"Campbell, who swings like Ben Hogan, managed a carry of 232 yards using an old balata ball."

Thanks to reader Jim for the heads up on this note in Bill Nichols' Dallas Morning News coverage of the Nelson.

Pros go old school with equipment: Curt Sampson, working on a story for Sports Illustrated, drew a crowd on the practice range when he unveiled a MacGregor Byron Nelson persimmon driver. Everybody wanted to hit it. Vijay Singh went the longest at 253 yards, one yard farther than Colleyville's Chad Campbell. Campbell, who swings like Ben Hogan, managed a carry of 232 yards using an old balata ball.

Comments

[chico]

Brilliant!Just one tournament using a balata would be fascinating-imagine-fairway woods being used other than at tight driving holes!!

[Ludell Hogwaller]

Persimmon and balata . . . what a pleasant thought. Makes me all tingly inside.

Of course, the distances are misleading, cause everybody knows balata was only good fresh out of the package, for maybe 15 holes.

And then there's the concept of being able to work one around a corner, instead of my modern technique of setting up for a fade and watching it go straight--through the fairway and into a house. Breaking glass, car alarms, children screaming.

[Wayne]

>Breaking glass, car alarms, children screaming.

Yes, but remember, when that happens to certain PGA players at certain PGA tournaments, they get a free drop with an unobstructed path to the pin.

[Styles]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJHRn9W6FQM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0VZ9YkCsCh0

Where did the notion that Campbell swings like Hogan come from?

Interesting that Sampson said the pros were queueing up to hit the persimmon, I was at the range hitting an old Wilson Staff persimmon recently and a friend who plays off +4 tried it. At 25 he had never hit a wooden club before! I was shocked!

Chico, you should go check out the TRGA at http://trga.info/index.html
They have several tournaments per year where the irons must be forged and each player must carry at least 2 wooden clubs.

[chico]

Thanks Styles-what a great idea-congratulations to these people.Any idea what ball they use?

[chico]

Thanks Styles-what a great idea-congratulations to these people.Any idea what ball they use?

[Lynn S.]

Don't these balls lose their life sitting on the shelf? When was the last balata made? I think these guys were hitting dead balls.

[Doug]

Agreed that those must have been dead balls. I'm sure that the guys could at least hit it 270 with a live rock!

[taffy]

Could be they were hitting into the wind. Most likely dead balls.

[Styles]

Chico, a friend of mine won last years San Francisco event. His name is John 'Lag' Ericson. In that event he played a Srixon soft feel. He used the same ball a week or two ago - as well as his 1959 Hogan blades and persimmon woods - in US Open qualifying! He was 1 over through 7 after opening with a double but finished badly. He still beat over half the field though! He couldn't stop a wedge on the Nicklaus designed course which he reckoned beat him.

[jw]

As an experiment I played a round w/ some 1970's vintage woods and 1980's "rock" balls. I lost about 10-15 yards off the tee w/ the driver (and lots of accurancy), 10 yards on a three wood, and the distance difference was negligible with the irons. But there was no chance getting the ball to spin out of the sand or around the greens.

Using a wound ball w/ 20 year old rubber means that they were already mush before leaving the clubface = not a good experiment.

[courtney]

The key word is "OLD" balata ball. If there were newly made balata balls around (with the same playing specs as back then) these guys would be hitting it further. You also have to take new technology changing the swing, too.

[elwood]

"Agreed that those must have been dead balls. I'm sure that the guys could at least hit it 270 with a live rock!"

Not so. In the mid-80's, Curtis Strange was near or at the top in money. His driving distance over those years was right at 250. That was the average distance pros hit it at the time.

You were the longest driver on Tour in those years if you could average just over 280.

[jw]

Elwood -

I bet Strange was playing a very soft ball in the 80's like the rest of the tour. Give him a 1988 Pinacle, and I'm guessing 270 wouldn't be out of the question. Remember when players had to choose between distance and performance?

[Ky Laffoon's Ghost]

I found an apparently unused Titleist Balata 100, Low Trajectory in the closet; must be from about 1988. I won't hit it, but it bounces much less higher than a new ProV1 when dropped from shoulder height onto a smooth concrete floor.

