"During one day of play, every player fixed at least one ball mark within 10 feet of the fourth hole -- but only three players actually struck the green within 10 feet of the hole."

The Wall Street Journal's Timothy Carroll looks at the latest divot tools that aim to improve conditions, and offers this fun little anecdote:

But is the design of the tool really the only reason so many greens are full of ball marks? Let's talk about the laziness of the "toolee." Etiquette calls for golfers to fix their ball marks, but every time I play, it's obvious that people fail to do so. Mr. Carroll says he's noticed that some people at high-end clubs believe that for their six-figure initiation fees, someone else should repair the marks for them.

Ball marks, one of the few things that golfers are allowed to fix on the green, can be controversial for other reasons, too. A senior USGA rules official recently told me a story from the Masters a few years ago. During one day of play, every player fixed at least one ball mark within 10 feet of the fourth hole -- but only three players actually struck the green within 10 feet of the hole. Were they all fixing old ball marks, or were they trying to correct other blemishes that they're not supposed to be messing with, like scuff marks from a shoe or indentations left by a player leaning on his putter? "Who knows?" he says.

"The sport that already lost complete control of the equipment manufacturers who have juiced the tools and taken a certain element of skill out of the game is now trying to regulate what its performers put into their bodies."

Scott Michaux in the Augusta Chronicle is the first major columnist to note that we have equipment on steroids and golf is opening up a major can of worms with drug testing first. He doesn't quite go all the way and ask why the folks in charge aren't taking a look at equipment in conjunction with the drug testing, or perhaps asking if they may be encouraging performance enhancing drug use by attributing distance gains to athleticism, but he still earns big points for at least noting that it got away from certain governing bodies.

In short, golf was forced to act like every other sport in the modern era.

One simple question - why?

It doesn't make much sense. The sport that already lost complete control of the equipment manufacturers who have juiced the tools and taken a certain element of skill out of the game is now trying to regulate what its performers put into their bodies.

If this was just about illegal steroids, it would be understandable. The whole idea of creating artificial strength - at a potential cost to personal health - is unseemly. Since other sports are failing every day to try to regulate that brand of performance enhancers, why not join the club for appearances sake.

But golf is stepping into an even murkier realm trying to regulate drugs that decrease heart rate, sharpen attention or increase stamina - basically all the things the pharmaceutical companies have trained us to do in our everyday lives. This is where the whole system leaves the rails.

CEO Musical Chairs

Steve Mona is leaving the GCSAA to run the World Golf Federation and join the growing list of those in line to take on Tim Finchem's massive salary when the Commish finally decides to spend more time with his family. Meanwhile, David Fay will be the first "CEO" to head the World Golf Federation board and all of it makes for great Presidents Cup cocktail party talk.

And so nice to see Peter Dawson sounding like he just got his MBA:

"The World Golf Foundation is providing a platform to establish an open line of communication that is critical to effectuating meaningful change on a global basis," Dawson said. "It is important that the international golf community come together in a strategic manner to address issues that affect us all and the sport we love."

Except that annoying distance issue. 

"So why, oh, why, did I start now?"

Thanks to reader Lara for passing along Emily Yoffe's entertaining Slate.com piece on taking up golf. Usually these types of essays aren't particularly original, by Yoffe brings a fresh perspective to the table.

During my brief immersion in the world of golf, I determined that gloom is an essential golf component, as befitting a game that started on the moody moors of Scotland. When tennis players get thoroughly beaten, they come off the court sweaty and smiling. Their endorphins have shot up, and they look cute in their outfits. Even skiers being carried off the slope on a stretcher seem bizarrely thrilled about the elemental encounter between body and mountain. But golf induces despair. Take the observations in the book The Bluffer's Guide to Golf, by Peter Gammond, "The golfer [is] a miserable wretch at the best of times." "A golf match is designed to make as many people as possible unhappy." There are very few golf jokes, he writes, that do not mention "death and destruction."

Walk On

Thanks to reader Eric for noticing that the absurd mandatory cart rule considered for Long Island's Eisenhower has been dropped.

"In the end it was just too easy at Easy Lake."

Based on the link, I believe this is Jim Moriarty's East Lake/Tour Championship game story for Golf World.

