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For Nicklaus, short is sweet

Jack Nicklaus pushes Cayman ball that flies half the distance to suit short island courses.

By BOB HARIG

© St. Petersburg Times,
published July 26, 2001

The preferred pursuits are scuba diving and relaxation. The golf ball, and specifically how far it travels, are of little concern. And yet the tiny island of Grand Cayman offers an interesting contrast in a world of high-octane, high-flying dimpled spheres.

Seemingly just a Tiger Woods drive south of Cuba, the Cayman Islands -- Grand Cayman, Cayman Brac and Little Cayman -- never have been a golf mecca.

Grand Cayman, the biggest of the three, is 25 miles wide and 8 miles deep. The other islands are less than 2 miles deep.

Hence, there is little room for golf courses.

But that didn't stop a developer from wanting to build one, complete with a hotel, villas, condominiums and a marina. He approached Jack Nicklaus, who might be golf's best player ever but can't work miracles. A golf course, hotel and marina on 90 acres? Most regulation 18-hole courses are on about 150 acres.

"I said there is no way you can do that," Nicklaus said. "You just don't have enough land to do that."

But Nicklaus had an idea.

"It was something I had been thinking about for a while: taking a golf ball and making it suit the land rather than have the land suit the golf ball," Nicklaus said.

The result was the Cayman ball, one that flies about half the distance of a conventional golf ball -- and allows for a golf course about one-fourth the size.

Back then, in the early 1980s, Nicklaus owned the MacGregor golf company, which went to work on designing a "short" ball, one that is softer in the center and harder toward the outside than a conventional ball. It has the lighter feel of a whiffle ball but is the same size as a regular ball, 1.68 inches. It also has the same flight characteristics, but weighs only 40 percent of a regular ball and is susceptible to the wind.

Britannia Golf Club, the course designed by Nicklaus near the capital of George Town, is three courses in one. With a normal ball, the nine-hole, par-35 course measures 3,180 yards from the back tees, with a second set of tees and greens superimposed, creating a 3,129-yard, par-57 18-hole executive course. The third course is for the short ball. It is 18 holes and measures 3,338. Par is 72.

Nicklaus has long argued that manufacturers who continue to develop "hot" balls are hurting the game. Classic, old courses can no longer contain the ball, at least when struck by the best players. That's why you see storied venues, even Augusta National, tinkering with their layouts.

And for all his objections, Nicklaus figures if you can't beat them, join them. He has been using the Titleist Pro V1, which was used by players who won 15 of the 24 PGA Tour events before the U.S. Open. Phil Mickelson called it "the best ball ever created." Nicklaus cringes.

"What did it cost us to do the (Cayman) golf ball ... $5,000. Big deal," Nicklaus said. "What does it cost to change what we do on golf courses? Millions every time we change a golf course. You run out of land. What do you do? The only logical thing to me is that you adjust the golf ball to fit what we have rather than going out and continually building more tees, more bunkers ... just spending, spending, spending."

Nicklaus created the desired result in Grand Cayman. "We ended up with a full-length 18-hole golf course by the distance of that golf ball," Nicklaus said. "He got his hotel, his marina and he didn't have to buy more land."

Located next to the Hyatt Regency Grand Cayman, where several scenes from the movie The Firm were shot, the Britannia Golf Club is popular -- but not for the reason it was built. Unfortunately, few people play the course with the Cayman Ball, which is sold as more of a novelty.

"It just didn't fly ... no pun intended," said Greg Downer, Britannia's director of golf.

Only a few people a year play the course with the Cayman ball. But plenty want to buy it.

"We probably go through 100 dozen a year. People want to buy them as souvenirs," Downer said. "But people don't like the idea of paying $100 for a round of golf with a non-conforming golf ball.

"The idea was great, but maybe not on a Caribbean island with tradewinds. It goes roughly half the distance of a regular ball, but you might hit it the same distance with your 3-iron as with your 5-iron. There's no compression, and putting is real tough."

The course used to have an invitational tournament where the Cayman ball was used, but now it operates as an executive layout three days a week or a nine-hole regulation course on other days. The Caymans' only other course, SafeHaven, the only regulation 18-hole course, is just up the road. They don't use the Cayman ball either.

Nicklaus never advocated anything as drastic as the Cayman ball for tournament play. But he would still like to see today's ball kept in line or scaled back.

"If the ball just goes 5 percent shorter, then all of a sudden your golf courses that were 7,500 yards play like they are 6,750," he said. "I believe that is the proper solution, but that is not where we are coming from right now."

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