"Hogan's got to be rolling over in his grave."
/Former PGA Tour Commissioner Deane Beman, as told to Bill Fields in Golf World's Backspin issue (not posted):
Using today's 460cc metal-headed drivers with perimeter weighting, if you miss it a half-inch off center, you'll only lose five yards and still hit it dead straight. If you did that with persimmon, it would cost you 50 yards and you couldn't find the ball.
And...
Hogan's got to be rolling over in his grave. Take the top 20 ranked player in the world today, give them the type of clubs Jack Nicklaus used in his prime and a mid-1970s ball--the best made--and put them out on tour in January against all the other players using today's equipment. Not one of the world's current top 20 would win a tournament and, week-to-week, not half of them would make the cut.
Now before you rip Beman for stating the obvious for any generation of golfer or sounding like a cranky old man, think of his comments this way.
We hear over and over how today's fields in golf are deeper than ever before. The players are working out, the instruction is better, diets have been refined, et cetera. All true, but ultimately what his comments point to is how much equipment has equalized play and made it harder for the great ball-strikers to separate themselves.