Opinion & Analysis
Best Ball-Strikers (Part 2): Lee Trevino and Tom Watson
I am very fortunate to belong to Preston Trail, a golf club in Dallas noted for having professional and amateur players. Among them is Lee Trevino, and we actually have a bit of history.
I was working at The Haney Ranch as a club fitter in the early 90’s when I developed the Tight Lies fairway wood. I also did basic club repair and can confidently say the repair part was not going to be a career move. Some guys are handy, neat and efficient. None of those adjectives apply to me.
Hank had a young teacher by the name of Tony Trevino who would help me when my inefficiency got me behind any normal repair schedule. His name was Tony Lee Trevino, Lee’s son. When the Tight Lies was gaining a bit of a reputation at the ranch, unbeknownst to me, Tony shafted one up for his dad.
This led to a phone call one evening.
“Barney, this is Lee Trevino,” to which I responded, “Who the hell is this? It’s late and I’m tired.”
After he reintroduced himself, it dawned on me that the caller was really Lee Trevino, arguably one of the greatest ball strikers in golf history. He went on to explain that he loved the Tight Lies and was preparing to show it to his sponsor at the time, Spaulding. He gave me his agent’s name and phone number so I’d have him available when negotiations started.
My net worth at the time qualified me for food stamps (literally), so suffice to say I eagerly waited for the call from Spaulding. I’m still waiting, a story Lee told the membership of Preston Trail at an evening function. Shall we say it not one of Spaulding’s great decisions.
The idea of approaching a professional golfer for a game has always seemed intrusive to me, but years later at the club, Lee said “anytime” and I jumped at the chance. I had played with Tommy Bolt and Moe Norman. Now, the chance to add another one of the greatest ball strikers to the list was a like the kid in the proverbial candy store.
Related: Best Ball-Strikers (Part 1): Tommy Bolt and Moe Norman
What was it like? How do you explain golf shots executed at a level barely comprehensible? This wasn’t Lee Trevino from the PGA Tour; this was Lee Trevino who is “no longer competitive,” explaining shots as he prepared to take his backswing.
“This calls for a baby fade … I’m going to draw this one so the ball is rolling towards the pin.”
And with every explanation, a shot as described. His drives were from the fairway, as he said, “only about 260” ( I had hit several yards ago). Every shot into the green ended up pin high, unless he wanted to be short or long for a better putt. The old, washed-up guy could only shoot 65-66 and this while giving me a tutorial on shaping the golf ball.
We’ve had several conversations about the finer points of golf shots and equipment; it’s like listening to Elon Musk talk about one of his projects. I pay really, really close attention because he’s always on the verge of going over my head.
And by the way, he plays from tees where he can still hit the irons into the greens he used to hit. He thinks 99 percent of us are tripping over our respective egos by playing back tees, trying to fit hybrids between traps. To that I say, amen!
Tom Watson
Last alphabetically, but a man I’m proud to call a friend. Tom was on the Adams staff for many years and during that time when I was CEO we had very little contact unless it was a discussion about a particular club design.
When we first signed him, I said that unless he had a specific request we really wouldn’t be seeing much of each other. My analogy was a doctor: If I had a friend who was a doc, I wouldn’t be dropping in on an operation to see how he was doing.
That’s how I viewed playing the PGA Tour. It was his office (or in his case, his operating room) and using the staff relationship to “drop in” would be intrusive. We each had jobs to do and in a sense were close, but not physically. As a result I cannot recall many actual times on the course with Tom, but three memories come to mind.
When I first talked to him about being on staff, the plan was for me to meet him in Kansas City with our new irons for him to try — basically to see if he liked our stuff. He had already used and liked the woods.
I flew from Dallas and met him on the range at Wolf Creek. Neither Tom nor I are much for small talk. He explained to me that he was going to hit some shots with his regular irons and the same with ours. He proceeded to open a shag bag, and using 3-to-4 different clubs he hit about 25 of the most beautiful iron shots you could imagine.
I was ready to go back to Dallas on the spot. He then took our irons and repeated the process, looked to me said, ” I could play with these,” whereupon it was over. I went back to Dallas, his agent called and we established him as our spokesman — a relationship that exists to this day. My total range exposure time was maybe 45 min.
Every year, Tom would invite his sponsors to play with him at The Greenbrier, and the first two years I went before handing it off to other employees. We were teams and he joined us for three-hole stretches. What do I remember? Leaning!
Every time he hit a shot, it was straight at the flag and I had to lean to see it land. Subsequently, we have evolved into an annual fishing trip, something we both enjoy and he doesn’t have to suffer my golf. I am not including anything on his thoughts on the golf swing. He has out an instructional package and I know he devoted a serious amount of time and effort for it to be complete.
Last year, Tom came to Dallas and I was very proud to be included in his game with George Bush (43) and a dinner afterward.
