Phenomenal putting places present players far ahead of forefathers

By way of a little self-indulgence, I have been having another look at one of my favourite golf videos. It was prompted by a recent television screening of Christy O'Connor Snr battling valiantly with a non-productive putter in a Shell Wonderful World of Golf match against Don January at Royal Co Down. It seems to be a universal view that the most significant improvement in golf equipment over the last 20 years has been in the performance of the ball. But in terms of better scoring, I believe a far greater impact has been made by the superior putting skills of the modern player.

The point gains rich emphasis in what has been described as probably the greatest exhibition match in the history of the game. Played between Ben Hogan and Sam Snead at Houston CC in 1964, it was aired in February the following year as part of the fascinating Shell series.

Hogan, who was 53 at the time, carded a three-under-par 69 to beat Snead by three strokes. But what makes the match so absorbing, nearly 37 years on, is the manner in which the Hawk's score was compiled. With a superb display of precision striking, he hit 18 fairways and 18 greens in regulation. And took 34 putts.

By that stage of his career, Hogan never expected to produce anything better than moderate putting. As it happened, on the 7,056-yard par-72 Houston stretch, quite wet from overnight rain, he reached the 520-yard third hole with a drive and four-wood downwind and then two-putted for his first birdie of the round.

From there, he three-putted the short fourth for a bogey, but carded three further birdies at the par-four fifth (seven-iron to five feet), long 12th (wedge to 18 feet) and long 17th (wedge to 25 feet).

"That's about as good as I can play tee to green, but my putting . . ." said Hogan. Snead concurred, while commentator Gene Sarazen enthused rather extravagantly: "That's the finest round of golf I've seen in my lifetime."

In the event, Hogan's return for putts per greens in regulation was 1.89, which wouldn't get him into the top-180 on the American tour nowadays, as an average for a whole season. Indeed one has to think that if Brad Faxon, winner of last weekend's Sony Open in Hawaii, were putting for him, Hogan would have shot a 63 or 64 that day at Houston.

Which brings us to O'Connor at Royal Co Down, where January also shot a 69 to win comfortably. Long-time friend and Ryder Cup partner Peter Alliss once said of Himself: "He is in the genius class as a striker of the ball. In fact Christy has all the shots except one: the putt." Looking at O'Connor's tentative, jabbing putting action on that occasion, one can only marvel at his tournament successes and the extent to which they were shaped, like Hogan's, by a stunning game from tee to green.

It seems unfair, somehow, that because of their superior putting, modern players don't have to strike the ball nearly as well to make a handsome living.

"That shot's impossible. Jack Nicholson himself couldn't make it."

- Hapless Homer Simpson, on failing to overcome a particularly fiendish challenge in crazy golf.