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Titleist golf ball study; Finally, some facts added to the debate


Roadking2003

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courses built in the 90's could not possibly been in response to ProV1 which did not exist

 

they were built in response to real estate bubble money

 

No it wasn't a response to the prov1 but the increase in pro distance was a direct result of the prov1. This to lead tournament venues including Augusta to stretch their courses. I should mention the arrival of Tiger had something to do with it as well. Then everyone wanted to have the longest and hardest course in the area. Many courses were lengthened so they could claim to be over 7000 yards. People bragged about the slope rating of their course. This was the era where we had moguls in the fairways golf. There were some bad golf courses made during that era, including a couple by Nicklaus. It was the bursting of the real estate bubble that lead to the decrease in the number of golfers and bankrupt golf courses.

 

We have a surplus of fairly modern courses that are long. My point is that none of the real problems with golf are fixed by limiting the ball now.

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I am trying to figure what Jack is after? If they roll back the Pro ball it allows them to play old venues that are shorter. What else does it do?

 

Since only the pro ball will be limited how does it speed up the amateur game and attract more people?

 

How does it save money on maintenance since amateur courses are basically unaffected by the change and short pro courses will remain as is and I am sure the longer ones will stay as they are too? If the amateur ball is unaffected than there will be no affect on 99.8% of golf.

 

So, if you break down this movement there is really very little logical benefit to anyone other than they will change the pro game to allow shorter hitters to compete with DJ, Rory, etc. A lot of noise with no real benefit other than move the pro game away from being power dominated.

 

All the talk about speeding up the game and reducing costs is total BS because rolling back a pro ball does none of that for the vast majority of golf.

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I am trying to figure what Jack is after? If they roll back the Pro ball it allows them to play old venues that are shorter. What else does it do?

 

Since only the pro ball will be limited how does it speed up the amateur game and attract more people?

 

How does it save money on maintenance since amateur courses are basically unaffected by the change and short pro courses will remain as is and I am sure the longer ones will stay as they are too? If the amateur ball is unaffected than there will be no affect on 99.8% of golf.

 

So, if you break down this movement there is really very little logical benefit to anyone other than they will change the pro game to allow shorter hitters to compete with DJ, Rory, etc. A lot of noise with no real benefit other than move the pro game away from being power dominated.

 

All the talk about speeding up the game and reducing costs is total BS because rolling back a pro ball does none of that for the vast majority of golf.

 

I think, that what Nicklaus, Davis, Tiger etc. are trying is probably the biggest fraud in the history of the game golf...

 

...because I can not believe, that they are that blind / and / or that dumb, to not see, that further restricting the ball, / and / or a bifurcation, does not really help growing the game.

 

If they would address the slow play on tour as fervently,

then one could think, that they just start at the wrong end (in regard of mentioning the ball)...

 

...but we have already rules in regard of slow play, and they are obviously not enforced (J.B. Holmes, J.Day etc...).

 

To walk additional 5 minutes more for a round of golf (if one would really have to lengthen every course by 500 yards total length - which is not really the case), seems to be less acceptable for them, than to wait more than 100 minutes, because of slow play.

 

There are for sure some involvements...

 

...because we all know, that a round of golf on the very same course, can take 4 hours, or 6 hours - solely depending on who is playing in your group, or in front of you.

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I am trying to figure what Jack is after? If they roll back the Pro ball it allows them to play old venues that are shorter. What else does it do?

 

Since only the pro ball will be limited how does it speed up the amateur game and attract more people?

 

How does it save money on maintenance since amateur courses are basically unaffected by the change and short pro courses will remain as is and I am sure the longer ones will stay as they are too? If the amateur ball is unaffected than there will be no affect on 99.8% of golf.

 

So, if you break down this movement there is really very little logical benefit to anyone other than they will change the pro game to allow shorter hitters to compete with DJ, Rory, etc. A lot of noise with no real benefit other than move the pro game away from being power dominated.

 

All the talk about speeding up the game and reducing costs is total BS because rolling back a pro ball does none of that for the vast majority of golf.

 

I think Jack is after preserving what he thinks the game should be. He's not a fan of the really long guys who just bomb and gouge with the modern ball and the ever-increasing length of major courses.

