They wind up like a discus thrower, let out a loud grunt and explode with ferocity unfamiliar to mortals. This column is for all seniors who love their golf.
Playing golf is a sport like no other. The new long-drive fairways, starting to get popular around the world are providing a testing ground for the ardent golfer.
The aim is to improve your hitting distance, correct your slice and see how far you can hit the ball. And as a bonus, you don’t even have to collect the ones you hit!
Golf, popular with either sex, is generally accepted to have started in Scotland from the middle ages onwards.
A very popular sport and one that can be played from 5 to 95.
The 18 hole course we know today was created at the old course at St. Andrews in 1764.
Golf was derived from the dutch word ‘kolf ‘or ‘kolve’ and means quite simply ‘club’, the Dutch term later became ‘goff ‘ or ‘gouff ‘ and only later in the 16th century became golf.
The Scots were also the first to use holes rather than targets.
But an interesting fact is that there is also mention during the Song Dynasty (AD 960-AD 1279) of a crude game of ‘golf ‘ which the Mongolian travellers took to Europe.
There are many terms used in golf. If one hits a ball and its one short of ‘Par’ for the hole, it’s called a ‘birdie’, while the term ‘eagle’ is one shot better again, whilst ‘albatross’, is a double eagle. A ‘bogey’ is a one over par score.
Many clubs in early days had courses from six holes to 20 holes but as St Andrews was recognised as the rule-making body, 18 holes was decided as a standard course.
Golf is a difficult game where one is required to hit a little white ball many hundreds of metres with a crooked stick with different ends. How confusing! and not only do you have to hit the ball, but hit it straight down the fairway and then maybe curve. This takes a lot of skill, patience and practice.
Golf is both a mental and a physical game, probably not unlike other sports.
This whole story has been leading up to the fact that golf is about to change and when these changes come into effect over the next few years, golf balls won’t go as far as they do today. Now, it probably won’t make much difference to the average player, who may only shorten their range by a few metres, but to the professional golfer it could mean a 9-11 metre loss on each drive.
At the moment, every manufacturer has to meet strict guidelines and industry standards that are already set, however when these new changes come in, they will alter the testing method, with the stated aim of reducing the distance a player will be able to hit the ball.
Did you know that balls are not permitted to fly any further than 289 metres?
I was unaware how technical a ball is when made, there’s the club head speed, spin rate of the ball and launch angle of the ball. These are all calculated when producing a golf ball, which will be slightly different in just a few years (2027) while the distance will remain the same.
Manufactures will build balls that can be hit harder, higher and with less spin but not go any further.
Courses are not built for the distances that the game’s elite can now hit.
Therefore buying up more land for the extra distance is not an option for many golf courses, so the ball has to change.
A rising cost of golf balls could well be the biggest downside for amateur players.