Besides evaluating the FedEx Cup as somewhat of a success, he writes:

In the end it was just too easy at Easy Lake. Poor Bobby Jones must have been weeping somewhere for the honor of his home course. Rain Thursday turned the greens from semi-dirt to soft dirt, and Tim Clark, one of the 24 non-competing markers in the field, tied the then course record on a rain-interrupted day with an eight-under-par 62, highlighted by a pitch-in for eagle on the 15th. The real rain, the remnants of Hurricane Humberto, was scheduled to hit Friday, but the worst of it took the I-285 bypass around Atlanta, and it was Woods who reigned instead.

In a six-hole stretch from the fourth through the ninth holes, Woods went seven under par for a front-nine 28 and felt pretty darn bad about it, too. He holed a bunker shot from a semiburied lie on the fifth and made a 70-footer for eagle at the ninth. "The ball was bouncing every which way. It was left of the hole, it was right of hole, left of the hole, right of the hole, and then it went in," he said. No fist pumps or finger-pointing this time, just a bowed head and a sheepish "gee-I'm-sooooo-sorry-about-that-guys" grin.

And skipping a bit...

Easy Lake, formidable only when someone drove it in the wet Bermuda rough, was so defenseless that through 36 and 54 holes only two of the 30 players were over par. It really bared its gums in the third round, however, when Johnson's 60 and Geoff Ogilvy's 62 were proof that even though the slow, soft greens were bad, they weren't unputtable.

Now I understand the situation with the greens.

But did this tournament also serve as a reminder that extreme, even outlandish measures would be necessary to keep a land-locked venue like East Lake relevant in today's game where a 6-iron is some players' 210-yard club and 3-woods carry 300? 

Now I know our friends Bacon and Grease over at Golf Digest think that it's okay for classics to become irrelevant, because you simply move to another venue that's 7,600 yards. But considering all that has been invested in East Lake and will be invested soon with the greens resodding, should there be some discussion at PGA Tour headquarters about the long term viability of this venue? And dare I say, some discussion about possibly asking the USGA when it's ball study will be wrapping up?

I sure don't see a U-groove ban making East Lake more relevant no matter how firm the new greens get, do you?  

"I've got to slow things down."

Tad Reeve and Aaron Barber play Hazeltine with retro club and Reeve reports on the round.

Normally, I'd hit a 3-wood off the tee at No. 10. That's a metal 3-wood. This time, I needed all the distance I could get, so I pulled out the driver. You see that little wooden club head behind the ball, and you can't help but think of all the things that could go wrong. It felt clunky. Naturally, I hooked it deep into the woods, but that isn't unusual for me on that hole. Only this time, I was a good 50 yards shorter than normal, about 175 yards out.

Normally, Aaron would hit an 18-degree hybrid here. Instead, he pulled out the driver, too. He was uncomfortable, too, saying it felt heavier than his driver. His shot flared to the right and settled into the edge of the rough 235 yards away, quite a dropoff from the 277 yards he averaged with his driver on the front nine.

"Oh, geez, that's the swing I make with my regular driver," Aaron said after making contact. "I've got to slow things down."

After that, he did. He adjusted quickly. Each of his next three drives went more than 250 yards, and he averaged 244 for the nine holes. But more importantly, he adapted to the nuances of the old clubs.

"All through the back nine," he said, "I only thought about scoring and not about how the shot looked."

He hit the set of Wilson Staff irons as well as the Titleist DCI 962 irons he normally plays with. He lost maybe five yards in distance with each club, but he is used to hitting pro-style irons that have smaller sweet spots, which elite golfers like because of added control and feel. He was quick to admit that he was hitting pretty well that day, and on a day when he didn't feel so much in the groove, the results wouldn't have been so ... well ... groovy.

He had a couple of three-putts on the back nine, caused by poor lag putting, but he didn't feel overly hamstrung by the old-style putter. It reminded him of the putters he had as a kid. And, to be fair, Aaron Barber is good. You don't get to the level he reached without talent.

"Guys who play for a living," he says, "have to adapt real quick."

There was also a video that accompanied the piece online...

"The golf course is D.O.A. Now, we're trying to see what to do with the body."

