Brad Salmons of Golf Augusta, holds a Ping ISI titanium driver and on the rack are Taylor Made Friesole drivers and Callaway Great Big Bertha Hawkeye drivers.JIM BLAYLOCK/STAFF

Science behind the game

Pro shop owners say high-tech equipment offers no substitute for coaching when trying to improve your game

Web posted April 9, 1999

By Damon Cline
Staff Writer

About eight antique golf clubs stand propped up in a corner at Golf Augusta Pro Shops on Bobby Jones Expressway.

The grips are made of frayed leather straps spiraling around wooden shafts that are warped all the way down to the rusty iron heads. In the hand, they feel more like walking sticks found along a country road than tools used to put a little white ball in a little tin cup.

``Can you believe people used to play with those things?'' Golf Augusta pro Bill Kumle says.

The cost to take one of these relics home to hang on your den wall -- about $50.

Less than two feet away, the store's newest clubs rest in attractive display cases. Their soft, foamy grips feel inviting to the hands. Their shafts, both shiny metal and dull graphite, are long and true.

Their oversize heads are made of polished titanium and tungsten steels. In the hand, they feel balanced and precise. The cost to put one of these in your golf bag -- $300 and up.

Their names alone -- Big Bertha, Revolution and Firesole -- are enough to make you feel superior, but will their advanced engineering and technology let a beginner drive a ball like John Daly? Probably not.

Granted, the shift from wood shafts to metal and graphite was a huge technological shift for clubs, but the people who sell them say nearly all the recent advances, on their own, are not going to turn a marginal golfer into a great one.

For that, professional instruction is the best strategy.

``We recommend coaching,'' Golf Augusta Manager Brad Salmons said. ``Golf is all about how consistent you can hit the ball.''

Breakthrough clubs are hot sellers because golf experts generally agree they are engineered to improve velocity, spin, distance, accuracy and the ability to get the ball in the air and out of the rough.

But figures from the United States Golf Association show that since 1981 average drives have risen only 36 yards, from 260 to 296, while recreational player handicaps have dropped only slightly, from 16.8 to 16.6.

Recent consumer studies suggest golfers are still hopeful that technology will improve their game. About 57 percent of golfers polled in a 1998 USA Today/National Golf Association survey said they liked the idea of having a club that could add 25-30 yards to their tee shot.

Only 40 percent responded similarly in a survey held 10 years earlier.

The 1998 survey also showed 40 percent of golfers supported development of a ball that corrected hooks and slices, up from 17 percent a decade earlier.

Golfers hungry for lighter, stronger and bigger clubs are getting just what they want. For example, Ping's new ISI metal wood driver, at 310 cubic centimeters, is currently the biggest on the market.

``This is the club everybody picks up when they come in the store,'' Mr. Salmons said.

Although pro shops would sell the club to any customer who really wanted it, most would steer the beginner toward more basic clubs.

``The most forgiving club is not always the most expensive,'' said Johnny Seals, golf pro and owner of Nevada Bob's in Augusta.

Innovations such as heavy tungsten and copper inserts (whose weights help correct a bad swing) and rebounding faces (which give metal woods their springlike effect) prompted the association to study technology's impact on the game last year.

Because the USGA has placed no major restrictions on technology, the market is still being flooded with newer and more expensive products.

The vast majority of the $2.8 billion that golfers spent on equipment last year went toward new clubs, according to the U.S. Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association.

And it's not just the metal woods that are getting makeovers, golf-gear experts say.

Golf companies are pumping millions of dollars into research, development and marketing of putters, irons, wedges, balls and other equipment.

``It's just astronomical the stuff that's coming out every day,'' said Gene Sprayberry, the Golf Club Association's 1996 Clubmaker of the Year and owner of The Golf Stop in Columbia. ``The only thing, not a whole lot of it can help the beginner too much.''

Damon Cline covers business for The Augusta Chronicle. He can be reached at (706) 823-3486.