Nick Price: Bobby Jones would drive the ball like Rory McIlroy with today’s equipment

Sometimes Nick Price fends off accusations that say players in his generation didn’t hit the ball very far.

But the people making that outrageous jibe might also ask why no one ever Sky-Plused the first Only Fools Christmas Special in 1981 or didn’t catch up On Demand.

The three-time major-winning legend of Zimbabwe worked with wooden clubs and Balata balls, as did Faldo, Norman and Ballesteros – the equipment of their generation. To hit a drive like Rory McIlroy in 2025 with one of Price’s big sticks from 1994 would be like winning an F1 Grand Prix in a ‘57 Chevy.

Price maximised his toolbox most in 1994, winning his second and third majors at Turnberry and Southern Hills. Sport and technology develop, and while Price has no resentment for rocket-fueled drivers and balls of the modern era, he asserts that greats of the past would be walking with Rory and Bryson if they had the same big sticks in hand.

“It was a different game. It was a much different game. We just couldn’t swing as hard as the guys do today, we couldn’t because the sweet spot was so small and if you did try and swing that hard, you’d hit it so far offline when you miscued it,” Price told NCG.

“This is what I try and tell the young guys, when they say, ‘Oh you guys didn’t hit the ball very far’, and I say well let me tell you something. Every generation whether it was Bobby Jones or Byron Nelson, Sam Snead or Ben Hogan or Jack Nicklaus, we worked to the pinnacle of the equipment we were given.

“We were the ones that got the most out of our equipment just as these guys do today and all that’s happened is the equipment has got better and better, so these guys are getting more and more out of the equipment. So, they can go and work out. We worked out, Faldo worked out, Greg Norman worked out, lots of guys worked out, but it didn’t become a thing about brute strength and creating more speed. It was more for being physically fit, to stay supple and also to stop injury. That was the main thing.

“If Bobby Jones was around today, I’m 100% sure he would hit it 340, 350 yards. Or if Hogan who wasn’t the longest hitter, Snead was notoriously longer than him, if he had the equipment today, he’d hit it 320, just like Norman. Norman was the best driver of the golf ball with a wooden driver that I ever saw in my life. He’d hit it 340 now, he was the Rory McIlroy with the driver in our time”

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Nick Price: Rory McIlroy maximises his equipment and we did too

There was certainly no absence of talent in Price’s era, Jones’ era or McIlroy’s era but how golf clubs and golf balls have developed in the 21st century has become the subject of concern to the sport’s governing bodies, so much so that they will cap how far the golf ball travels, starting in 2028.

In December 2023, the R&A and USGA announced that balls would be rolled back in the professional and amateur spheres by updating the testing conditions used for golf ball conformance. The biggest hitters could see up to 15 yards shaved off their drivers.

The general debate before and after the announcement divided those who agreed – the aforementioned bodies, McIlroy, Tiger Woods, and Augusta National—and those who wished distance would be left alone: many tour players and manufacturers.

Price, who has 48 professional wins and 44 weeks as World No.1, served on the USGA’s Equipment Standards Committee for five years. While he tried to influence change, he believes the sport cannot go “backwards” after club and ball manufacturers have invested millions into research and innovation.

But if the ball is going to be tackled, then Price believes the drivers do too. Often sounded is the trope that driving narrows the gap between great and good long gamers and while they swing as hard to reach the hole in the fewest strokes, Price simply couldn’t have done that with a sweet spot on the club face half the size.

“For the first time in certainly since 2002, there’s a pre-determined category that you have to be excellent in to succeed,” he said.

“In times gone by, you could be a great short gamer, you could have great short irons or whatever and it would counterbalance the length, some of the longer hitters didn’t have the short games in those days. But to just say reduce the ball, all you’re doing is moving the ball back 20 or 25 yards, but it still means that the top long hitters are still going to be the long hitters.

“But how do you bring the shorter hitters, the Gary Players or the Corey Pavins, who were never excessively long off the tee, how do you bring them back into the game? You’ve got to make the clubs a little more difficult to hit so you’ve got to reduce the size of the sweet spot on the metal fairway clubs and drivers. That would penalise the off-centre hits and slow the clubhead speeds down. The driver in our day was probably the hardest club to hit; it has become the easiest nowadays.

“It used to be the hardest because the shaft weighed 130 grams was 43 ½ inches long and the sweet spot was the size of a pea. The modern driver has a shaft that weighs 60 grams or less, is 46 inches long and the sweet spot is the size of a peach.

“I could go to a golf course now and I see these youngsters on the practice tee hitting balls, not professionals, they’re 7,8, 9, 10 handicaps, even higher in some cases, hitting it 320 yards. Seems like all the youngsters who learned to play with the modern equipment hit it over 300! The point I’m making is if you just reduce the ball, that’s not going to be the solution.”

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What do you make of this Nick Price-Rory McIlroy comparison? Would you say the Nick Price-Rory McIlroy comparison to Greg Norman is accurate? Does a roll back need to address the driver as well as the ball? Tell us on X!