Dean Snell's Video on the Distance debate

Dean Snell has made a video on the Distance debate and it is a few minutes of intelligent remarks that I fully agree with. Not sure how to attach it here but it is worth a look and a great argument to the stupidity and ignorance of the USGA and Royal and Ancients' efforts to destroy golf for the rest of the world and essentially shrink the game that they say they want to grow.

The last three minutes of the video is spot on.

Everybody should view this interview, very informative and IMO totally on point..........

Yep...good video Dean. The ball is no faster than it was in the 90's. It's just different flight characteristics. Clubs are better, players are in better shape and agronomy. Makes sense to me.

Dean lives in the no BS world. I like that.

He pretty much nails it at the end. At least for 1 year the PGA should try:

Stop rolling the fairways out to concreteNarrow the fairwaysGrow the rough outPut the pins in tough(er) positions

Dean says:

the ball spins less off the driver (probably has a higher initial velocity than previously), leading to more distance.The driver is bigger with a higher COR. Because it is bigger and the club head is lighter, guys can use lighter, better shafts, and because the head is bigger, can hit up on the ball providing better launch characteristics. As well, internal weighting in the head leads to better spin characteristics. And they can swing out of their shoes with very little penalty to bad strikes.Players are stronger, more flexible and can create more club head speed.Fairways are cut shorter so the ball rolls longer.Is this new news? Of course not.

If the USGA/R&A wants to fit the modern game to shorter golf courses, the only thing that they can do is restrict 1. and 2.

Thanks, Dean, for stating the obvious. Also, as a ball manufacturer, Dean certainly doesn't want to have to re-tool his balls to meet a lower distance standard, either maximum initial velocity or maximum distance.

So, this is newsworthy?

Sorry, I don't want to hit the ball shorter than I already do. And last weekend proved that a good golf course will fix the perceived problem the powers that be think they have.

As I mentioned on another thread, if you think that Sungjae Im holding off Mackenzie Hughes and Tommy Fleetwood is a compelling leader board, you got yourself a good golf course.

I can't wait for Bay Hill.

Lol. Now the roll it back crowd has requirements for who should be on the leader board of a PGA tournament. Can't make this stuff up.

Edit: I believe I heard Jack being interviewed on Sunday and he said something to the effect of "The players are playing some great golf".

Initial ball velocity protocol was introduced in 1976 and that regulation has not changed, so no balls have not gotten faster.

Pretty much says what gvogel and myself have screamed. Add spin back to the ball. Easy enough.

sure they are faster in practical terms. Why ? They spin less. He says so. And gives it in perfectly explained quantities, so it even passes your test.

Breaking news: guy who designs and sells golf balls doesn't want golf ball rolled back. ?

I agree with most, Dean is extremely knowledgeable, and presents his opinions clearly. On the other hand, Dean has had a significant role in getting the golf ball to where it is today. Its fair to guess that he'd prefer not to have that progress with the golf ball reversed, in many ways that progress is his "baby". I'll be interested to see whether the PGA Tour chooses to change its general course set-up this season, in order to decrease run-out a bit, and to increase the "penalty" for inaccuracy. It might not be bad strategy to do that bit voluntarily, to "correct" the image of excessive distance at the Tour level, in order to decrease any motivation to decrease distance through equipment limitations.

So what happens when the courses that the masses play start growing the rough in and up to follow the lead of the Tour courses (they will) and Joe Public now finds that he’s still plenty long enough but can’t find his ball off 14 of 18 tees because he’s not all that straight? He’ll probably drop back to 3-wood or hybrid to keep his ball in play then realises he’s actually straighter with his driver and he’s still losing 14 of 18 tee shots. He’s forced to drop to 5-iron just to get the ball into play (or learn to get better).

Certainly controls the distance issue.

Dean makes way too much sense. He'll never get a job with the USGA.

