It Never Ends...

...this picking on the golf ball. Add Mark Brooks and Tom Lehman to the list of anti-golf ball technology types, but as Sam Weinman writes in The Journal News, they believe it flies too straight. (Of course, we know it's really the grooves):

"The direct result of the ball going too far and too straight has been to back the tees up, and to me, that's not the answer," said Mark Brooks, the 1996 PGA champion and a veteran of two decades on the PGA Tour. "The difference with doglegs is guys either have to learn how to shape the ball or fit it in the fairway. It's a huge difference in how people play."

Though Westchester will certainly play easier than Winged Foot, especially if it continues to be softened by rain, this week's site presents players with the challenge of needing to shape the ball in either direction. There was a time when that was standard practice. But if there's one area in which technology has been a detriment, it's that today's low-spin balls fly straight even when players don't want them to.

"My eye always wants to see the ball draw," Tom Lehman said. "That's my shot, right to left. So the starting spot is almost the same today as it was 15 or 20 years ago. It starts to the right, but now it doesn't hook. It starts to the right and stays there."

It might sound absurd, complaining about a ball that doesn't slice or hook. Most golfers would love to have that problem. And yet at Westchester and Winged Foot, it's a problem nonetheless.