Golf has dropped a shot with technology row, says McDowell

By Mike Norrish Published: 7:19PM GMT twenty-five February 2010

Perfect blend: Neil Coles, Graeme McDowell, and master blender Sandy Hyslop poise with a bottle of the Ballantine"s 2010 Championship Blend, constructed to applaud the 50th anniversary of Ballantine"s impasse with golf.

Times are hard, reward sponsors are wanting and Tiger Woods is nowhere to be seen. But the competition hasn"t helped itself either.

Last month, Phil Mickelson, the universe No. 2, was indicted of intrigue by an additional American, Scott McCarron a assign that sent a tremble by the sport. Mickelsons crime, as McCarron saw it, was to feat a authorised loophole that allows him to make use of a V-groove crowd the kind outlawed by golfs lawmakers this year.

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Some have shielded Mickelson, though most side with McCarron, and there"s no disbelief the row has shop-worn golf at a time when it needs all the assistance it can get, generally in the US.

With Woods and Mickelson both skipping last weeks WGC Match Play in Arizona, the margin was headed by universe No. 3 Steve Stricker, a grave being that shows because sponsors are keeping their income in their pockets.

And according to one Ryder Cup player in the margin last week, golf has forsaken a shot by "messing the players about for no genuine benefit".

"The record changes won"t affect the figure of the game," pronounced Graeme McDowell. "The shorter, straighter hitters arent unexpected going to begin winning some-more golf tournaments."

McDowell, one of the straighter hitters on Tour, lost opposite an additional similar-style player in Luke Donald in the opening round. The order changes were written to assist true hitters similar to Donald, who are continually outdriven by flesh men such as Alvaro Quirós.

Essentially, the thought was to shave the wings of the bombers by creation it unfit to get turn out of the fairway rough, but McDowell insists plan simply won"t work.

"Guys are not going to shift their styles," he said. "I only dont think it will shift the diversion that much, and the caused such a lot of difficulty with guys carrying to shift their equipment. Its caused a lot of bad press and bad broadside and cost the manufacturers a lot of income and the players a lot of headaches.

McDowell was since a uninformed viewpoint of the approach record has altered golf when he dusted off a little selected apparatus to fool around at in an "old-vs-new" golf day at Wentworth last week.

McDowell played opposite former Ryder Cup player Neil Coles, who is right away in his seventies. The Irishman used the strange apparatus with that Coles won the Ballantine"s Tournament in 1961, whilst his competition played with McDowell"s glossy new gear.

Thankfully for McDowell"s confidence, he was still means to better an competition 40 years his comparison in a day that helped applaud Ballantine"s 50-year organisation with the sport.

"It was fun to fool around with Neil"s old clubs, but I think I"ll hang with my stream equipment. The manacles havent essentially altered a outrageous volume but the greatest shift has been in the golf ball. I played with my Callaway ball, and if Id have since that to someone 40 years ago theyd have laughed and pronounced I cant fool around with that rock."

McDowell, who is between the favourites for April"s Ballantine"s Championship on Jeju Island in Korea, believes the allege of record over the last 50 years hasn"t indispensably softened the diversion as a spectacle.

"The days of the shotmaker are scarcely dead," he said. "Guys hardly shift their round moody in the wind. You used to have guys who would figure the round in to the wind, blur it and pull it, and flourishing up in the breezy conditions in Northern Ireland, those sort of players unequivocally left an sense on me. They did things differently, and with a lot of style. But a lot of golf courses currently unequivocally foster guys similar to Quirós who fly it 350 yards off the tee, that I think is a bit of a shame."