Weird thought just occurred to me Jack has a really good reason to roll back the ball (Tiger)

I’ve heard a lot about this video. I guess that I had to watch it as “due diligence” in the rollback debate.

So here is my take. But before I get into that, here is Dean Snell's bio. He's a holder of 40+ golf ball patents, per his own account, spent seven years at Titleist, and it is not clear to me whether or not he has a retained financial interest in the current production of urethane cover multilayer balls. I'd be amazed if he didn't. It certainly doesn't disqualify from speaking on the subject. It should just be made clear what his personal interest is.https://www.snellgolf.com/pages/about-dean-snell?gclid=Cj0KCQiAwP3yBRCkARIsAABGiPq8rGobMhxwFveDV3WwmwIzlkNof9U5HIYnztkc5GnJ5OrU9ZxnfFYaAsoVEALw_wcB

Does anybody know who the interviewer was? A golf writer? Another journalist? A Snell Golf Inc. employee or contractor? I'd like to know. I know that I would have many more questions for Dean based on what he said.

Now; I'll go through the video

FIRST 4 MINUTES: Is a tutorial on how equipment, alone, led to longer distances by elite-level players. It's an admirable description and I don't disagree with any of it. He mistook "CoR" for Characteristic Time, but apart from his bad nomenclature, I know that he had the basic concept correctly in his own mind. By his own terms, he effectively describes about 30 yards' distance gain based purely on equipment. And I think he is right. And he begins with his first little acknowledgment of a distance "problem."

AT ABOUT 4:50: He turns to "player fitness" as a cause of increased distance. He actually hints at the reason for much-increased clubhead speed; which is also equipment-based, since what we see is players swinging larger and more forgiving clubheads, at the end of lighter and longer shafts, at balls that do not spin as much and therefore are less prone to go offline. Now you take that technology, and players who are taller, stronger, etc., are able to take EVEN MORE advantage of already-advantageous technology.

AT ABOUT 6:15, he says his first really stupid thing. He talks about seeing Mark McGuire at Fenway Park, and how we would never want to "punish" great athletes for showing their strength. Wrong, wrong and wrong. Nobody wants to "punish" any long hitters and the coming golf ball rollback is not about competitive advantages or disadvantages in elite play. It is about scaling the entire field to the golf courses, after decades of what Snell acknowledges were problematic distance gains. His "Fenway Park" analogy is so terrible. Because the real analogy would be this; suppose a baseball equipment company came up with improvements in baseballs every year, such that major leaguers could hit baseballs 30 feet farther with regularity. (I don't think I even have to go into McGuire's own sordid history with chemical means to hit balls farther.) Would we say, "It's okay; fans like seeing home runs! Who cares if games require 5 hours to finish? And if we have to, we'll demolish the outfield walls at Fenway, and move them back 30 feet. It's just a baseball stadium. New ones get built all the time. Don't punish the athletes. They are used to that ball..." It is a hilariously stupid corner that Dean walked into with that one.

AT ABOUT THE 8 MINUTE MARK, he talks about the genius of the 10th hole at Riviera. Now that is actually an interesting topic for discussion. And Dean should have that discussion with the guy who literally wrote the book (the club's first official history) on Riviera, after growing up there, learning the game, and becoming a junior champion at the club before going to Pepperdine's golf team. That guy is Geoff Shackelford. I hereby pray for, wish for, hope for, request, demand, the First Annual GolfWRX Debate, to feature Geoff Shackelford and Dean Snell.

AT ABOUT 9:10, Dean starts in on golf course setups for Tour events. Now I think that Dean Snell may have forgotten more about golf ball design and manufacturing than Geoff Shackelford or I will ever know. But I think Dean knows as much about golf course design, as Geoff knows about golf ball manufacturing. What Dean Snell describes in his video is some of the most banal, low-imagination tricking up of golf courses, just to try to control the 30+ yards of distance (more, I think he and I might agree) coming from equipment technology. Wrong, Dean. We set up golf courses to make them play their best. We scale the equipment so that elite level players can play those courses as was intended in the design. We aren't so much concerned about scoring; but we are very definitely concerned about the way the game is played, qualitatively if not quantitatively. We don't want to grow heavy rough if we can avoid it. We don't want to pinch fairways; it limits strategy and choices of angles. We don't want to slow down fairways; fast conditions create interest with the ground game. And we don't want to use ultra-fast greens to control scoring; that limits usable hole locations.

