paradigm_shift wrote:Lag, as a traditionalist, what is your opinion on chippers?
Short game is often more art than science. Should a player be able to use what they like within 50 yards in? I looked at the old jiggers and they look like a normal iron. The modern odyssey chippers have a lot of weight and put the hands ahead of the club face.
The transition from persimmon and perimeter weighting clubs could be argued to have ruined the game/courses. Do you have disdain for chippers?
Most sports have very specific limits or parameters for equipment. Golf should too.
If golf is a game played using "irons' "woods" "wedges" "putter" then those clubs should be easily defined within the rules. I just don't see anything wrong with that.
As far as chippers, it would seem to fall into either or both categories of putters or irons. Chippers are really just putter with significant loft. I think all golf clubs should be heel shafted, with the shaft
coming right down into the hosel. No center shafted clubs, no crazy bends or offset. No reason not to just keep it as simple as possible.
Restrictions on clubface height, width and depth. That could cover all clubs. 3 inches wide max, two inches in height, 3 1/2 inches in depth. Length of shafts capped at 44 inches. No clubs lighter than 13 ounces.
Lie angles: nothing flatter than 45 degrees, nothing more upright than 70 degrees. Grips cannot exceed 1 - 1/2" diameter.
Loft restriction: Nothing less than zero, nothing more than 60 degrees.
That's all similar to what we did with the TRGA.
http://trga.info I think we capped loft at 56 degrees.
Something simple like that keeps out a lot of nonsense within golf. It keeps out broomstick putters, frying pan drivers and super lofted wedges with huge heads.
Golf has been around long enough and rich enough in history to warrant it being played as a game of tradition. Most all of those specs above would cover most of the clubs made in both the hickory era and
golf up to the mid 1990's.
There were some crazy clubs in the hickory era that didn't catch on or seemed a bit over the top or out of bounds even for that era.
The invention of the sand wedge was very controversial when Sarazen played it and I don't know for a fact, but would speculate that they started putting silica sand in the bunkers and it became a problem.
If people just couldn't get the ball out, and it slowed up play etc, the SW might have been a good solution. It created something of it's own skillset.
I don't see having to legislate the bounce or flange width on a club as long as it conforms to the more basic club restrictions.
I think shafts could be made of any material as long as the overall dead weight of the club is within lower tolerances.