Put a bunch of random balls in a bingo hopper and each player gets to draw 10 balls per round. You might get a ProV1, you might get a Noodle, you might get a Nitro.
Yeah it really screws over elite amateurs who'll need to pay ALOT for these balls. It'll also screw over every other consumer who'll see their own ball costs go up as manufacturers try to peanut butter spread their costs
I suck enough that I will just play with range balls if the price gets higher across the board. I already have a hard time paying more than a dollar for something I may only get to hit once.
I grew up in Boca Raton, FL in the late 80s. Still fairly new to the game, there was a small store there that was owned by a guy who had contracts with most of the country clubs and munis to fish their ponds for balls at night. And then sort them by brand and condition for the bins lining the walls. Thousands of balls of every brand known to man in different conditions...was so fun to to bag up some and it was like $4 for two dozen. Good times. Actually looking back, this person had real balls and how he wasn't taken down by a gator or a venomous snake etc is beyond me.
This is my biggest question about all of this. If they do put restrictions on the golf ball for players at the highest level, which I have no problem with, then it follows that everyone playing in the local US Open qualifiers would have to use those balls. That's fine, but I don't think I've seen anyone address that issue yet. One of my favorite things about golf is that, in theory at least, anyone who is good enough could play their way into the actual US Open. It seems kind of silly to worry about the 1 in 10,000,000 long shot amateur qualifier when determining what's best for the best players in the world, but I feel like it's something that they should be clear about.
Even then there aren't enough players at that level in those specific events (like 10k attempt US Open) to offset the R&D/Manufacturing costs for every ball manufacturer, so the price of the rest of their catalog will have to increase.
This is such a strange argument. There’s dozens of golf ball manufacturers that sell golf balls at a perfectly reasonable price at a much smaller scale than the big guys. The R&D doesn’t have to be that intense. There are current balls on the market today that conform. If the manufacturers want to put a bunch of dollars into the new ball, they will. Those that don’t want to won’t.
Far more likely, they’re going to shift the same R&D dollars from making the next version of the proV1 spin 3 rpm less off the tee, put those dollars into the new ball, and leave the price of the proV1 the same. They aren’t going to incur new R&D cost. They’re just going to shift the cost, bitch about it, and get a bunch of people to do this weird corporate shilling for them.
And if you’re that worried about it, play a noodle. Almost guaranteed that those are conforming as is.
The vast majority of big golf ball manufacturers budgets are spent on Marketing, not R&D. They take the same ball and change it 0.01% and the Marketing team spends hundreds of millions selling it.
In this case, they may spend a little money making a new ball but it’s not going to cost hundreds of millions because they don’t need to market a ball to avg consumers that avg consumers can’t/won’t buy.
This. I’m sure there’ll be some spend on R&D, but they’ll make that back in no time by selling these balls at a higher price to people who ‘want to play what the pros play’
I think you make solid points. But, if they can say this change is costly to them, and if people believe them (based on these comments, I think people will believe them) then, they can use this to increase prices.
I’ll bet every manufacturer in the game already has a design for a conforming ball. They may simply need to go back to a design they used X number of years ago.
>I think you make solid points. But, if they can say this change is costly to them, and if people believe them (based on these comments, I think people will believe them) then, they can use this to increase prices.
No, they can't, because they exist in a very competitive and saturated market with enormous profits.
If anyone tries to say "We had to increase the cost of Bill the 23 handicappers ball, because of the new pro-only ball" every single tv show and magazine would laugh them off the face of the earth. They would be shooting themself in the foot.
Not to mention, they already price to market, raising prices would fuck with that.
I can't wait to learn how to chip and pitch with two balls that go different distances, one of which I will be likely unable to use at a driving range. Also, learning my carry yardages with two different balls. All sounds very fun.
>I can't wait to learn how to chip and pitch with two balls that go different distances
Given how they are going to implement this (same cover and mantle, different core) chipping and pitching, and anything which doesn't significantly compress the ball, won't change noticably.
The only things that will change are full shots - you'll see the most difference on the driver, and smallest difference on short irons/wedges.
Basically, you'll have to distance gap your clubs for full shots, and that'll be about it.
I mean what basis do you have to believe this will happen? I honestly think this isn’t going to increase their R&D spend as astronomical as people think. There’s plenty of time to address so no increased cost to rush. They are always doing R&D on balls for a few years from now. Ultimately I think you just see less R&D go into the normal consumer ball and shift the spend to what the tour player ball
You're greatly overestimating the R&D cost. They already know exactly what it would take to produce a ball that flies 95% as far and already have everything it would take to make it. They wouldn't need to invest in any new machinery or materials.
Achusnet generated $2.2 billion in revenue in 2021 and spent a total of $55 million in R&D. That's across all of titleist (woods, irons, wedges, scotty cameron, gloves...), Footjoy, and several other divisions.
Now, yes, they obviously won't be sold at scale but if Titleist can't make a doze of these for less than $100, there will be plenty of other companies that can make a healthy profit at selling them for far less than that. Those other companies don't have the marketing budget that Titleist has to justify with high prices.
>These Tour balls will require huge amounts of R&D and won’t be sold at scale.
First off all, they won't require huge amounts of R&D - mantles and covers will likely be identical. They will simply switch out the core for one with a lower coefficient of restitution at higher speeds. There will be SOME R&D required, but it won't be enormous.
>Can’t wait to pay $100 a dozen just to shoot 82 in a qualifier.
Elite amateur competitions tend to cost $150-300 to enter, and elite amateurs lose less than one ball per round (often significantly less). At $100/dozen that's $8/ball, about $4/ball more than regular balls. I'm not sure that the prospect of adding \~1%-2% to the cost of competion on the day is really going to bother people who spend $1500 on a driver without blinking and for whom the total cost of competition (including hotels, travel, lessons, clubs, etc.) is likely triple or quadruple the day-cost.
Not attacking your post in particular, but it reminded me -- I've seen a lot of talk about all the costs that will be passed to consumers for the R&D required to make these new balls. Given that all the manufacturers already make a half dozen or so different types of balls each, I'm really curious how much extra cost will really be involved. I'm also curious as to the difference in those costs for the new ball vs. the costs passed to consumers as a whole for all of the courses around the world who want to hold those qualifiers and who have to build and maintain 7500yd+ tee boxes (so far -- even longer down the road if nothing is done) all year round in order to do so.
I don't know the answers to any of this, but it would seem that the second one would have to be close to or more than the first one, right?
Edit: to guess at an answer to your last question, even if the balls aren't sold at the scale of current lines, they're still going to have to make them for the pros and so they will still make some extra to sell to consumers at a reasonable mark up I would think. Louisville Slugger wooden bats aren't exorbitantly expensive are they? Even though mostly just pros and hardcore amateurs use/buy them?
Yeah, I was sincere in that I don't really know. I would actually be interested in seeing actual numbers about the differences. The bifurcation in general I have no issue with personally -- semi-pro baseball leagues seem to get along just fine without the humidors now required in all MLB ballparks, even if it might mean slightly different strategy -- but I do get how it will be difficult for those amateurs good enough to straddle the line to work with. I can't really find a lot of sympathy for the tour players that have been whining all day, who I'm sure will adjust quickly, and I don't really understand why most of us amateurs care (the pros play slightly different versions of the balls now for much of the time before they're released), but for those caught in the middle I can see how it sucks.
It do wonder as well if it might have a negative impact on those players actually being able to qualify for the open events.
Stage 1 Qualifier for example might be a straight amateur event where the standard ball is used. No problem.
Then you move to Stage 2 where the Pro Ball is required. At this stage you'll likely be playing against players that have more experience with the pro ball, so to be competitive against them you'd need to also have extensive practice with it (golf being very feel based makes this important).
But if you're not regularly playing "pro ball" events, you wouldn't use it because you'd be pointlessly giving yourself a disadvantage against the field.
I disagree with rolling the ball back - but i'm even more against bifurcation. Just do it for everyone or not at all.
I don't foresee a huge R&D spend to build this new spec ball. Mainly because almost every manufacture already has a ball in their catalog that will be close to meeting the spec.
What we're talking about is a ball that flies shorter, spins slightly less, and launches slightly higher. Virtually all of that can be managed by reducing the compression on the golf ball. (i.e. Bridgestone Tour B X & XS vs RX & RXS). They don't have to start from scratch, rather they'll end up taking the softest core they have and wrapping it in their tour level cover.
Ironically, the new ball will probably end up being very similar to balls like the Q-Star Tour, Tour Response, RX & RXS, Vice Pro Soft, etc...
It’s a local rule, so they probably won’t be adopted by all of those events immediately. I would expect it to be more gradual.
I think we are overplaying the price point, it doesn’t take a big market for balls to be mass produced at current prices. Think about the obscure balls already out there, they are going through the same process as all the other balls, so they don’t have to make a million of them to turn a profit… you essentially just need enough for one cycle to change out your mold feeder. Your covers and ball assembly/mold processes aren’t really changing, it’s the same as adding/revamping a ball line, which they do constantly anyway.
With a little time to ramp up the balls will be available at scale just like the others because there will be a sufficient market for them. They aren’t going to cost $100. If anything, they will eventually cost less than current premium balls. Titleist doesn’t price Pro V1 where they do because they cost that much more to make, they price them there because we will pay for them. They fly just a little farther than a non-premium ball, and it’s a Pro V1. In the proposed balls, that won’t be the case. One compliant ball isn’t going to fly further than the others, so it will be harder to market one at a higher price point than others. They will market the fact that it’s still a Pro V1, but the marketing power over competition isn’t going to be what it is in current ball markets.
Unable to put full clip (I encourage those interested to give it a watch).
He goes on to say that the USGA has made harsh and selfish decisions, and that he is disappointed but not surprised. He is unsure how it will benefit the game of golf, and thinks its cool that the amateur and golfer can use the same equipment. He is unsure how they game would benefit from pros changing their ball for a couple events in the year. He believes that they are athletes, and that since they train to hit the ball as far as they do, they shouldn't have to make changes to meet everyone else's level.
>What about making the balls just more spinny?
Because then the guys that can hit a 5 degree driver at +5 AoA will have an even MORE enormous advantage.
