Fifty years ago the Western Open was hosted by Beverly Country Club in Chicago. Golf’s third-oldest championship, behind the British Open and the U.S. Open, always featured great fields. One of the contestants that year was Pete Brown, a former caddie who was the first African American golfer to win an event on the PGA Tour. Brown was a bomber and what he did during the pro-am Wednesday was an eye-opener to those of us in the caddie yard. On the dogleg right 570-yard, par-5 18th hole, Pete Brown hit a tee shot that went above the tree-lined right side of the hole and ended up some 240 yards away from the green. He then bounced a 3-wood onto the front part of the green. No one could ever recall anyone ever cutting the dogleg 18th hole and no one could ever recall anyone ever hitting the 18th green with their second shot.
Because Brown did this in 1970, he was using a balata golf ball as well as a persimmon wooden driver. It was merely the shape of things to come. Taylor Made Golf started selling metal woods in the early 1980s that were called “Pittsburgh Persimmon.” Sometime around 2000 golf ball manufacturers moved away from the liquid-filled golf ball to a solid ball. Titleist came up with the ProV1 a few years later that imparted overspin on a ball that was hit with a driver on the upswing while imparting backspin on iron shots that were hit down and through.
Around 2005 golf club manufacturers began inventing clubs with thinner club faces, exotic metal shafts, varying grooves and adjustable weights and lofts. Suddenly, an old-timer could react to a well-struck tee shot and sound terribly obsolete by stating that the driver of the golf ball had “really hit that one on the screws.” There were no longer any screws on the clubface nor were the clubs made of persimmon or laminate wood. It was a new era and its poster boys were Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson. Long John Daly was no longer the longest.
We see the same type of heroics locally. Some 15 years ago this columnist wrote that the Shot of the Year belonged to Jim Crane of Kelseyville. Crane’s feat was that he recorded a hole-in-one on the par-4, 340-yard ninth hole at Adams Springs Golf Course on Cobb Mountain. Crane is a bogey golfer. Two weeks ago a former Lake County Amateur champion hit his tee shot on Adams’ first hole that finished 20 yards short of the green. The first hole at Adams measures out to 390 yards and is uphill. There was no wind and the fairways were playing soft.
It’s 2020 and we live in a golfing world where the golf ball goes farther, equipment performs at a higher level, golf courses have been stretched out, and the best golfers in the world still win tournaments on ultra-difficult courses with 72-hole scores in the neighborhood of 20-under-par. While Justin Thomas, Dustin Johnson, Xander Schauffele and the rest are seemingly making a mockery out of golf courses, the same is not true for the average golfer. We don’t hit the ball any farther according to the stats, we don’t see improvement in our scores, and we seem to get less enjoyment out of the game as courses appear to be set up harder and harder.
The recent report authorized by the United States Golf Association and the Royal and Ancient points to the greater distance increases during the past 100 years. These entities are concerned about longer courses, greater golf course maintenance, the obsolete nature of some of our most cherished courses of historical note, and the greater carbon footprint that golf impacts upon our planet through increased water use, chemicals and fertilizers.
At the same time you have the golf industry looking suspiciously upon the USGA and the R&A report and its implications for the future. Wally Uihlein, the head of Acushnet Golf, the corporate umbrella of Titleist and Foot Joy, has publicly disputed the findings of the report and the methodology used in coming to its conclusions. Golf has already lost the legal battle of the 1990s when the USGA tried to rein in the square-grooves issue with Karstein Solheim and Ping Golf. The USGA backed down when they couldn’t sustain the legal finances needed to battle Ping in the courts. While the report doesn’t come up with any bold fiats, it does provide for a 12-month review period for golf companies as well as the world of professional golf to react.
When all is said and done, the report relates to a very small percentage of golfers. At one time, the 35-year-old John Berry played competitive amateur golf that wasn’t all that far removed from Golden State Tour professionals such as Scott McCarron, Kevin Sutherland and Esteban Toledo, a trio of pros who would later find success on the PGA Tour and the Champions Tour. Nowadays, the 67-year-old Berry is incapable of taking advantage of better golf equipment the way Bryson DeChambeau is able to.
Golf’s dirty word is bifurcation and yet it is inevitable. The keepers of the game like to point out that the top professionals play the exact same equipment that the bogey golfer at your local course plays. Yet other sports have to deal with bifurcation, a differing set of rules based on the level of play. Baseball players through the college level use metal bats. Professional ball players use wooden bats. High school basketball players have a different 3-point line than college hoops, which is different from the NBA. The same may ultimately be true for golf.
The ball is the easiest thing to deal with. I am not alone with this concept. Jack Nicklaus has been talking about it for 30 years. Perhaps the PGA Tour will never bend to a reduced-flight golf ball, but the four major championships are run by separate entities, namely the Augusta National Golf Club, the PGA of America, the USGA, and the R&A. I can foresee a “Masters golf ball” that would be used by the contestants at the Masters. After all, the folks who run the Masters are not able to lengthen their course to greater distances without encroaching upon the neighboring Augusta Country Club. The USGA and its U.S. Open will continue to want to return to classic courses such as Pebble Beach, Winged Foot, Oakmont and Oakland Hills. They could go, year after year, to newbies such as Erin Hills and Chambers Bay, but they don’t want to walk away from the iconic courses of the past. Nor do they want a repeat of Shinnecock Hills with pin placements that result in world class golfers putting balls off the greens or Phil Mickelson hockey-pucking the moving ball all over the place.
The next few years will be interesting to observe as the game attempts to deal with this issue. All I know is that I don’t want the keepers of the game to take away my metal driver and ProV1s.