Thanks to reader Rob for this story of another golf course in danger of being paved over, this time a frequent host to U.S. Open qualifiers and other Georgia Golf Association events.

"We're trying to make the course more available to more people."

Thanks to readers John and Scott for this Frank Eltman story on the trend of municipal and public courses mandating cart use.

Nassau County officials argued that Eisenhower Red is so popular that carts are necessary to keep up the pace of play. They contend that anyone who wants to walk can still use the county's two adjacent 18-hole courses at the park named in honor of one of the country's best-known presidential duffers.

Of course, the added income from golfers paying up to $29 each to rent a cart won't hurt the bottom line in a county that only several years ago teetered on the brink of bankruptcy.

"We're not doing it for the money," Deputy County Executive Peter Gerbasi said after the policy went into effect. "We're trying to make the course more available to more people."

I'm assuming he is claiming that either (A) carts will help keep the course in business or (B) carts will speed up play and therefore allow more people to play?

Either way...frightening.

And I thought I was the only one driven to self publishing... 

Dan Zurla, a retiree from Port Orange, Fla., wrote a self-published book, called, "A Civil Right: The Freedom to Walk a Public Golf Course," and has filed lawsuits with little success against the municipalities of Daytona Beach, Ormond Beach and Port Orange, which have mandatory cart policies.

He argues that his constitutional right to liberty has been infringed by policies that prevent him from walking the links. He wrote an opinion piece that appeared in Sports Illustrated last year, supporting the rights of walkers.

"Requiring golf carts changes the basic nature of the game and deprives people of their liberty to choose," he said. "Governments cannot make walking illegal on public land without a good reason."

"Yes, I acknowledge that the ability to compress the ball makes a difference in pitching, but the girls should, you would imagine, make up for that with good touch. But they don't."

John Huggan tries to get to the bottom of one of the modern game's great mysteries: why so many of the best female golfers in the world have such lousy short games.

"At home all the miles I log on the road and run in that heat, granted it's not as hot as this but it's certainly more humid. And that's what you do. You pay the price. You go outwork everybody and days like today or weeks like this week, it shows."

Some great stuff came out of Tiger's post-PGA Championship win press conference, though shockingly, no one asked about the pressure of being the FedEx Cup points leader.

Q. This is a great victory on Thai Mother's Day. Would you like to make a special message to children in Thailand that look up to you?

TIGER WOODS: Well, every time I go back there it's been fantastic. We do junior clinics there and my mom helps with a few shelters there in Bangkok. So we try and help the kids as much as we possibly can. And what my mom's done back there no one really knows about it, but she's done a lot for a lot of kids. And awfully proud of her.

Tiger note to self: tell Steiny to send mom flowers asap for Thai Mother's Day.

Q. Just to get back to Steve's question earlier, the television crew seemed to indicate they thought perhaps you had hurt yourself when you fist pumped on 8 after that birdie and might have hurt you going into 9. Talk about that. Secondly, a local question: Your thoughts on Southern Hills, Tulsa, and Oklahoma hosting this major this week?

TIGER WOODS: As far as hurting myself, no. All good. The only thing that hurt me on 9 was I didn't trust the wind up there. The wind was right to left all day, and you look at the flags up behind 18 and 9, they were left to right. And Steve says the wind's off the right, you gotta trust it's off the right. I just kept telling myself, Look at those flags behind 18. It's off to the left. So we just shoot it more down the left side so the wind will bring it back and actually took it the other way, took it left. So that was my fault for not trusting Stevie and trusting how the wind was all day.

As far as Tulsa hosting the Championship, I mean, this has been a great crowd. For them to come out and support this event with the temperatures the way it was, absolutely phenomenal. I don't know how they could have been enthusiastic being that hot and that tired, but they were. And they were supporting all of us and want to see great shots and they applauded. It was just a great atmosphere all day, all week, especially today. Especially given the temperatures.

Hey, granted he was gimpy, but an admission that he hurt himself doing the fist pump would mean he's human. 

Q. You disproved the belief that your game wasn't meant for Southern Hills, do you believe that your ability to hit the 2-, 3- and 4-iron the way you did all week really made this a golf course that was really well-suited to your game?

