Last updated on May 21, 2021
The avid reader of the golfing press would be excused for believing that Bryson DeChambeau is the only golfer applying science to the noble game. He could be excused for not knowing that Pete used to have the honour of being DisHon Sec Technology when, on behalf of the BB community, he experimented with the very first radio-controlled golf trolley. These experiments were brought to a close after he mowed down the DisHon Sec on the 18th fairway at Maidenhead and then tried to dig his way to Australia in one of Stoke Park’s plush bunkers.
Some vestiges of this mantle remain – the pacing out of the distance to the pin for example – none of us understand exactly what use this knowledge is, as the distance travelled of the following chip proves difficult to correlate to the results of the pacing. Bryson includes the Stimp Meter readings in his calculations and perhaps Pete needs to include a similar fudge factor into his equations.
But we now have a new technician in our midst. On Wednesday Alan revealed that he had been to Wycombe Driving Range which is equipped with TopTracer technology in a bid to calibrate his golf clubs in terms of the distance each would now hit the ball, it being likely that the passing of the years would probably have knocked the odd crucial foot or so off the distance carried.
If you look up the definition of the word calibration in the Concise Oxford Dictionary it does offer the hopeful view that you are graduating something with allowance for irregularities which would seem to me to be a crucial addition when it comes to golf. Alan did say that the fact that the range goes uphill and that you are probably hitting balls at 90% of standard compression did produce some dispiriting results in yardage carried. But none-the-less he jotted down the statistics gained from his experiments and brought them along to Huntswood where 8 of us had gathered for a Summer League game.
He was partnered with Roger and they were playing with Rob and myself and we were all followed by MikeS with JohnT and MikeW with Bill.
Our observations of the effect of Calibration on Alan’s game over the first 3 holes suggested that the transposition from the uphill range to the flat Huntswood fairways was proving tricky to master. But since all of Alan’s shots never got more than 6 inches or so off the ground and all of them travelled exactly the same distance regardless of club selection, we tended to the view that this perhaps was a radically new simplified approach to golf – a little like Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity which successfully unified many current theories. If we adopted Alan’s Calibration then we need only carry one club which makes club selection a doddle.
Just as we were considering the merits of this theory, and Rob and I were looking at how many points we were in the lead, Alan suddenly dropped the whole scheme and started reproducing the languid drives and approach shots for which his game is renowned. This volte-face had the unfortunate side-effect of us halving the front 9 and that only courtesy of a putt of mine lingering on the edge of the 9th hole for about 5 seconds before dropping in, much to the opposition’s irritation.
Rob started the back 9 like a man possessed and we gradually built up a lead that proved unbeatable however much Calibration was deployed. I suspect that Roger’s new-found ability as a poet should be able to produce a limerick to describe the whole experiment of Calibration and we could include it on the website.
Behind us the other pairs were engaged in their own close battles and, after we finished, we were able to enjoy, for the first time in ages, retiring to the inside of the clubhouse to avoid what looked to be rain coming our way.
The team results were:
Rob and Richard 20 + 21 = 41
MikeS and JohnT 19 + 20 = 39
Roger and Alan 20 + 17 = 37
MikeW and Bill 17 + 19 = 36
Individual scores:
MikeW and Richard (32), Roger and MikeS (29), JohnT (28), Alan and Rob (26) and Bill (18).
As a footnote, I forgot to mention how much we all enjoyed returning to BB handicaps and an, albeit reduced, form of gimmee with no enforcement of WHS submission afterwards though 3 of us did do so.
Pleased the new BB handicaps and gimme rules worked.
The general view on the Internet is that drives on golf ranges will be at least 10 yards shorter than “actual” due to the compression & age factors of the balls they use – the difference reduces as the clubs get shorter. Also, and this is where it gets even more boring, when using an indoor simulator, like the on at Temple, you tend to pull-back on fully hitting the ball due to what’s called “Indoor Swing Syndrome”, which is a deeply ingrained psychology worry that you might break something; again, the difference is most noticeable on drivers and fairway woods. All of this assumes that you can hit your ball consistently which, in my case, makes any such analyses fairly irrelevant.
And indoors there is always the danger of hitting someone on the head!
Exactly… and, unfortunately, my grandson doesn’t appear to suffer from Indoor Swing Syndrome.