Columbus found that the world wasn’t flat. Since then our planet keeps rotating on its axis and life on it, including sport, keeps evolving.
Footballs were originally round and easier to kick, but along came a new, different approach. In 1873 representatives from Yale, Princeton, and Rutgers met to formulate rules for the new game of football, resulting in adding the forward pass.
Now, of course, the ball is designed for throwing and the forward pass is not only thriving, but dominating offensive strategy.
Swinging for the fences was discouraged in the early days of baseball (in many parks, there weren’t any fences), and it took a change in the rules that allowed more lively balls, along with brash batters like Babe Ruth and Rogers Hornsby, to popularize the “four-bagger”.
Today, as they say, homerun hitters drive Lamborghinis, singles hitters drive Chevrolets.
After several failed attempts to establish it, the three-point shot in basketball finally took root in 1961. It took the innovative ABA in 1963 (along with its red, white, and blue basketball) to popularize the shot, and now it’s a fixture in all of basketball.
This isn’t history of the world, part III, but let’s relate these messages to golf. We have the equipment to change the game for the better, to lower scores, to retain players, and to make it more fun, but we’re not doing it.
The old paradigm proudly guarded by conventional attitudes and concepts simply hasn’t allowed it.
Chief among those concepts which stymie this sport is the old Power vs. Accuracy Trade-Off Theory.
The greatest obstacle to low scoring is and always has been the length of the courses.
In a sport where all strokes are counted, low score wins, courses are getting longer, and equipment is better suited than ever, the old myth still is dominant - if I strive for more distance, I will lose accuracy.
Put it another way, it is not only believed, but taught that a guy with length can’t score because he hits it sideways. Yeah, and the tall guy in basketball can’t hit three-pointers, either.
There is no tradeoff between power and accuracy. There’s not one shred of scientific proof to support that worn out concept. No one has ever presented physical proof that the speed of the clubhead at impact determines the direction the ball flies!
In fact, the opposite is true. Get one, get both! The two spring from the same tree. There is but one set of requirements for both power and accuracy. We prove that on a daily basis. Anyone who’s willing to let go of the old way of thinking can have both.
Consider the following analogies:
· Pitchers learn to deliver the baseball with both great velocity and control. They call that ability “command”, as in, “He has command of his pitches.”
· Hitters with bat speed have to keep the ball in play. There not up there bunting, trying to make sure that the ball falls between the foul lines.
· Athletes in the throwing events of track and field must generate both distance and accuracy.
· Sprinters in track and field don’t run so fast they risk running out of their lanes.
· Heck, even successful putting is a result of learning both speed and accuracy.
· Tiger Woods’ recent play, either by design or otherwise, shows a decided decrease in distance. He’s shorter, but that hasn’t shown to have provided an increase in accuracy. In fact, his statistics show that he’s missing more fairways and more greens than previously when he was known for his power game.
· Tennis players serving balls up to 150 mph are getting a huge percentage of first serves in the service court.
· Jai-alai is the fastest sport in the world. Players sling the ball at speeds up to 180 mph from distances of up to 60 yards hitting a target wall which is only 35’ square.
Why should swinging a golf club be any more prone to inaccuracy than swinging a bat or throwing a 40-yard touchdown pass with accuracy? Fact is, it isn’t.
In golf, before you can have either power or accuracy, you have to control the golf ball. We call that compression—the brief time the ball is on the clubface. Better players have better control because of greater ball compression during impact. Simply, the ball stays on the face longer, and longer is better.
Ball compression requires clubhead speed!
The converse of compression is a glancing blow—the lack of ball compression. Directional and trajectory mis-hits are examples of lack of compression, too.
You will either have sufficient ball compression or some form of glancing blow. But again, ball compression requires clubhead speed.
Exercising control over a golf ball either is or isn’t done during the four milliseconds of the impact interval when the ball is compressed on the face of the clubhead. Faster clubhead speeds keep the ball on the face longer, providing more time for the clubface to square as the ball separates.
By taking advantage of today’s equipment - balls and clubs - players generating higher clubhead speeds are keeping the ball on the face of the club for up to one and one half inches of clubhead travel.. Only a couple of decades ago, keeping a ball on the face of a persimmon clubhead for more than three-quarters of an inch was impossible.
Understand the fact that it’s not the equipment; it’s the player taking advantage of the equipment. The equipment, like the training, is the enabler.
Obviously, as in every sport, golf has evolved. High-tech equipment has allowed technique to evolve, and today golf is a sport. The old saying, “Let the club do the work,” isn’t working any longer.
It’s not the “game” of yesteryear when the Distance vs. Accuracy tradeoff theory originated. Truth is, the theory wasn’t even factual back then.
Today, courses are getting longer, and the length of the course is and always has been the only real object to overcome in scoring low. Think about it, if you could shrink a 430-yard par four by 50 yards, you would certainly have a better chance of making birdie, wouldn’t you?
They’re not going to let you shrink the length of the hole, but you certainly can shorten it by increasing your clubhead speed. If golf had a secret today, it’s creating and sustaining ball compression, and one more time, that takes speed.
It’s pure irony that in the sport requiring the longest ball response, players are coached to swing slow and easy. I have to believe that misconception is the greatest contributor to underachievement in sport.
Of the core (not casual) golfers in this country, two-thirds have never broken 90! The length of the holes overwhelms them.
The object of the sport is to cover the 6000 to 7000+ yards in the fewest strokes, and let the club do the work is the watchword? Sounds like to me that something is terribly wrong with that concept.
Speed, after all, is a great quality in athletic success. We teach athletic success.