The competition I played against was fantastic, but golf is a different game now. The courses have shrunk because the equipment has gotten better. They're hitting the ball 10 to 15 percent farther because of the changes in the golf ball.
Now we know everything about golf equipment. A player doesn't have to know diddly about golf clubs, because we know what a golf club can do and how it can fit to you. I hate to harp on my era because people don't like that, but 30 years back was so different. I didn't have maxed-out clubs. The clubs now are amazing.
The putter looks like a bunch of nuts and bolts welded together, but the ball goes in the hole.
Using TrackMan is very important in the development of your golf game because it gives you such good data on what your golf swing is doing and where it needs to go.
There are no short hitters on the tour anymore - just long and unbelievably long.
Being a club pro and all, a guy trying to keep up with golf's modern technology, I hadn't found much time for Internet dating, but then one day I knew I'd met the girl of my dreams when she replied to a comment I'd made on You-and-Me.com. She said, 'I love it when you talk equipment to me.'
The trouble that most of us find with the modern matched sets of clubs is that they don't really seem to know any more about the game than the old ones did.
But, at the end of the day, the things that I already have in my bag, all the TaylorMade clubs, and everything that I know TaylorMade does with their new clubs, and every single year, with the innovation, it's just something I want to be a part of.
Golf Media is basically my brain in one place. It does just about everything except cure asthma. If you find an app that cures asthma, definitely let me know.
I think, obviously, there's a bunch of technology with TrackMan, and all of the different launch monitors, that help tell you what is best. But, for me, it's a lot about what is going to come out from that initial window of hitting that ball.
From the first time I swung a PXG club I have wanted to add them to my bag. They feel incredible and the performance really makes a difference.
That's what I've always been about is trying to shine a light on the game of golf and not push people away, with developing the one-length irons, having a new way of swinging the golf club and doing all these different things that look weird, but have been a massive benefit to the game, that's what I'm about.
Ben Hogan was not really a big hitter. He was long enough. But Ben Hogan today? Ben Hogan today could not compete at Augusta because he did not have the massive length to compete against the long hitters. Power was always an issue at Augusta, but never so dominant that you couldn't play it.
I hasten to say to snobs from the Surrey pine-and-sand country that no invention since the corn plaster or the electric toothbrush has brought greater balm to the extremities of the senior golfer than the golfmobile, a word that will have to do for want of a better.