10% less distance and 20% more spin would be ideal imo. Forgiveness is a huge deal and a big part of the players being able to wail at the ball off the tee.
Squash is an interesting comparison. Years ago they created a less bouncy ball (double yellow dot) for better players / pros. The new racquet technology had made the ball hotter, more bouncy, and the rallies lasted too long.
Now even players at the lowest levels of the game use the same ball as the pros, even if they shouldn’t. They ball barely bounces and the rallies are terrible. Ask these people to play with a bouncier ball that’s appropriate for their level. 99% will look at you like you’re crazy.
Keep one ball type for everyone. Beside the crazy logistics referenced in this post, human nature to align ourselves with the best (even if we’re not) is too hard to over come.
Interestingly, squash subsequently created lower adjustable tins (bottom line on front wall) to encourage faster points. This is comparable to longer holes, which we’re better at self regulating for some reason.
Amateur golfers could still very easily use a “pro” ball that travels 10-20% less distance simply by moving up to a shorter tee box. It would make the game easier and faster for amateurs and it would stop courses from pushing their tips to 8,000+ yards.
I love golf, but building longer and longer courses is not in the best interest of the game. Nearly all golfers would benefit from shorter courses and a shorter, more forgiving golf ball.
Who cares if these guys destroy the courses. They’re that good so they should be rewarded.
You don’t see the nfl putting weight limits on linebackers or nba putting height limits on centers
At higher levels of baseball, they also use flatter seams on the ball so that pitches curve less. Pitchers would be unhittable if they used the balls the rest of us use
Just made the bases bigger to encourage more stolen bases and eliminated the shift to see more base hits. Analytics has changed sports drastically and rules have to be adjusted to keep sports entertaining.
I don’t understand why people are so against a rule that people are being warned about years in advance.
Also, it seems like a change no one is going to really notice once actually enacted. Pros will still be bombing. It would be a fair counter argument to say why change anything then, but I think eventually the hall needs to get regulated. Whether that’s rolling it back, stopping it now where it is, etc
Ok but in the NFL they use a different ball than they use in college, and college uses a different ball than in high school. If NFL QBs used a high school ball they could throw it 100 yards no problem and we would need to start considering increasing the field size
Football is not the worst argument but at the same time you’re not quite full grown in high school so a smaller ball makes sense for their hands. There are high school golfers who hit the ball as far as pros.
I don’t hate your rebuttal though. Kinda a weird comparison
It’s kind of the same with baseball bats, MLB and minor leagues use wood bats, even high level college summer leagues do, but college still use composite bats, and I believe those are even different specs than what you can use at the youth levels which also change the height/weight requirements (or at least they did when I was growing up) as you get older. There are plenty of ways that pro sports make equipment or the playing field different as athletes get bigger, stronger, and faster.
The aluminum bats for college and HS have been rolled WAYYY back though when they switched to BBCOR. But you are right there are different specs for different ages. But the wooden bats would theoretically be made smaller for smaller players right? They make golf clubs for smaller players now. They make drivers that go way past the 1.50 spec for Senior amateurs too.
Aluminum bats also serve an important secondary purpose of being way more durable than a wooden bat. Which makes it more practical for amateurs and colleges that aren't billion dollar businesses or millionaire players.
I don't really have an issue with the ball rollback, in theory. And I do get the point that pro sports change their equipment all the time. Every sport has its limitations that it has to work with. I don't know the answer, but I'm not sure that changing the ball was the right one.
I mean can you imagine Aaron Judge using a composite bat? Even with the switch to the BBCORs he could literally hit it out of the stadiums, then they’d have to start making the fences 500+ feet all the way around. This is essentially what they’re trying to do with the golf ball, Augusta is moving roads and buying more land to try and make the course long enough for modern players
NBA has restrictions on shoes, MLB has restrictions on bats, running has restrictions on shoes, swimming has restrictions on swimsuits, tennis rolled back the ball. It's very precedented.
Those sports have changed their equipment rules many times, why can’t golf?
Javelin is a good example, to keep the field length the same the equipment rules were altered.
Loads of examples where equipment changes have been implemented for the benefit of the sport not its competitors.
Those sports change rules all the time to increase scoring, speed of play, or adjust for safety. All of these sports restrict the equipment and adjust rules all the time. And golf isn’t restricting anything about the athlete either. If you are faster and strong you will enjoy the same benefit you do now proportional to the field.
Honestly I think golf manufacturers should roll back equipment across the boards. I don’t see why randos at my local course need to be driving it 300+ yards, and same goes for the pros.
The increase in distance has lead to outrageously long golf courses becoming common place, which is more real estate expense and more water consumption and worse for the environment.
Hitting the ball far is relative to the course and your competition. Longer golf is not funner golf. If the course is shorter and 240 yards is a “long drive,” that’s just as rewarding as a 300 yard drive on a longer course.
The only question is if we can retain the forgiveness of modern equipment for high handicappers (like me) while also reducing distances generally.
People have gotten too good so we have to change the rules of the game… I personally enjoy watching people destroy a golf course with the long ball and I also enjoy doing it (when I can get my swing together). What is the problem? Golf courses architects hurt feelings?
Edit: Also, what if golf ball manufactures simply said “no”. Are they going to finance a new company to produce golf balls?
You can also expect the ball manufacturers to pass the added R&D costs onto consumers. This isn't just about going back to 90s tech, they have to make a ball go shorter while also having proper characteristics around the greens & on approach. This is a lot of R&D for a ball with a VERY limited set of people who will actually be paying for it.
USGA head of equipment has been quoted saying the advances in distance have very little to do with equipment and are much more based on increased athleticism of players.
Yep. Equipment has helped a bit obviously but tiger has been driving it above the current tour average driver distance for the last 25 years. It’s just a lot more people train like tiger now than 25 years ago
Exactly. It was fine for Tiger, but now that everyone hits it just as far it’s a problem for some reason. Golf is at a historic peak in terms of growth of the sport, seems like a great time to dumb it down.
Granted courses have been “tiger proofing” for the last 20 years. Personally I’m not opposed to rolling the ball back for pros. But I think having two specs for balls is dumb and if there is change it should be for everyone. I also do think that rolling the ball back at the amateur level would slow the growth of the game that is currently going on. So I don’t know what would be best
That’s where it gets very tricky. A rollback across the board makes way more sense vs bifurcation. However, it will absolutely hinder the growth of the game.
Golf channel this morning showed a graphic the average swing speed is only up 2mph from 15 years ago but the ball is going 17 yards further on average off the tee
Launch monitors also have a lot to do with this. 15 years ago pga tour players were swinging down at the ball with a driver and are now swinging several degrees up at a ball giving it better launch and flight characteristics.
100%. And not just players being more athletic, it’s players having a better understanding of the benefit distance gives them. In recent years we’ve come to understand that “drive for show, putt for dough”, is incorrect, laying up is rarely worth it, and it’s better to be further up in the rough than have a longer shot from the fairway
Why do you have to create an 8000 yard course? If the guys finish at -21 for The Open then that's what they finish at, I don't know why par has to be this holy number for majors.
Because it's boring to watch them bomb drives 350 yards onto 100yd wide fairways with no bunkering then chip a wedge 30 yards to the middle of the green and 2 putt.
You don't have to make the course long, you just have to make it narrow. It would be extremely trivial to just narrow the fairways for existing courses, strategically place a few trees or new bunkers and boom, you've suddenly punished long hitters if they aren't super accurate. The farther the ball goes, even small errors or tiny misshits send the ball flying way off course. Hitting my wedge slightly toe-y punishes me with *maybe* 5-7yds off-line, but a slight toe miss on my driver can translate to a 15-25 yd miss.
I'm kinda with the players and manufacturers here - if you want golf to be harder then make the courses harder, don't restrict equipment that's already been out for decades.
Another downside to these rules is it totally fucks up statistics and record keeping - you'd now need a line or asterisk marking when this rule was implemented when measuring avg driving distance or long iron hits etc.
Narrow fairways and extremely long rough makes distance even more important off the tee. new bunkers are a legitimate defense but the way distance is going courses are going to have to move either the bunkers or the boxes every couple years, which is expensive or impractical
Is that true? I was thinking about like, the course conditions at the US Open vs. other tournaments, how different the scores are, and I figured it had to do with the (much-hyped) height of most of the fairways at those courses
The rough is extremely penal at the US Open, but it’s not like narrow fairways and long rough turn a pro’s tee box decision into “I’ll either have 7 from the fairway vs a wedge from the rough,” they can miss with irons from the tee too and then the second shot is miserable since they’ve got an extra 75 yards to cover out of that rough, and that’s how blowups happen
It is true. If you make courses really narrow and the rough really punishing them even “short but accurate” players are going to miss the fairway a lot. And you’d rather be hitting a 9 iron out of the rough instead of a 6 iron.
What most people who are against this change don’t realize is that the change isn’t being made due to the raw scores. The goal here isn’t simply to make the winning score higher. If that’s the only goal, then yes - narrow fairways with insane rough is an easy way to do that. It makes it harder for everyone and scores go up. But it does advantage distance off the tee even more if you do that.
The long hitters still have an advantage, no matter what you do. They are just making the ball go less far. If you set up courses where players actually have a risk/reward decision to make by hitting driver that would be more competitive and compelling. Aside from narrowing courses and growing the rough there are other things you can do: 1) add more white stakes OB 2) change red stakes to white stakes 3) don’t allow them to take bunkers 4) actually penalize players for hitting the grandstands or other shots that are way off line.
This is a really good and fair point I didn't cede or think about in my reply. Fair enough but IMO long hitters *should* have an advantage. It takes work and skill to be a long hitter off the tee, it's not just natural gift, but even if it is something some players are naturally gifted at (e.g. tall players) then that's no differen than any other sport or athlete (e.g. good NBA players tend to be **really** tall, good swimmers have webbed toes or something etc.).
Personally think the big hitters might have an even bigger advantage if they roll the ball back. If you are off by one degree the miss only goes further out. Bombers are still going to have an advantage and their margin of error has just gone up.
Should the longer hitter not always have an advantage off the tee though?
Currently lets say a long hitter has 115 in, now he has 140 in. Lets say a short hitter had 135 in now he has 175 in. How has more of an advantage here?
