When you’re 64 and have a long history of back problems then you need all the help that you can get.
Fred Couples, winner of the 1992 Masters and a former World No. 1, manages it by packing his bag full of headcovers.
This season we’ve seen very little of the American but he’s been back in action at Pebble Beach this week on the PGA Tour Champions – and his longest iron is now a 7.
We could all do with a bit of help at the top end of the bag but, even by an average club golfer’s standards, six seems a lot of timber to have in the bag. Or it’s a valuable lesson for all of us that many of us would be better off with more hybrids, and some more help, and fewer irons.
In Couples’ bag these days is a driver, 3-wood, 5-wood as well as 4, 5 and 6 hybrid which means that, with his putter, half his clubs have headcovers.
The reason for all the woods is quite simple: it just makes the game a lot easier for him given his physical state.
“Everyone keeps talking about them. My longest iron is a seven. Who cares? I’m not strong enough anymore. I hate to say that,” he said.
Augusta struggles
The last time we saw Couples was at The Masters where he struggled round in 80-76. His average driving distance was 254 yards on day one, 40 yards down on the average, and 261 on the Friday.
At Augusta, Couples admitted that he was really having problems with striking his irons which would have seemed unthinkable for one of the all-time ball strikers.
“My back is shot. The longer the club, I’m OK. I didn’t have any speed. I was driving it 260 but most of them were going straight. If I’d have had more woods, honestly, I probably could have shot 75 (on Thursday).
“I kind of downplayed how bad I felt, I should have had 11-wood to hit 140 yards. I couldn’t even hit an 8-iron. I couldn’t swing,” he admitted after his missed cut.
“On 7 I hit a 6-iron because I didn’t know what else to hit and I carried it about 100 yards. I can’t hit an iron. My body won’t let me do it. It was really, I don’t want to say no fun because it’s Augusta, but swinging was a chore.
“On 9 I drove it down there, downhill lie, and it was a 9-iron shot but I was trying to hit a 7-iron and I just couldn’t swing. The ball went 80 yards in the air and rolled up short left of the green. It’s embarrassing.”
The good news is that Couples managed to make it round the three days in California this week, with an opening one-under 71 at Spyglass before rounds of 70 and 71 secured 22th place alongside Ernie Els.