AT ABOUT THE 12 MINUTE MARK, Dean wanders into an odd discussion about how a ball rollback helps longer players competitively and hurts shorter hitters. Huh? A ball rollback might just roll back the most extremely long hitters a bit more than the very shortest. But in any event, long will still be long and shorter will still be shorter. Same elite players, same competitive advantages with length and control.

AT ABOUT THE 13:45 MARK, Dean goes into a bit about a possible One-ball Condition that absolutely no one else is talking about.

AT THE 14-MINUTE MARK, Dean wraps things up by talking about possible problems with bifurcation. He was already losing me mostly, but on the subject of bifurcation being undesirable, Dean is preachin' to the choir with me.

So in conclusion, I don't think this adds much of anything to our debate. I would love to ask Dean some questions of my own, and hopefully we might get a chance to do that if GolfWRX could arrange it. Again, set up that Snell-Shackelford debate. (Let's do it at Rustic Canyon, and I will fly there to see it.)

LOL!.....yep, they're a tough crowd. Remember, they only quote Jack when it serves their purpose.....LOL!

~just my opinion.

Further comment:

I need to be careful about being dismissive of Dean Snell’s very brief comment in passing about any One-ball Conditions. Because even the USGA has mentioned it in passing in the Distance Insights monograph. The notion as I understand it is to open the door officially for some demonstrations, some tryout tourneys, etc. It’s a possibility, and so worth a mention even though I don’t think it is at all a mainstream path forward.

I just wanted to say that in fairness to Dean, insofar as he seems to have been responding to the news of the report and the rebuttal from Titleist.

Are you in favor of "rolling" the ball back for ALL golfers? And do you also support equipment changes to reduce the distance for all players?

About a ball rollback; I am hopeful that there will be a technological solution that will effectively reduce distance with extremely high swing speeds and will be barely noticeable at lower swing speeds.

Otherwise, I’d like to wait and see what kinds of prototypes get put into experimental play.

As for clubs, I’d personally love it if the rules forced us back to one-material shafts (steel, or aluminum or Ti-alloy probably), and smaller, simpler steel heads. About the equivalent of a Big Bertha from the mid-90’s. And my biggest reason for that is simplicity and cost. I always like things that make golf simpler, less expensive, more accessible and more democratic.

But rest assured that what the USGA does not want to do is to declare somebody’s $400 driver illegal the year after they bought it.

Never going to happen.

Of course not. Very strange request from 15th?

Not sure how carbon fibers aren’t democratic

Darned socialist fibers.

Brilliant. Absolutely spot on Dean!

Finally someone talking some sense.

With all due respect, what the heck are you talking about? You want to create new ball technology that affects and penalizes long hitters more so than the short hitters. As if that wasn't enough, you then proceeded to state your case that we should be making the game simpler, less expensive and more democratic with big bertha like clubs. If you haven't noticed, those 2 thoughts are rather contradictory.

Correct me if I am wrong, but dont the clubs today make the game simpler? I know I love how club companies continue to find ways to keep improving upon their technology. All companies are playing under the same rules. It's great that we have options.

I get the sense that this is more personal for you against those who can hit the ball far and you feel like it is just not fair.

15, you are seriously proposing rolling all equipment back to the mid-nineties? Any idea at all about how much disruption that would cause in the whole industry? That is beyond absurd, and all because a tiny percentage of all players hit the ball too far? Oh, and Jack, go back to Bladehunter. Any regular recognizes you.