Spin Control

2008-03-26

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By Steve Pike

In these days of 24 hour political campaigns, the term ‘spin control’ is often uttered by pundits and civilians alike. But to Tiger Woods, spin control means something completely different. This season, the Striped One is using the new Nike ONE Platinum ball with what the company calls “Power Transfer Technology.” Whatever it’s called, it’s working. Woods went into the World Golf Championship event at Doral with five consecutive victories on the PGA Tour.

Woods said he told Nike Golf’s ball engineers to “build me a ball that spins and it’ll be my job to take it off.”

“I need spin with my driver and my long irons because I don't spin the ball a lot,” Woods said. “I've tested harder golf balls and I can't keep them in the air. I hit them shorter, and I can't control the distances because if I come in steeper to try to get the ball in the air, obviously it goes forever because I don't spin the ball a whole lot. If I add spin to that it launches higher and I can control any distances.

“I'll do something to take that spin off. But I want to be able to be aggressive around the greens, and with the pins getting more difficult now, I think that's one of the reasons why you see the advent of a lot of players switching to 64-degree wedges because of harder balls. You need more loft and you need more spin. How do you do that? You need more loft on your wedges so you can swing it harder. As the balls got harder we went to 60s. Now some of the guys have 64s.”