USGA DISTANCE INSIGHT

[OrangeGravy]

"Equipment hasn't made the game easier, handicaps haven't gone down over time"

 

"Why roll back equipment and make the game harder. It's hard enough already"

 

Both of these have been used as reasons for not making any changes. Now which is it gonna be? Can't have it both ways. Either equipment has made it easier, in which case any argument that it takes just as much skill to play now as it did prior to the tech boom. Or, equipment hasn't made the game easier, in which case an equipment roll back of some kind won't affect anyone. A little consistency or intellectual honesty, or whatever you want to label it, would be nice.

[Sean2]

I agree. Without the recreational golfer there is no golf. For too long he has been ignored by the ivory tower types.

[Holy Moses]

I wish there was a way to test different strategies before implementing one. I would like to see a Tour use limited flight balls or a smaller driver or a driver with less CT before getting stuck with one of these changes.

[Holy Moses]

In a year when the USGA and R&A give their recommendations, how long will it take to get to trial once the equipment companies sue them? Another year? 2-3 years?

[oikos1]

Whatever decisions they make will not involve a lawsuit. Which is exactly why they want nothing to do with rolling anything back. It's also why they provided the "local rule" option as a possibility. Completely wave any responsibility on their part for the decisions made at the local level.

[oikos1]

Considering there would never be consensus on what "easier" means in the game of golf, these two ideas can most certainly co-exist within the context of this discussion.

We could also substitute "easier" with "more enjoyable". So, as a result of technological advances, the ball goes a little straighter and a little further. This should equate to fewer balls hit into rough, hazards and O.B., which equates to fewer shots taken, less time looking for balls and reduces excessive trips back to the tee to re-hit. The sum result may be a faster, more enjoyable round for some. Was it easier? I don't know. The difference might just be shooting a 92 in 3 1/2 hours verses a 6 hour long 102. Golf is still difficult no matter what equipment is used.

As for intellectual honesty, there is no question technology has made the game "easier", or perhaps an even better descriptor, "more enjoyable".  For some.

[bladehunter]

High five on that one. Goodness I don’t know how many times I’ve had that double talk shot at me “ clubs don’t make a difference “. “. No no we’re not talking a rollback , I’m not giving up anything “. Can’t be both.

[smashdn]

Sounds like how a ball hit with a persimmon clubs behaves versus a modern driver.

 

Anyway, just going to say that drier is more sustainable as well. Less water inputs, less washout of fertilizer so you can use less, less disease pressure, less mowing, less cost.

[QuigleyDU]

I am not sure that is double talk. The game is hard.. You can look at the handicap stat provided by the report. In the last 30 years handicaps have only dropped about 2 strokes. So no, the new equipment does not appear based on that alone to have help much. Also, I do fittings daily and see maybe 1 in 10 golfers that can still slice the ball off the planet and can not hit the ball with the latest and greatest past 200-220 yards.

 

But, for those golfers you could hand them a old persimmons driver and they would hit it the ball the same distance. They simply just lack the skill, athletic ability, consistency, whatever you want to call it. To produce ball speed. I think when people say things like "the game is hard enough" and "equipment does not matter". Its true for a large segment of these high handicap and slow swinging rec golfers.

Now, for those that have skill and speed. It is a very different story. The new equipment absolutely benefits them. I have seen it in my game. I totally accept that the hollow body utility iron I carry is 100% better than an old knify' 2 iron. My 460 SIM driver with adjust-ability is 1000% easier to hit than the first driver I ever played with that had a steel shaft.

The thing that is interesting about high speed, low handicap golfers is how few of them there are. I play a lot of solo golf. In doing so, I get paired up with random golfers all the time. I typically enjoy it, as you get to meet a lot of interesting people. But, I can count on one hand,and maybe half those fingers the times I have been paired up with skilled golfers. There are very rare birds. Even in fittings, I ask people their handicaps. they say scratch, then I watch them top, swipe, hook, and sky balls 200 yards. Then proceed to say they are having a bad day. Right....

I would not call it double talk, just talking about two groups of golfers at the same time and not separating them. But the 16 handicap golfer is very much the majority golfer, the low single digit golfer is very much the Northern Hairy-Nosed Wombat. (rarest animal in existence, I googled it).

 

 

[Holy Moses]

If the PGA Tour enacts a local equipment rule, I could see the manufacturers suing them. But if the decision is left up to the PGA Tour, why would they want a rollback?

[Bad9]

I am guessing outside of a few comments by a few players the PGA Tour doesn't want a rollback.

[jmck]

That’s the thing. A whole lot of competing interests here. I can’t imaging the PGA Tour has any interest in a rollback, given that they’re selling a product whose marketing tag line—last I checked at least—is “chicks dig the long ball.”

