＜prologue＞
I started a blog called “The Baby Boomer Generation’s Miscellaneous Blog”（Dankai-sedai no garakutatyou:団塊世代の我楽多（がらくた）帳） in July 2018, about a year before I fully retired. More than six years have passed since then, and the number of articles has increased considerably.
So, in order to make them accessible to people who don’t understand Japanese, I decided to translate my past articles into English and publish them.
It may sound a bit exaggerated, but I would like to make this my life’s work.
It should be noted that haiku and waka （Japanese short fixed form poems） are quite difficult to translate into English, so some parts are written in Japanese.
If you are interested in haiku or waka and would like to know more, please read introductory or specialized books on haiku or waka written in English.
I also write many articles about the Japanese language. I would be happy if these inspire more people to want to learn Japanese.
my blog’s URL:https://skawa68.com/
my X’s URL:団塊世代の我楽多帳（@historia49）さん / X
<Updated 11/29/2023> The United States Golf Association and others are proposing rule changes to limit the distance a golf ball can hit.
The following report was published, and I am in full support of it. However, I doubt whether it will gain the support of professional golfers, the Professional Golf Association, or golf equipment manufacturers.
The R&A and the United States Golf Association (USGA), which oversee golf rules, drafted a “Model Local Rules (MLR)” in March of this year to be adopted by professional and top amateur elite competitions, with the aim of curbing the ever-increasing distance of golf balls.
The MLR would limit the balls used in elite competition to “slower flying balls” than the official balls, and the R&A and USGA presented the proposal to stakeholders around the world, including golf associations and equipment manufacturers, and sought their opinions.
The two organizations closed the public hearing on August 14th, and after taking into consideration the opinions received, they formulated a new rule to limit the driving distance (which the American media is calling “golf ball rollback”), which was scheduled to be announced soon.
However, prior to the announcement, R&A CEO Martin Slumbers said something quite significant in an interview with American golf media outlet Golf Digest.
“There’s no question that hitting distances are increasing compared to 15 years ago, and they will undoubtedly continue to increase. I have refrained from commenting on this for many years, but when we started producing the Distance Report, it was clear to me that this was an issue that needed to be addressed.”
Slumbers acknowledged the need to reduce distance, but added:
“Our position on this issue is clear, as is USGA CEO Michael Wang. We have only three options: establish MLR for elite competition, regulate with general rules, or do nothing. But doing nothing is not an option, and Michael Wang agrees,” he said, asserting that some kind of rule revision will be carried out.
However, regarding the MLR, which was announced in March and which would be required to be adopted by elite competitions, he revealed that “the competitive golf world reacted as ‘not happy’,” and said, “They expressed concern that it would separate the elite competition from the general public, turning them into two separate games. The PGA Tour made its views public, as did the PGA of America, and many other players followed suit. Many players raised their voices in opposition, and we have listened.” He acknowledged that there will be major difficulties in accepting the MLR.
Slumbers then concluded the interview by saying, “But we have a responsibility to the future of the game. The R&A and the USGA have to protect the integrity of the game. So we have to listen to our stakeholders and then make a decision. We are in the process of doing that and we expect to make an announcement later this year.”
Golf Digest, which published the interview, did not pass judgment on which of Slumbers’ two options, other than “doing nothing,” is more likely.
However, other golf media ran headlines such as “Golf ball rollback decision coming soon — it could affect everyone” (Sports Illustrated) and “Sport-wide golf ball rollback seems like the only option as the end of the year approaches” (CBS Sports).
The R&A and USGA rules on the use of “slower flying balls” are not local rules limited to elite competitions, but general rules. This means that in the near future, the regulations for official golf balls may change and all golfers may have to play with “slower flying balls” than they do now.
Yoichi Koseki (Source: e!Golf)
1. Tsuneyuki Nakajima was trained as a gifted driver aiming for 300 yards.
More than 40 years ago, the most famous Japanese professional golfers included Masashi Ozaki, Isao Aoki, Tsuneyuki Nakajima, and Teruo Sugihara.
Tsuneyuki Nakajima, the youngest of them all, was trained by his father to be a gifted golfer, aiming for a “300-yard” driver shot.
At that time, golf clubs were “Persimmon,” so even the longest distance player could hit a ball 270 yards at most. 300 yards was an unbelievable distance, and I thought that Tsuneyuki Nakajima’s father had given his son an impossible task.
Thanks to his father’s spartan education for gifted players, Tsuneyuki Nakajima achieved the feat of winning the “Seven Japanese Majors” (Japan Amateur, Japan Pro, Japan Open, Japan Series, Japan Pro Match Play, Japan Senior, and Japan Senior Open) through the amateur, pro, and senior tournaments.
