I agree...and you have to mention his incredibly low morals too. Why wouldnt a guy so willing to destroy his own family take something to help him become even better at what he does? But in this case I just dont understand why HGH would get someone like Tiger over the hump in a sport as skilled as golf? He been able to drive the ball over 300 yards since he was a teenager.

I was wrong about Manny though so who knows.

He definitely didn't gain 25 pounds in a year - I was just responding to what Antitrust said.

Muscle/strength as it relates to golf is an interesting thing.

Rickie Fowler (who I already can't stand) weighs something like 135 lbs. and averaged 301 yards with the driver (10th on tour) in the few events he played. Flexibility, swing mechanics, and height are just as important if not more important than strength when it comes to hitting it far. The key, obviously, is to find the perfect balance between muscularity and flexibility.

College and High School football players gain 25 lbs of muscle in a year all the time. Thats what I said. Shoot sometimes even the men in the pro's you see massive body changes in a few months off season.

Of course Tiger didnt gain it in a year. And all 25 lbs he's gained over the past year might not even be all muscle. All these articles talk about how much he drinks.. thats an easy non-muscle weight gainer there! :D

I'm not sure you understand the difference between gaining 25 pounds of muscle and simply gaining 25 pounds.

Proper bodybuilding includes two cycles - bulking and cutting. When you bulk you might gain 25 pounds or more, but a significant portion of that is going to be fat because you're basically consuming as many calories as possible (mostly in an effort to consume large amounts of protein). You can't simply put on muscle without putting on fat, unless you're an ectomorph (a.k.a. "hard gainer") and if you're an ectomorph you're never, ever going to naturally gain 25 pounds of muscle in a relatively short amount of time. Once you've bulked, you have to cut in order to get rid of the excess weight you've gained.

I guess if you're going through an extreme growth spurt or puberty (added testoterone) you have a chance to gain more, but if you think college-aged or professional athletes are gaining 25 lbs. of lean muscle naturally over the course of a year you're naive.

Most High School and College Football players ARE going through puberty.

I dont know, I just did a lot of searches and it says its possible.

The articles basically said dont expect to gain more than 25 lbs of muscle unless of a puberty situation in a year.

But realistically a mature adult can gain 10-15 lbs muscle in a year with the right training programs and calorie intake. They may gain 25-30 total with that 15 lbs muscle cause its not all muscle.

College football players aren't going through puberty, but this is a pointless argument anyways.

I think the only point is Tiger Wood's physique/muscular gains could have easily occured without taking any supplements. Hes not that big and hes always been very athletic and maintained a hard work ethic. I'm sure he works with some of the smartest trainers in the business and his gains are very modest in comparison with some of the guys in the NBA and NFL in that same age group.

Fowler is an extreme exception to the rule. Over the years, almost all of the slighter built players such as Pavin, Sluman, Pernice, Willie Wood, etc. are short hitters relative to the other pros on the PGA Tour.

By the way, why don't you like Fowler? I really like him. He looks like an exciting, young prospect. He's the kind of guy that will add some excitment to the game. Right now there are too many of those Robo-pros with no personality out there.

Seems like a bit of a d-bag to me.

I'll take McIlroy over him any day.

I think he was longer than ever, at least up until his knee injury.

I just looked up his driving distance over the years. Back in 1993, when he was still an amatuer, he played in some PGA Tour events. His average driving distance was 272.3 yards. In 1994, it was 277.3 yards. In 1995, it was 298.5 yards. From 1996 to 2000, he was at 302.8, 294.8, 296.3, 293.1, and 298. In 2005, he was up to 316.1. In 2006, he was at 306.4. In 2007 he was at 302.4.

Some of the added distance could be due to better equipment but I certainly think he has gotten longer over the years up until his knee injury. In 2005 and 2006, he was hitting the ball 30-40 yards longer than he was back in 1994 when he was 19 years old.

I would expect almost all of the change has to do with better equipment. the balls and the driver head are so different today than even in 1995. I felt so dirty writing that last sentence..

When 55 year old men can drive the ball 20 yards further than they could as 40 year old men something is going on!

Have you looked up the stats on the average drive length per year in the PGA tour during that same period? I havent but would suspect similar rises.

avg driving distance is irrelavant ----he missess/missed too many fairways for it to be any kind of accurate nummer , when he missess the ball stops in the rough immediatley with no roll , gotta look at fred funk who hits 80% of the fairways to see avg driving distance (also i think it's only done on 1 or 2 holes on each nine and those holes could be 3 woods or 2 irons off the tee for woods)

go back and watch some of the old events from the 90's he was driving the ball over 330 yrds back then when he was straight and his ball landed in the fairway and ran another 35 yrds because of the firm fairways. when he hit it into the rough the ball stops worse than a 2/5 fav does in the stretch at beualh park

i will say equipment has helped me hit the ball at least 25-30 yrds further with the driver ---- antirtust can attest that i'm not on hgh but rather byk's barbecue my waistline has expaneded from 34 to 38 over the last 15 yrs , i a m not as strong as i was in my late 20's , yet i hit the driver 25 yrds further when i hit it in the fairway

You are right that they only use around 2 holes or so to measure the drving distance. But that still adds up to a ton of drives over the year. I don't think they count drives that are in the rough. And I think they try to only measure on long holes where most guys are using driver.

Anyway, I would be curious of GPK's opinion on whether he thinks Tiger was longer when he was 20 years old.

You make good points. I bet you are right that the average drive length has increased during that period.

I'm the only guy that the new equipment hasn't helped. When I was 20 years old, I was a 3 handicap and I weighed about 123 pounds. I had Hogan blade irons and a wood driver. I hit the ball further then than I do now even though I'm stronger now. And I was 10x more accurate with my blade irons than with the fancy new irons. The problem is that I lost my swing and I've never been able to get it back. I couldn't even break 80 right now.

Average driving distance is the most useless stat on tour. They only use 1 hole one each nine to compute the average. It never takes into account downwind, in to the wind or any other variables.

What many people fail to realize is that when Tiger was REALLY LONG in his younger days, he was using a 43" steel shaft driver. He could have easily hit it another 20-30 yards using a 45-46" graphite shaft driver, but then he really would have been hitting it all over the course. As you both know, the ball has changed radically the past 10-15 years and I think that has as much to do with that technology more than anything. Tiger could hit the ball on average A LOT further than he does if he wanted to. That NIKE ONE golf ball is horrible IMO. I think it's easily a good 8-12 yards shorter than the Callaway ix, Pro V1 or Srixon V-Star.

kev he used to swing out of his shoes , some of those drives in the us am were going 350 with the steel shaft driver , he doesn't try to hit it anywhere close to that today

He doesn't need to because technology allows him to still hit it pretty far without swinging so hard. You know as well as I do, if he NEEDS to hit it that far, he can. The stat that impresses me the most about Tiger is his ball speed. 190mph+ coming off the clubface...thats absurd Marty.

agreed

I was on the Titleist launch moniter once and I was around 145 mph on average and a couple got to 150.