Bombing It All Day Long

Filed in archive Golf Equipment on March 6, 2007

Camilo Villegas

Steroid golf.

That's what the professional game could become if something doesn't change.

Here's the landscape right now. Equipment has added 20 yards or more to the pros' tee shots; balls go so far it's ridiculous; and courses are becoming longer and longer in a futile attempt at defense.

There is one more element but it's not part of the problem. The young players are true athletes. They work out, they have healthy diets, they don't smoke, and they may not even drink. In short, many of them could be Olympians if they weren't professional golfers.

I'm not implying that the young pros are taking steroids, although it's within the realm of possibility. The right kind of performance enhancing drug could do a lot to promote an explosive, torque-fuelled downswing.

The professional game has never been within the amateur golfer's solar system.

Now, it's moving even further away toward the edges of the Golf Universe. And it's leaving even some of the professionals behind.

I am going to refer you to Golf Punk Online, an irreverent British magazine and website.

I have written before about Golf Punk Online and an excellent story cum interview with Darren Clarke.

Well, the site also holds interviews with a number of notable lights including both Tom Watson and Jack Nicklaus. Also included: Paul McGinley, Miguel Jimenez, Jose Maria Olazabal, the Merry Mex, Lee Trevino and others.

All have one thing in common. They are not in their 20s anymore.

And what they have to say, individually, about the professional game today amounts to a collective demand that somebody had better put the brakes on.

Here is a sampling of quotes:

Paul McGinley: "I'm quite disturbed by the way everything's gone over the last few years."

"Yeah, I've changed - the way I play, the way I think, the way I train - to keep up with it, but I don't like the way golf is going. The powers-that-be have a lot to answer for. They've let the game get too one-dimensional. Look at the top three in the 2005 Order of Merit in America - Tiger, Mickelson and Vijay. Not one of them is in the top 100 for accuracy off the tee.
"I mean, that's really, really wrong, there is something seriously wrong in the game when that happens. The big powerful guy is getting rewarded and the guy like me who is coming on tour at five feet seven inches is at a huge disadvantage and that's not the way the game should be."
Tom Watson: "... most of it is down to technology. I mean some of these guys are carrying the ball 300 yards in the air; that's going to make any golf course a lot easier.
I mean it would be nice to play the golf course with the same shot values as we did 20 years ago, but we can't. Ultimately, though, it's not really in the interests of the manufacturers to change things is it? All they've ever done is sell clubs and balls that go further."
Jack Nicklaus: "The game I played to the highest level was about 20 per cent power and about 80 per cent putting the ball where you needed to put it. Power was a great advantage if you had it. And I had power, so I always had a great advantage. Today, I think the game is about 80 per cent power and 20 per cent position. And I feel that if you look at the top five money winners last year on the US tour, all five were in the top five or ten in driving distance, but not one of them was in the top 110 in driving accuracy. The way I see it, players don't have to care whether they hit it straight or not. I feel that's wrong. I don't like what technology has done to golf because of that."

Steroid golf? You bet.

This is a situation that is creating a gulf in the game. Not between amateurs and pros but between young pros who are big and strong and can hit it 300 yards with ease and pros who are average sized and have distances that correspond.

Who do the equipment advances benefit more?