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I am trying to figure what Jack is after? If they roll back the Pro ball it allows them to play old venues that are shorter. What else does it do?

 

Since only the pro ball will be limited how does it speed up the amateur game and attract more people?

 

How does it save money on maintenance since amateur courses are basically unaffected by the change and short pro courses will remain as is and I am sure the longer ones will stay as they are too? If the amateur ball is unaffected than there will be no affect on 99.8% of golf.

 

So, if you break down this movement there is really very little logical benefit to anyone other than they will change the pro game to allow shorter hitters to compete with DJ, Rory, etc. A lot of noise with no real benefit other than move the pro game away from being power dominated.

 

All the talk about speeding up the game and reducing costs is total BS because rolling back a pro ball does none of that for the vast majority of golf.

 

I think Jack is after preserving what he thinks the game should be. He's not a fan of the really long guys who just bomb and gouge with the modern ball and the ever-increasing length of major courses.

Because they play a game with which he is not familiar?

 

Baseball and other sports are changing as well as advanced metrics determine the best strategy. Seems to be lost on some in golf.

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Why does golf have to be preserved the way Nicklaus wants it to be? Why cant it reflect the presence of bigger, faster, stronger, better trained athletes. And yes technology. If we are going to roll back why not go back to conditions of the Bobby Jones era? That would be just as valid as the Nicklaus era.

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Why does golf have to be preserved the way Nicklaus wants it to be? Why cant it reflect the presence of bigger, faster, stronger, better trained athletes. And yes technology. If we are going to roll back why not go back to conditions of the Bobby Jones era? That would be just as valid as the Nicklaus era.

 

I wonder if Bobby Jones had lived to age 80 would he have been bloviating to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution about how steel shafts "deskill" the game and make it easier for guys like Byron Nelson to run off 11 Tour wins in a row.

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What's the big deal? So the game becomes a little bit harder - although for you it will probably be a 5 yard difference. It's golf. If you want an easier game, try lawn darts.

 

The unarguable point is that since that course that you play was laid out, equipment has changed quite a bit for the game. In fact, in no other time period of the game, not even with the advent of the steel shaft or the wound ball, has the game changed as much in a 20 year period as it has from 1993 to 2013. Unarguable.

 

I agree with the bolded part. So what? What is the problem you and Jack are trying to solve?

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Jack says the modern ball goes too far. Tiger says the modern ball goes too far. Louis Oosthuizen says the modern ball goes too far. MIke Davis has come to that conclusion, and now Martin Slumbers is on the same side of that fence.

 

These are guys at the highest levels of the game, and they have a lot more say than a bunch of us rambling folks on the internet. I happen to think that we have reached a point where there might be a change to the ball - and maybe to the COR of the drivers and fairway woods.

 

So why not dial it back 150 years? When St Andrews and Prestwick were designed, they didn't contemplate steel shafts and wound balls.

 

Why does golf have to be preserved the way Nicklaus wants it to be? Why cant it reflect the presence of bigger, faster, stronger, better trained athletes. And yes technology. If we are going to roll back why not go back to conditions of the Bobby Jones era? That would be just as valid as the Nicklaus era.

 

Or the Tom Morris era.

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Steel shafts were a very significant innovation in how the game was played, adopted quite quickly. That particular change just wasn't as much about distance per se.

 

I love how the "ball goes too far" argument is all-purpose...

 

The longer ball explains why longer courses were being built a decade before it came into existence.

 

The longer ball explains what's going to happen in the future to courses that have somehow remained unchanged for the first 15 years of the ProV1 era.

 

The longer ball even retroactively caused slow play to begin infecting the game two generations ago (along about when Mr. Nicklaus was on TV grinding out his endless preparations before each shot, as it happened).

 

Next we'll be blaming the ProV1 for the high price of beer in the clubhouse after a round.

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What's the big deal? So the game becomes a little bit harder - although for you it will probably be a 5 yard difference. It's golf. If you want an easier game, try lawn darts.