TIGER WOODS: I don't understand why people kept saying that. If you watched the way I hit the ball in 2001, I wasn't hitting it very well. But if you look at where I was hitting it, I was hitting it to exactly the same spots I did this week. I just wasn't able to hit the fairways.

I played to the same spots, Stevie and I had the same strategy. Nothing's changed. The only difference is we're hitting less club because the ball's going so much further this year because of temperature and also the improvements in the golf ball in the last six years.

Uh, don't  forget to include the grooves. They make you more likely to bomb driver and, oh, I don't even know. Just remember, it's the grooves, not the ball!

Q. In hindsight, what advantage might you, your conditioning advantage have you in this heat, and also does this change at all your intentions to play all four of the playoff events?

TIGER WOODS: As far as the last part, yes, my intent is to play. As far as your first part of your question is physical fitness is always a huge advantage. And when you play any sport and you have heat and anything that wears you down mentally and physically, the more in shape you are, the more fit you are -- I feel when I walked up 18 I felt the same way as I did going off the first tee. I felt great.

At home all the miles I log on the road and run in that heat, granted it's not as hot as this but it's certainly more humid. And that's what you do. You pay the price. You go outwork everybody and days like today or weeks like this week, it shows. I felt fresh all week. And I felt great.

Other guys may have gotten tired and you see their shoulders slumping and dragging a little bit; I feel fine. I think that's how you should always be. You should always train hard and bust your butt. That's what a sport is, is to do that. And not everyone considers golf a sport and they don't treat it as such.

Take that boys!

Q. You've won your last three majors using a long iron off the tee, a 5-wood off the tee, primarily Medinah. Here you made your birdies with irons. In the back of your mind, do you get frustrated with your driver and the driver swing, and is it any different, could you explain to the rest of us, than your regular swing and why is it a struggle?

TIGER WOODS: I feel the same. The only difference is when you're hitting it, especially this week, 330-, 340-yard fairways 20, 22 yards wide, that's not a lot of room.

And most of the tournaments, if you look at the configuration of how they design the golf courses now for us is that they pinch the fairways in about 280. 280 to 320 is kind of like the major number where they start pinching fairways in.

So a lot of times they're more narrow at that distance than they are shy of 280. And sometimes I see a lot of guys hit driver down there try to play out of the rough. Some golf courses you can, some golf courses you can't. And as far as my swing being different, I feel it's the same.

The only difference is not a lot of room for error when you're hitting it that far. And that's one of the reasons why you see a lot of longer hitters hit 3-woods off the tee because the 3-wood nowadays goes as far as it used to when I first came out here as far as a driver went. I had no problem hitting 3-wood this week over 300 yards, just because it was so hot. And every week is different. It really is. It's kind of a feel thing.

And a groove thing too, right? No? It can't be the combination of narrow fairways and a ball going longer. Just can't be!

Q. You said a little bit earlier you feel by far you're a better player than you were in 2000 which is the year when you won the last three majors, and people were wondering if anybody else would win another tournament you were entered in. This year you had to grind it out in the last major of the year to get your first major and I'm wondering just what that says and maybe in terms of the challenge that it becomes over the years to keep winning these majors?

TIGER WOODS: Well, everyone's not going to stay stagnant. Everyone is going to try to improve and they all have. Everyone's worked hard to improve their game through technology, through fitness. Look back when I first came out here on Tour, how many guys had personal trainers. I don't think any of them did.

Now going to the fitness van everyone has a trainer there. So the game has changed and everyone's gotten stronger, more fit. They're hitting the ball further. Technology has certainly helped that out. Your dispersion patterns aren't as wide.

Well that'll all change in 2009 when you are playing with V-grooves!

And guys are shooting a lot better scores. And it has become a lot harder to win tournaments. And that's the fun of it. That's the challenge.

And finally, a jab at the scribblers...

Q. Stephen Ames said there wasn't as much craziness inside or outside the ropes when he played today. He said there just wasn't the mayhem. Has Tiger mania changed that much or has everybody's concentration levels so much more concentrated now?

TIGER WOODS: No, I think you guys are lazy (laughter). I didn't see a whole lot of you guys walking with us like you normally do. It's a little hot. And I think maybe the buffets are good in here and air conditioning is nice (laughter).

