EarthGolf

Bomb and Gouge are going after Jack Nicklaus again in their blog (and Geoff Shackelford too - entertainment at its finest!), but in addition to the usual strawmen they enjoy beating on, this time they twist Jack’s words to help fit their agenda. B&G are taking issue with Nicklaus’ contention that we may see 5-iron played into the 288-yard par three 8th hole at Oakmont. Let’s look at what Jack said.

“Five-iron,” said 1962 champion Jack Nicklaus, predicting what some players will hit. “Don’t think it won’t be. They’ll play some kind of iron there.”

And here’s what Gouge uses to slam Nicklaus.

But Jack is off his meds if he thinks the prevailing club of choice will be 5-iron.

Huh? Where does Nicklaus say “prevailing club”? Nicklaus says “some”. “Some” is a lot less that “prevailing”.

The interesting thing is that they use the USGA’s Mike Davis to defend their belief that Nicklaus is crazy to think that some players may play a 5-iron. Here’s the selective quote they use.

Said Davis, “We thought this distance would really put, you know, 1-irons, 3-woods, even drivers back in the players hands. If we have a few players that just cannot get it there, so be it, because at the end of the U.S. Open, we’re looking for the guy that scores the lowest on 72 holes.”

Here’s another Davis quote, conveniently missing from the B&G blog, from the article that Jack said he thought some players may play 5-iron.

“When we were here in 2003 and we started watching players in the U.S. Amateur routinely hit 2-irons, 4-irons, 5-irons [from 252 yards], a few of us shook our heads and said, this doesn’t need to be done for the Open,” Davis said. “We thought this distance would really put, you know, 1-irons, 3-woods, even drivers, back in the players’ hands. If we have a few players who can’t get it there, so be it.”

Is it such a leap of logic that if amateurs in 2003 were playing 5-irons at 252 yards that in 2007 some professionals can play a 5-iron 288 yards? No, it’s not. And it’s not Nicklaus who is “off his meds”.

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