Those were the booming '20s for these big hitters
Anyone who follows the PGA Tour knows tee shots of 300-yards or more are routine for players such as Tiger Woods, John Daly, Phil Michelson and others.
The credit goes to equipment technology - drivers with oversized metal heads and titanium shafts. Some suspect the modern golf ball is juiced up, too.
If equipment accounts for the extra yardage of today's long hitters, how do you explain what happed at Sedgefield Country Club in 1929?
That wasn't the sound of the stock market crashing that day. It was persimmon-headed drivers attached to shafts made of hickory making contact with a ball that would be considered primitive by today's standards.
According to a story in the Greensboro Daily News, Herman Atkins, a Sedgefield professional, belted a drive that measured 411 yards on the 503-yard par-5 5th hole.
Granted, the fairway is downhill and a favoring wind blew. Still, a 411 drive in 1929 with the kind of gear available then can only be described as a fanastic feat.
No, the ball didn't get a boost by hitting and bouncing along the paved cart path. They didn't have golf carts or paved paths back then.
Raymond Atkins, Herman's brother, playing in the same foursome stepped off his tee shot on the same hole at 390 yards.
On the next hole, the par-four 6th, the news story said, amateur Charlie Baker hit a 350-yard tee-shot.
The story didn't say what score the Atkins brothers recorded on the 5th after those marathon drives. And it didn't say if Baker's drive on the 6th flew the creek that crosses the fairway a good distance down the fairway.