THE great debate goes on. While the backroom boffins of the Royal and Ancient and the US Golf Association insist that there is no significant advantage to be gained from modern equipment, the players are claiming otherwise. And though I have no way of proving it, I strongly suspect the players are right.
In a piece last August, I wrote about the so called placebo effect, whereby players are observed to be achieving greater length with a particular driver, simply because they imagine it to be better. But an increasing number of observers are beginning to accept that the implements are, in fact, better.
They are being won over by a strange, green coloured mobile facility, which has been developed by Callaway with high tech equipment to rival a NASA command centre. Half of it comprises a largely unremarkable openair hitting area - green mat with rubber tee; a big net to catch the balls and a dozen or more drivers to whack.
A battery of high speed video cameras trained on the ball, however, are complemented by the other half of the centre. It contains a panoply of dials, plungers, buttons and levers which pick up information from the cameras and transpose it onto four video screens.
One screen shows the path and angle of attack of the clubhead at impact while a second tells the speed of the clubhead and the speed of the ball as it leaves the tee. For maximum performance, the ball speed should be as close as possible to 1.5 times the clubhead speed. So, if the ball is struck with a clubhead speed of 84 mph, your optimum drive should take off at 126 mph.
Now for the intriguing part. If the launch speed happens to be a disappointing 115 mph, a technician will advise you to use a club with less loft. So, the speed becomes 120 mph. The next move is to try the same loft with a longer shaft and a different ball. Suddenly, the readouts show a consistent 125 mph.
This means that without changing one's grip, stance or swing, driving performance can be improved by 8.69 per cent. Convert that into distance and a 220 yard drive can be increased to 239 yards.
As one would expect, other major manufacturers have similar, state of the art facilities, but Callaway are the first to take them on the road. The units, each costing 5500,000, are doing the rounds of US tour events and may soon be seen on this side of the pond. Lotto winners should note, however, that they are not for sale.
"GOLF is 20 per cent mechanics and technique. The other 80 per cent is philosophy, humour, tragedy, romance, melodrama, companionship, camaraderie, cussedness and conversation." Golf writer, Grantland Rice.
THERE is a growing awareness that ridding golf of the curse of slow play may not be insurmountable after all. Starting at club level, officials are being urged to tackle the small things, rather than the more obvious problems such as leisurely walking and freezing over shots.
Take ball marking, for instance. An eminently sensible guideline urges: "Don't mark your ball unless you have to." If you're playing a friendly game and your ball isn't muddy or in someone else's way, just leave it where it is. That way, you can avoid spilling tees and other, perhaps embarrassing, contents of your pocket as you fumble for your lucky marker.
Quietly line up your putt so you'll be ready to play when it's your turn. Unnecessary fussing about the ball is clearly a major cause of slow play. If you doubt this, try timing the fourball in front of you as they fiddle about on the green while you're standing there waiting to play your approach shot.
HELEN Alfredsson had her best finish of the season last weekend. Granted, it was only a share of 26th place behind Karrie Webb in the Susan G Komen International at Myrtle Beach, but it's only five months since she underwent hip surgery.
Which may cause eyebrows to be raised at some of her recent activities. For instance, the Swede has gone drag racing to find out how it feels to travel on the ground at 160 mph. And she has been flying in an F/A-18 Hornet with the Blue Angels, so as to discover what a force 7.4 g feels like.
"I admit that I passed out briefly," she said, "but I never needed the barf (sick) bag. It was incredible. The only thing that bothered me was that during the briefing they kept saying `If you need to leave the aircraft' I kept insisting that I didn't have any plans to leave the aircraft."
Though she has played only five out of 11 tournaments so far this season, you may gather that Alfredsson, winner of the 1993 Nabisco Dinah Shore and a member of the last four Solheim Cup teams, likes to keep active. And it will come as no surprise that her hip surgery, for the removal of a bone fragment, was the result of an old college sports injury.
Meanwhile, with modest earnings of $8,740 for a current 112th in the money list, the popular Swede is gradually getting back to her best form.
GOLF fans anxious as to when Tiger Woods is next likely to appear in a European event can take it we won't be seeing him until the British Open at Royal Troon. Any chance of an earlier appearance at the Benson and Hedges International on May 8th to 11th, was promptly squashed.
When the sponsors approached his agents in IMG about getting Woods to The Oxfordshire, they were informed that the fee would be 5400,000. Which prompted tournament director Jim Elkins to remark: "Let him stay in America and count his money. I can't see him appearing too many times in Europe with the amount he's earning."
Incidentally, that was the asking price before Woods raised his status somewhat through certain exploits at Augusta National earlier this month. One daren't imagine what it is now.
ARISING from last week's piece about a continuing USGA study into the golf swing, Ned Stokes of Stokes Golf suggests they are lagging behind the times. And by way of illustrating the point he sent me the fascinating booklet "Exercise Guide To Better Golf", which carries the imprimatur of the USPGA Tour and is available from him (Stradbally, Castleconnell, Co Limerick) at £10.
In a foreword by Ryder Cup skipper Tom Kite, we are informed that a study of the golf swing was undertaken in 1983 at the Centinela Hospital's biomechanics research laboratory. It claims that the golf swing is a balanced activity in which the net muscular output of the left side and the right side is equal.
But as to the source of the power, which the USGA wish to determine, it states briefly that the so called "umph" comes from "a synchronous co-ordination of precise muscle firing throughout the swing. The body acts like a whip during the golf swing ..." Given the existence of this booklet, one assumes that the USGA will go much more deeply into the subject.
In brief: Eamonn Darcy reminds us that he will be supporting the annual Charity Golf Classic in aid of CPI/Rehab at Elm Park on May 20th. Inquiries to Heather Latchford at (01) 269 5355 . .. Some splendid competition at The K Club recently resulted in a US team from the travel trade beating their European colleagues by 6 1/2 to 5 1/2 in a Ryder Cup style challenge match. It was doubly memorable for American Chester Dietrich, who holed in one at the 17th.
