SIZE MATTERS? You bet in drivers it does.

[TitleistDave]

The change in driver size in 25 years.

I thought you guys might enjoy these pictures. The E-O-Matic is the driver I was using 25 years ago and of course the 905R is my driver today.
Dave

[Ducky]

Geez, you just don't realise the difference until they are sitting side by side.

[birdie29]

I am so used to the big headed drivers that when i looked down at my g2 i thought it looked quite small!

[dfung]

Your old Mac seems to be in very good condition!

 

Even more illustrative - you should take a picture of your old driver next to your current 3-wood!

[aloy66]

Not too long ago, I was paired up with someone who still uses one of those old driver. Man, he can still nail it 250 yards down the fairway. He told me he was once a scratch player, like 18 years ago.

[dtgolder]

Makes you realize how pretty persimmon really is...

[JHR]

That would be my first argument for why Jack is the best golfer ever, look at that driver vs today's driver.

[rspiller]

It would be really interesting to see Tiger play a round of golf with the equipment from 20+ yrs. ago. They should take the top 30 and have an outing playing with the equipment we used back in the day. It might make for good television to see everyone using the old persimmon drivers and the older titleist golf balls. I'm not sure the irons would make that much of a difference since most of the bigger names still play a forged blade.

[Mike_C]

I used to play an eye-o-matic. Man I loved that driver, and the 4 wood I had with it, better than any utility club. I wish I still had it.

[Carlo]

It would be really interesting to see Tiger play a round of golf with the equipment from 20+ yrs. ago. They should take the top 30 and have an outing playing with the equipment we used back in the day. It might make for good television to see everyone using the old persimmon drivers and the older titleist golf balls. I'm not sure the irons would make that much of a difference since most of the bigger names still play a forged blade.

Tiger can play anything... after 2 years when he started to play (which is more than 20 years ago) he used equipment that was 20 years ago style to win his junior tournaments...

[hayesie]

Those are great pictures . . . the bottom one really stands out for me.

[sergizmo]

It would be really interesting to see Tiger play a round of golf with the equipment from 20+ yrs. ago. They should take the top 30 and have an outing playing with the equipment we used back in the day. It might make for good television to see everyone using the old persimmon drivers and the older titleist golf balls. I'm not sure the irons would make that much of a difference since most of the bigger names still play a forged blade.

Tiger can play anything... after 2 years when he started to play (which is more than 20 years ago) he used equipment that was 20 years ago style to win his junior tournaments...

 

Agreed. Tiger would be able to adapt to older clubs better than anyone else on tour now. He bombed the 970, and that club isn't really much bigger (if any) than the TM Pittsburg Persimmons. He used the 975D shafted with X-100 forever. Although it is still titanium, it was way behind the current offerings of the time with regards to size and COR. He also likes spinny balls, as his personal version of the One is said to spin more than the retail versions.

[sergizmo]

That would be my first argument for why Jack is the best golfer ever, look at that driver vs today's driver.

 

Pretty crazy when you think about it isn't it? Steel shafted wooden woods, driver @ 43", mega unforgiving blades (sharp leading edge, high COG), inconsistant balls (out of round, unbalanced). And yet these guys still managed to drop some mid 60's rounds, and the longer guys like Jack and Sam S. would poke it out there 300+ once in a while. Being 29, I'm to young to have seen all this. Oh well.

 

What's even crazier is thinking about Bobby Jones with his mashies, niblicks, etc.. shooting in the 60's @ Augusta. It was shorter back then, but with the crap they played with (hickory shafts had like 20*+ torque)

it almost seems impossible.

[emc]

I swung my dad's persimmon wood yesterday and it feels so unreal! Forget about your forged steel, you want feedback, play these!

[reebus]

I have to admit, I miss the sound of a well-struck Balata ball with a

Persimmon driver. But I love watching a four-piece ball hang in the air

forever when I hit it with my R7......

[GenErr]

There was an article years ago (40 years?) in Popular Mechanics if I recall, where Arnold Palmer played

a round of golf with steel-shafted clubs and wooden shafted clubs. I think the essence was that he had

to really hold back on his swing with the wooden shafts, but I don't recall there being a real big

difference in distance. Accuracy, however was obviously better with the steel shafts.

 

It would be interesting to see one of today's top golfers play a round of golf with equipment from 40 or

50 years ago, irons, woods, putter, and golf balls. I think, however, that a top golfer could probably

adapt to any equipment.