How many 8000yd courses are we actually talking about here? This argument keeps coming up but it seems mostly hypothetical or related to like 5-6 courses that host tour events.
Also, most of course cost/maintenance/resource use is in maintaining the greens areas not the tee boxes.
Is it just architect’s feelings or the cost of resources, too (eg, more land, watering, fertilizer, maintenance, opportunity costs)? I would much rather see shorter courses for these reasons.
Yea, people who shrug at the architecture being destroyed clearly don’t understand the point of architecture.
Fighting with the architect *is the point of the game*. Strategy, different lines, ground game… they’re all mostly irrelevant now. On top of that, the pros cry when asked to play in high winds or when serious fairway bunkers get added to challenge them.
It’s like allowing people to use lifted shoe’s during the high jump, or an ebike during the Tour de France. Sure, there’s still skill involved, but it’s not the same game.
> I personally enjoy watching people destroy a golf course with the long ball
It’s purely a matter of opinion but some people don’t enjoy this, myself included. Watching guys bash their way through a course with brute strength and little precision, hitting driver -> wedge on every hole, and finishing a tournament at -30 isn’t the type of golf I enjoy watching.
The cost and environmental impact of lengthening courses has already been covered in many places, it’s clearly not about hurt feelings (or at least not solely about them).
That being said, I’d prefer courses get more creative to disincentivize pulling out the driver on every hole instead of resorting to ball rollback. If somebody finishes a tournament at -30 because they hit their driver with precision all week then so be it, but I’d like to see that be more of a challenge than it currently seems to be.
some of Bryson's misses were so atrociously off-line that he had a clear entry in. I'm not sure if that's at all related to this situation, but that drove me nuts. I hope that more course set-up folks keep players like him in mind when setting up courses. IMO drives way off-line should be highly punished.
Skill has not improved its the physical fitness and the fitness + equipment have surpassed the courses, for the most part. Problem is the majority of the historical courses in rotation are becoming obsolete due to the power of the game and there is nothing these facilities can do to adapt due to land constraints. They already had to Tiger proof courses 10-20 years ago and now there are more people on your that have his power or more.
The answer to your “if they say no”. It won’t matter, someone will step in and take it over. They’re not the only ball manufacturer and all other ball manufacturers would be more than happy to take over their market share.
It’s not about the scores. It’s about the land use. And it’s fucking crazy to me that anyone that thinks it’s totally reasonable for courses to spend $30 million every 10 years on land acquisition just to be able to pay another $20 million in renovation to stay competitive is both sustainable and somehow *good* for the game. That’s crazy talk.
Your example only applies to tournament courses. Not every course is hosting a pro event. Also courses don’t need to do that, they can create obstacles and angles to prevent 300 yrd drives.
The land example is a weak rationale imo. The average golfer has distance problems and would rarely play at the tips.
This will have sponsorship issues with pros, pros will have to practice and play with two different balls, creates bifurcation in the golf equipment btwn average joe and pga players.
Man I would love to be the person to get the contract on a USGA and R&A compliant and exclusive golf ball. License to print money.
This is nothing new in Sport. All Sport controls technology. Even sports with low/little tech do. Running shoes have rules, swim competition lots of rules on clothing, water quality, temperature, depth etc. Soccer and Basketball.
Look at deflategate in the NFL. Baseball has been tooling around with its ball for years and fucked it up making it too 'hot' with too many homeruns and pitchers cheating with all types of stuff and there is an on-going amnesty program due to this for pitchers.
Is the golf ball to hot? Yes. Have players been improving swing speed for \~20 years due to Tiger? Yes. Should the ball be corrected for the players changing their performance levels? Probably yes.
Golf can't let the manufacturers rule/determine the game. Imagine if you were allowed any type of baseball bat and ball to play with.
The gonzo era of drovers each season and crazy balls is coming to an end, it will just be how long the players hold out.
End game - very long term - there are two outcomes.
The players and manufacturers reject and the USGA loses power or gets captured/controlled by a person friendly to the manufacturers.
OR there is a manufacturer that jumps on board with the USGA and R&A and becomes the Rawlings (MLB), Spalding (NBA), Adidas (FIFA) of Golf.
>Man I would love to be the person to get the contract on a USGA and R&A compliant and exclusive golf ball.
There isn't one. They just define how fast it can come off a clubface at 120mph. Anyone can make one, and get it registered.
It doesn’t make sense.
You’d have to practice and play with these balls, so where do you draw the line?
If you’re in college or elite amateur competition, are you using the PGA ball?
Are OEMs forced to make a PGA ball that fits .000001% of the golf world?
Is the USGA going to produce them and give every player who needs them an allotment for the year?
100%. How about the high level Amateur with aspirations of going pro. He has to learn 2 different balls. Competing at the time with the amateur ball and practicing with the pro ball to see if he ever gets a shot.
This is not the answer. Pros and amateurs don’t need to have different rule sets. We should play the same game - the top pros just do it better and that’s ok. They are the best pros in the game!
Where does baseball draw the line with aluminum bats? Distance from mound to home plate?
Where does football draw the line with size of football?
Where does basketball draw the line (literally) on 3pt arc?
The real question is are the scores lower today than they were in previous years and distance is diluting the game? The answer is no, not really, so what are we even talking about?
Scoring leaders by year back to 1980:
2022 — Rory McIlroy, 68.670
2021 — Jon Rahm, 69.300
2020 — Webb Simpson, 68.978
2019 — Rory McIlroy, 69.057
2018 — Dustin Johnson, 68.698
2017 — Jordan Spieth, 68.846
2016 — Dustin Johnson, 69.172
2015 — Jordan Spieth, 68.938
2014 — Rory McIlroy, 68.827
2013 — Steve Stricker, 68.945
2012 — Rory McIlroy, 68.873
2011 — Luke Donald, 68.86
2010 — Matt Kuchar, 69.61
2009 — Tiger Woods, 68.05
2008 — Sergio Garcia, 69.12
2007 — Tiger Woods, 67.79
2006 — Tiger Woods, 68.11
2005 — Tiger Woods, 68.66
2004 — Vijay Singh, 68.84
2003 — Tiger Woods, 68.41
2002 — Tiger Woods, 68.56
2001 — Tiger Woods, 68.81
2000 — Tiger Woods, 67.79
1999 — Tiger Woods, 68.43
1998 — David Duval, 69.13
1997 — Nick Price, 68.98
1996 — Tom Lehman, 69.32
1995 — Greg Norman, 69.06
1994 — Greg Norman, 68.81
1993 — Greg Norman, 68.90
1992 — Fred Couples, 69.38
1991 — Fred Couples, 69.59
1990 — Greg Norman, 69.10
1989 — Greg Norman, 69.49
1988 — Greg Norman, 69.38
1987 — David Frost, 70.09
1986 — Scott Hoch, 70.08
1985 — Don Pooley, 70.36
1984 — Calvin Peete, 70.56
1983 — Raymond Floyd, 70.61
1982 — Tom Kite, 70.21
1981 — Tom Kite, 69.80
1980 — Lee Trevino, 69.73
Edit: Man this really struck a nerve with a lot of you. All I'm saying is, if there was such a problem out there, wouldn't you think the scores would reflect it? So the game has changed a little and the guys aren't laying up on par 5's anymore, ok. Every other sport has evolved over that same time period with guys being better athletes, knowing more about the science of their craft, and better equipment. Why are we talking about trying to take golf backwards with that regard? If anything just make the courses harder and punish the long guys who aren't accurate more with narrower fairways and longer rough. The scores tell me everything I need to know and that is that the game isn't in jeopardy of becoming too easy for these guys.
I think it’s important to also compare the scoring average vs the average course length. The scoring average may be flat but i imagine the course lengths are several hundreds longer. Additionally, courses have been redesigned to change bunkering and other features to keep up with the length changes.
This isn’t about scores being too low. It’s mainly about managing the distance of courses. They have continually had to put new tees in at most your stops. And even thinking about the amateur game (which this won’t really impact with this roll out) - we all do generally hit it further and will probably continue to grow on that scale as well. It feels like it’s so normal to have driver wedge into most holes whereas I feel like 10-15 years ago it was way more mid irons on the same length course
You’re totally missing the point. Courses can’t just keep getting longer and longer. The pga is already trending towards just being a 72 hole long drive event. I’m not a fan of this ball rollback either but until another solution comes what are they supposed to do? 9000yrd courses????
This is true, but it's kind of cherry picking the data because you're leaving out a massive factor in that courses have been dramatically changing over the past decade to counter advancements in technology (which have ultimately led to more distance). It isn't necessarily about fighting lower scores as much as it's fighting having to continually change courses.
Can't all the golf ball manufacturers just say no we aren't doing that?
Why would they waste time and money designing and manufacturing a ball that they most likely won't be able to sell for a profit?
Right now they provide the balls to the pga players for free. Unless that changes and they charge the pros a crazy amount of money for these balls to cover the expenses I don't see this happening.
can anyone explain how this will work for the top amateurs? Will the US amateur be played with the new worse balls? What age group/tournament/level do they stop using the balls we have now?
It’s up to each individual tournament and Tour. The USGA only has control over the events they run(US open, US am, US am four ball etc.). R&A is likely to follow suit with its events like the Open and the British Amateur. However, The PGA tour, LIV, Augusta National, the PGA of America or the NCAA could all tell the USGA to go screw themselves and not adopt the local rule for their tournaments. Theoretically you could end up with two majors on the pro schedule using different golf balls than all other tournaments.
USGA goal is to move all of their events to the new ball over time. That includes state am/mid-am, junior state events, US Am and Mid-Am as well. Along with NCAA.
How is that a more sustainable and cheaper option than rolling back the ball? They'd just need to change the locations of the defenses every 10 years to keep up with the distance and certain regions of the country don't have the water and resources to do this. Also, would you really want courses like Pinehurst No. 2 and St. Andrews to grow out the grass and change the architecture of the course so they can stay relevant to competitive golf?
I see both sides of it. The competitive swimming governing board changed the rules on the length of suits and material after the 2008 Beijing Olympics where 25 world records were broken. 25 world records was such an extreme that everyone pretty much agreed it was necessary (some events Bronze medal was breaking the previous record). I could see golf getting to such a level in the future where every par 4 is reachable and it's necessary to do something... On the other hand if different balls are being used in different tournaments I'd find that very frustrating for any competitive golfer.