[NevinW]

All I know is that I am now 64 and have been playing golf for 54 years. At 64, I hit the ball about the same length I did when I played college golf, I hit the same irons into greens and I hit my driver about the same length as when I was 20. As much as I would like it to be so, I am not nearly as strong as I was in college. So for me maintaining the same distance can be attributed to the improvements in equipment, not strength training and fitness. I think the data for the senior tour would show similar maintenance of distance compared to their PGA tour days. However, I like hitting the ball as long as I did.

I also know that I have been watching golf for 54 years and have seen everyone from Sam Snead to Jack Nicklaus to Tiger Woods and Tony Finau. As much as I love watching professional golf, I have to admit that it isn't quite as interesting as it used to be. The long par 4 no longer exists and most par 5's are actually just medium to long par 4's. Watching wedges being hit into every hole isn't as compelling as watching a pro hit a long iron into a green. The ball seems to curve differently than it used to so it just straightens out. I asked Scott McCarron once and he confirmed this to me. Complaints about bomb and gouge golf are legitimate in my opinion. Has anyone noticed how low the cut lines are in recent years? The equipment has made it so everyone is bunched together more. It is harder to differentiate based on ball striking.

If it was up to me, I'd favor bifurcation of the rules, just like they use wood bats in the Major leagues vs metal in college. I'd drop the size of the driver down to 300cc for professional and high level amateur golf and let everyone one else play what they like. With the smaller driver, they would need a ball with more spin to be able to control it and it would shorten the total distance and make it harder to control. I think it would make skill more important.

[GolfChannel]

I mean, this is what most major sports governing bodies do, even the really bad one's (FIFA).

[GolfChannel]

The game is easier. The forgiveness has made the game simpler if you have at least something that resembles a repeatable golf swing. Just because some of you have horrible swings and generally just don't know how to score, so your handicap hasn't moved in decades, doesn't mean it isn't easier to golf your ball.

Being scratch shouldn't be as easy as it is now. I put WORK into get to scratch in the 90's. I had to stay on top of my game every day or I'd lose it due to the equipment forcing me to develop SKILL. With today's equipment I can be scratch or scratch adjacent golfing and practicing as little as once a week. It shouldn't be that easy. I can promise you, I'm not that good.

I don't mind having to work at it, even if I don't think any of these changes are actually ever going to affect me personally. Even if it did, the game would be far more interesting and challenging and I've never shied away from a challenge.

[naval2006]

I'm also a long timer and I wouldn't usually agree almost 100% with a point of view. But I "almost" do this time LOL.

 

I'm 46 and I'm hitting the same distance I did at 20 with stiffer shafts, heavier clubs and 3 piece wound balls. The thing is now I'm hitting it way straighter than ever. And even though this sounds like a dream golf is really very hard indeed.

[gvogel]

That is my story as well.

I saw Robert Streb playing either the 9th or 10th hole at Pebble yesterday. Those holes are nearly 500 yards long. When I played them, they were driver, fairway wood. Streb was using a pitching wedge for his second shot.

He must be long, long off the tee.

[ThinkingPlus]

Better designed equipment has made the tee to green game more enjoyable and easier. However, green complexes at many of the courses designed in the last 30 - 40 years have gotten much more difficult. Deeper bunkers, more bunkers, more undulating greens with slopes both back to front and front to back, and of course green speeds have increased pretty much everywhere. While putters and wedges are better designed today, they have not kept up with the increased difficulty around the greens. So because courses haven't remained static and have gotten harder in ways that better designed equipment can't completely overcome, handicaps and scores remain much the same as years ago yet the game feels easier and more enjoyable for most. As a quick example, does anyone think that the greens at Shinnecock would be all that difficult to putt if they Stimped between 7 and 8 which was the speed they were originally designed for?

[QuigleyDU]

I know it is brought up regularly. The distance debate is to bring the course back to where the designer intended. I was looking at Pebble Beach and thinking this course is nothing like the designer intended today. Man the original courses was much much tougher than it is now. Take a look at these pictures.. It had some serious grit to it before it became soo over blown. Look at all the tree? I can't see how those if still existing would not change the way it was played last year at the US open or this week? look at the bunkers around the greens. Those are pretty scary. If anything all the redesigns down by Jack and others have made this course so much easier and taken the contour out of it.

https://www.pebblebeach.com/insidepebblebeach/then-and-now-100-years-of-pebble-beach/

[oikos1]

Correct. It's not double talk. It's a strawman.

[MadGolfer76]

They are better off leaving well enough alone.

[QuigleyDU]

Maybe, I am not smart enough to know... I know basically what a strawman argument is, but not well enough to say if this fits...