No, it was different. We didn't have as many media inside the ropes, being whether it's you guys or it's photographers or TV crews. There weren't just as many.

Huggan Scoop: Crenshaw Regrets Brookline 17th Green Antics!

...and next week, John Huggan learns from Roberto De Vicenzo that regrets signing an incorrect card at the 1968 Masters!

Sheesh, now I know why Ben has avoided the Senior Open Championship!

Seriously, once we cleared up the earth shattering revelations from three Ryder Cup's ago, Huggan got Crenshaw to say some interesting things about the state of the game, technology, the PGA Tour and Augusta.

"What mystifies Bill and myself is seeing courses being built that hardly anyone can play properly," he observes. "We want our courses to be enjoyable for as many people as possible. We would not know how to set up a course for a high-end tournament. That would just mystify me. If you do that, how can you reach anyone else?

"In America the set-ups are becoming unbelievable. They are trying to stay ahead of technology, and sometimes that doesn't produce enjoyable golf. The danger is that the PGA Tour can become stylised a little bit. They are just so difficult week to week.

"The road we are on is a dangerous one. It's one thing to build five different tee boxes, but somewhere along the line you lose the feel of the hole, and what makes it interesting. You compromise the hole. If you don't go straight back and start changing angles, things get a bit off.

"We are trying - and failing - to come up with interesting ways to combat how far the ball goes. You put obstacles out there at certain distances, and players just fly them. I don't know what you do. We try to make doable holes. I like players to shoot really good scores. That's fine with me."

How Crenshaw would definitely not go about tackling the technology issue is by the mindless growing of long grass, which is how the green jackets at Augusta National have chosen to 'protect' their course.

"I heard this a long time ago, although I'm not sure who said it first: 'Interest supersedes length.' If a course is not interesting and you don't bring people back, what is the point? I look at the way Augusta was set up this year, and everyone was forced to play more defensive golf, no question about it. There's now a limit to what the top players will try there.

"To an extent, I can understand what is being done. I'm not saying all of it should be thrown away. There is no question the course needed to be lengthened. But I've never really agreed with the growing of the rough. That is so entirely different from the way it used to play.

"To get players to try shots they maybe shouldn't try was what used to set Augusta apart. Now it's different. A lot of the places I used to aim for off the tee are now in the rough. Those spots used to open up angles to the pins. But now the course is more prescribed. All the shots are decided for us.

"That's not what [Bobby] Jones and [Alister] Mackenzie intended. They wanted it to be reminiscent of St Andrews. To open up those angles, you had choices to make. And to have choices, you need width. There's no choice when the fairway is narrow. I can't believe some of the set-ups on the PGA Tour. Everything is so narrow."

Still, one thing too much rough and longer holes cannot affect is the famed Crenshaw putting stroke. Into his 50s, he has retained the silky touch that carried him to those two Masters titles - most of it anyway. Only last month he was runner-up at the US Senior Open.

"I don't putt quite as well as I used to. I have days where I feel just a little tentative. At my age I sometimes lack the authority you need to putt well. I hit a lot of nice putts that have about a foot less speed on them. That often makes the difference between making and missing."
 

"Mis-hits with his current equipment meant off-line landings of 5-10 yards; with the old clubs, as much as 50 yards off-line."

Steve DiMeglio of the USA Today got Brandt Snedeker to play a retro set of golf clubs with the help of Bridgestone and Taylor Made, presumably to tell us how lucky we are while they're in the world. Snedeker's assessments are particularly interesting in this lengthy piece.

Snedeker arrived at this approach as a test subject for USA TODAY. The 6-1, 190-pound former Vanderbilt All-American enthusiastically agreed to play a round of golf with a set of previous-generation clubs.

Obviously figuring his round would be made more difficult, Snedeker was nonetheless surprised how drastically golf had changed in just a matter of years.

"I don't know how to explain the sound" at impact with the old clubs and ball, he says. "It feels like the ball is getting stuck on the clubface. The old ball feels so soft, like a marshmallow."