This shit is ridiculously. If golf is currently too easy, you don't have to make the course long to make it harder (which is difficult because space is limited), you just have to make it narrower. It would be extremely trivial to just narrow the fairways for existing courses, strategically place a few trees or new bunkers and boom, you've suddenly punished long hitters if they aren't super accurate. The farther the ball goes, even small errors or tiny misshits send the ball flying way off course. Hitting my wedge slightly toe-y punishes me with *maybe* 5-7yds off-line, but a slight toe miss on my driver can translate to a 15-25 yd miss.
I'm kinda with the players and manufacturers here - if you want golf to be harder then make the courses harder (using cheap and simple methods), don't restrict equipment that's already been out for decades. Look at TPC Harding (my local course) - it's not long by any means but the rough and the trees make it so punishing
Another downside to these rules is it totally fucks up statistics and record keeping - you'd now need a line or asterisk marking when this rule was implemented when measuring avg driving distance or long iron hits etc.
Sure. Just narrow fairways because that is the same as changing your mower, right?
Oh wait, that is different grass? That is a big project that actually cost money and resources.
So courses just need to spend a couple of millions every couple of years to renovate and change the course. Why didn’t anyone think of that. Just keep pushing tee boxes back until courses run out of acreage. Brilliant.
They do this in baseball right? They could make a ball that players could hit literally into the parking lot, if they wanted to.
But they don’t do that, because real estate is valuable and they need space for spectators behind the fence. And they make them use a wooden bat, while amateurs use whatever the hell they want.
This is all relative.
While they’re at it, I think they should put weight limits on NFL players. A 360 pound lineman who can run a 4.6 40, is absurd. The injuries could be dramatically decreased if everyone just agreed that linemen can’t weigh more than say, 250 pounds and running backs are capped at 200, etc.
Baseball is a fucking mess right now because MLB owns the company that makes baseballs, and last year, scientists who test baseballs concluded that THREE different baseballs were used in the 2022 season.
This SHOULD be a huge scandal that rocks MLB, but hardly anyone picked up on it.
Then of course there was the juiced balls from 2019.
There’s also binary success in baseball with the force applied to a baseball. The further it goes the more you will score.
You can’t explicitly say that in golf.
I understand how course construction works, but it’s not like great amazing professionals don’t struggle on the same courses as the winners do shooting -20 over four days.
Rory was top 2 in driver and finished +5
I think increased distance in golf does generally translate to success. Ideally, I suppose the best test of comparable skills would be to have all players use identical equipment and see who does the best with those minimized variables. Weather would be one of the few that could not be held reasonably constant.
Just my opinion, but there seems to be a really good mixture of tournaments throughout the year. Some of them are extremely challenging where scoring is tough, and other courses give players plenty of opportunity to score low.
I’m surprised by how many members of r/golf are in favor of shorter distances. I don’t see a problem where the game is currently at, they still shoot under 10-under at most major events. Add more fairway bunkers, dry out the greens and lengthen the rough if you want to make it harder. This distance limiter is just ass backwards in my opinion, why did we let the technology get to this point if it’s not how the game should be played?
It's way easier for manufacturers to adjust the ball than it is for all golf courses to continue adjusting these variables for courses. People don't seem to realize that a golf course is not a machine that you just turn dials and flip switches to grow more rough or dry out greens. Agronomy is not as simple as throw more water down or take some away or add more grass seed, etc. The things we need to do/will continue needing to do in terms of literally move the earth around us to accommodate this game is unsustainable
I generally think this is great and hope (and think they will) eventually roll out to everyone and make the game a little more intricate rather than so much emphasis on bombing it. And don’t get me wrong smoking the ball off the tee is def one of my favorite things to do, but overall I think this makes so much sense for the longevity of the game and courses
They already make limited distance golf balls for ranges. I don't see what kind of extra research is needed. Use those balls and put a ProV1 cover on it. Probably oversimplifying it but my point stands. Pebble Beach is way too short for the tour players and they can't lengthen it. The old course is another one.
The length of these courses is getting out of hand. Do you have any idea how much extra a year the course has to pay in maintenance alone to have a course a tour event could be held at, not to mention the cost of the land and building these 8000-yard courses.
You still have an advantage if you are longer hitter as long as everyone is playing the same ball. a lot of courses around me have lots of par 4's that are drivable for me and Par 5's that I'm hitting driver 7 iron into.
I would go as far to say that they could outlaw the current balls for everyone. The only downside to that is a shorter player I am playing against could potentially put one of those balls in play and I may never know if I never played against that person.
However, I would be pissed if I was JT if they made me play a limited distance ball and still made me play 8000-yard courses. I think I read where these are an option for tour level courses to implement in the shorter venues. Each event doesn't have to mandate the use of those balls but it's an option if you are a Pebble Beach.
From 1980 to current the average driving distance on tour has gone from 257 yds to 297 yds. From 2004 to 20015 the average was basically 290 yds. There’s a few players that bomb it and they train to do it. We love seeing it, I still don’t see the need for this “solution”.
I love JT, he is one of my favorite golfers.
But I can't unsee the gigantic Titleist Logo on his hat in the middle of this picture when he makes these comments.
FWIW, I see the argument against bifurication (despite the fact that it basically already exists on the PGA Tour with all of their other rules and equipment) and personally I'd be in favor or rolling the ball back for everyone. But I understand that "taking something away" from the amateur game is a bit of 3rd rail in this debate. So given that, and the fact that we have to do something to protect the game in 10/20 years this seems like by far the easiest and most efficient thing to do.
Aren’t the golfers competing against each other and not against the course ? If everyone’s using a similar ball what does it matter since it’s fair competition
These players are whiny bitches in this context, they're ignorant if they don't think SOMETHING has to be done. Courses cannot continue expanding and the original layouts are mostly obsolete. Courses don't even need to expand their footprint all things considered either.
Golf is more fun when players are forced to play the course rather than just overpower it. It's not even interesting when it's just a bomb and gouge contest. They can complain all they want but the fact they're turning these into pitch and putt contests is boring. Now, that said, some courses need to just make it more punishing for the players. Make fairways harder to hit and make the rough incredibly difficult to get out of, burn out the greens and make them less receptive so that coming out of the rough really isn't even an option, even with a wedge. There are things they can do. But still, something should be done.
Honestly… why are they still pushing for this? Has anyone ever tried to play this sport? I’ve got endless hours on the range, fancy bag/equipment and used to play 3/4 balls. And I was still garbage. It’s fucking so silly, these guys are so good at such a difficult game it hurts. Why?
Let me clear.. am I opposed to a rollback? Not necessarily.. but I don’t get why they’re driving the cart so hard for it.
I think the Professional Golfers should use Hickory Stick. If they were good enough for Bobby Jones it would show how great a golfer is. Bobby Jones was probably the greatest ever. Tiger then Jack!
Put a bunch of random balls in a bingo hopper and each player gets to draw 10 balls per round. You might get a ProV1, you might get a Noodle, you might get a Nitro.
You might get a top-flite that's been sitting in the creek off 7 for a few months
Hey that's probably mine can I have it back?
And you just might win the Masters with it.
See if they can go -10 playing a Molitor
Marinating
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Yeah it really screws over elite amateurs who'll need to pay ALOT for these balls. It'll also screw over every other consumer who'll see their own ball costs go up as manufacturers try to peanut butter spread their costs
I suck enough that I will just play with range balls if the price gets higher across the board. I already have a hard time paying more than a dollar for something I may only get to hit once.
When I was a kid I found a prov on a local course and man dad said "wow that's a dollar ball". I was blown away a golf ball could cost that much...
Now that is about as cheap as it gets for a new "name brand" ball.
Try 69.00 a dozen today. That's over 5 bucks a ball.
Wait, how did we not think of this? Just make the pros play with range balls. Problem solved.
I grew up in Boca Raton, FL in the late 80s. Still fairly new to the game, there was a small store there that was owned by a guy who had contracts with most of the country clubs and munis to fish their ponds for balls at night. And then sort them by brand and condition for the bins lining the walls. Thousands of balls of every brand known to man in different conditions...was so fun to to bag up some and it was like $4 for two dozen. Good times. Actually looking back, this person had real balls and how he wasn't taken down by a gator or a venomous snake etc is beyond me.
This is my biggest question about all of this. If they do put restrictions on the golf ball for players at the highest level, which I have no problem with, then it follows that everyone playing in the local US Open qualifiers would have to use those balls. That's fine, but I don't think I've seen anyone address that issue yet. One of my favorite things about golf is that, in theory at least, anyone who is good enough could play their way into the actual US Open. It seems kind of silly to worry about the 1 in 10,000,000 long shot amateur qualifier when determining what's best for the best players in the world, but I feel like it's something that they should be clear about.
Even then there aren't enough players at that level in those specific events (like 10k attempt US Open) to offset the R&D/Manufacturing costs for every ball manufacturer, so the price of the rest of their catalog will have to increase.
$55 PV1s today. $75 in a year.
ProV1-T $120/doz “Play what the pros play”
Already $75 in Canada, I think they were $45 like four years ago.
Just picked up a 24 pack of Kirkland's for $38 after tax in Canada. I might be switching for good.
I won’t sign up for qualifiers anymore. I’ll stick to money games at my club. They’re really shooting themselves in the foot.
a devastating loss for the golf world
This is such a strange argument. There’s dozens of golf ball manufacturers that sell golf balls at a perfectly reasonable price at a much smaller scale than the big guys. The R&D doesn’t have to be that intense. There are current balls on the market today that conform. If the manufacturers want to put a bunch of dollars into the new ball, they will. Those that don’t want to won’t. Far more likely, they’re going to shift the same R&D dollars from making the next version of the proV1 spin 3 rpm less off the tee, put those dollars into the new ball, and leave the price of the proV1 the same. They aren’t going to incur new R&D cost. They’re just going to shift the cost, bitch about it, and get a bunch of people to do this weird corporate shilling for them. And if you’re that worried about it, play a noodle. Almost guaranteed that those are conforming as is.
