That false sense of mastery, we’ve all felt it. Our driver, with a head as large as a small island nation, is working. We are two-fifty in the fairway and walking smugly with a wedge in our hands. The ground is soft and the greens receptive. The approach shots drop from the sky. Easy game. Simple life. Another no-stress par.
The winds pick up, before a tough stretch of holes. It’s 170 into the green, and then 180, and then a 194-yard par three. Whose idea was it to switch to the back tees? We’re going deeper into the bag: 6-iron, 5-iron, and our way-too-pristine 4-iron. The shots of nightmares begin to appear: the low hook that skims off the green, the sad flail that arcs into the woods, depositing a Pro-V never to be seen again. What happened to that nice clean contact of an hour ago?
It’s gone. We’ve been living a soft life, cosseted by game-improvement irons, drink holders, and wrinkle-free shirts. The long iron asked a question of us, and we did not have the answer. Our brokenness has been exposed. We need to hit the range. We need to take more lessons. We need to buy some hybrids off eBay.
Play golf however you like, but you cannot deny the purity of the long iron. It’s the kind of sound that you can think about all winter. Nicklaus hitting the flagstick on 17 at Pebble with a 1-iron. Tiger’s two-hundred-and-seventy-three-yard 2-iron at Memorial, or maybe you prefer his 3-iron from the sand on 18 at Hazeltine. Ben Hogan at Merion. Every golf shot is a display of grace under pressure; the long-iron is its concentrated form. The thin metal is ready to magnify any misstrike. But oh, the glory! They don’t put plaques on golf courses for ninety-yard wedges that go in the hole.
Many years ago, I stumbled upon some early golf papers written by Mark Broadie, who was then a relatively obscure professor of operations research at Columbia Business School. Before GPS and the advent of ShotLink on the PGA Tour, Broadie was recording where shots landed and figuring out the true value of a three-hundred-yard drive compared to sinking a fifteen-foot putt. This research would lead to his strokes-gained statistics, which in turn would revolutionize golf strategy. But even at the early stage, the message in the data was clear: the best players separated themselves from the pack with long-iron play.
The game has evolved and many of those long-irons have become hybrids, driving irons, and seven-woods. I get it. Golf is a difficult game with unpredictable outcomes. Why not optimize your equipment? But it’s also nice to drive a stick shift, to make your own bolognese, to hand wash the dishes. You’ll find me sweating over a four-iron, chasing transcendence.
Michael Agger is an editor at the New York Times, and he still watches too many swing videos on YouTube.
