Friday, August 21, 2009

Bigger is Better, Longer is Stronger - Right ?



OK, I confess - I'm going with the attention grabbing headline today....what the hell, it's been a long week and I have earned it.
Everywhere you look in our culture, we are obsessed with a size...whether it's in promoting tourism (Everything is Bigger in Texas), male "vitamins" like Extense (Having a larger penis* and enjoying a more fulfilling sex life is possible and attainable !), or the vehicles we drive ("Our SUV has 4000 Square Feet more cargo space then the nearest competitor") - Bigger is Better and Longer is Stronger.
And our dearly beloved game of golf is not immune from the siren song of "if you are not long,then you are flat out wrong". This year's new drivers are longer, the new model of irons ("The Set is DEAD) are advertised as being longer, and EVERYONE's balls are touted as being longer ("Nice Ball, Phil"). One could certainly argue that on the golf course we are even MORE obsessed with size and length than in other facets of our life. Lest you call me a sham, and accuse me of thinking I am immune from this, I confess...I am not! Look no further than my last post, where I wrote about a training tool (The Orange Whip) which has added (much needed) distance to my driver and my irons...so PLEASE color me guilty....
After pondering this in the pre-dawn hours today (She Who Must Be Obeyed was at her Friday session of "Booty Camp", and I was up early), I decided to conduct an experiment to see if we have all been bamboozled...if, in fact ,"Long is Wrong & Big is Bad". I decided that my next round, I would conduct a scientific analysis of golf, using the following simple rules:
  • All tee shots (Par 4's and 5's) will be hit with no more than a 3 wood.
  • All par 5's willl be played as lay ups.
  • All iron shots will be struck with one more club than normal, with perceived effort adjusted accordingly

Upon completion, I will compare the following statistics to my "normal" averages:

  • Total Strokes
  • Fairways Hit
  • GIR
  • # Putts

I will be posting the results of this experiment here next week, so stay tuned. Until then, I am curious to know if any of you have ever conducted a similar experiment, and what your results were. IN the meantime, keep your head down and your eyes on the BIG BOOBS ball....