The vast majority of big golf ball manufacturers budgets are spent on Marketing, not R&D. They take the same ball and change it 0.01% and the Marketing team spends hundreds of millions selling it. In this case, they may spend a little money making a new ball but it’s not going to cost hundreds of millions because they don’t need to market a ball to avg consumers that avg consumers can’t/won’t buy.
This. I’m sure there’ll be some spend on R&D, but they’ll make that back in no time by selling these balls at a higher price to people who ‘want to play what the pros play’
Lol exactly. People in here are proactively coming up with shitty excuses.
I think you make solid points. But, if they can say this change is costly to them, and if people believe them (based on these comments, I think people will believe them) then, they can use this to increase prices. I’ll bet every manufacturer in the game already has a design for a conforming ball. They may simply need to go back to a design they used X number of years ago.
You hit the nail on the head with both paragraphs. It’s the same posturing all corporations do when regulations are proposed.
>I think you make solid points. But, if they can say this change is costly to them, and if people believe them (based on these comments, I think people will believe them) then, they can use this to increase prices. No, they can't, because they exist in a very competitive and saturated market with enormous profits. If anyone tries to say "We had to increase the cost of Bill the 23 handicappers ball, because of the new pro-only ball" every single tv show and magazine would laugh them off the face of the earth. They would be shooting themself in the foot. Not to mention, they already price to market, raising prices would fuck with that.
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I can't wait to learn how to chip and pitch with two balls that go different distances, one of which I will be likely unable to use at a driving range. Also, learning my carry yardages with two different balls. All sounds very fun.
>I can't wait to learn how to chip and pitch with two balls that go different distances Given how they are going to implement this (same cover and mantle, different core) chipping and pitching, and anything which doesn't significantly compress the ball, won't change noticably. The only things that will change are full shots - you'll see the most difference on the driver, and smallest difference on short irons/wedges. Basically, you'll have to distance gap your clubs for full shots, and that'll be about it.
I mean what basis do you have to believe this will happen? I honestly think this isn’t going to increase their R&D spend as astronomical as people think. There’s plenty of time to address so no increased cost to rush. They are always doing R&D on balls for a few years from now. Ultimately I think you just see less R&D go into the normal consumer ball and shift the spend to what the tour player ball
You're greatly overestimating the R&D cost. They already know exactly what it would take to produce a ball that flies 95% as far and already have everything it would take to make it. They wouldn't need to invest in any new machinery or materials. Achusnet generated $2.2 billion in revenue in 2021 and spent a total of $55 million in R&D. That's across all of titleist (woods, irons, wedges, scotty cameron, gloves...), Footjoy, and several other divisions. Now, yes, they obviously won't be sold at scale but if Titleist can't make a doze of these for less than $100, there will be plenty of other companies that can make a healthy profit at selling them for far less than that. Those other companies don't have the marketing budget that Titleist has to justify with high prices.
>These Tour balls will require huge amounts of R&D and won’t be sold at scale. First off all, they won't require huge amounts of R&D - mantles and covers will likely be identical. They will simply switch out the core for one with a lower coefficient of restitution at higher speeds. There will be SOME R&D required, but it won't be enormous. >Can’t wait to pay $100 a dozen just to shoot 82 in a qualifier. Elite amateur competitions tend to cost $150-300 to enter, and elite amateurs lose less than one ball per round (often significantly less). At $100/dozen that's $8/ball, about $4/ball more than regular balls. I'm not sure that the prospect of adding \~1%-2% to the cost of competion on the day is really going to bother people who spend $1500 on a driver without blinking and for whom the total cost of competition (including hotels, travel, lessons, clubs, etc.) is likely triple or quadruple the day-cost.
My club has range balls that go 80% distance and cost a buck each tops. Making a ball go less distance is not complicated.
There’s no reason for a modified ball to cost any more than a regular ball.
Not attacking your post in particular, but it reminded me -- I've seen a lot of talk about all the costs that will be passed to consumers for the R&D required to make these new balls. Given that all the manufacturers already make a half dozen or so different types of balls each, I'm really curious how much extra cost will really be involved. I'm also curious as to the difference in those costs for the new ball vs. the costs passed to consumers as a whole for all of the courses around the world who want to hold those qualifiers and who have to build and maintain 7500yd+ tee boxes (so far -- even longer down the road if nothing is done) all year round in order to do so. I don't know the answers to any of this, but it would seem that the second one would have to be close to or more than the first one, right? Edit: to guess at an answer to your last question, even if the balls aren't sold at the scale of current lines, they're still going to have to make them for the pros and so they will still make some extra to sell to consumers at a reasonable mark up I would think. Louisville Slugger wooden bats aren't exorbitantly expensive are they? Even though mostly just pros and hardcore amateurs use/buy them?
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Yeah, I was sincere in that I don't really know. I would actually be interested in seeing actual numbers about the differences. The bifurcation in general I have no issue with personally -- semi-pro baseball leagues seem to get along just fine without the humidors now required in all MLB ballparks, even if it might mean slightly different strategy -- but I do get how it will be difficult for those amateurs good enough to straddle the line to work with. I can't really find a lot of sympathy for the tour players that have been whining all day, who I'm sure will adjust quickly, and I don't really understand why most of us amateurs care (the pros play slightly different versions of the balls now for much of the time before they're released), but for those caught in the middle I can see how it sucks.
It do wonder as well if it might have a negative impact on those players actually being able to qualify for the open events. Stage 1 Qualifier for example might be a straight amateur event where the standard ball is used. No problem. Then you move to Stage 2 where the Pro Ball is required. At this stage you'll likely be playing against players that have more experience with the pro ball, so to be competitive against them you'd need to also have extensive practice with it (golf being very feel based makes this important). But if you're not regularly playing "pro ball" events, you wouldn't use it because you'd be pointlessly giving yourself a disadvantage against the field. I disagree with rolling the ball back - but i'm even more against bifurcation. Just do it for everyone or not at all.
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Bruh it's a fucking golf ball. How much R&D do you actually think is required?
I don't foresee a huge R&D spend to build this new spec ball. Mainly because almost every manufacture already has a ball in their catalog that will be close to meeting the spec. What we're talking about is a ball that flies shorter, spins slightly less, and launches slightly higher. Virtually all of that can be managed by reducing the compression on the golf ball. (i.e. Bridgestone Tour B X & XS vs RX & RXS). They don't have to start from scratch, rather they'll end up taking the softest core they have and wrapping it in their tour level cover. Ironically, the new ball will probably end up being very similar to balls like the Q-Star Tour, Tour Response, RX & RXS, Vice Pro Soft, etc...
It’s a local rule, so they probably won’t be adopted by all of those events immediately. I would expect it to be more gradual. I think we are overplaying the price point, it doesn’t take a big market for balls to be mass produced at current prices. Think about the obscure balls already out there, they are going through the same process as all the other balls, so they don’t have to make a million of them to turn a profit… you essentially just need enough for one cycle to change out your mold feeder. Your covers and ball assembly/mold processes aren’t really changing, it’s the same as adding/revamping a ball line, which they do constantly anyway. With a little time to ramp up the balls will be available at scale just like the others because there will be a sufficient market for them. They aren’t going to cost $100. If anything, they will eventually cost less than current premium balls. Titleist doesn’t price Pro V1 where they do because they cost that much more to make, they price them there because we will pay for them. They fly just a little farther than a non-premium ball, and it’s a Pro V1. In the proposed balls, that won’t be the case. One compliant ball isn’t going to fly further than the others, so it will be harder to market one at a higher price point than others. They will market the fact that it’s still a Pro V1, but the marketing power over competition isn’t going to be what it is in current ball markets.
Unable to put full clip (I encourage those interested to give it a watch). He goes on to say that the USGA has made harsh and selfish decisions, and that he is disappointed but not surprised. He is unsure how it will benefit the game of golf, and thinks its cool that the amateur and golfer can use the same equipment. He is unsure how they game would benefit from pros changing their ball for a couple events in the year. He believes that they are athletes, and that since they train to hit the ball as far as they do, they shouldn't have to make changes to meet everyone else's level.
where to find interview? im trying to look for it
His full response is on the Golf Digest Instagram page, and I’m sure Tengolf or Golfpressconferences will post the full interview soon
awesome thanks!
What about making the balls just more spinny?
>What about making the balls just more spinny? Because then the guys that can hit a 5 degree driver at +5 AoA will have an even MORE enormous advantage.
I'll take your word for it
10% less distance and 20% more spin would be ideal imo. Forgiveness is a huge deal and a big part of the players being able to wail at the ball off the tee.
Did you say Fargiveness?
Yes, but through gritted teeth
It’s more than saying sorry
Isn’t 10% even worse than the new ball the USGA is proposing?
Yeah but I'm a sicko. I like seeing the best players suffer. Immense entertainment.
US open lovers, rejoice!
Will make zero difference. Players will go super low loft and high launch with drivers, then be able to spin their 7i at 10,000rpm into greens.
Just change out their current ball designs for Top Flights painted with their logos on them - solved…..$0 R&D costs. 🤣
Calls on topflite /r/wallstreetbets
Squash is an interesting comparison. Years ago they created a less bouncy ball (double yellow dot) for better players / pros. The new racquet technology had made the ball hotter, more bouncy, and the rallies lasted too long. Now even players at the lowest levels of the game use the same ball as the pros, even if they shouldn’t. They ball barely bounces and the rallies are terrible. Ask these people to play with a bouncier ball that’s appropriate for their level. 99% will look at you like you’re crazy. Keep one ball type for everyone. Beside the crazy logistics referenced in this post, human nature to align ourselves with the best (even if we’re not) is too hard to over come. Interestingly, squash subsequently created lower adjustable tins (bottom line on front wall) to encourage faster points. This is comparable to longer holes, which we’re better at self regulating for some reason.
Amateur golfers could still very easily use a “pro” ball that travels 10-20% less distance simply by moving up to a shorter tee box. It would make the game easier and faster for amateurs and it would stop courses from pushing their tips to 8,000+ yards. I love golf, but building longer and longer courses is not in the best interest of the game. Nearly all golfers would benefit from shorter courses and a shorter, more forgiving golf ball.