 

The unarguable point is that since that course that you play was laid out, equipment has changed quite a bit for the game. In fact, in no other time period of the game, not even with the advent of the steel shaft or the wound ball, has the game changed as much in a 20 year period as it has from 1993 to 2013. Unarguable.

 

I agree with the bolded part. So what? What is the problem you and Jack are trying to solve?

 

You can read his interview. I think that the point is making short golf courses relevant in order to decrease the time it takes to play 18 to 3-1/2 hours from 5 hours. He said that no other game takes as long as golf.

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Jack says the modern ball goes too far. Tiger says the modern ball goes too far. Louis Oosthuizen says the modern ball goes too far. MIke Davis has come to that conclusion, and now Martin Slumbers is on the same side of that fence.

 

These are guys at the highest levels of the game, and they have a lot more say than a bunch of us rambling folks on the internet. I happen to think that we have reached a point where there might be a change to the ball - and maybe to the COR of the drivers and fairway woods.

 

So why not dial it back 150 years? When St Andrews and Prestwick were designed, they didn't contemplate steel shafts and wound balls.

 

 

St Andrews was not designed. It evolved.

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What short courses are those? Are there short courses sitting fallow and unused today that will magically be filled with golfers if we just adopt a whiffle ball? Are the long course that would shut down, be bulldozed and sold off for housing when the ball is rolled back?

 

Or most laughable of all, is the industry going to build 20,000 brand new short courses to replace 20,000 of the current ones which will no longer be needed when the Great Cayman Ball Revolution of 2024 goes into effect?

 

P.S. Or maybe every 7,000 yard golf course in the world can build and sell 18 McMansions where the back two sets of tees are today. We'll all play from the current ladies tees, although to get there we'll have to walk around those houses that used to be the men's tees boxes. That'll really speed up play and improve the experience.

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What's the big deal? So the game becomes a little bit harder - although for you it will probably be a 5 yard difference. It's golf. If you want an easier game, try lawn darts.

 

The unarguable point is that since that course that you play was laid out, equipment has changed quite a bit for the game. In fact, in no other time period of the game, not even with the advent of the steel shaft or the wound ball, has the game changed as much in a 20 year period as it has from 1993 to 2013. Unarguable.

 

I agree with the bolded part. So what? What is the problem you and Jack are trying to solve?

 

You can read his interview. I think that the point is making short golf courses relevant in order to decrease the time it takes to play 18 to 3-1/2 hours from 5 hours. He said that no other game takes as long as golf.

 

And how does the pros playing a shorter ball cure amateurs taking 5 hrs around the country?

 

One of the local courses by me is only 6400 yards from back tees and most folks play the middle tees at 6000 yds. The course is known as the "Home of the 5.5 hour round of golf." It is the slowest course around here and the shortest too. The ball has absolutely nothing to do with it being so slow there.

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If you want to do something at the televised golf entertainment level to discourage by example slow play, let them play whatever ball they want but follow each group with a timer. Start a stopwatch with the previous player has hit his shot or putt, if the next buy hasn't hit in 20 seconds it's an immediate 1-stroke penalty.

 

Do that for a few years, let the punters at home watch Jordan and Justin play 3-hour rounds every weekend and you'll truly be leading by example.

 

Giving Kevin Na a shorter golf ball would not reduce his interminable prevarications by one single second.

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What's the big deal? So the game becomes a little bit harder - although for you it will probably be a 5 yard difference. It's golf. If you want an easier game, try lawn darts.

 

The unarguable point is that since that course that you play was laid out, equipment has changed quite a bit for the game. In fact, in no other time period of the game, not even with the advent of the steel shaft or the wound ball, has the game changed as much in a 20 year period as it has from 1993 to 2013. Unarguable.

 

I agree with the bolded part. So what? What is the problem you and Jack are trying to solve?

 

You can read his interview. I think that the point is making short golf courses relevant in order to decrease the time it takes to play 18 to 3-1/2 hours from 5 hours. He said that no other game takes as long as golf.

 

If that's what Nicklaus thinks causes slow play then he needs to get out and play with the public more. Slow play that I see is caused more by guys with their "pro" routines(I wonder who started that), guys trying to figure out who won how much on each hole and generally poor etiquette.