His oversized metal woods, perimeter-weighted irons and state-of-the-art shafts and golf balls were pitted against woods actually made of wood; heavy, steel shafts and diminutive irons that were far less forgiving than today's advanced sets and balls last seen 20-25 years ago. Snedeker last hit a wood driver when he was 8 and then only in goofing with his dad's set.

The test came just hours after Snedeker secured his future by cashing in for $182,000 for his 12th-place tie at The Players Championship in May to earn his 2008 card.

Snedeker stepped back in time here by the Atlantic Ocean at the par-72, 6,687-yard Plantation Course where LPGA Hall of Famer Louise Suggs and PGA Tour star Davis Love III honed their games.

On a traditional course that unfolds among oak and cedar trees 300 to 500 years old and presents wide fairways and relatively flat greens, Snedeker experienced the game of golf as played by his predecessors.

Snedeker appreciated as he never did how good it feels to play with the modern ball — featuring titanium compounds, hybrid materials, softer shells and a more pressurized core — and his TaylorMade r7 driver. That club features moveable weights, inverted cone technology to promote higher ball velocity and an exotic shaft that matches the swing weight, flex point and kick point he prefers.

And thankfully, it helped him score! 

With his technology-driven equipment, much of it devised by those with aerospace and defense industry backgrounds, Snedeker shot 3-over 75 in 15-25 mph winds — five shots better than when he pulled out the older counterparts used by previous generations.

Oops.

Only a red-hot 1988 putter kept matters so close. With the old flat stick, Snedeker made birdies from 3, 4, 25 and 30 feet and holed many par-saving putts of 4-8 feet. With his up-to-date putter he made three birdies but had two three-putts and just missed on five other putts for birdie.

The rest of the round, however, was marked by a one-club difference in length between the old and new irons.

There was a 25-30 yard difference between drivers, 40-50 yards when he mis-hit the old driver. Mis-hits with his current equipment meant off-line landings of 5-10 yards; with the old clubs, as much as 50 yards off-line.

So glad we're going to get those grooves regulated.

"I truly appreciate growing up in the generation that I did," Snedeker says, "because I don't think I would have grown up to be a pro golfer if I had to have played with the old stuff. It is so much different, so much tougher."

That's why Snedeker was so thankful the 80-year-old seaside layout he played isn't bursting with forced carries over water, 15-foot-deep bunkers and large mounds on the greens. Only seven holes bring water into play; his slightest mis-hits on three involving water resulted in two double bogeys and a bogey.

"On the toughest new courses, where you have to fly the ball 200 yards over water or unplayable areas, I might not break 90, 100 with the old equipment," he says.

"But the great equalizer is putting. That's what makes golf so great. Even if I was using 1960s equipment, if I'm putting great that day, I could still spank the best equipment in the world. If I don't make putts, I get killed."

This was nice to read:

"It makes me really appreciate the guys that came before me," Snedeker says of hitting the old clubs. "The way Bobby Jones played golf, Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer, Ben Hogan, Lee Trevino, Johnny Miller. Those guys were phenomenal.

"They had to be unbelievable ball strikers to hit the ball straight and as solid as they did."

Fast forward...

Just as shocking was the once top-of-the-line Rextar golf ball, which featured rubber-like balata-tree material that created a soft cover and yielded more spin. Conducting his own experiment, Snedeker hit one of the Rextar balls with his new sand wedge and shredded the cover of the ball.

"If we had (the new) golf ball in my day," Trevino says, "the best of us would have hit it 300 yards and Jack Nicklaus would have hit it 360."

Don't forget those workout programs Lee!

On the first nine holes using the persimmon driver and the older ball, Snedeker could find the fairway just two of nine times. Each of his drives were low-flying projectiles that snapped to the left and went 200-220 yards — into high rough and behind trees.

On the first hole, he had 188 yards to the pin after his drive with the wood ended near a tree. With his contemporary TaylorMade r7 driver, he had 128 yards from the middle of the fairway to the pin.

On the par-4, 445-yard ninth, he had 200 yards to the pin after his drive with the wood ended up in rough; he had 144 yards from the middle of the fairway after using his modern driver.

"I'm seeing parts of this golf course I've never seen before," Snedeker said on the 12th hole. "I'm trying everything to keep the old driver on this planet."