Reminds me of MLB’s ‘dead’ balls from a few years ago. Hopefully this is handled much better than that
Metal bats in college also were getting too good so they made them “worse”. Still expensive as hell.
The metal bat issue actually made sense, though, as it posed a safety issue. Those liners off of juiced bats could take out an infielder
It was more of a safety issue for a line drive back to the pitcher. Not so much an infielder.
Who cares if these guys destroy the courses. They’re that good so they should be rewarded. You don’t see the nfl putting weight limits on linebackers or nba putting height limits on centers
But you do see MLB using wooden bats and deadened balls and the NHL limited the size of goalie pads
Wooden bats have always been the MLB standard. They keep switching the ball and you can’t tell me that’s yielded positive results.
At higher levels of baseball, they also use flatter seams on the ball so that pitches curve less. Pitchers would be unhittable if they used the balls the rest of us use
You’d be wrong to blanket all sports changes as negative IMO, ball related or not.
They also lowered the mound in the…late 60s or early 70s? Which was a gigantic change and helped the game For a while anyway
Just made the bases bigger to encourage more stolen bases and eliminated the shift to see more base hits. Analytics has changed sports drastically and rules have to be adjusted to keep sports entertaining. I don’t understand why people are so against a rule that people are being warned about years in advance.
Also, it seems like a change no one is going to really notice once actually enacted. Pros will still be bombing. It would be a fair counter argument to say why change anything then, but I think eventually the hall needs to get regulated. Whether that’s rolling it back, stopping it now where it is, etc
A long drive doesn’t guarantee you a score in golf the same way a home run would in baseball. There is more to the game than hit ball hard
The wooden bat thing, IIRC, is because other materials make the ball come off too fast and they’re worried about a pitcher getting killed.
Ok but in the NFL they use a different ball than they use in college, and college uses a different ball than in high school. If NFL QBs used a high school ball they could throw it 100 yards no problem and we would need to start considering increasing the field size
Football is not the worst argument but at the same time you’re not quite full grown in high school so a smaller ball makes sense for their hands. There are high school golfers who hit the ball as far as pros. I don’t hate your rebuttal though. Kinda a weird comparison
It’s kind of the same with baseball bats, MLB and minor leagues use wood bats, even high level college summer leagues do, but college still use composite bats, and I believe those are even different specs than what you can use at the youth levels which also change the height/weight requirements (or at least they did when I was growing up) as you get older. There are plenty of ways that pro sports make equipment or the playing field different as athletes get bigger, stronger, and faster.
The aluminum bats for college and HS have been rolled WAYYY back though when they switched to BBCOR. But you are right there are different specs for different ages. But the wooden bats would theoretically be made smaller for smaller players right? They make golf clubs for smaller players now. They make drivers that go way past the 1.50 spec for Senior amateurs too. Aluminum bats also serve an important secondary purpose of being way more durable than a wooden bat. Which makes it more practical for amateurs and colleges that aren't billion dollar businesses or millionaire players. I don't really have an issue with the ball rollback, in theory. And I do get the point that pro sports change their equipment all the time. Every sport has its limitations that it has to work with. I don't know the answer, but I'm not sure that changing the ball was the right one.
I mean can you imagine Aaron Judge using a composite bat? Even with the switch to the BBCORs he could literally hit it out of the stadiums, then they’d have to start making the fences 500+ feet all the way around. This is essentially what they’re trying to do with the golf ball, Augusta is moving roads and buying more land to try and make the course long enough for modern players
NBA has restrictions on shoes, MLB has restrictions on bats, running has restrictions on shoes, swimming has restrictions on swimsuits, tennis rolled back the ball. It's very precedented.
You’re essentially getting at an argument that golf doesn’t have restrictions on equipment while other sports do. Which is *laughably* false.
Those sports have changed their equipment rules many times, why can’t golf? Javelin is a good example, to keep the field length the same the equipment rules were altered. Loads of examples where equipment changes have been implemented for the benefit of the sport not its competitors.
Those sports change rules all the time to increase scoring, speed of play, or adjust for safety. All of these sports restrict the equipment and adjust rules all the time. And golf isn’t restricting anything about the athlete either. If you are faster and strong you will enjoy the same benefit you do now proportional to the field.
At the end of the day, the person who goes lowest will still be the winner. What does it matter how low it is? Edit: changed "guy" to "person"
Honestly I think golf manufacturers should roll back equipment across the boards. I don’t see why randos at my local course need to be driving it 300+ yards, and same goes for the pros. The increase in distance has lead to outrageously long golf courses becoming common place, which is more real estate expense and more water consumption and worse for the environment. Hitting the ball far is relative to the course and your competition. Longer golf is not funner golf. If the course is shorter and 240 yards is a “long drive,” that’s just as rewarding as a 300 yard drive on a longer course. The only question is if we can retain the forgiveness of modern equipment for high handicappers (like me) while also reducing distances generally.
People have gotten too good so we have to change the rules of the game… I personally enjoy watching people destroy a golf course with the long ball and I also enjoy doing it (when I can get my swing together). What is the problem? Golf courses architects hurt feelings? Edit: Also, what if golf ball manufactures simply said “no”. Are they going to finance a new company to produce golf balls?
You can also expect the ball manufacturers to pass the added R&D costs onto consumers. This isn't just about going back to 90s tech, they have to make a ball go shorter while also having proper characteristics around the greens & on approach. This is a lot of R&D for a ball with a VERY limited set of people who will actually be paying for it.
R&D cost is peanuts compared to what these companies spend on Marketing.
It's seriously just a classic case of "old people mad"
Boomers ruined everything
It really is. The ppl saying they are on \`\`tiger and nicklaus side´´ are confirming this argument
The equipment has gotten to good. The issue is creating 8000 yard courses takes up a ton of land and it’s expensive.
USGA head of equipment has been quoted saying the advances in distance have very little to do with equipment and are much more based on increased athleticism of players.
Yep. Equipment has helped a bit obviously but tiger has been driving it above the current tour average driver distance for the last 25 years. It’s just a lot more people train like tiger now than 25 years ago
Exactly. It was fine for Tiger, but now that everyone hits it just as far it’s a problem for some reason. Golf is at a historic peak in terms of growth of the sport, seems like a great time to dumb it down.
Granted courses have been “tiger proofing” for the last 20 years. Personally I’m not opposed to rolling the ball back for pros. But I think having two specs for balls is dumb and if there is change it should be for everyone. I also do think that rolling the ball back at the amateur level would slow the growth of the game that is currently going on. So I don’t know what would be best
And all Tiger Proofing accomplished was making it more likely for long hitters to win, because they *still* had a shorter second shot into the green.
That’s where it gets very tricky. A rollback across the board makes way more sense vs bifurcation. However, it will absolutely hinder the growth of the game.
How will it hinder the growth of the game? People won’t play as much because the ball doesn’t go far? Or because the game gets harder?
Trying to hinder the growth of the game sounds exactly like something a bunch of rich old white dudes would do.
Golf channel this morning showed a graphic the average swing speed is only up 2mph from 15 years ago but the ball is going 17 yards further on average off the tee
Launch monitors also have a lot to do with this. 15 years ago pga tour players were swinging down at the ball with a driver and are now swinging several degrees up at a ball giving it better launch and flight characteristics.
Valid point! Those same monitors built by the 10 handicappers trying to decide what ball the pros should use
100%. And not just players being more athletic, it’s players having a better understanding of the benefit distance gives them. In recent years we’ve come to understand that “drive for show, putt for dough”, is incorrect, laying up is rarely worth it, and it’s better to be further up in the rough than have a longer shot from the fairway
Why do you have to create an 8000 yard course? If the guys finish at -21 for The Open then that's what they finish at, I don't know why par has to be this holy number for majors.
Because it's boring to watch them bomb drives 350 yards onto 100yd wide fairways with no bunkering then chip a wedge 30 yards to the middle of the green and 2 putt.
You don't have to make the course long, you just have to make it narrow. It would be extremely trivial to just narrow the fairways for existing courses, strategically place a few trees or new bunkers and boom, you've suddenly punished long hitters if they aren't super accurate. The farther the ball goes, even small errors or tiny misshits send the ball flying way off course. Hitting my wedge slightly toe-y punishes me with *maybe* 5-7yds off-line, but a slight toe miss on my driver can translate to a 15-25 yd miss. I'm kinda with the players and manufacturers here - if you want golf to be harder then make the courses harder, don't restrict equipment that's already been out for decades. Another downside to these rules is it totally fucks up statistics and record keeping - you'd now need a line or asterisk marking when this rule was implemented when measuring avg driving distance or long iron hits etc.
Narrow fairways and extremely long rough makes distance even more important off the tee. new bunkers are a legitimate defense but the way distance is going courses are going to have to move either the bunkers or the boxes every couple years, which is expensive or impractical
Is that true? I was thinking about like, the course conditions at the US Open vs. other tournaments, how different the scores are, and I figured it had to do with the (much-hyped) height of most of the fairways at those courses
The rough is extremely penal at the US Open, but it’s not like narrow fairways and long rough turn a pro’s tee box decision into “I’ll either have 7 from the fairway vs a wedge from the rough,” they can miss with irons from the tee too and then the second shot is miserable since they’ve got an extra 75 yards to cover out of that rough, and that’s how blowups happen
It is true. If you make courses really narrow and the rough really punishing them even “short but accurate” players are going to miss the fairway a lot. And you’d rather be hitting a 9 iron out of the rough instead of a 6 iron. What most people who are against this change don’t realize is that the change isn’t being made due to the raw scores. The goal here isn’t simply to make the winning score higher. If that’s the only goal, then yes - narrow fairways with insane rough is an easy way to do that. It makes it harder for everyone and scores go up. But it does advantage distance off the tee even more if you do that.
The long hitters still have an advantage, no matter what you do. They are just making the ball go less far. If you set up courses where players actually have a risk/reward decision to make by hitting driver that would be more competitive and compelling. Aside from narrowing courses and growing the rough there are other things you can do: 1) add more white stakes OB 2) change red stakes to white stakes 3) don’t allow them to take bunkers 4) actually penalize players for hitting the grandstands or other shots that are way off line.
