The impact of new clubs and balls on golf courses - by Tom Mackenzie

Is modern golf club technology making the game too easy? Perhaps the major issues facing golf course architects who advise established courses is the impact of the recent rapid advances in club and ball performance. Speak to any reasonable standard of golfer and they will admit that matters have got out of hand. It was almost unbelievable to watch players reaching a 640 yard (580 metre) par five in two shots in the recent USPGA with drives and irons. More locally, and perhaps just as disturbingly, an uphill 400 yard (365metre) par 4 was driven in a Scottish Tartan Tour professional event. Admittedly, the hole was slightly wind assisted, but the same player then drove a 340 yard (310 metre) hole half an hour later, this one into the breeze.

"The game has been waging a battle against the inventor. The one aim of the inventor is to minimise the skill required for the game" - John Low, 1908

It is not a flash in the pan, the 400 yard drive is here to stay. It is not that long ago that a 300 yard (270 metres) drive was held in awe. Now, it is virtually a requirement for a top class amateur or professional. There are those who still say that this is circumstantial evidence but that is not backed up by the facts. Ben Hogan helpfully recorded how far he hit his different clubs. In 2000, Donald Steel contacted Jack Nicklaus to ask how far he hit his various clubs and, via the Royal and Ancient, Tiger Woods was asked the same thing. The results are on the table below and they show that Tiger Woods and most of his colleagues for that matter are something like 20% longer than the two of the greatest players of their eras who were also renowned as long hitters. Bear in mind that this was in 2000 and matters are notably worse now.

The increase in distances driven are shown quite clearly on the driving statistics of the European and US Tours. The trend is relentlessly upwards, year on year and it is no defence to say that this is mostly down to the improved physiques of the players. The average drive of the longest driver on the US Tour is now touching 320 yards (290 metres), an increase of 13 yards on last year. The longest driver 10 years ago would not even make the top 60 now. Sam Torrance admits that he is hitting it further than he ever has and he has just started his Senior's Tour career. The same is true of almost every other top player.

The increase in distances driven are shown quite clearly on the driving statistics of the European and US Tours. The trend is relentlessly upwards, year on year...

The effect that this has on the game has few, if any, positives. Perhaps my favourite shot of all time was Tom Watson's 2 iron to the last to win The Open at Royal Birkdale in 1983. When was the last time that a top class professional hit a driver and a 2 iron under normal conditions to a par four? After the regulation 300 yard (270 metre) drive, that leaves only a maximum of 200 yards (180 metres) and that is rarely more than a five iron these days.

In 2000, the American Society of Golf Course Architects took an admirable stand when they published an open letter to the USGA pleading them to do something about the situation. The response of the manufacturers was to publicly mock them. 

Ping Wedges

Cobra CXI Irons

Assorted Clubs

Titleist Pro V1 golf balls

The modern golf ball

Even par fives are reduced to drive and mid-irons. Unfortunately, all that is happening is that the gap is widening between the best and the worst players. Poor players gain far less of an advantage from the latest balls and the trampoline effect drivers and they watch even the better players at their clubs hitting it further and further each year with no improvement in technique. “So why is this so important?” some ask. “It is great fun to hit par fives in two shots and we all need as much help as we can get”. The reality is not so rosy. In the UK and Ireland, there are more then 2000 courses. The attached table (put together in 2000) shows the breakdown of their lengths in different categories. The results are quite startling. Of them less than 3% are longer than 7000 yards (6400 metres) and a staggering 58.7% are less than 6300 yards (5700 metres).

Most of the shortest courses are long established and have eked every last yard out of their limited acreage. They are defenceless against the ravages of the new equipment. The same is true of courses all over the world. Not only are these courses being made more and more obsolete through no fault of their own, but they are finding it increasingly difficult to protect their boundaries. The new clubs positively encourage everyone to swing aggressively and it is a fact that greater benefit is achieved by those with a faster clubhead speed. The good shots go straight and long, but the offline shots simply go further into trouble. Boundaries that have been safe enough for decades suddenly become huge problems.

On a course with little room to expand, there can be few good solutions. That is perhaps the gloomiest part of it, but there is also a major adverse effect on how courses play. Most architects place bunkers with considerable thought, especially fairway bunkers, to add challenge for the best players and not so much to penalise the weaker players for whom the game is hard enough. The advance in club and ball technology, however, makes this careful siting of bunkers obsolete. Bunkers that tested the top players twenty or even ten years ago no longer feature in their minds and it is the weaker players who are being penalised. It makes a mockery of the handicapping system. Every single course is having to alter its bunkering to try to keep up.

In 2000, the American Society of Golf Course Architects took an admirable stand when they published an open letter to the USGA pleading them to do something about the situation. The response of the manufacturers was to publicly mock them. One even went as far as launching a national advertising campaign portraying the architects as spoil-sports. It shows that they take the matter seriously enough to spend hard earned dollars on it. Logic dictates that something has to be done and this is something that most experienced golfers realise.

The difficulty comes because the Royal and Ancient and the United States Golf Association are understandably cautious about the whole issue, following the Ping square grooves court case. Radical action is needed though to halt and reverse the acceleration of how far the ball is travelling. Altering the ball is perhaps the best step. Let's say we throttled back by 10%, this would take the game back to where it was perhaps twenty years ago. Inevitably, the manufacturers will start to invent and new balls will be introduced that start to fly further again.

The change to the ball, however, should give the authorities the opportunity, firstly, to set the precedent that the ball can be effectively limited if technology gets out of hand again in the future and, secondly, to set even tighter restrictions on the specifications. It is an uneven struggle between the game's regulators who, after all, are largely well meaning amateurs and the financial might of the manufacturers. They may portray themselves as the golfers friend but their sole motivation is money. They have little regard for the game's heritage. That is exactly what is at stake.