Smash and grab

If you wonder whether the distance boom is doing irreparable harm to the game of golf all you have do is talk to Nick Price.

Price, on a site visit to the island in the Vaal river near Parys that he is converting into a golf course, provided a fascinating insight into how high-tech clubs and balls have changed the way golf is played – especially at the highest levels of the game.

There was a time in the early 90s that Price was the best player in the world and he recalls that this status was built on pure ball striking.

Now that has changed. Domination rests not on accuracy but on power or length off the tee.

When Price topped the US PGA Tour’s money list in 1993 he was considered, with Greg Norman, to be one of the best all-round drivers of the ball in the game.

He was 11th on the Driving Distance stats and 32nd on the Driving Accuracy Percentage (the percentage of times a players is able to hit the fairway with his tee-shot) list. This meant Price was not only long but he was also straight.

“The relationship between distance and accuracy was crucial back then,” Price explained, “so that you could play your approach shots, especially at the longer par fours, from a good position off the fairway.

“But with the length some of the guys are hitting the ball these days being on the fairway has become almost irrelevant because they hit it so far they end up with short irons to the green.”

And, spooling forward to 2004, a year in which Vijay Singh won nine times and became the first player in history to top the $10-million dollar mark in earnings, the statistics back up Price’s contention that the top professionals of today are playing a different game.

Singh was 13th on driving distance but a staggering 149th on driving accuracy!

The other leading money winners, Ernie Els, Phil Mickelson and Tiger Woods were respectively 9th, 19th and 30th, on the distance stats but also way out of the frame on accuracy with Mickelson coming in 120th, Woods 182nd and Els 185th. In the All Round category, the aggregate of the two stats, Norman and Price in 1993 were number one and two whereas last year Singh was no better than 50th!

“What does that tell you?” asked Price. “Good golf is no longer about how good you hit it, but how far you it. These guys just stand up there and bomb the ball as far as they can and courses simply can’t contain them.”

On top of this, Price points out, officials have erred in trying to combat length with length. “By making courses longer you just play into their hands. I can guarantee you that with the way Augusta now plays the Masters will never again be won by one of the short hitters unless they have the kind of miracle putting week experienced by Mike Weir.”

Price used a telling analogy to put across his point that the like of Singh, Woods, Mickelson and Els, who get distinctly more out of modern balls, are playing a game that has gone beyond golf as we know it.

“Imagine if you put a bat in Jacques Kallis’ hands that is lighter, stronger and wider than the one he is using now? You wouldn’t be able to bowl him out and the shots he, and others like him, would be playing would make cricket fields and stadiums too small!”

Sadly, Price believes the battle to reign in the game has been lost as governing bodies simply don’t have the wherewithal to face down the financial clout of rapacious manufacturers and he foresees the day top professionals will play courses and to a different set of rules than their amateur counterparts.

Note: In 1993 John Daly topped the Driving Distance stats with an average hit of 288.9 yards. In 2004 top man Hank Kuehne’s average was 314.4 yards with Daly (11 years older and much heavier!) third on 306.0 yards.