Nick Faldo has really gone bonkers with this one.
Sir Nick was recently lamenting about the distance problem in professional golf that has been studied by the USGA along with the R&A and it seems he’s come up with a solution.
The six-time major champion suggests that there should be no more use of tees in golf competition meaning those wonderful wooden and plastic pegs that one places their ball atop.
His Faldoness added that the large, deep face drivers are to blame. Speaking on a recent golf podcast, he expounded:
“Back in persimmon (driver head) days and balata ball, there were only a handful of really great drivers (of the golf ball). Greg (Norman) was great, and Jack (Nicklaus), (Lee( Trevino, (Tom) Watson, Seve (Ballesteros). I know it went sideways at times, but you can name them. It was only a dozen max. Now there are only a dozen poor drivers. There’s only a few. I hate to think of the percentage who can hit it 300 through the air.”
Yes, all of those Hall Of Famers were great drivers. Seve often launched his in the wrong zip code but overall he was pretty darn good.
Faldo threw out his plan to reduce distance off the tee:
“If we brought the size of the face down so there were some serious mishits – so the sweet spot for the pro is a real sweet spot, not a sweet face, that’s what it is now, it’s the whole thing!”
His second idea was really radical:
“The other, simpler way is if we ban tee pegs. If they went and played a tournament with no tee pegs, they would have to alter their driver. They would be allowed to place it on the grass, now they won’t be using drivers that are six degrees. They’d say, ‘OK, I need nine, I need 10, I need one that’s going to get it airborne and get a bit of give in the face.’ That would seriously change it.
“Sure, they could hit a 3-wood – that actually would be your optimum. I’ve just seen Rory’s numbers — still 285 yards through the air with a 3-wood. But it’d be a real tough hit to get a driver off the deck.”
All we have to say about Faldo’s suggestions is that they’ll never happen. Simply won’t.
It would be a lot less hassle to simply dial back the golf ball.
That most likely won’t happen either.