I was telling my brother about the event, and he reminded me that when I came home from college I used to hire out to muck stalls at local dairy farms. His comment: “Boy have you come a long way.” I have, and the memories and the great people are one thing the game of golf has in abundance.
If it’s a bit hokey; I don’t care. It’s the core of golf and why I fight to stop the loss of players.
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19th Hole
Vincenzi’s 2024 Zurich Classic of New Orleans betting preview
The PGA TOUR heads to New Orleans to play the 2023 Zurich Classic of New Orleans. In a welcome change from the usual stroke play, the Zurich Classic is a team event. On Thursday and Saturday, the teams play best ball, and on Friday and Sunday the teams play alternate shot.
TPC Louisiana is a par 72 that measures 7,425 yards. The course features some short par 4s and plenty of water and bunkers, which makes for a lot of exciting risk/reward scenarios for competitors. Pete Dye designed the course in 2004 specifically for the Zurich Classic, although the event didn’t make its debut until 2007 because of Hurricane Katrina.
Coming off of the Masters and a signature event in consecutive weeks, the field this week is a step down, and understandably so. Many of the world’s top players will be using this time to rest after a busy stretch.
However, there are some interesting teams this season with some stars making surprise appearances in the team event. Some notable teams include Patrick Cantlay and Xander Schauffele, Rory McIlroy and Shane Lowry, Collin Morikawa and Kurt Kitayama, Will Zalatoris and Sahith Theegala as well as a few Canadian teams, Nick Taylor and Adam Hadwin and Taylor Pendrith and Corey Conners.
Past Winners at TPC Louisiana
- 2023: Riley/Hardy (-30)
- 2022: Cantlay/Schauffele (-29)
- 2021: Leishman/Smith (-20)
- 2019: Palmer/Rahm (-26)
- 2018: Horschel/Piercy (-22)
- 2017: Blixt/Smith (-27)
2024 Zurich Classic of New Orleans Picks
Tom Hoge/Maverick McNealy +2500 (DraftKings)
Tom Hoge is coming off of a solid T18 finish at the RBC Heritage and finished T13 at last year’s Zurich Classic alongside Harris English.
This season, Hoge is having one of his best years on Tour in terms of Strokes Gained: Approach. In his last 24 rounds, the only player to top him on the category is Scottie Scheffler. Hoge has been solid on Pete Dye designs, ranking 28th in the field over his past 36 rounds.
McNealy is also having a solid season. He’s finished T6 at the Waste Management Phoenix Open and T9 at the PLAYERS Championship. He recently started working with world renowned swing coach, Butch Harmon, and its seemingly paid dividends in 2024.
Keith Mitchell/Joel Dahmen +4000 (DraftKings)
Keith Mitchell is having a fantastic season, finishing in the top-20 of five of his past seven starts on Tour. Most recently, Mitchell finished T14 at the Valero Texas Open and gained a whopping 6.0 strokes off the tee. He finished 6th at last year’s Zurich Classic.
Joel Dahmen is having a resurgent year and has been dialed in with his irons. He also has a T11 finish at the PLAYERS Championship at TPC Sawgrass which is another Pete Dye track. With Mitchell’s length and Dahmen’s ability to put it close with his short irons, the Mitchell/Dahmen combination will be dangerous this week.
Taylor Moore/Matt NeSmith +6500 (DraftKings)
Taylor Moore has quickly developed into one of the more consistent players on Tour. He’s finished in the top-20 in three of his past four starts, including a very impressive showing at The Masters, finishing T20. He’s also finished T4 at this event in consecutive seasons alongside Matt NeSmith.
NeSmith isn’t having a great 2024, but has seemed to elevate his game in this format. He finished T26 at Pete Dye’s TPC Sawgrass, which gives the 30-year-old something to build off of. NeSmith is also a great putter on Bermudagrass, which could help elevate Moore’s ball striking prowess.
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19th Hole
Vincenzi’s 2024 LIV Adelaide betting preview: Cam Smith ready for big week down under
After having four of the top twelve players on the leaderboard at The Masters, LIV Golf is set for their fifth event of the season: LIV Adelaide.
For both LIV fans and golf fans in Australia, LIV Adelaide is one of the most anticipated events of the year. With 35,000 people expected to attend each day of the tournament, the Grange Golf Club will be crawling with fans who are passionate about the sport of golf. The 12th hole, better known as “the watering hole”, is sure to have the rowdiest of the fans cheering after a long day of drinking some Leishman Lager.
The Grange Golf Club is a par-72 that measures 6,946 yards. The course features minimal resistance, as golfers went extremely low last season. In 2023, Talor Gooch shot consecutive rounds of 62 on Thursday and Friday, giving himself a gigantic cushion heading into championship Sunday. Things got tight for a while, but in the end, the Oklahoma State product was able to hold off The Crushers’ Anirban Lahiri for a three-shot victory.