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Why does golf have to be preserved the way Nicklaus wants it to be? Why cant it reflect the presence of bigger, faster, stronger, better trained athletes. And yes technology. If we are going to roll back why not go back to conditions of the Bobby Jones era? That would be just as valid as the Nicklaus era.

 

Great plan. If you’ve ever hit a balata ball flush with a hickory-shafted mashie, you would understand just how much more satisfying it is than hitting a modern ball with no side spin with a dead-feeling spring face iron.

 

Everything in society today is geared to make things easy for the less-skilled and the impact is that no one really satisfies their basic human needs to achieve something. The 18 capper ‘thinks’ he is happy because he gets his drive out to 250 yards even though he really knows he got away with it and it was not due to his own skill...he is fooling himself if he thinks the 250 yard drive is an achievement until he knows that he can do it consistently. The only way he is going to do that consistently is by working at it, improving his technique and striking the ball better.

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What's the big deal? So the game becomes a little bit harder - although for you it will probably be a 5 yard difference. It's golf. If you want an easier game, try lawn darts.

 

The unarguable point is that since that course that you play was laid out, equipment has changed quite a bit for the game. In fact, in no other time period of the game, not even with the advent of the steel shaft or the wound ball, has the game changed as much in a 20 year period as it has from 1993 to 2013. Unarguable.

 

I agree with the bolded part. So what? What is the problem you and Jack are trying to solve?

 

You can read his interview. I think that the point is making short golf courses relevant in order to decrease the time it takes to play 18 to 3-1/2 hours from 5 hours. He said that no other game takes as long as golf.

 

If that's what Nicklaus thinks causes slow play then he needs to get out and play with the public more. Slow play that I see is caused more by guys with their "pro" routines(I wonder who started that), guys trying to figure out who won how much on each hole and generally poor etiquette.

 

Off-topic digression but here it goes.

 

Yesterday I played my first nine behind a foursome who were playing their back nine. From watching them play, I'd say they were pretty good players. Playing the back tees they looked to be basically on or about the green in regulation the majority of the time. I'd guess maybe 3-4-5 handicappers with decent pop to their drives.

 

And let me say they were not really particularly slow. Took me 1:35 for the nine, I let them start off ahead so they were probably on a 1:45 pace or 3-1/2 hours for the round. But if they were playing bogey golf it would have been a very long round indeed because...

 

They were all four doing the Wannabe Tour Pro thing to an extreme. I can't describe it other than to say their body language, their practice swings, their twirl of the club after a good shot, their "routines" and just every single thing about the way they went about playing looked like the behaviors you see from the PGA Tour guys on TV. It was like watching four Justin Thomas clones.

 

And there's nothing wrong with that if you're good enough to shoot 80 from the back tees and you're playing in a cart so you can whizz down the fairway quickly and get started on the next shot's preparations, yardage book consulting, throwing grass in the air and so forth. But it was the clearest example I've seen in quite a while at how televised golf's quirks and fidgets and procrastination trickles down to a bunch of 30-something guy sneaking out of work early to get a round in at the country club.

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If you want to do something at the televised golf entertainment level to discourage by example slow play, let them play whatever ball they want but follow each group with a timer. Start a stopwatch with the previous player has hit his shot or putt, if the next buy hasn't hit in 20 seconds it's an immediate 1-stroke penalty.

 

Do that for a few years, let the punters at home watch Jordan and Justin play 3-hour rounds every weekend and you'll truly be leading by example.

 

Giving Kevin Na a shorter golf ball would not reduce his interminable prevarications by one single second.

Or...give them a predetermined total time for a round. If they run out of clock in a round they are DQ'd. That way they could take extra time for the important difficult shot and play quickly on others.

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Everything in society today is geared to make things easy for the less-skilled and the impact is that no one really satisfies their basic human needs to achieve something.

 

I must be the one exception in the world to that statement. When I par our #1 handicap hole, I am quite happy and believe I have achieved something.

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What's the big deal? So the game becomes a little bit harder - although for you it will probably be a 5 yard difference. It's golf. If you want an easier game, try lawn darts.

