I was reading an article in Golf Digest that talked about how the science of agronomy as it relates to turf has influenced the design of new golf courses. This got me to thinking. When I started playing golf, golf construction and architecture was a fairly straight up thing. Ground was sometime graded and contoured, greens were pushed up from the given landscape and given contours with no layering for drainage, bunkers were formed in the fairways and around the greens trees were planted or removed to line the fairway and bermuda grass seed layed down and bent grass planted on the greens. That was it-well, it may have been a bit more complicated than that.
Building a golf course has changed since then and the science of agronomy is a critical part of the design of new courses. No longer do you have green construction which is the ground being pushed up and contoured to make a green. Today's greens are layered in order for the green to drain in rainy seasons, or when they are siphoned during the hot seasons to keep the grass cool and water does not puddle on the green. Hybrid grasses such as zoysia and hybrid bermuda are now used, not just the plain old bermuda that was planted on older courses. Trees are actually being removed from older courses in order for the sun to hit to the grass easier and to make watering more efficient. How architects build golf courses and the science that goes into building is one of the big changes that have come to golf over the years. Much of golf has changed over the years.
I am of the opinion-I may be wrong but hey, I'm over 70-that today's young golfers are not taught the game of golf. This is a pet peeve of mine. Their vision of the game is to take out a driver, hit it as far as you can and then take a wedge to the green and one putt for a birdie. When I was learning the game, my pro was very adamant about me learning the game. He taught me the importance of playing strategical golf such as where to hit the ball into position when going for the green wasn't exactly a high percentage shot. More importantly, he taught me how to estimate distance and know what a certain club would do and how to hit shots that would get me out of trouble and what to do if I did get me into a situation where I had to take my medicine-more about this later. To this day, I can estimate a distance to the pin to within three feet. It's a lot of fun seeing my playing partner with a GPS device's mouth drop when he asks me a distance and my estimate is to within three feet of his GPS's reading.
Above all else, the short game is what the game is all about. "Drive for show, putt for dough" is more than just a silly saying. Inside 100 yards is my office. I carry four different wedges and am deadly with the 100 yard bump and run. I play a variety of shots from within 100 yards depending on the conditions. you just don't see many younger golfers being taught the skill of the short game. To this day, I can't look a garbage can in the face. You can read more about this when my book is published soon, but I used to have to put 30 golf balls into a garbage can from 40-100 yards in my lessons with my pro.
I don't want to get into this too deeply because it is a discussion that can go on for hours. What about the difference between today's clubs and thos clubs that we played forty years ago. I remember playing my persimmon woods, that by the way were really made out of wood and the extra still stainless steel shafts that they were tied on to. I took my driver that I used to play down off the wall and swung it the other day. It was like swinging a telephone pole, but there was nothing like hearing the sound of the ball coming off that persimmon head when a ball was struck well. I still can't believe how small the heads are. They hit a heck of a lot different than the graphite shafted, big headed PXG driver I play now.
I used to play extra stiff steel shafted irons with very small blade heads. I loved the performance that I go out of those clubs. As I got older, I didn't play as much so I went to a midsize clubhead with steel stiff shafts and then transitioned into graphite because my back was deteriorating. The game to me just wasn't the same, but I couldn't swing as good as I used to because of my hurting back. Also, the lofts on the irons changed to what was before a 9 iron was now a 81/2 as far as flight and distance.
Have I mentioned the ball yet? I guess I haven't. How many of you have hit a Titleist Balata 90 compression ball. It was a ball that had a real odd sense of humor in that it was you friend if you hit it well, but after a few holes when you hit a bad shot, it smiled and laughed back at you. Those of you that have hit one know what I mean. The cover was natural rubber and was wound with rubber bands. The ball had an inner core that was a little rubber ball that was either solid or filled with a liquid substance. It cut very easily. Today's ball is solid with a urethane cover that does not cut easily.
I guess that the winds of change are to be expected after more than 55 years of playing the game. Technology is a big part of the game now, which I'm not sure that is a good thing but I do know that it changes the way the game is played and taught. It will be interesting to see the changes that will come about over the next 55 years.
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