GOLF:Advances in technology have transformed golf into a game for long hitters, but it also benefits ordinary hackers as well, writes COLIN BYRNE

I REMEMBER coming back home from tour a couple of decades ago with a set of irons, a driver and a putter that had been donated to me for the winter from my employer of the time. It was like asking a bantamweight to fight heavyweight and see how he got on. Professional golf equipment to the handicap golfer was more of a hindrance than a help, even if it was free. The only club I could possibly benefit from was the putter, and even that shaft may have been too stiff for me. The clubs looked good and had an exotic fascination back home in the early 1990s when we were not really au fait with golf technology.

That was back in the days when a young club golfer was happy to have 14 clubs in his bag, the suitability of the clubs was way too sophisticated a question to ask when the intimidation factor of the fancy equipment was enough to give you kudos on the tee.

A few years later I recall having a conversation with Hal Sutton when we played with him in the late ’90s. It was a time of huge change in golf technology. The development of clubs and shafts and, more importantly, the ball changed the whole dynamic of the game.

So when my boss at the time, Greg Turner, asked Hal going down the first what he would advise young kids taking up the game to do, Hal promptly replied, “grip the club strongly and hit the ball as hard as you can”. Top golfers were using sound techniques but more importantly they were using appropriate equipment.

It was the start of the era I have often referred to as the post-Faldo epoch of modern golf. Nick Faldo perfected the art of hitting the ball extremely straight and with total control. He did this just at the time that the equipment was becoming so sophisticated that it encouraged players to smash the ball. Faldo could shape the ball according to the shot required. The new clubs and particularly the ball had no time for curve. It comes off the clubface so quickly that the face has no time to impress a shape on the ball.

Faldo was nearing the end of his prime, but I have no doubt that the technological timing speeded up his exit from competitive golf. Smashing the ball became the new way in golf. Shaping the ball and finesse took a back seat.

This power game has been reflected in the length of golf courses presented to top professionals today. There is only one course I can think of on the US Tour that doesn’t particularly favour a long hitter and that is their flagship event, The Players Championship at TPC Sawgrass.

Not only course design, but the use of irrigation on the long courses has played into long hitters’ hands. Courses, in general, tend to be almost over-watered, putting more of a premium on length.

So back in the ’90s the golfers on tour began to benefit greatly from the advance in technology and the support service that was offered to touring players. I remember looking along the back of a range in America at a sea of manufacturers with rows of their latest gadgets ready to push them on players looking for the “edge”.

There was such a choice and such an army of persuasive sales people whispering in delicate golfers’ ears about what new product they must have and they were costing themselves shots if they didn’t include it as their “gamer”. An added factor became prevalent on tour. Retief Goosen changed his putter every couple of weeks throughout his best year on tour in 2004; beyond that it was the same 13 clubs each week, no changes. Those not in form were always tempted to try something different.

When the new technology arrived so did the back-up service to go with it. Tour players went from having limited access to workshops to having full access to laboratory-like test centres combined with workshops working in tandem in order to get the right equipment in the players’ hands, almost instantly. There was a tradition amongst European Tour players of an end-of-year pilgrimage to Carlsbad in California to the manufacturers’ headquarters in order to get clubs custom fitted. This service then became available on tour with the manufacturers’ rolling workshops following the tours.

With the technical nous and creativity of the development engineers in the golf manufacturing companies today and particularly with the advent of such drivers and fairways woods as the TaylorMade R11 the need for a mobile workshop is almost negated. With the turn of your personal wrench on the sole plate of the driver you can adjust the loft and the centre of gravity of the club; instant club gratification.

TaylorMade decided to go a step further by bringing this attentive service to the punter. They rolled into the Kinsealy Grange Driving Range last Saturday for one of their Tour Experience Days. Through a detailed analysis with expert fitters and advanced “Trackman” ball flight computers, after a half-hour analysis you could be assessed and instantly fitted in the tour van behind the range. You could leave Portmarnock a couple of hours later with a custom-made set of clubs just like the tour professionals. The only difference is that you would have to pay for them.

The R11’s three dimensions of distance is a long way from the hand-down clubs I enjoyed 20 years ago. With instant loft and face angle adjustment by my personal wrench and a twist of the movable weight nut which tweaks the clubhead’s centre of gravity I was launching my driver at the optimum angle and spin rate with an ideal “smash” factor straight down the range with flattering distances. I only realised on the way out that it was blowing a hurricane down-wind.

What the machine and very discrete demonstrator didn’t tell me was how much LOFT there was in my swing. Lack Of Flipping Talent.