 

The unarguable point is that since that course that you play was laid out, equipment has changed quite a bit for the game. In fact, in no other time period of the game, not even with the advent of the steel shaft or the wound ball, has the game changed as much in a 20 year period as it has from 1993 to 2013. Unarguable.

 

I agree with the bolded part. So what? What is the problem you and Jack are trying to solve?

 

You can read his interview. I think that the point is making short golf courses relevant in order to decrease the time it takes to play 18 to 3-1/2 hours from 5 hours. He said that no other game takes as long as golf.

 

Who cares how long other games take? Not me. And BTW, cricket takes a lot more time than golf.

 

If you want to reduce the time to play that much, go to Putt Putt.

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What's the big deal? So the game becomes a little bit harder - although for you it will probably be a 5 yard difference. It's golf. If you want an easier game, try lawn darts.

 

The unarguable point is that since that course that you play was laid out, equipment has changed quite a bit for the game. In fact, in no other time period of the game, not even with the advent of the steel shaft or the wound ball, has the game changed as much in a 20 year period as it has from 1993 to 2013. Unarguable.

 

I agree with the bolded part. So what? What is the problem you and Jack are trying to solve?

 

You can read his interview. I think that the point is making short golf courses relevant in order to decrease the time it takes to play 18 to 3-1/2 hours from 5 hours. He said that no other game takes as long as golf.

 

If this is true, then he is completely out of touch... :swoon:

 

...the most time on the course is lost by waiting, and not by walking.

 

And waiting correlates to slow play, which makes the difference whether you can play a 7000 yards course, in 3-1/2 hours, or 5 hours...

...you can verify this, every time you play.

 

It is impossible to reduce the time to play 18 holes from 5 hours to 3-1/2 hours solely by shortening a 7000 yards course,

because you can walk 7000 yards in ONE hour! :read:

 

Sorry, but I don't want to be fooled by Nicklaus - especially not with such an obvious nonsense!

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I play the same 6300yd course 75% of the time. Same tees. Same equipment and ball. Some days I can play 18 holes in 3hrs. Some days its takes 5hr. I shoot more or less the same score. Why is that?

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I play the same 6300yd course 75% of the time. Same tees. Same equipment and ball. Some days I can play 18 holes in 3hrs. Some days its takes 5hr. I shoot more or less the same score. Why is that?

 

The ball! At least according to Jack Nicklaus.

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Why does golf have to be preserved the way Nicklaus wants it to be? Why cant it reflect the presence of bigger, faster, stronger, better trained athletes. And yes technology. If we are going to roll back why not go back to conditions of the Bobby Jones era? That would be just as valid as the Nicklaus era.

 

I wonder if Bobby Jones had lived to age 80 would he have been bloviating to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution about how steel shafts "deskill" the game and make it easier for guys like Byron Nelson to run off 11 Tour wins in a row.

 

Bobby Jones was still writing about golf in his 50's - which would have been in the 1950's and more than a few years after Byron Nelson retired. He never talked about how steel shafts made the game easier, because they didn't if you had a good set of hickory shafts. Steel shafts made clubs more consistent, which was really important for the average player. They didn't improve distance much.

 

As a matter of fact, graphite shafts improved driver distance a bit - but not too much - when they came out. But since everyone was still using wood heads, a graphite shaft could only have so much effect. You still couldn't go long with graphite because the head was small.

 

It was when big titanium heads came along that shafts could increase to 45 or 45-1/2". And that has made a big difference. And COR. And the ball.

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The unarguable point is that since that course that you play was laid out, equipment has changed quite a bit for the game. In fact, in no other time period of the game, not even with the advent of the steel shaft or the wound ball, has the game changed as much in a 20 year period as it has from 1993 to 2013. Unarguable.

 

This is simply not true.

 

My home course pre-dates the development of the Haskell ("wound") ball, and had to be completely rebuilt to accommodate the new ball. Only one hole remains from the original routing - in 1900 it played as a 188 yard Bogey 5 (Par 4), and it is now a tough Par 3. I don't think there is a single course that was laid out pre-1900 that survived in its original length and format (including the Old Course) after the wound ball came along.

