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Watch Rory McIlroy, Camilo Villegas and others try to recreate Arnold Palmer's famous tee shot at Cherry Hills

Rory McIlroy — Getty Images
Rory McIlroy — Getty Images

Golf technology is ever-changing. Ever year we see the newest and greatest driver promising to gain us 15-20 yards on every tee, and we have to believe in this club if we want to be the best.

But not long ago, golf clubs were simple things with simple shafts and tough grips. They were golf clubs made for good players, not everyday players, and the better you were, the more you could make them perform. Hitting a driver from the 1960s can not only lose you yardage, but make your hands, teeth and head hurt.

Of course, there were players back in the day that could make this beauties sing. Ben Hogan, Byron Nelson, Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus are just some of the legends that would take whatever equipment they were handed and make it do exactly what they wanted, with Arnie giving us a great example of this as he started his final round in the 1960 U.S. Open.

Palmer drove the opening par-4 at Cherry Hills, some 346-yards away, making a birdie to start one of the best final rounds in major championship history.

The PGA Tour, returning to Cherry Hills this week for the BMW Championship, decided to bring out similar equipment for some of these 2014 stars, and the results were not something Palmer would have been proud of.

Rory McIlroy, Camilo Villegas, Zach Johnson and others attempted, and failed, to drive that opening green, and the PGA Tour got it on film.

Check out some of these stars swing with some of the old stuff, and see just how different the results were compared to what normally happens when they pull out the 2014 stuff.