It may not seem like it but I don't think there is such a thing as "The Good Old Days" in golf. Certain time periods in golf are not better than others, just different. Let's look at the argument about Jack and Tiger as to who the greatest golfer who ever lived was. You have to ask what do you base your opinion on. Jack played with "old style" equipment and Tiger played with the new technology. When we get into this Jack vs. Tiger, we also forget a lot of the greats of the past such as Morris--Senior and Junior--Vardon, Jones, Hagen, Snead, Nelson and a lot of other names. Each era had its own greats. Oh, and by the way each era had its own new developments in equipment technology. Golf marches on.
As I mentioned yesterday, we had some great names in golf when I was growing up and I first got interested in the game. We had Nicklaus, Palmer, Trevino, Watson and all the other great names of that era. Let's look what Tiger did for the game. What an impact one person had to the game. There was never a more dominating player than Tiger as far as his margins of winning. That was exciting, and I for one am totally excited that he is returning although he may never achieve the level of play where he was in his prime and that's OK.
There are a lot of strong players out there right now to carry the torch. I am a big Phil Mickelsen fan. He is like the Eveready Bunnie and just keeps going. We have Jordan, Dustin and all the others in the American professional golf stable such as Ricky Fowler. By the way Ricky, I like the high top golf shoes. If you have bad ankles they are perfect. I just don't want to see them with shorts. Harold Varner III won in Australia last week. It was great to see this young African American break through. The world other than the US has some huge talent as well such as Henrick Stensen, Sergio Garcia and Rory McIlroy. There are many South Africans that win on tour as well but I won't mention their names because I can't spell them. Its exciting out there on tour. Things are changing and these are the good old days.
I for one am glad I don't have to hit that balata ball. It was a wonderful feeling when you hit it right, but how many of us always hit it well. I remember that smile. There is nothing like the sound of hitting a persimmon driver. Unfortunately, you had to hit it on the sweet spot of the club and that sweet spot was the size of a bacterium. You also have to remember that they were HEAVY. You almost need a microscope to see the head of an iron they were so small.
I used to play stiff shafts--that is until I started having back trouble. I remember how tires I was and how much my back hurt after a round of golf. I could barely get out of the car after a round until I switched to graphite shafts. My back began to sing after every round. I can now play eighteen holes and not have to down a bottle of ibuprophen. That my friend,
is an improvement.
Golf club heads are bigger and with that comes a bigger sweetspot. They are cast and not forged in most cases. Irons are more forgiving because of the larger head and who would have thought we would have a 460cc driver head with a sweetspot the size of Alaska made of some kind of metal that was found on an asteroid.? I haven't even mentioned hybrids. I don't use a hybrid myself, I'm still a purist as far as irons go, but I still have a 5 wood.
That is a consistent fact as far as the game of golf is concerned. Things are changing all the time. Each era is different and exciting. We can't say that the last era was better than this era, but what we can say is that they were different. You hit the nail on the head Carly. These are the good old days.
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| How about a square headed driver? Does it go any further or straighter? |
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