[Golfchicago]

It would be really interesting to see Tiger play a round of golf with the equipment from 20+ yrs. ago. They should take the top 30 and have an outing playing with the equipment we used back in the day. It might make for good television to see everyone using the old persimmon drivers and the older titleist golf balls. I'm not sure the irons would make that much of a difference since most of the bigger names still play a forged blade.

Tiger can play anything... after 2 years when he started to play (which is more than 20 years ago) he used equipment that was 20 years ago style to win his junior tournaments...

I agree. I played high school golf in the 70s and I shot some low scores with the old equipment. A better player can still shoot low numbers with old clubs. Don't forget when you think about how Tiger would do playing the classics, everyone would have to play the same clubs that he competes against to put it in perspective and he would still be in the same position he is today.

[bpratt]

We played an event this summer at my club with old equipment. We had 8 guys, and the rules were: only wooden-headed woods; balata balls (which we scrounged off ebay; unfortunately couldn't find any Titleists); and no wedges with loft over 56 degrees. Not enough guys had old irons to mandate old-fashioned lofts, and we figured putters didn't make much difference. We played from the back tees, which is only about 6,800 yards.

 

It was a great time (lots of predictable jokes: what's the loft on that driver? I guess 1. What's that shaft? Steel). I was playing my beautiful Eye-O-Matic and an old Cobra Baffler, with the rails on the bottom. Well-struck balls still feel better with the old stuff, but they seem to go nowhere. And mishits are really bad.

 

Anyway, the highest handicap in the group was a 5, and he shot the lowest score, a 76. The new stuff works better!

[woodlandsgolfer]

The other day I was trying out a new driver against my current driver on the first tee. One of my buddies comes off the putting green and throws me a ball and says don't look at it, just hit it. I knew what it was. Titleist Tour Balata 90. Anyways, 40 yards shorter than a ProV1x, but sweet feel and not loud at all almost sounded like persimmon does.

 

That takes you back.

[gatortater88]

Wasn't the G2 460cc's?

[drew123]

the G2 was 460cc, so I don't understand his reasoning

[schmidlack]

I have the same model eye-o-matic that was refinished and looks like new. I don't play it, but like to take it to the range on ocassion. It has almost no loft, looks like 4 degrees and of course hits the ball really low. It is extremely difficult to hit the sweet spot. Kudo's to Jack for all his success with one of those. Freddie was the last one to win the Masters with a persimmon driver, I believe in 1992!

[Carlo]

20 years ago, Formula One cars were all manual and went 300 KM per hour as today cars! But a crash today, thanks to the technology will not (99% of the cases) cause death of the pilot...

Every thing improves with the progress and the technology of robots and computers...

Obviously this makes sense and lets me understand that this progress has helped a lot of normal peoples embrace and love this game which has become easier thanks to much more forgiving and affordable equipment available...

[sergizmo]

20 years ago, Formula One cars were all manual and went 300 KM per hour as today cars! But a crash today, thanks to the technology will not (99% of the cases) cause death of the pilot...

Every thing improves with the progress and the technology of robots and computers...

Obviously this makes sense and lets me understand that this progress has helped a lot of normal peoples embrace and love this game which has become easier thanks to much more forgiving and affordable equipment available...

 

 

Carlo, I thought the F1 cars from 20 years ago were faster than they are today. Wasn't that the era of 1.5L turbos that put out 1,200-1,300 HP?

 

You are right, they are much safer for the drivers these days. The cars absorb almost all energy while disintegrating.

[Carlo]

Carlo, I thought the F1 cars from 20 years ago were faster than they are today. Wasn't that the era of 1.5L turbos that put out 1,200-1,300 HP?

 

You are right, they are much safer for the drivers these days. The cars absorb almost all energy while disintegrating.

More or less 10KM per hour difference, circuits have changed as well (see Monza).

The comparison with safety with the Golf game I made was to highlight the number of peoples today playing golf and the safest clubs we are all playing... I believe the shanks have been drastically reduced by the increase in size, the balance and forgiveness of today clubs. Shanks may hurt peoples seriously and with the clubs of the past, beginners would have serious weapons in the hands in very populated courses...

Anyone with a proper swing technique can hit those small drivers as our brain works in relation to what it is available at any period of time, I believe... :D

[Mike_C]

Yeah, I think Tiger or any of today's top pros could have played with anything. I started thinking that my current 3 wood, the sonartec ss-3 probably is not that much different than my old eye-o-matic driver. Just put in a bit longer shaft and I probably would hit it about the same. I used to hit that old driver off the deck now and then, not much harder to hit than the sonartec actually........