This article from GolfDigestOnline is all over the place – I don’t know what stands out more to me having read it – that a professional tour would call a 286 yard hole a “par 4,” that people would freak out that, you know, a pro golfer would hit the green with an iron, or that they call it a “specially-made iron” but don’t give any loft information for the iron.
I guess it was a quiet day for golf news, because (pardon me), I wouldn’t bat an eye that a pro golfer could hit an iron 280 yards, especially if it’s a “driving iron,” which has little more loft than a driver, and if it’s a specially-made one, probably with a little mass behind the sweet spot, yeah?
From the article:
The Englishman had this iron custom made for the event and apparently it paid off, carrying the front-right bunkers at a quaint 270 yards before rolling out to a cozy 286—longer than most mere mortals hit their driver … downhill … with a helping wind.
Whether or not you find this kind of thing awesome or sickening says a lot about who you are and where you’re coming from. Did you grow up watching Bonds, McGwire and Sosa park balls in the seats every third at-bat? Or did you marvel at Koufax and Seaver as they mowed batters down like cowboys at a carnival shooting gallery? Only you can decide where you stand, but juiced ball or dead ball, I think we can all agree one thing:
Jordan Smith has some serious pop.
OK, that’s some impressive hype, I’ll admit.
Here’s the whole thing, and it’s a blast from Jordan Smith of the DP World Tour:
Granted, it’s a nice swing and result, but here’s the problem – how the heck is a 286 yard hole that plays a straight line from the tee, not uphill, with no rough or water guarding the front edge a par 4?
Someone explain that to me?
Not only that, there is a Par 3 hole in this year’s U.S. Open (Hole 11) that played around that distance (280-290 yards), and don’t forget the 2007 U.S. Open (Hole 8) that played the same distance.
I remember that I was impressed with the 2007 hole, but that’s because it was a Par 3 and because of the healthy rough that was everywhere if you missed the green. That was a feat if you got it on the green (many did, of course) off the tee.
Again, I’d love to know the loft on that “iron,” just for curiosity’s sake, because I can remember one of my SmashGolf blog entries under the category “My Longest Drive/Best Hole” from when I was playing my club in 2009, and one of those was a 270 yard tee shot with a 24 degree lofted 4 iron.
This was the category that showcased my best drives or holes in a round if there were any to be memorialized, and the first of that category was when I drove the ball hole-high on the 350 yard 6th hole:
… which isn’t the iron shot about which I’m talking – however it was on this same hole in September of that year (I had to go back to my archives to find the post), where I hit 4 iron off the tee one day, and here’s a snippet from the SmashGolf posting:
I was playing a round of golf yesterday working out more of the swing adjustment I made last week, and I was using irons off the tees on a few of the par 4’s instead of my driver.
I do this when I want to work on my irons because when I hit Driver on par 4’s, I am always left with a wedge to the green, and playing golf with Driver-wedge not only gets boring, you don’t get to use the irons in the bag.
On the 350 yard sixth hole, I pulled the 4-iron out and hit a beauty right down the pipe. It flew so far down the fairway that one of my playing partners asked in disbelief, “What the hell did you hit there?”
I was well past the two balls that my friends had hit with their drivers. I figured I had hit my ball around 230-240 yards, but that wasn’t even close. I paced twenty yards in from the 100 yard disk to my ball. “270 yards?” I said, scratching my head. “That can’t be right…” But it was. I chopped a little lob wedge to the green, pin-high, and missed the birdie putt.
Ironic that I wanted to play an iron into that green and still ended up with a half-swing lob wedge.
The 4 Iron in question is still in my bag – it’s a stainless steel headed 90s era Tommy Armour Silver Scott 845s with a factory loft of 24 degrees that I re-shafted with a 3/4″ extra length Dynamic Gold with Sensicore X100 shaft many moons ago.
It’s this iron here with which I was still hitting range balls 250 yards at 44 years old, 5 years older than in 2009 when I was 39.:
I will play this 4 iron until I die or it does, because being longer than a 5 iron, it doesn’t fall under the new groove law (LW to 5 Iron) and so is still legal to play.
But forgive me if I read that Golf Digest article wondering what on earth all the fuss was about, and how on earth you make a 286 yarder a par 4.
I will add that players in 2007 playing a 290 yard Par 3 with rough didn’t have the ball technology that now exists, nor did I in 2009 or 2014.
Modern golf… I still don’t get it, from the horrific, back-breaking swing models to the juiced equipment to the hyperventilating pundits freaking over stuff that really shouldn’t impress anyone with knowledge of the swing and the game…
WAX Golf 