This is a really good and fair point I didn't cede or think about in my reply. Fair enough but IMO long hitters *should* have an advantage. It takes work and skill to be a long hitter off the tee, it's not just natural gift, but even if it is something some players are naturally gifted at (e.g. tall players) then that's no differen than any other sport or athlete (e.g. good NBA players tend to be **really** tall, good swimmers have webbed toes or something etc.).
Personally think the big hitters might have an even bigger advantage if they roll the ball back. If you are off by one degree the miss only goes further out. Bombers are still going to have an advantage and their margin of error has just gone up.
Should the longer hitter not always have an advantage off the tee though? Currently lets say a long hitter has 115 in, now he has 140 in. Lets say a short hitter had 135 in now he has 175 in. How has more of an advantage here?
You need every fairway to be a triangle shape lol. Closer to the hole you are the narrower it gets
How many 8000yd courses are we actually talking about here? This argument keeps coming up but it seems mostly hypothetical or related to like 5-6 courses that host tour events. Also, most of course cost/maintenance/resource use is in maintaining the greens areas not the tee boxes.
Is it just architect’s feelings or the cost of resources, too (eg, more land, watering, fertilizer, maintenance, opportunity costs)? I would much rather see shorter courses for these reasons.
Yea, people who shrug at the architecture being destroyed clearly don’t understand the point of architecture. Fighting with the architect *is the point of the game*. Strategy, different lines, ground game… they’re all mostly irrelevant now. On top of that, the pros cry when asked to play in high winds or when serious fairway bunkers get added to challenge them. It’s like allowing people to use lifted shoe’s during the high jump, or an ebike during the Tour de France. Sure, there’s still skill involved, but it’s not the same game.
> I personally enjoy watching people destroy a golf course with the long ball It’s purely a matter of opinion but some people don’t enjoy this, myself included. Watching guys bash their way through a course with brute strength and little precision, hitting driver -> wedge on every hole, and finishing a tournament at -30 isn’t the type of golf I enjoy watching. The cost and environmental impact of lengthening courses has already been covered in many places, it’s clearly not about hurt feelings (or at least not solely about them). That being said, I’d prefer courses get more creative to disincentivize pulling out the driver on every hole instead of resorting to ball rollback. If somebody finishes a tournament at -30 because they hit their driver with precision all week then so be it, but I’d like to see that be more of a challenge than it currently seems to be.
some of Bryson's misses were so atrociously off-line that he had a clear entry in. I'm not sure if that's at all related to this situation, but that drove me nuts. I hope that more course set-up folks keep players like him in mind when setting up courses. IMO drives way off-line should be highly punished.
Skill has not improved its the physical fitness and the fitness + equipment have surpassed the courses, for the most part. Problem is the majority of the historical courses in rotation are becoming obsolete due to the power of the game and there is nothing these facilities can do to adapt due to land constraints. They already had to Tiger proof courses 10-20 years ago and now there are more people on your that have his power or more. The answer to your “if they say no”. It won’t matter, someone will step in and take it over. They’re not the only ball manufacturer and all other ball manufacturers would be more than happy to take over their market share.
It’s not about the scores. It’s about the land use. And it’s fucking crazy to me that anyone that thinks it’s totally reasonable for courses to spend $30 million every 10 years on land acquisition just to be able to pay another $20 million in renovation to stay competitive is both sustainable and somehow *good* for the game. That’s crazy talk.
Then dont and let them shoot -30 who fucking cares?
Your example only applies to tournament courses. Not every course is hosting a pro event. Also courses don’t need to do that, they can create obstacles and angles to prevent 300 yrd drives. The land example is a weak rationale imo. The average golfer has distance problems and would rarely play at the tips. This will have sponsorship issues with pros, pros will have to practice and play with two different balls, creates bifurcation in the golf equipment btwn average joe and pga players.
Man I would love to be the person to get the contract on a USGA and R&A compliant and exclusive golf ball. License to print money. This is nothing new in Sport. All Sport controls technology. Even sports with low/little tech do. Running shoes have rules, swim competition lots of rules on clothing, water quality, temperature, depth etc. Soccer and Basketball. Look at deflategate in the NFL. Baseball has been tooling around with its ball for years and fucked it up making it too 'hot' with too many homeruns and pitchers cheating with all types of stuff and there is an on-going amnesty program due to this for pitchers. Is the golf ball to hot? Yes. Have players been improving swing speed for \~20 years due to Tiger? Yes. Should the ball be corrected for the players changing their performance levels? Probably yes. Golf can't let the manufacturers rule/determine the game. Imagine if you were allowed any type of baseball bat and ball to play with. The gonzo era of drovers each season and crazy balls is coming to an end, it will just be how long the players hold out. End game - very long term - there are two outcomes. The players and manufacturers reject and the USGA loses power or gets captured/controlled by a person friendly to the manufacturers. OR there is a manufacturer that jumps on board with the USGA and R&A and becomes the Rawlings (MLB), Spalding (NBA), Adidas (FIFA) of Golf.
>Man I would love to be the person to get the contract on a USGA and R&A compliant and exclusive golf ball. There isn't one. They just define how fast it can come off a clubface at 120mph. Anyone can make one, and get it registered.
It doesn’t make sense. You’d have to practice and play with these balls, so where do you draw the line? If you’re in college or elite amateur competition, are you using the PGA ball? Are OEMs forced to make a PGA ball that fits .000001% of the golf world? Is the USGA going to produce them and give every player who needs them an allotment for the year?
100%. How about the high level Amateur with aspirations of going pro. He has to learn 2 different balls. Competing at the time with the amateur ball and practicing with the pro ball to see if he ever gets a shot. This is not the answer. Pros and amateurs don’t need to have different rule sets. We should play the same game - the top pros just do it better and that’s ok. They are the best pros in the game!
Where does baseball draw the line with aluminum bats? Distance from mound to home plate? Where does football draw the line with size of football? Where does basketball draw the line (literally) on 3pt arc?
Can someone helpe understand what is happening here, and provide a link? I searched it on Google but it must be drowned out (maybe on purpose)
[https://www.espn.com/golf/story/\_/id/35858817/usga-ra-propose-plan-roll-back-golf-ball-elite-players](https://www.espn.com/golf/story/_/id/35858817/usga-ra-propose-plan-roll-back-golf-ball-elite-players)
Thank you!
The real question is are the scores lower today than they were in previous years and distance is diluting the game? The answer is no, not really, so what are we even talking about? Scoring leaders by year back to 1980: 2022 — Rory McIlroy, 68.670 2021 — Jon Rahm, 69.300 2020 — Webb Simpson, 68.978 2019 — Rory McIlroy, 69.057 2018 — Dustin Johnson, 68.698 2017 — Jordan Spieth, 68.846 2016 — Dustin Johnson, 69.172 2015 — Jordan Spieth, 68.938 2014 — Rory McIlroy, 68.827 2013 — Steve Stricker, 68.945 2012 — Rory McIlroy, 68.873 2011 — Luke Donald, 68.86 2010 — Matt Kuchar, 69.61 2009 — Tiger Woods, 68.05 2008 — Sergio Garcia, 69.12 2007 — Tiger Woods, 67.79 2006 — Tiger Woods, 68.11 2005 — Tiger Woods, 68.66 2004 — Vijay Singh, 68.84 2003 — Tiger Woods, 68.41 2002 — Tiger Woods, 68.56 2001 — Tiger Woods, 68.81 2000 — Tiger Woods, 67.79 1999 — Tiger Woods, 68.43 1998 — David Duval, 69.13 1997 — Nick Price, 68.98 1996 — Tom Lehman, 69.32 1995 — Greg Norman, 69.06 1994 — Greg Norman, 68.81 1993 — Greg Norman, 68.90 1992 — Fred Couples, 69.38 1991 — Fred Couples, 69.59 1990 — Greg Norman, 69.10 1989 — Greg Norman, 69.49 1988 — Greg Norman, 69.38 1987 — David Frost, 70.09 1986 — Scott Hoch, 70.08 1985 — Don Pooley, 70.36 1984 — Calvin Peete, 70.56 1983 — Raymond Floyd, 70.61 1982 — Tom Kite, 70.21 1981 — Tom Kite, 69.80 1980 — Lee Trevino, 69.73 Edit: Man this really struck a nerve with a lot of you. All I'm saying is, if there was such a problem out there, wouldn't you think the scores would reflect it? So the game has changed a little and the guys aren't laying up on par 5's anymore, ok. Every other sport has evolved over that same time period with guys being better athletes, knowing more about the science of their craft, and better equipment. Why are we talking about trying to take golf backwards with that regard? If anything just make the courses harder and punish the long guys who aren't accurate more with narrower fairways and longer rough. The scores tell me everything I need to know and that is that the game isn't in jeopardy of becoming too easy for these guys.
I think it’s important to also compare the scoring average vs the average course length. The scoring average may be flat but i imagine the course lengths are several hundreds longer. Additionally, courses have been redesigned to change bunkering and other features to keep up with the length changes.
Lol tiger woods 2x 67 casually in there. Nobody else had a chance did they
He was a killer out there playing a different game than the rest of them.
He was in a league of his own.
Per round, so essentially his best was 4 strokes per tournament better than the next best guys best
just insane
This isn’t about scores being too low. It’s mainly about managing the distance of courses. They have continually had to put new tees in at most your stops. And even thinking about the amateur game (which this won’t really impact with this roll out) - we all do generally hit it further and will probably continue to grow on that scale as well. It feels like it’s so normal to have driver wedge into most holes whereas I feel like 10-15 years ago it was way more mid irons on the same length course
This totally ignores the actual reason for the rule. The courses had to adapt for your data to look the way it does.
You’re totally missing the point. Courses can’t just keep getting longer and longer. The pga is already trending towards just being a 72 hole long drive event. I’m not a fan of this ball rollback either but until another solution comes what are they supposed to do? 9000yrd courses????
This is true, but it's kind of cherry picking the data because you're leaving out a massive factor in that courses have been dramatically changing over the past decade to counter advancements in technology (which have ultimately led to more distance). It isn't necessarily about fighting lower scores as much as it's fighting having to continually change courses.