The Four Aces won the team competition with the Range Goats finishing second.
*All Images Courtesy of LIV Golf*
Past Winners at LIV Adelaide
- 2023: Talor Gooch (-19)
Stat Leaders Through LIV Miami
Green in Regulation
- Richard Bland
- Jon Rahm
- Paul Casey
Fairways Hit
- Abraham Ancer
- Graeme McDowell
- Henrik Stenson
Driving Distance
- Bryson DeChambeau
- Joaquin Niemann
- Dean Burmester
Putting
- Cameron Smith
- Louis Oosthuizen
- Matt Jones
2024 LIV Adelaide Picks
Cameron Smith +1400 (DraftKings)
When I pulled up the odds for LIV Adelaide, I was more than a little surprised to see multiple golfers listed ahead of Cameron Smith on the betting board. A few starts ago, Cam finished runner-up at LIV Hong Kong, which is a golf course that absolutely suits his eye. Augusta National in another course that Smith could roll out of bed and finish in the top-ten at, and he did so two weeks ago at The Masters, finishing T6.
At Augusta, he gained strokes on the field on approach, off the tee (slightly), and of course, around the green and putting. Smith able to get in the mix at a major championship despite coming into the week feeling under the weather tells me that his game is once again rounding into form.
The Grange Golf Club is another course that undoubtedly suits the Australian. Smith is obviously incredibly comfortable playing in front of the Aussie faithful and has won three Australian PGA Championship’s. The course is very short and will allow Smith to play conservative off the tee, mitigating his most glaring weakness. With birdies available all over the golf course, there’s a chance the event turns into a putting contest, and there’s no one on the planet I’d rather have in one of those than Cam Smith.
Louis Oosthuizen +2200 (DraftKings)
Louis Oosthuizen has simply been one of the best players on LIV in the 2024 seas0n. The South African has finished in the top-10 on the LIV leaderboard in three of his five starts, with his best coming in Jeddah, where he finished T2. Perhaps more impressively, Oosthuizen finished T7 at LIV Miami, which took place at Doral’s “Blue Monster”, an absolutely massive golf course. Given that Louis is on the shorter side in terms of distance off the tee, his ability to play well in Miami shows how dialed he is with the irons this season.
In addition to the LIV finishes, Oosthuizen won back-to-back starts on the DP World Tour in December at the Alfred Dunhill Championship and the Mauritus Open. He also finished runner-up at the end of February in the International Series Oman. The 41-year-old has been one of the most consistent performers of 2024, regardless of tour.
For the season, Louis ranks 4th on LIV in birdies made, T9 in fairways hit and first in putting. He ranks 32nd in driving distance, but that won’t be an issue at this short course. Last season, he finished T11 at the event, but was in decent position going into the final round but fell back after shooting 70 while the rest of the field went low. This season, Oosthuizen comes into the event in peak form, and the course should be a perfect fit for his smooth swing and hot putter this week.
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Opinion & Analysis
The Wedge Guy: What really makes a wedge work? Part 1
Of all the clubs in our bags, wedges are almost always the simplest in construction and, therefore, the easiest to analyze what might make one work differently from another if you know what to look for.
Wedges are a lot less mysterious than drivers, of course, as the major brands are working with a lot of “pixie dust” inside these modern marvels. That’s carrying over more to irons now, with so many new models featuring internal multi-material technologies, and almost all of them having a “badge” or insert in the back to allow more complex graphics while hiding the actual distribution of mass.
But when it comes to wedges, most on the market today are still single pieces of molded steel, either cast or forged into that shape. So, if you look closely at where the mass is distributed, it’s pretty clear how that wedge is going to perform.
To start, because of their wider soles, the majority of the mass of almost any wedge is along the bottom third of the clubhead. So, the best wedge shots are always those hit between the 2nd and 5th grooves so that more mass is directly behind that impact. Elite tour professionals practice incessantly to learn to do that consistently, wearing out a spot about the size of a penny right there. If impact moves higher than that, the face is dramatically thinner, so smash factor is compromised significantly, which reduces the overall distance the ball will fly.
Every one of us, tour players included, knows that maddening shot that we feel a bit high on the face and it doesn’t go anywhere, it’s not your fault.
If your wedges show a wear pattern the size of a silver dollar, and centered above the 3rd or 4th groove, you are not getting anywhere near the same performance from shot to shot. Robot testing proves impact even two to three grooves higher in the face can cause distance loss of up to 35 to 55 feet with modern ‘tour design’ wedges.
In addition, as impact moves above the center of mass, the golf club principle of gear effect causes the ball to fly higher with less spin. Think of modern drivers for a minute. The “holy grail” of driving is high launch and low spin, and the driver engineers are pulling out all stops to get the mass as low in the clubhead as possible to optimize this combination.
