During a wide-ranging interview in the current issue of Golf Digest, Frank Thomas, recently-retired technical director of the USGA, makes an amazing assertion: that in the early 1960s, almost 40 years ago, Jack Nicklaus was driving the ball almost as far as Tiger Woods does today. "Jack has got a major problem - his memory," claims Thomas. "He's forgotten how far he used to be able to drive the ball . . . With that equipment, he was one of the most outstanding golfers we've ever seen. I believe it was in 1964 that Nicklaus put an eight-iron onto the green on the (par-five) 15th at Augusta National. And that's when an eight-iron was an eight-iron. Not a six-and-a-half-iron as it is today."

Thomas explains: "An eight-iron today has the loft that a six-and-a-half would have had back then. And the only reason we've gone away from that unwritten standard is because of competition trying to sell clubs. I don't think they've done the golf public any favours." So there.