Hogan and Balls

I just saw this on Golfwrx's home page. I'm curious to know what you guys think about this proposal? I assume that most people who frequent the HH forum are a bit more in tuned with the tradition of the game. I don't like this idea one bit. I think Hogan would have puked after reading this. The comment section is quite entertaining. Even John E posted a comment at the end which injects a dose of sanity.

http://www.golfwrx.com/71287/a-case-for-a-different-kind-of-bifurcation/

Make a Tour only ball that is 1.80" diameter, and make the driver length 44" maximum, with 10% less trampoline effect in the driver face. That will restore some of the traditional challenge of the game. I would love to see tour pros hitting 3 irons into long par 4's again, and going for a par 5 with at least a long iron second shot. Now these guys are hitting sand wedges into some of the shorter par 5's and seldom hit anything longer than a five iron.

Played today with wood driver, 2i-w old blades, and old beat up wedges on this lil windswept muni by my house. Enjoyed the heck out of it and drive it on a string all day; in fact much better than I did with brand new stuff last week there. Confirmed some of my suspicions about driver length and lie angle aswell.

Agree completely with John about Rory's win at Congressional

BHSP out did himself this time. Check out all of these wonderful swings full of character from a variety of old timers and a few newbies with some description of their distances.

[media=]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URhivvlomCM[/media]

Thanks BHSP; lots of greatness on display in one place, and plenty of it with persimmon.

I agree with John's comment as well. And I disagree with Clark 100%. This gets particularly messy with good amateurs. What about state tournaments? City championships, etc. Pros play a different consistency game compared to these guys, but they are not significantly longer (pros on avg compaired to long competitive am players). Plenty of guys have 115+ mph ball speed. Myself included. Not to brag. But I do get frustrated already with short courses, because I'm usually playing with other guys who have a bunch of Taylor Made garbage but are good players, so I don't want to play persimmon and balata and give them that advantage, but I wish we were all forced to. And it's also messy with how long courses need to be so they don't play insanely short. This argument is very short sided and hurts golf in long run.

All or nothing. TD brings up the best point, the good amateurs screw everything up. This is why there is a handicap system and forward tees that is bifurcation enough. But roll the ball back for everyone. Fine by me.


As to BHSP's video. I take it with a grain of salt. Scores still have not drastically fallen. While guys are longer and may reach some holes easier, length also creates a host of other problems that the older generation didn't deal with.