so in one form or another. It seems like an endless list of great swings that back in forward and down, as opposed to just going straight down in a sitting motion. I honestly don’t see too many going just straight downward from the top. Everyone can walk too, so it seems to make more sense to encourage that ability to transfer and harness momentum. Who do you see on the Snead style list?
Here’s some food for thought… or maybe what is wrong with the PGA Tour?
If Ben Hogan was correct in stating that the most important shot in golf is the tee shot because the tee shot is what sets up the hole… then Corey Pavin is the best driver in the game. If putting is the most important part of the game… again Corey Pavin is the best in the game. If wedge play is the most important stat… then again Corey is the best. The straightest driver, the best wedge player, and combined with being the best putter… you would think he would be dominating the tour.
When I was in college, my freshman year… Corey won 7 times. He DID dominate. We played mostly classic old style difficult ball strikers golf courses.
Corey’s wedge play is so superior to Dustin Johnson it’s laughable. On average 8 feet closer per wedge shot from 75 to 100 yards. That is an enormous advantage, which shows superior technique and ability. The fact that Corey is only 10% behind Dustin Johnson in GIR is incredible considering he is hitting from 50 yards behind. 5 clubs or could be 7 clubs really, considering Dustin surely hits his irons longer also.
This really shows what the modern game is rewarding… and what it is punishing.
I would not argue what you’re saying at all. But it is the current state of the game, and it also says to play in the current state of the game, distance is king.
I don’t like it at all. We’ve all had our own experiences on our own level of this. I’ve taken guys to tough tracks with short, twisty, narrow holes and I watch them get humbled. Their solution? Just go back to the long hitter’s tracks.
In a way this isn’t new though. I’m reading another Hogan bio in which he confesses he doesn’t like how they’ve made it easy to be a poor ball striker by making rough too easy, and stretching out holes and fairways.
I completely agree with what you’re saying Lag, it’s just not going anywhere because kids love to talk about how far Dustin DROVE it, now how close Corey WEDGED it.
Well, my point really is that these are some really interesting statistics. The difference between being #1 in putting and #56 is fractional to the second decimal… while the difference with a wedge shot is nearly half the distance to the hole. Hardly fractional.
Corey Pavin is such a superior golfer to Dustin Johnson it’s not even an argument if you put them on a proper golf course.
If you look at just about anybody’s list of top 100 golf courses, you won’t find many 7500 modern tour courses on the list.
You’ll find Cypress Point at 6500 yards on every top 100 course list. Shouldn’t the best golfers in the world be competing on the best courses?
Will things ever change from their current state? Of course they will. Technology is quickly coming to an end in golf. The USGA has come to a point now by limiting the drive size, and grooves and the ball that innovation cannot move forward as it has. So where does it go now? Once the dead end sinks in… the clubmakers are going to have a real challenge. Do they promote aesthetic? Feel? Durability? Coolness and image? Different colored heads and shafts?
My hunch is that over time… at lot of these 7500 yard silly golf courses are going to go out of business… and return to nature preserves until the bulldozer comes to carve them up into shopping malls, homes and parking lots. The classic tracks in beautiful locations and or in metropolitan areas will find a way to survive. Golf will not continue to grow… the economy will ultimately pull back the money available to be exploited from the game, and a time of reflection will move into the collective consciousness of the golf, and golf will come to it’s senses.
It might take a while…
But it will happen.
I tend to agree with you Lag…history does have a way of repeating itself. It will be interesting to watch how OEM’s will market a gradual return to smaller heads for the populace over time if they in fact do, given all the money they’ve poured into persuading the virtues of frying pans. I think I’ll start looking for some knitted headcovers in advance of the movement. 
RR
I really do hope you’re right. But do you think they will actually roll things back? Or will they stay the same.
Because I agree, yes, the golf gear has hit most limits in place with respect to balls, driver head size, COR, MOI, etc, etc, etc. And now we see manufacturers have hit this ceiling and are dealing with by offering more adjustment. We have forged irons with ‘tuning ports’, drives with loft and lie adjustability, etc.
Does this mean we will see a roll back of gear? I don’t know. I do know in 2010 on the Canadian Tour they had a speed ‘limit’ ball in play for testing for the USGA. I’m curious to know if anything will come of this.
They are already rolling back gear.
Once that realization hits home… then I think a serious re evaluation of the game will take place, and this leaves a wide open void that will be filled, probably by the rising of a new organization.
I agree that was a very interesting comparison. Thanks.
Golf has been drummed by the OEM’s selling distance. So naturally the recent kids who picked up a club and hit it a mile were the ones that got the interest and spark to think “I could do this”. That is what we are seeing on tour now, those kids grown up who had the distance then worked on ballstriking. I suspect it was the opposite in the earlier eras (kid sees how close he can hit it to holes and how straight he seems plus can putt so he takes an interest THEN learns distance, like Hogan, little tiger, etc).
(who is a better overall iron player, Peak Tiger or Pavin?)
I think Tiger really struggled with distance control for a while… I know it got better. Of course he was also having to adjust to the new plastic golf balls… but Pavin was just incredible with his irons, especially in the balata age. He could shape the ball so artistically into some really difficult pin placements. As long as he was within range with a 4 wood, he was deadly.
It was just so impressive. Guys were hitting it 30 yards by him then, and he would just kill everyone. I probably played with him 5 or 6 times in college, so I got a really up close look at what he was doing. I really believe had golf not gone space age, he would have been one of the greats… because it’s all there.
