"They hit a huge drive, they hit a short iron -- it's a different game."

While Bob Kravitz's column on technology does not contain any breaking news, in the context of the technology debate it's interesting to see a newspaper columnist do such a nice job considering the topic and ramifications. He also considers how rollbacks have played out in other sports, and I was particularly intrigued by the insinuation that the Indy 500 attendance has been hurt by slowing the cars down.

Either way, he comes down on the side of rolling things back. No doubt after spending some time with Pete Dye talking about the death of the long iron.

"For years, one of the great things about golf was, on a par 4, you'd have to hit a good drive, then hit a good 3- or 4-iron into the green," Dye said. "Years ago, Byron Nelson and the other great players, they were great long-iron players. But that doesn't happen with these top players. I'm sure the kids now could be excellent long-iron players, but they're not required to do it. So they're practicing with a 9-iron or wedge.

"They hit a huge drive, they hit a short iron -- it's a different game."

And also nice he touched on the impact on maintenance costs:

In an effort to offset increased length of the tees, courses have resorted to making fairways and greens more slippery. That means more cutting, more sophisticated growing techniques, more agronomic issues that concern only Dye and certain Purdue graduates.

"You go to Scotland and Ireland, their courses are more like ours used to be," Dye said. "And they can maintain them for half the cost."

When John Daly brought Crooked Stick to its knees in the 1991 PGA Championship, his season driving average was 288.9 yards. On today's PGA Tour, that 288.9 mark would rank 76th in driving distance.

The current PGA Tour average is 286.2 yards per drive. In 1991, that number would have ranked second behind Daly.

An even bigger victory: not even a hint of suggestion that improved athleticism has driven the increase!