Remember when John Daly was considered such a slugger? The longest women now drive that far.
Average driving distance:
2024 LPGA:
Tour average 259
Leader: Natthakritta Vongtaveelap 292
1991 PGA:
Tour average 261
Leader: John Daly 289
For years there was relatively little change in driving distance. In 1967, per IBM, the tour average was 260 and Jack Nicklaus was the longest hitter at 276. There was essentially no change between then and 1991 except for the presence of Long John Daly, but things started to explode in the Tiger era. The PGA tour average is now 300 yards, and Rory averaged 326 last year. The average on the senior tour is 280, and the longest hitters are just a hair above 300.
The reasons – better technology and bigger, stronger golfers. Many of them, like Bryson Dechambeau, spend as much time on strength and flexibility training as they do on the range.
The consequences – the older courses are getting overpowered by the tour pros. The courses keep expanding, but not every great course can buy additional land. How long does a hole have to be in order to be a true par five these days? The average PGA player can hit driver-three wood 565 yards. The big sluggers can reach 600 without reaching back for anything extra. To require a full third shot (let’s say at least a full wedge, as opposed to a chip) from every player, a hole would need to be something like 750 yards. The longest hole on the PGA tour is the 18th at Kapalua at 677 yards, and that hole is downhill, so the tour players can reach it with a long iron. (Xander Schauffele got a three on that hole in the final round of the 2024 Sentry. Dustin Johnson nearly aced a 400-yard par four on the same course.) In other words, the tour pros consider a five on any hole to be a disappointment.
The solution – unknown at the time. The PGA is considering a rule about ball design (a “roll-back” ball), but that’s all talk so far.
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Sort of related:
Ben Hogan vs Sam Snead on Shell’s Wonderful World of Golf. They were both about 53 at the time (Snead was a few months older). Although Hogan was an old fogey, weighed 145 soakin’ wet, and couldn’t putt worth beans at the time, he pretty much hit every shot perfectly from tee to green. His game was mechanical perfection. Gene Sarazen told him after the match that it was the best round of golf he had ever watched – and ol’ Mr. Sarazen had seen some sights in his day.
Not much they can do about bigger, stronger golfers, aside from testing for steroids, but if by better technology you mean better clubs, then just rule out those better clubs
Heck, they can require worse clubs anyway. Though I suspect many players and spectators would balk at this
Wouldn’t it be nice if once, just once, modern pros would have to compete with the kind of equipment they used back in the ancient times (i.e., the Sixties). Ditto tennis.
I have posted comments on Bryson’s YouTube page to make a similar point. Harry Vardon posted a 300 for four rounds at Prestwick in the 1903 (British) Open, playing 36 per day for two days. Bryson loves to take on different challenges. I would love to see if he can top that score playing the same course with 1903 equipment and hitting 1903 balls. (The cut in that tournament was 169 —- shoot 84 and 85 on the first day to make the cut! The worst finisher to play all four rounds shot 345 – 45 strokes behind Vardon!)
When people debate the single greatest golfer of all time, they mention Nicklaus, Woods, Bobby Jones and Hogan, and rightfully so, but they often omit Vardon – a mistake, in my book.
Another one I think Bryson would struggle to match is Ben Hogan’s incredible 27-under finish in the Portland Open in 1945 (65-69-63-64), if playing the same course and using the same balls and clubs available to Hogan. (Hogan won by 14 strokes)
And then there was Nicklaus’s 271 in the 1965 Masters – could modern players match that with 1965 technology?
If they have the cojones to try, all of those courses still exist, and it would be pretty easy to match the course layout at the time, as well as the technology of the era. I’d pay to watch modern pros try to match those three records, and maybe a few more!
Bobby Jones ~ “Nicklaus plays a game of which I am not familiar.”
Things change …
The people who would object are not the spectators, but the thirty million other golfers – the ONLY ones that actually pay for that technology, since tour pros get everything free.
You’re talking about rules that will prevent 500 golfers from playing better, at the expense of the 30 million of us who enjoy playing better, and who actually pay the bills for both the technology manufacturers and those 500 elite players.
My suggestion is just to make the courses penalize errant shots more for the tour events. Grow out the rough, and expand it. Let the best guys get an eagle if they can split a 30-yard fairway with a drive, then reach 600 yards with a second perfect shot. But don’t let them get an eagle by hitting two of their average shots.
It’s also possible to create hazards that affect only the elite players. For me, an enormous pond on a 620-yard hole is irrelevant if it stretches from the 560 yard point to the 620 yard point. I can’t reach it in two, and I can easily wedge over it in three. For the tour pros, such a hazard would prevent them from reaching the green in two, so they are in the same boat as me – hitting a wedge for their third shot, and making the hole a true par 5. In effect, it makes the holes play longer without actually making them longer. Contrast that to today’s courses that were designed to penalize errant 250-yard drives with fairway bunkers. In the old days, those bunkers made sense. They were designed to catch people trying and failing to drive at the hole, and they worked fine when that was how long people hit drives. These days, they do a good job of penalizing wimps like me, but are irrelevant to guys who can carry 250 yards with an iron.