How beautiful is the game of golf? Any given weekend, we get to see the shiny unveiling of freshly-polished stainless steel that make up some of the finest state-of-the-art golf clubs. There are thunderous tee shots that keep spectators in awe. Let’s not forget about the smooth putting that separate the winners from the contenders. The game of golf is almost as beautiful as a bountiful garden with freshly bloomed roses.
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The courses are also aesthetically pleasing with green blades of grass extending as far as the naked eye can see. Some courses have evergreens that put to shame the air we breathe on a regular basis. The trees sometimes provide another obstacle for golfers like Rickie Fowler as well as the dreaded ponds and bunkers.
In addition to its beauty, golf is one of the most illustrious sports in the world.
According to Early Golf, golf has roots that go back to 1297 when a few Dutch lads decided to play a primitive form of the sport. The Dutchmen utilized a stick to guide a leather ball into a hole that was hundreds of yards away. The game was known as “apocryphally” and, like golf, the winner was the person that had the lowest score.
Golf has certainly come a long way as it is far more organized. The PGA Tour is as good as it has ever been despite not having a superstar like Jack Nicklaus or Tiger Woods (in his prime) dominating the sport currently. It has evolved into a sport that is more enticing, more entertaining than ever.
The New-Age Golfer
The Tour used to have average sized males roaming the terrain as it was rare to see a golfer above six-feet with the exception of Byron Nelson (6’1”) who dominated in the 1940s. Elite golfers like Tom Watson, Arnold Palmer, Gary Player, Ben Hogan, and Nicklaus each had at least 24 career wins (including winning the Masters). They were also men that ranged in height from 5’6” to 5’10”.
Today, we are seeing more athletes on the PGA Tour.
Dustin Johnson, Jordan Spieth, and Tony Finau are as big as it gets on the course and skill-wise. They are taller and have athletic backgrounds that make them different from the traditional golfer.
Johnson is 6’4” and had the resourcefulness to play basketball or baseball growing up in South Carolina. Spieth is 6’1” and he too played baseball. Finau shares the same height as Johnson with enough game to be serviceable on the hardwood. Heck, Sergio Garcia (5’10”) owns a soccer team, CF Borriol, and is adept on the pitch while Rickie Fowler (5’9”) wreaked havoc in motocross.
Each of those guys quit their early passions to pursue a career in golf and now they each rank in the top 40 of the Official World Golf Ranking (OWGR). Johnson is the world’s top-ranked golfer while Spieth is ranked sixth.
In a sense, these new age golfers have made golf cool in an unintentional manner that resonates with the youth. Having such athletes on the Tour benefits the sport because it helps young viewers realize that there is another sport they can play. In 10 to 15 years, we could start to see more golfers that have more of an athletic background due to the success of guys like Johnson, Finau, and Spieth.
Emphasis on the Long-Ball
Golf will always come down to getting the ball into the hole, but why not make your day that much easier at the beginning? The loud-echoing tee shots are making winners out of the world’s top golfers.
Rory McIlroy, Bubba Watson, Gary Woodland, Justin Thomas, Brooks Koepka, Bryson DeChambeau, Finau, and Johnson are ranked in the OWGR’s top 50. In addition, they are in the top 25 of yards per drive with each of them ranging between 305.2 to 317.2 yards. Furthermore, with the exception of Finau, each of the antecedent golfers have won a tournament during 2018. Finau has been close with 17 cuts made and six top 10 finishes.
The key to the golfers winning or having top 10 finishes has been their brute strength with a touch of class shown in their shots. Some of them have mastered the art of the long-ball while others lift weights.
Lifting weights was not something golfers were necessarily doing 10 or 20 years ago as the game was focused on figuring out ways to finesse your way to the finish line. McIlroy, Thomas, and Finau train in the offseason with the bulk of their work being predicated on strength. Koepka and Johnson are tenacious competitors, but good friends who work out together as they too work on building power.
Indeed, golfers are transforming the game from an austere short-oriented game to an embellishing sport focused on aerial assaults. The long-ball is golf’s main attraction as it draws big crowds and creates excitement that extends to social media. Just like baseball, fans want cackling shots and to see its effect.
Science in Golf
Science, mainly physics, is a part of the world of golf. The United States Golf Association (USGA) and Neil deGrasse Tyson, a science expert that synthesizes findings into plain language, worked together to demonstrate how physics and golf are intertwined.
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First, the golf club has changed immensely. It went from being a glorified broomstick to stainless steel works of art reminiscent of a sword. When you pair golfers with such advanced equipment, modern engineering begins to take place.
When used at optimum level, golf clubs arrive at the tee in 450 microseconds with 2,000 pounds of impact as stated by the USGA. This allows the ball to travel further and faster when the athlete maximizes their energy in the shot they take. The clubs make the golfer’s job easier, making it less of a challenge in figuring out how to approach the initial shot.
The golf clubs are monitored and regulated closely by the USGA to ensure skill remains an important factor in tournaments.
Next, the golf balls of today look vastly different than the ones of the 16th century. Titleist’s aerodynamics expert, Nick Narducci, described 16th century golf balls as smooth and would float through the sky like knuckleballs with no true destination. He also noted that the ball would move like a knuckleball because it lacked wind resistance. Basically, golfers would have to take steady hacks at the ball which would lessen their chances of having low scoring rounds.
The modern golf ball reared its’ head in the 1960s with dimples. The dimples help the ball go in the direction the golfer intends for it to go. That is why we see more cannon shots. Accurate long drives lead to low-scoring rounds.
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Look no further than the AT&T Byron Nelson Classic when rookie Aaron Wise won the tournament at 23-under par. He finished sixth in the tournament in driving accuracy (89.3 percent) and led in greens in regulation (91.7 percent). Wise controlled the flight of the ball from start-to-finish.
Lastly, the golf swing is being mastered more than ever thanks to golfers acknowledging the laws of physics.
There are many different elements that make up the ideal swing in golf. A golf swing takes about one second and, in that instance, there is a lot going. It takes more than size and strength.
In tee shots, the body builds up torque that is released in the downswing. During the downswing, there is a centripetal force that keeps the club pulling towards the golfer, also known as your routine swing. When contact is made, the double pendulum is on display which is a golfer’s wrists and shoulders working in harmony creating speed.
All of these factors influence the distance and the trajectory of a picture-perfect swing.
Steve Scott, FOX Sports analyst, said, “That’s [the perfect swing] really what keeps people coming back because at the end of the day, in golf, we hit more poor shots than good ones.”
As complex as the golf swing sounds, it is even more difficult to master as such a skill takes time to develop. Having such information available to the Tour’s members is valuable.
Like basketball and football’s advanced analytics, golfers have to tread lightly with such scientific evidence and equipment advancements as skill breeds champions.
The PGA Tour might always be playing catch up to the NBA, NFL, MLB, and NHL when it comes to capturing the attention of Americans. However, golf is an ancient sport that is growing from its’ outdated style. It is morphing into a style that is extraordinary and cliffhanging.