 

The advent of the ProV1 et. al. has not had nearly that impact. Our course has not materially changed since the balata days, yet pace of play expectations are the same, and the winning score of our annual medal event (painted on the wall of the locker room) has been pretty consistent since the 1950s.

 

I agree that the advent of the ProV1 style ball and oversized drivers has fundamentally changed the game at the elite level. But even at the high amateur level, not so much. The same could not be said for the wound ball, which really did change the game in some dramatic ways (not least making it far more affordable for the masses).

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I would feel better about Nicklaus making these "good of the game" proclamations if he were totally retired and had no economic interest in the outcome.

 

Perhaps he should volunteer to redesign the 410 "obsolete" courses that his firm designed for free after a shorter ball renders them all further obsolete.

 

Forgive me for being cynical, but I just see this as a way for Jack to go back to all the courses that he's put his name on to charge $500,000 to reposition tees and bunkers to reflect the playing strategy for the "new" ball...

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I would feel better about Nicklaus making these "good of the game" proclamations if he were totally retired and had no economic interest in the outcome.

 

Perhaps he should volunteer to redesign the 410 "obsolete" courses that his firm designed for free after a shorter ball renders them all further obsolete.

 

Forgive me for being cynical, but I just see this as a way for Jack to go back to all the courses that he's put his name on to charge $500,000 to reposition tees and bunkers to reflect the playing strategy for the "new" ball...

 

Is Jack only talking about Tour courses though and the everyday courses he has designed can stay? Has he mentioned bifurcation?

Ping G410 LST 10* (DI-6X)
Ping G410 3W 15.5* (DI-7X)
Ping i20 3-PW (DI-95X, PX 6.0)
Ping Glide 2.0 50*SS, 56*SS, 60*ES (PX 6.0)
Ping Vault Arna

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I would feel better about Nicklaus making these "good of the game" proclamations if he were totally retired and had no economic interest in the outcome.

 

Perhaps he should volunteer to redesign the 410 "obsolete" courses that his firm designed for free after a shorter ball renders them all further obsolete.

 

Forgive me for being cynical, but I just see this as a way for Jack to go back to all the courses that he's put his name on to charge $500,000 to reposition tees and bunkers to reflect the playing strategy for the "new" ball...

 

Is Jack only talking about Tour courses though and the everyday courses he has designed can stay? Has he mentioned bifurcation?

 

According to his website, that's 150+ courses: "no fewer than 150 Nicklaus Design courses have hosted a combined total of 1,050 professional golf tournaments worldwide"

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What's the big deal? So the game becomes a little bit harder - although for you it will probably be a 5 yard difference. It's golf. If you want an easier game, try lawn darts.

 

The unarguable point is that since that course that you play was laid out, equipment has changed quite a bit for the game. In fact, in no other time period of the game, not even with the advent of the steel shaft or the wound ball, has the game changed as much in a 20 year period as it has from 1993 to 2013. Unarguable.

 

I agree with the bolded part. So what? What is the problem you and Jack are trying to solve?

 

You can read his interview. I think that the point is making short golf courses relevant in order to decrease the time it takes to play 18 to 3-1/2 hours from 5 hours. He said that no other game takes as long as golf.

 

If this is true, then he is completely out of touch... :swoon:

 

...the most time on the course is lost by waiting, and not by walking.

 

And waiting correlates to slow play, which makes the difference whether you can play a 7000 yards course, in 3-1/2 hours, or 5 hours...

...you can verify this, every time you play.

 

It is impossible to reduce the time to play 18 holes from 5 hours to 3-1/2 hours solely by shortening a 7000 yards course,

because you can walk 7000 yards in ONE hour! :read:

 

Sorry, but I don't want to be fooled by Nicklaus - especially not with such an obvious nonsense!

 

Walk time is probably closer to 2 hours if you include green to tee distance. It's pretty well established that tee time spacing is pretty effective in reducing playing time. Stretching out tee times is not a problem given that the number of players has been reduced. I play primarily at two clubs, one with 8 minutes between times and one with 10 minutes. The course with 10 minute times is much less congested. Short delays work themselves out rather than forming a traffic jam.

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