GOLF: Mike's out to make the sport easier

GIBBY Gilbert, the guy with the 'crookedest' swing in golf, had hit the ball straighter than anybody to pick up the winner's cheque at the £560,000 Royal Caribbean Classic in Key Biscayne, Florida.

Tony Jacklin, winner of the Open Championship in 1969 and US Open in 1970, had finished in a tie for fifth in this US Seniors Tour comp, six shots adrift.

Hurst Green's Mike Roche, who had failed to make it out of pre-qualifying, missed out on a share of the substantial pot, which Lee Trevino describes as "the perfect way for a round-belly to supplement his pension".

But Roche's lived-in face bore a grin that rivalled those of the aforementioned trio and his swagger was straight out of any John Wayne movie you care to name.

Why so?

Well, he had just been to the 1997 PGA Merchandise Show at the Orange County Convention Centre in Orlando where tests on the new Jordan Gas Injected Thermoplastic Shaft, allied with the Texas-forged titanium driver head (bear with me), had gone better than anything since HG Wells' time machine.

"What is the perfect golf club?" the sales pitch had gone.

"A club that would give every player 20% more distance with the golfer's normal swing.

"A club that would go Straighter (a tighter shot dispersion) even with a poor swing. "Texas Golf Company believe that they have now produced a golf club that will qualify on both these counts."

Until last week this rhetoric was right up there with the bottle of vitamins that can develop Van Damme-size muscles on you overnight and the shampoo that can grow back your hair.

Texas Golf, Roche's company, demonstrated at the largest and most prestigious golf fair in the world that they know what they're talking about.

"I've always been in the golf club business," said Roche in the kind of flat tone that befits a man who has seen most of the world through playing the game of golf.

"As well as being a golf pro I've always had an interest in the equipment side of it, what makes it work, what makes the golf swing work.

"When I came back here - I had a company in Canada - I decided there was a market here for what we did.

"We export to France, Germany, Holland, all the pro shops in northern Italy. "We don't sell to high street shops, we just sell to PGA golf pros which is a good thing for them because we don't get involved in a price-cutting war.

"We have a good product that works - people are very happy with it.

"It's a nice club at a reasonable price. We keep the price so that the pro can make some money out of it."

It is how this club might make some money for your average weekend hacker that most interested me (anything to beat the sports editor at golf).

"When you swing a golf club, especially with carbon shafts which are in 90 per cent of the golf clubs made these days, the energy created in the swing distorts the shaft," explained Roche who works out of a small shop in Clitheroe from where he has established a formidable international reputation.

"If you take high-speed photography of a club hitting a ball, the shaft almost has an S-shape, it's bent back and forward.

"The ideal would be if you could swing back that club and it would move at the same speed as your hands which, of course, it doesn't.

"While carbon-graphite fibre has been state-of-the-art until just now, a product has been developed that's made from thermoplastic that does not distort through the swing. "A great deal of the kinetic energy that you create during the golf swing is wasted in that shaft distortion.

"If you can get rid of that distortion, then that energy is being put into the back of the golf ball."

Of course, the only distortion in my golf game is that I think I'm good.

But the titanium shaft hasn't met with universal approval.

"Technology should be limited to ensure that there is a difference from player to player," said former Open champion John Daly.

"If technology takes over and compensates for everyone's faults, it will destroy the self-satisfaction and sense of achievement that is an essential part of the game."

John Daly hitting out at clubs which make the ball fly further is like Michael Johnson complaining to Nike that their latest line in footwear is allowing other athletes to catch up on him.

Nick Faldo probably holds the consensus opinion.

"No matter how far the ball goes, you still have to hit it straight," said the man who as three-times Open winner and thrice Masters champion has demonstrated this better than anybody. Otherwise, with such technology behind him, one might expect Roche to be vying with Tiger Woods as the hottest property in golf.

His isn't reluctant to let you know that he never threatened to approach that greatness as a player.

Golf, for Roche, was an escape from what might have been a mundane life.

He left England with £50 in his pocket and the dream of being a professional golfer in his head.

That was accomplished but in an era that boasted such luminaries as Nicklaus, Palmer and Player, Roche did not make much impact on the USPGA Tour.

He did, however, pursue his interest in making clubs.

"I don't want to become the biggest or richest golf club manufacturer in the world," said Roche.

"I just enjoy what I'm doing - apart from the paperwork."

I, too, am developing an implement that propels golf balls great distances.

It's called a cannon ... and it comes in useful when you and your playing partner are all square heading down 18.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.