Where is all the mass in your wedges? Low. So, disregarding the higher lofts, wedges “want” to launch the ball high with low spin – exactly the opposite of what good wedge play requires penetrating ball flight with high spin.
While almost all major brand wedges have begun putting a tiny bit more thickness in the top portion of the clubhead, conventional and modern ‘tour design’ wedges perform pretty much like they always have. Elite players learn to hit those crisp, spinny penetrating wedge shots by spending lots of practice time learning to consistently make contact low in the face.
So, what about grooves and face texture?
Grooves on any club can only do so much, and no one has any material advantage here. The USGA tightly defines what we manufacturers can do with grooves and face texture, and modern manufacturing techniques allow all of us to push those limits ever closer. And we all do. End of story.
Then there’s the topic of bounce and grinds, the most complex and confusing part of the wedge formula. Many top brands offer a complex array of sole configurations, all of them admittedly specialized to a particular kind of lie or turf conditions, and/or a particular divot pattern.
But if you don’t play the same turf all the time, and make the same size divot on every swing, how would you ever figure this out?
The only way is to take any wedge you are considering and play it a few rounds, hitting all the shots you face and observing the results. There’s simply no other way.
So, hopefully this will inspire a lively conversation in our comments section, and I’ll chime in to answer any questions you might have.
And next week, I’ll dive into the rest of the wedge formula. Yes, shafts, grips and specifications are essential, too.
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Ken
Mar 17, 2015 at 10:00 pm
Please continue these great contributions to GOLF WRX! Thanks so much.
A V Tech 4 player
RG
Mar 16, 2015 at 12:17 am
Your the best and your designs revolutionized the game. Other’s may not see it but the biggest innovator’s in golf history are Karsten Solheim and Barney Adams.PERIOD:)
Brian Conley
Mar 14, 2015 at 11:18 am
I no longer buy Titleist or Ping retail because they are so restrictive on retailers. I buy mostly Taylormade because they’re big, with Adidas. I will now start buying Adams because from this article, I’m sure I like Mr. Adams.
Twice
Mar 15, 2015 at 1:49 am
Adams is a part of TM now, actually. So you’re doing the right thing twice.
Alex
Mar 13, 2015 at 2:32 pm
In 1998 I was lucky enough to be right across from Tom Watson while he was hitting balls at the practice tee. I’ve never seen anyone hitting it purer in my life. I’ve been playing for over 30 years and I’ve seen my pile of professional golfers play. But ol’ Tom Watson was like a robot, always same swing, same rythm, same ball flight. Really awe-inspiring.
Roosterredneck
Mar 12, 2015 at 9:14 pm
Keep going I too enjoy reading such material. A person that started out with little to nothing and Bam. Explain something, how did you start or get your club cast , molded / made. Give some tidbits on this please.
Scott
Mar 12, 2015 at 3:22 pm
Thanks Barney for another great article.
What did you mean at the end when you said “It’s the core of golf and why I fight to stop the loss of players.”
barney adams
Mar 12, 2015 at 7:43 pm
Per the NGF there is a category called Avid Golfers, they play the most and pick up 71% of ALL golf related expenses. 10.2m Avids in 2000, 9.1m in 2005, and 6.4 m at the end of 2013. It is my opinion that the guardians of the game should be extensively interviewing the 4m dropouts to learn why and react with programs to ameliorate the most repeated reasons. My singular voice carries no weight on the issue.
RG
Mar 16, 2015 at 12:14 am
And we’re not replacing the Avid’s that we lose to old age/ poor health. I’ll keep saying it Barney, the new generation is in love with video gamesa. Thes game and the graphics are really incredible. You can link up and play online with people from all over the world and for $50 you can play for weeks. And the learning curve and long waits are nothing like golf.
Barney Adams
Mar 16, 2015 at 1:28 pm
And golf is HARD which is why some of us love (sometimes hate) it.
Wonderful
Mar 12, 2015 at 10:36 am
You da man, Mr Adams! What a wonderful story!
The dude
Mar 12, 2015 at 9:44 am
Pretty cool!….any photos of what Lees or Toms irons looked like after they were worn?…I’m sure they were “dime size worn spotted”. I know that is ball “hitting” as oppose to “striking” Thanks for sharing
JHM
Mar 11, 2015 at 9:00 pm
thanks for the great stories!!
killerbgolfer
Mar 11, 2015 at 8:21 pm
Mr Adams I love these articles. Thank you for taking the time to share these experiences with us.
John
Mar 11, 2015 at 5:15 pm
Best of the best here, writer and subject. Kudos!
Terry Harris
Mar 11, 2015 at 2:14 pm
Another great article by a wonderful and knowledgeable writer.
Please keep them coming! And, his book is a great read also.
And . . . his idea of moving forward (up a tee box) has saved my love of golf!