2. 300 yards with a driver is now not unusual due to the evolution of clubs and balls.
However, “golf clubs” and “golf balls” have evolved remarkably since then, and now it is not unusual for a male professional golfer to hit a 300-yard driver shot.
I started playing golf as early as 30 years old, but since I did not play much after that, I was completely left behind in the evolution of clubs and balls.
When I resumed playing golf at almost 50 years old, I tried to tee off with the “Persimmon” golf clubs that I used when I started, and my fellow competitors commented, “It is unusual that you are still using Persimmon clubs today, I was surprised that I was still using Persimmon clubs nowadays, as if I were using antique equipment.
Compared to the Persimmon, the new driver has a “big head” and is completely different in size. The ball is also slightly larger and has changed from a string ball to a urethane covered ball. As a result, the same person can hit longer distance shots, and the larger club head seems to have resulted in fewer missed shots.
In the 10 years between 1995 and 2005, golf clubs and golf balls evolved rapidly, and as of 2017, there are 40 players, mostly professional golfers in the United States, with driver shot distances of 300 yards or more. Hideki Matsuyama（松山英樹） of Japan is also among these players.
3. Aiming for 2 on long holes is now the norm.
This means that aiming for 2 on par 5 long holes is now the norm, and some golf courses are even increasing the distance of long holes. The only requirement for long holes is that they must be 472 yards or longer, so there is no problem in creating holes longer than 600 yards.
Recently, however, the use of “high rebound clubs” has been banned in official competitions, and there is a sense that the “desire for distance” has slowed down.
4. Now is the time to return to “golf using hickory clubs”
By the way, what I would like to advocate is a return to “box golf” as in the old days, with “distance-less Persimmon-made clubs” and “distance-less string balls”.
・昔のようなパーシモンの「飛ばないクラブ」と糸巻きの「飛ばないボール」を使った「箱庭ゴルフ」
Of course, you can use existing golf courses. If you are an amateur and don’t want your score to be worse, you can increase the par 72 to a par 76 or whatever you see fit, if necessary.
Also, in order to accommodate a lot of customers, golf courses these days rush you into playing within 2 hours and 30 minutes per round, which is a bit annoying. As an old man approaching 70, I’d like to enjoy the course more leisurely…
5. Japanese professional golfers should improve “shot accuracy” more.
I also have some complaints about recent Japanese professional golfers. The professional golf world is in the heyday of “distance” for both men and women, so the number of “players who can hit the ball far” has certainly increased, but the accuracy of their shots, or rather their technique, seems to be declining.
This may be because there are no “superheroes” like Masashi Ozaki, Isao Aoki, Tsuneyuki Nakajima, and Teruo Sugihara in the past, or “queens” like Hisako Higuchi, Ayako Okamoto, and Yuri Fudo for the women. The only player who falls into this category is Hideki Matsuyama, who is active in the United States.
I would like to see more of the “professional super shots,” such as the third shot on a par 5 that ties for the pin, or the solid pin shot on a par 4, or the precise shot that saves par even when the ball fails to hit the green.
Teruo Sugihara, who was inferior in distance, won many championships against Masashi Ozaki and Isao Aoki by making full use of his highly accurate fairway wood, the fruit of his unrelenting practice.
It seems to me that the current Japanese players, both men and women, are not as skilled as their Korean counterparts. Especially in the case of the women’s competition, it often happens that one of the Korean players wins week after week. When there is a Korean player at the top of the leaderboard on the second day, I think, “There is no way for a Japanese player to win again this week,” and I don’t even want to watch the final round on Sunday.
In other words, because it is not interesting to watch because there is no one to expect a big upset on Sunday. Just like in a marathon or ekiden race where “first place is overwhelmingly dominant” is a totally uninteresting race.
I would like to ask Japanese professional golfers and the Japan Professional Golfers’ Association to make more efforts and ingenuity to improve the accuracy of their golf. If they do not, I think that there will be fewer companies that want to sponsor not only men’s golf but also women’s golf, and the number of tournaments will continue to decrease. Naturally, television viewership will also continue to decline.
It’s not fun at all if the Japanese athletes are all just small-time players who play supporting roles for the winning Korean athletes.
Masashi Ozaki is a “long hitter” as his nickname “Jumbo Ozaki” suggests, but he is also outstanding in not only driving distance but also in “skills”. Otherwise, he would not have been able to achieve his “113 wins”. I look forward to the emergence of a Japanese male and female pro golfer who excels in both driving distance and skills like him.