"There's rumors floating around here this week that it may not even come into play."
/From Greg Norman's chat with the working press Wednesday prior to the Senior PGA:
Q. When you were younger in your 20s and 30s you were obviously a great ball-striker, but always considered one of the best drivers of the golf ball. That was in the year of the persimmon heads. Has it changed a lot now? Do you think there's more guys who hit 70 percent plus in fairways hit because of equipment or back in the day that was a heck of a lot harder figure to reach?
GREG NORMAN: I think it's easier to hit the golf ball straighter now days. And the ball goes longer. No question. Is that -- that is technology. No question about it.
I think a great barometer, just to get off your question a little bit is, a great barometer is when the V grooves come into play next year. And I hope it does. There's rumors floating around here this week that it may not even come into play. But if the V grooves do come back into play, that will be a great barometer to see how good these players are with their touch and their feel and their imagination. And understanding that that ball, it looks like it's going to leap 40 yards extra off the club face, how do you play that?
That's going to be great to watch on television. Because that's, to me, is the art of understanding the game of golf. And understanding the spin of the golf ball. Not just a pure given fact if you hit it in the rough and I did it a couple times today on these firm greens, I'm in the rough, I know it's going to spin, I'm just going to open that club face up a little bit more and the ball comes down like an old dog lying by a fireplace. It just drops on the green.
Now that's not going to happen next year. So those are the type of things that actually help the better players distance themself from the average players. And I think that's why in my generation you saw such great shot makers out there, Trevino and like I said, Seve in a lot of ways, he hit phenomenal shots.