He finally ditched his normal swing with the old driver and tried something that was supposed to produce a slight fade. By the time he reached the tee on the par-4, 409-yard 13th, he was pleading to the golf gods to find a fairway. He figured he needed a slice-swing to make it go straight.

"The biggest difference is the new ball doesn't curve as much anymore," Snedeker says. "It was a more precise game back then. The ball was spinning so much more, and it was so much harder to control vs. today's golf ball. The ball wanted to curve 20, 30, 40 yards.

Damn ball! How dare it not do what you pray for it to do!

"That's why you see guys hit the ball so much farther now, because we can go at it so much harder than they were able to do so back then. Back in the '60s and '70s and '80s, you couldn't go at it full bore because you could literally hit it 30, 40 yards off line.

"Every pro on the Tour, the biggest fear is hitting a low draw or snap hook," Snedeker adds. "Now the equipment is set up today where the ball won't spin enough to hit that draw. I have no fear. I really saw that today."

Progress baby!

The irons Snedeker used in this experiment were certainly some old fuddy-duddies.

"The old irons take a much steeper divot. Today's irons are built with so much more bounce, which allows you to sweep the ball off the ground," Snedeker says. "I was taking huge divots today with the old stuff, and when you take steep divots, it affects your speed and affects the way the club works with the ball.

"The players in the past had to have great tempo to control the ball back then. It was a lot of fun to draw the ball 30 yards into a pin or cut the ball 30 yards into a pin. It proves the old guys were so much better course managers. They had to think their way around the golf course so much more because of the way the ball moved.

"You had to know every trouble spot," he says, "because the slightest mis-hit, you were in big trouble."

But at least he knows who signs his checks...

As Snedeker signed his scorecard, he had little trouble recalling every shot. He smiled at some of the recollections.

"Technology certainly makes the game easier for everyone to play, and that's great for golf," he says. "It makes the game easier for the pros to play. But don't think it's easy out there for us. The courses are getting longer and longer, the bunkers deeper, the rough deeper, the greens faster.

"Golf has always been a great game. Today it's still a great game, too, with all the new technology. I can't wait to see what comes next."

Kids Turning Pro

With the news that 16-year-old Tadd Fujikawa is turning pro, as well as this interesting Mike Sorensen Deseret Morning News piece on Utah's Finau brothers taking the plunge (thanks to reader Warren), I continue to wonder what it is beyond the obvious lure of money that is encouraging kids to make a decision that so rarely ends well.

Is it the success of Morgan Pressel and Paula Creamer?

Does technology allow them to play a certain game that 16-year-olds weren't capable of just a few years ago?

Is it mostly that the people around them hoping to cash in? 

Or is it the rule change that allows juniors and amateurs to receive free equipment?

I've had several college coaches tell me hair-raising stories about club company reps and how pervasive their role is in amateur golf. Since amateurs have become eligible to receive free equipment, we have seen an unusual number of top juniors skip college to cash in, with few success stories.

Does anyone else see the correlation, or is this simply a matter of golf catching up with other big time sports?

"Once you reach a certain speed, the greens just aren't as interesting anymore, because it limits the type of places you can put the holes"

Thanks to reader John (as always) for John Paul Newport's WSJ column, this time looking at the race for more green speed in light of this week's R&A course setup boondoggle.

Insights from Ran Morrissett and Rees Jones stood out:

In recent years, the introduction of heartier bentgrass varieties that can thrive when cropped to an eighth of an inch or even shorter, plus other advanced agronomic techniques, have ushered in an era of expensive green-speed oneupsmanship among clubs. "It's like a nuclear-arms race. Nobody wins," says Ran Morrissett, host of the authoritative Web site GolfClubAtlas.com.

And...

The pity, both at older courses and at some new ones, is how many potentially great hole locations have been lost because of galloping greens. "Once you reach a certain speed, the greens just aren't as interesting anymore, because it limits the type of places you can put the holes," says Mr. Morissett. In the olden days, rapping the ball up and over undulations and banking it off slopes was a fun and challenging part of the game. "I'm not sure it didn't take as much skill to putt those old greens as it does the modern fast ones," says Mr. Jones. "There was a lot of technique involved in hitting the ball properly. Now the players basically just have to guide the ball, tap it in the right direction."