| |
BGonline.org Forums
Woods's total driving rank
Posted By: Henrik Bukkjaer In Response To: Woods's total driving rank (Chuck Bower)
Date: Monday, 13 June 2011, at 8:50 p.m.
You drive for show and put for dough....
---
Woods is certainly one of the best shotmakers out there - it's not a statistic, I know, but he's got one of the bigger arsenals in his bag, and one of the best creative minds when it comes to moving the ball from A to B.
I think that has played a very large role in his dominance (apart from the points mentioned here).
Now, the game has changed. You don't need to know how to play all the different shots any more. High ones, low ones, draws, fades, hooks, slices, cuts, punches, runners, splashes, flops, explosions, fliers, etc. Now the game is more or less huge drives (curve doesn't matter, you adjust the club to suit you) - the balls fly a million miles and it doesn't really matter where they end up, as long as they are within range of one of your 4 wedges (wedge, gap sand or lop) - get the yardage and pick up the right wedge. Something in your way? Don't care! Throw it sky high and it will spin and bite when it lands. Heck, some players even have wedges that go as high as 64 degrees. It's ridiculous. And the grooves in the irons have such a strong grip in the ball, that fliers are no more, semi-rough doesn't make any difference. With some of the new groove systems I read a technical test that showed it even spun the ball more when a little grass came between the ball and the surface of the iron!
All your old top players really had the talent to work the ball. Seve and the other obvious superstars. But also some players like Payne Stewart and others really had a lot of creativity in their game. They were not just hitting machines.
Somehow I think a little of Tiger's edge has disappeared along with the need to be able to play real golf. Unfortunately. I'll bet he'll dominate the "persimmon/balata" tour in some years from now, when people wake up and change the rules. OK, I know that's not going to happen, but I would hope that the sport would go in that direction somehow. The now late Ballesteros suggested not too long ago, that wedges with more than 56 degrees of loft should be banned.
Now - to the creativity part - I recall from when I was at the top of my own game. I practiced the good ole "fringe put" with a lifted sand wedge (or any similar club in the bag that had a little bounce and some relatively square leading edge). You took your putting grip and thinned the ball out.
Then along came Tiger. And he did the same shot in another way. With his wood (driver or spoon, I can't recall which). Now all players in the world started chipping with their woods like Woods!
That's the sort of creativity and shotmaking I'm talking about. He has so much of that. When it's crunch-time at a difficult cut major 4th round, he'd shape all his shots a tad.
Of the new players I've seen Bubba Watson do a little bit of the same (but I must admit, I have not followed golf closely the last many years, only some majors and the Ryder Cup).
| |
BGonline.org Forums is maintained by Stick with WebBBS 5.12.