Getting Left Behind

Filed in archive Golf Equipment on November 15, 2007

Andrew Coltart's Average Driving Distance: 268 Yards

It has become an ongoing issue in professional golf: length off the tee.

For some golfers, usually the top money earners, distance with the big stick is no problem. But for just as many other golfers, quite likely many more, distance is a problem.

Perhaps not so much distance, per se, but the ability to keep up with long hitters.

It's much like the perennial back marker teams in formula one; they simply don't have the same edge as the powerful front runners.

Unlike those struggling formula one teams, however, leading technology is available to all golfers.

So when Scottish European PGA player, Andrew Coltart complains about being out-driven by 40 yards off the tee, it's not because he can't afford a top drawer driver.

Coltart is not the first golfer to complain, nor will he be the last. But many will simply see Coltart as another whiny third-drawer-down talent who might be better off being a teaching pro at a nice resort in Spain.

The story on today's guardian newspaper website, in which Coltart expresses his frustration, does not indicate whether Coltart undertakes a training regimen like Tiger Woods does. Woods, of course, is the benchmark for strength and fitness in golf. He's also pretty long off the tee.

But whether or not Coltart works out - and we can assume he does - he has a point. More and more big ball hitters could also start as defensive tackles for NFL teams.

In short, they're big-boned, tall, muscular and brutishly strong. No wonder they can clobber the ball 40 or 50 yards past players like Coltart using exactly the same equipment as the shorter hitter.

So what, you might ask, it's all about survival of the fittest, isn't it? It's Darwin's theory of evolution on the fairways, no?

I would counter with this question: isn't the game about shot making skill? Once upon a time it was.

The professional game has taken a fork in the road and has been moving in another direction. Why else does the USGA grow the rough brutally long and narrow the fairways, sometimes drastically, at the US Open? To punish the long hitters.

Here's another reason that Coltart is right to worry: an errant 300 yard tee shot on today's PGA courses and many European courses, too, often leaves an easy wedge to the green out of light to medium rough. It's a no-brainer.
Coltart lost his tour card in 2004 but managed to play under exemptions. They've run out and now he's back in Euro Q-School trying to win back his card. He's up against more than 150 other players who are quite likely a lot longer than Coltart.

Maybe he needs to create a Paul Runyan-like short game. Then, again, maybe he already has one. But in the end, a superb short game still doesn't level the playing field for guys like Coltart.