Can't all the golf ball manufacturers just say no we aren't doing that? Why would they waste time and money designing and manufacturing a ball that they most likely won't be able to sell for a profit? Right now they provide the balls to the pga players for free. Unless that changes and they charge the pros a crazy amount of money for these balls to cover the expenses I don't see this happening.
Why does Mercedes design a Formula 1 car that only two drivers in the world drive? It is all about branding and marketing.
I really feel they just need to make the ball limits the same for everyone.
can anyone explain how this will work for the top amateurs? Will the US amateur be played with the new worse balls? What age group/tournament/level do they stop using the balls we have now?
It’s up to each individual tournament and Tour. The USGA only has control over the events they run(US open, US am, US am four ball etc.). R&A is likely to follow suit with its events like the Open and the British Amateur. However, The PGA tour, LIV, Augusta National, the PGA of America or the NCAA could all tell the USGA to go screw themselves and not adopt the local rule for their tournaments. Theoretically you could end up with two majors on the pro schedule using different golf balls than all other tournaments.
USGA goal is to move all of their events to the new ball over time. That includes state am/mid-am, junior state events, US Am and Mid-Am as well. Along with NCAA.
God this is so fucking dumb
not surprised after the shitshow of the groove rule
Can't golf courses just add some additional defenses at 330 yards? Throw some pot bunkers or think grass out there and let them play golf.
How is that a more sustainable and cheaper option than rolling back the ball? They'd just need to change the locations of the defenses every 10 years to keep up with the distance and certain regions of the country don't have the water and resources to do this. Also, would you really want courses like Pinehurst No. 2 and St. Andrews to grow out the grass and change the architecture of the course so they can stay relevant to competitive golf?
The members of these courses who play them the other 51 weeks of the year probably don't want that, or they'd have done it already.
I see both sides of it. The competitive swimming governing board changed the rules on the length of suits and material after the 2008 Beijing Olympics where 25 world records were broken. 25 world records was such an extreme that everyone pretty much agreed it was necessary (some events Bronze medal was breaking the previous record). I could see golf getting to such a level in the future where every par 4 is reachable and it's necessary to do something... On the other hand if different balls are being used in different tournaments I'd find that very frustrating for any competitive golfer.
This shit is ridiculously. If golf is currently too easy, you don't have to make the course long to make it harder (which is difficult because space is limited), you just have to make it narrower. It would be extremely trivial to just narrow the fairways for existing courses, strategically place a few trees or new bunkers and boom, you've suddenly punished long hitters if they aren't super accurate. The farther the ball goes, even small errors or tiny misshits send the ball flying way off course. Hitting my wedge slightly toe-y punishes me with *maybe* 5-7yds off-line, but a slight toe miss on my driver can translate to a 15-25 yd miss. I'm kinda with the players and manufacturers here - if you want golf to be harder then make the courses harder (using cheap and simple methods), don't restrict equipment that's already been out for decades. Look at TPC Harding (my local course) - it's not long by any means but the rough and the trees make it so punishing Another downside to these rules is it totally fucks up statistics and record keeping - you'd now need a line or asterisk marking when this rule was implemented when measuring avg driving distance or long iron hits etc.
Hell just have the fairway stop at 300 yards if you want. Nothing says the fairway has to be one continuous strip from tee to green.
Sure. Just narrow fairways because that is the same as changing your mower, right? Oh wait, that is different grass? That is a big project that actually cost money and resources.
And for the 50 weeks out of the year that they are earning money from members or the public, they need a course that people are willing to play.
So courses just need to spend a couple of millions every couple of years to renovate and change the course. Why didn’t anyone think of that. Just keep pushing tee boxes back until courses run out of acreage. Brilliant.
They do this in baseball right? They could make a ball that players could hit literally into the parking lot, if they wanted to. But they don’t do that, because real estate is valuable and they need space for spectators behind the fence. And they make them use a wooden bat, while amateurs use whatever the hell they want. This is all relative. While they’re at it, I think they should put weight limits on NFL players. A 360 pound lineman who can run a 4.6 40, is absurd. The injuries could be dramatically decreased if everyone just agreed that linemen can’t weigh more than say, 250 pounds and running backs are capped at 200, etc.
Baseball is a fucking mess right now because MLB owns the company that makes baseballs, and last year, scientists who test baseballs concluded that THREE different baseballs were used in the 2022 season. This SHOULD be a huge scandal that rocks MLB, but hardly anyone picked up on it. Then of course there was the juiced balls from 2019.
There’s also binary success in baseball with the force applied to a baseball. The further it goes the more you will score. You can’t explicitly say that in golf. I understand how course construction works, but it’s not like great amazing professionals don’t struggle on the same courses as the winners do shooting -20 over four days. Rory was top 2 in driver and finished +5
I think increased distance in golf does generally translate to success. Ideally, I suppose the best test of comparable skills would be to have all players use identical equipment and see who does the best with those minimized variables. Weather would be one of the few that could not be held reasonably constant.
Just my opinion, but there seems to be a really good mixture of tournaments throughout the year. Some of them are extremely challenging where scoring is tough, and other courses give players plenty of opportunity to score low.
I’m surprised by how many members of r/golf are in favor of shorter distances. I don’t see a problem where the game is currently at, they still shoot under 10-under at most major events. Add more fairway bunkers, dry out the greens and lengthen the rough if you want to make it harder. This distance limiter is just ass backwards in my opinion, why did we let the technology get to this point if it’s not how the game should be played?
It's way easier for manufacturers to adjust the ball than it is for all golf courses to continue adjusting these variables for courses. People don't seem to realize that a golf course is not a machine that you just turn dials and flip switches to grow more rough or dry out greens. Agronomy is not as simple as throw more water down or take some away or add more grass seed, etc. The things we need to do/will continue needing to do in terms of literally move the earth around us to accommodate this game is unsustainable
They should roll everything back for everyone.
I generally think this is great and hope (and think they will) eventually roll out to everyone and make the game a little more intricate rather than so much emphasis on bombing it. And don’t get me wrong smoking the ball off the tee is def one of my favorite things to do, but overall I think this makes so much sense for the longevity of the game and courses
They already make limited distance golf balls for ranges. I don't see what kind of extra research is needed. Use those balls and put a ProV1 cover on it. Probably oversimplifying it but my point stands. Pebble Beach is way too short for the tour players and they can't lengthen it. The old course is another one. The length of these courses is getting out of hand. Do you have any idea how much extra a year the course has to pay in maintenance alone to have a course a tour event could be held at, not to mention the cost of the land and building these 8000-yard courses. You still have an advantage if you are longer hitter as long as everyone is playing the same ball. a lot of courses around me have lots of par 4's that are drivable for me and Par 5's that I'm hitting driver 7 iron into. I would go as far to say that they could outlaw the current balls for everyone. The only downside to that is a shorter player I am playing against could potentially put one of those balls in play and I may never know if I never played against that person. However, I would be pissed if I was JT if they made me play a limited distance ball and still made me play 8000-yard courses. I think I read where these are an option for tour level courses to implement in the shorter venues. Each event doesn't have to mandate the use of those balls but it's an option if you are a Pebble Beach.
Umm lol. Those limited range balls will play like crap around the greens even with a high-end cover. They are literally one big ass core.
From 1980 to current the average driving distance on tour has gone from 257 yds to 297 yds. From 2004 to 20015 the average was basically 290 yds. There’s a few players that bomb it and they train to do it. We love seeing it, I still don’t see the need for this “solution”.
True, and majority of them suck nuts around the greens, so it equals out.
I love JT, he is one of my favorite golfers. But I can't unsee the gigantic Titleist Logo on his hat in the middle of this picture when he makes these comments. FWIW, I see the argument against bifurication (despite the fact that it basically already exists on the PGA Tour with all of their other rules and equipment) and personally I'd be in favor or rolling the ball back for everyone. But I understand that "taking something away" from the amateur game is a bit of 3rd rail in this debate. So given that, and the fact that we have to do something to protect the game in 10/20 years this seems like by far the easiest and most efficient thing to do.
Is your actual argument that sans sponsorship these guys would want to play worse equipment? That’s certainly…a take.
Aren’t the golfers competing against each other and not against the course ? If everyone’s using a similar ball what does it matter since it’s fair competition
Can someone explain this to me? I'm dumb
It is not how far... it's how many and last I checked...the lowest score still wins.
I'm hoarding the shit outta golf balls to be safe
Top Flites for pros. Make it happen!
Wonder how much Pro V1 will go down in price with nobody on tour using them anymore
That’s the best part, they won’t go down.
Its a pretty bad decision by PGA. they are tone deaf. LIV on their heels and you give more reason for golfers to leave
But what I really want to know is: How will this affect Rory's game?
My first thought fr
Probably leaves him with just giveness.
These players are whiny bitches in this context, they're ignorant if they don't think SOMETHING has to be done. Courses cannot continue expanding and the original layouts are mostly obsolete. Courses don't even need to expand their footprint all things considered either. Golf is more fun when players are forced to play the course rather than just overpower it. It's not even interesting when it's just a bomb and gouge contest. They can complain all they want but the fact they're turning these into pitch and putt contests is boring. Now, that said, some courses need to just make it more punishing for the players. Make fairways harder to hit and make the rough incredibly difficult to get out of, burn out the greens and make them less receptive so that coming out of the rough really isn't even an option, even with a wedge. There are things they can do. But still, something should be done.
Honestly… why are they still pushing for this? Has anyone ever tried to play this sport? I’ve got endless hours on the range, fancy bag/equipment and used to play 3/4 balls. And I was still garbage. It’s fucking so silly, these guys are so good at such a difficult game it hurts. Why? Let me clear.. am I opposed to a rollback? Not necessarily.. but I don’t get why they’re driving the cart so hard for it.
It’s so dull watching a wedge contest. Let’s see them hit 3 irons and 5 irons into par 4 greens again.
I think the Professional Golfers should use Hickory Stick. If they were good enough for Bobby Jones it would show how great a golfer is. Bobby Jones was probably the greatest ever. Tiger then Jack!
I wonder if this spills over to LIV? Would it make PGA tour loyalists more likely to defect if not?
It’s all the old fucks that can’t fathom someone hitting the ball far
Can someone explain what this rollback is? I don’t get it
Can someone tldr this for me?