I think it was Smolmania who pointed out some time ago that Volvik Crystal (70, 80 compression) might work with a persimmon driver...I'll have to give them a shot. I'm not about to hit one of these latter-day Rock-Flights with my remaining wooden woods. I can just hear the insert and the wood split into 10 pieces on impact. The older generation of Rock Flight users didn't swing hard enough to do much damage, I suppose.

Elwood is certainly right. 250 yards off the tee was good enough up through the late-80's. Big Jack could on occasion knock one to the second crosswalk on ANGC #1 in the 1960's and '70's (~300 yards) but that was exceptional. A few others could hit it that far when it was called for, going back to the days of hickory shafts and the Haskell or Spalding Dot. And the woods in general have always been full of long hitters (Bless you, Harvey Penick). Sadly, I do remember when I could hook the ball or fade it on purpose (the occasional slice remains embedded in my swing and is a danger to squirrels the world over). The new ProV1 might spin a bit more off blades and spin-milled wedges, but it still won't curve worth a damn, if you want a controllable shot. Bomb and gouge and bomb and gouge, ad infinitum and ad nauseum.

[chico]

Excellent info Ky.I have a dozen Titleist professionals still in the box and all this chat is moving me to get the old Tony Pennas out and give it a go.I played the tour for a few years in the 70s/80s and only hit it about 245-about average at the time.I'm now 54,play about once a fortnight,dont work out and hit it 280 quite often-nailed one 294 according to my Skycaddie this week=the results should be interesting!

[Ky Laffoon's Ghost]

The Titleist Professional must have been the best golf ball ever made. I'm pretty sure they went a bit farther than the synthetic balata I used prior to their production, but you could curve them at will, they took the occasional thin hit with some likelihood of remaining round, and a bounce off that Great American Abomination (i.e., cart path) left them more playable than a ProV1 after a similar encounter with pavement. I'm a contemporary of Chico, but didn't really start playing until I was 30, so I never used the "real" balata. This has come up before here, but I have been told by a golf professional that the production cost of a Titleist Professional was between $1 and $2, while the production cost of a ProV1 is measured in pennies. Sounds plausible given the difference in their construction and attendant quality control issues, but we will never know absent some very good industrial espionage. You think the extra profit the manufacturers are making on balls has anything to do with our current predicament? Nah. Good Ol' Wally, and his acolyte Dace Fackle (Bless you, Curmudgeon-in-Chief Dan Jenkins), have only the Good of the Game in mind, above all and at all times. Heh, indeedy.

[86general]

I remember Curtis Strange saying on TV in the mid-1980s, when it was all still balata, and mostly all persimmon, that a driving distance of 265 yards was "very average on tour."

Maybe it was the fact that they were old balls. It's also possible that the players' swings are tailored to the spin and launch characteristics of modern bats and balls, which do not necessarily correspond to the best swing, distance-wise, for the balata/persimmon combination.

Maybe it wasn't the balls at all, but the shorter club with the heavier steel shaft (or was it a graphite shafted club...I didn't read the article...)

Give Vijay a month or two with persimmon and balata and I'll be you he's hitting it further than 253.

[chico]

Ky another very good post although I have to admit I wasnt a huge fan of the professional.
General-I agree with you.The changes in technique very often go along with or shortly after changes in equipment so I reckon Vijay would find a way of hitting it a bit further given time.However I've spent my life playing golf and working in the golf industry and I'm convinced the modern equipment/ball has increased distances about 15%.For me then courses would have to measure about 8000 yards to give today's players the same challenge as those in the 70s/80s.Thats just not going to happen-we already have the crazy situation of the Old Course using tees on other courses just to get to about 7350.I'm all in favour of recreational players being able to use todays equipment-its more fun for most -but I would bring a tournament (balata style) ball in asap.Our biggest championships being played in relevant style on our best courses is where its at for me-but thats only my opinion and I know not everyone will agree.Thats why this is such a great forum!

[Ludell Hogwaller]

My favorite balata was the 1970 era Black Titleist, (the one with 336 dimples) with the trajectory that matched a jet jumping off the carrier deck. Properly swatted, that ball would rise slightly, bore through the wind and run like a rabbit on acid when it hit.

When it was replaced with the shallow dimple version (with 324 dimples) the ball rose higher and failed to run as far. That's about the same time we increased irrigation water to the fairways, in order to keep up with golfer demands for wall to wall green, instigated by TV.

Yes, I counted dimples. Had to do something while waiting for that last cart to come in.