Bubba Watson shaped his ball flight pretty well with his second shot on the 18th yesterday and today, though…
I started to play in '89 and I never liked the balata feel. The ball gave “semi compression” feedback no matter how I hit it. The balls with harder core has always provided a more discriminating feel with all clubs in the bag, included the putter. IMO.
No doubt it’s a different feel.
I know for most pros the balata feel is softer and the compression feels deeper, as if it stays on the face longer, and this is why I think is part of why the shot shapers could work the ball with more control. I can see how with cavity backs and metal woods the harder balls might seem to give better feedback, but off persimmon the hard balls feel like your hitting a rock.
Someone notified me that the former home of this thread is now over 212K views.
I think when it was shut down over there it was at 80K.
Proof there is life after death. 
More views as a dead thread than a live one?
it is a bit odd really…
Will it survive the end of the Mayan Calendar though…
There are a lot of comments about how young players especially college players would never embrace a rollback or elimination of technology and I disagree big time. I graduated from college in '95, which wasn’t that long ago and 2/3+ of all the guys I played with used either Hogan or Mizuno blades, and everybody played either a Titleist Professional or a Maxfli HT ball. It was like those were the only two golf balls in existence. I tried the Tour Edition and the HP2 a couple times and got looks like I was insane. And there were a few persimmon drivers here & there, quite a few fairway woods played by the guys who knew how to work it both ways. The ONLY people on board the tech train were the coaches that were on the PING payroll. There were coaches that wouldn’t let players play any other clubs but the Zing2’s, not even the wedges could be different. That was psycho, I messed around with the Eye2+ BeCu a little and I like that L wedge, I’ve still got one but the zings were total crap plus that was back when there were no shaft options either. But long story longer the college players I played with and against were for the most part the biggest club snob traditionalists I’ve ever met. Hell one guy from LMU played his entire junior yr with his uncle’s Walter Hagens from Nineteen Aught Six with yhe sweetspot basically on the hosel just to win a $50 bet (yes I paid) and his stroke avg barely dipped. A bunch of them were long ball happy but they never ever went looking for Techno Crap to squeeze out an extra ten yards, they just hit it harder. That’s the way it was forever so who says this bullshit programming can’t be reversed?
Old Moray on the east coast of Scotland is a great links course that partly has been outdriven by modern gear.
The course have a number of fairway bunkers that crosses the fairways diagonally. I guess these were supposed to require a very precise tee shot or a short lay-up. If you were a short hitter you were supposed to aim right and be short of the longest bunker. And if you were a long hitter you could aim right and get it past the shortest bunker and down the fairway. But reasonably long hitter can just blast it over these fairway hazards these days. But the links courses has a lot more to offer than long drives and GIR’s in any weather. So this is still a very interesting course to play. And of course wind is a big factor too. One day you feel like you ought to be able to overpower the course and the next you worry whether you will be able to get close to the green in regulation.
This was the first true links course I played, and when we were there, the fairways and greens had been burned hard by a very dry summer and the ball seemed to roll forever. The members were slightly embarrassed by the condition of the course but we enjoyed it. For some reason the course wasn’t brown - it was more like silver green. The course sits on the finest property in Losiemoth and to see that silver green course in the sun for the first time was a “Golf in the Kingdom” experience.
I hit a knuckle off the 1st tee with wind in my back. The hole was some 330 yards long. The ball seemed to roll forever. But luckily it was caught by a green side bunker. Later in the round on a short par 4 I rember thinking; 275 yards today & downwind: That’s a 5 wood. And a 5 wood it was. I missed the eagle putt though - lol.
I came back a few years later. The fairways was then not lightning fast, we had rainy weather and the course presented itself as a totally different challenge.
Old Moray is well worth a visit regardless what you have in your bag, but it’s best to play it in the weekend, because RAF has an airbase that is very much alive and kickin’ on weekdays.
There’s a nice walkthru here: moraygolf.co.uk/moray-video.php
Lag can relate the story better…but I think in college he was given a set of PING’s to play with and after a couple of rounds told his coach 'He hated them" and proceeded to go play his Hogan or Dunlop?? irons that he knew how to play with and could feel his swing with…much to the chagrin of his coach… he still beat the other guys on his team anyhow to show his decision was correct. I think the coach may have said he was going to bench him if he didn’t use them?..
I played the Home Internationals there one year- great golf course for sure. It’s the old links courses, to me, that are the real victims of technology, because their design, size, bunker placements, etc., are all so specific, they are what they are. The fact that they play firm is an issue too because they’ll never play long from being soft, so they’ll always be overpowered- and if there’s no wind, then it’s just plain bullying, really. Tennis on a ping pong table.
Thanks a lot for the memory, Lefthook, it was cool to watch that video…
Cheers…
The solution is simple.
There must exist a professional version of classic golf. Any up and coming pro would be crazy not to play for $100K or $200K purses if there other options are to Monday Q for mini tour events. It’s a slam dunk. The players will come. When that happens, word spreads faster than a dry grass fire on a windy day, and the game can start to change in a hurry. The media loves the story… I know this for fact. There are always going to be good quality players who don’t hit it 350 yards and would rather play a more sensible skill based game. A line will be draw in the sand, and players will quickly pick their game.
Amateur players are inspired by seeing the pros play great golf, and a game they can relate to more.
Every oak tree was once an acorn… and that acorn was once part of a giant tree. Proper golf is just in an acorn stage now.
It will rise again.
There is still time to come to Vegas this next weekend for the TRGA event. There is magic in the air there, believe it.
THE ROCKET LAUNCH
I thought this was a cool insight to the golf swing. I know Lag has talked quite often about the rocket launch or after burners etc… what is your take on this stuff Lag.?
Sounds well put together