[CasualLie]

Pebble is generally not a good example. The course is too short for a PGA Tour player in good weather. Not counting the time the course is tricked up for the US Open, in general the course’s defense is weather and small greens. It just shows how good these guys are when small greens are also rendered moot.

I am not sure what some of you are hoping to achieve with any sort of rollback or limitation. Let’s say there is a “tournament” ball and it is “limited”. How much would it be limited? Unless it is rolled back a ridiculous amount, any small rollback is going to be overcome with equipment changes. The top players are really, really good, they will adjust, scores may go up in the short term, but sooner than you think you will be looking at the same scores on the leaderboards as before; perhaps a few different names.

Some of you are also proposing a combination of limits and using course setup as a way to rollback distance. Ok...very doable, but why? In the quest to identify the “shotmaker” and punish the long hitters, you will end up with even more concetration of scores than you see now, a lot of pars, and a very bland product. Who wants that?

When half the tour hits it like Koepka, Rory, DJ, etc...and shows up with a bag of wedges, a putter, and Driver, then ok, there is a problem. It is hard for me to see the need of a “local rule” or change when the there is more variety of courses and winners than maybe any other time in golf. Continue to monitor, but a cop out like a local rule is going to lead to a de facto bifurcation. I do not waste my crystal ball trying to predict unimportant things like what will happen to the future of golf, so what will birfurcation do? Who knows?

[James the Hogan Fan]

I played a round with persimmon woods and irons of 1950's vintage about a month ago. I played a course of 5400 yards and shot 92.

Two days later I played a different course at 6500 yards. I shot 81. Now I'm aware the specs of the sets are very different, and that with my modern swing of course I'm not hitting persimmon well. On the other hand I had a couple full on whiffs and duffs with persimmon. The "I was lucky not to miss it" shot. It was very, very difficult. So to say the modern equipment has not changed the game is not true in my experience.

Handicaps have only gone down 2 strokes I've heard... Well that's still a lot (thinking what I'd have to do to get from 7 to 5, for example) and over the same time, among other things, courses got longer to compensate.

So equipment does make a difference

[QuigleyDU]

The have gone from 18 to 16. It is much much harder to go from a 9 to an 8.

[pearsonified]

Nothing in these proposals really changes anything.

 

Would I like to see tour guys play classic courses now deemed "too short" for professional play? You bet—basically every golden age course except Pebble and ANGC have been rendered obsolete (professionally) by the modern game, and that seems like a real shame to me.

 

But this simply isn't true for basically ALL amateurs. Classic courses still present tremendous tests for any skill level, and it really doesn't matter if you can go out and shoot 73 now when 77 was the best you could have hoped for 20 years ago on one of these classic tracks.

 

The only things I really care about long term are COST and TIME. The governing bodies need to keep an eye on the endless bloat we are seeing in both areas.

 

The need for new courses over 7000 yards is almost nonexistent. (Every developer wants to position his course as a "championship" layout, but in reality, professional tours are only ever going to visit a tiny fraction of all courses. Therefore, there simply is no need to build behemoth courses with staggeringly expensive maintenance costs.)

 

And this should go without saying, but the longer the course, the more time it will take an average golfer to complete a round. Therefore, in the interest of time, we should favor shorter, more thoughtful layouts over stretched-out upstarts.

 

I favor Tom Doak's thinking on this entire issue. I'll paraphrase:

 

• Course development over the past 50 years has taken on a ticky-tack formula of bunkers on the sides of fairways, bunkers around greens, fast green speeds, and lots of irrigation.

• Classic courses like St. Andrews stand in stark contrast to this formula with its pesky—and extremely penal—centerline bunkers, blind lines of sight over various dunes, full exposure to the wind, and firm conditions that allow balls to roll out to undesirable locations.

• The solution, then, is to break from the ticky-tack mold. Perhaps this means building courses with very little irrigation, lots of short grass, and bunkers that threaten the line of charm rather than those that box you into a cramped line of play (straight down the fairway, which is a boring formula when it's repeated everywhere). Maybe it means more green contours, or "greens within greens."

 

Ultimately, I don't have a dog in this fight because most of the dogs are unreasonable. However, I would like to see some pressure relief here in the form of less desire to go longer, less desire to over-irrigate, less time to complete a round, and less time looking for lost balls.

 

And regarding professionals, I'd actually like to see them go EVEN LOWER! I don't care if they make 1.6 eagles per round and finish the year with a 67.2 scoring average—I watch professional golf for the fireworks, not for the heroic pars.

[Sean2]

Great idea Moses.

[Bad9]

I like Doaks thinking too but its basically the antithesis of how most N Americans think about how golf should be played and of target golf in general.

[oikos1]

"Equipment hasn't made the game easier, handicaps haven't gone down over time""Why roll back equipment and make the game harder. It's hard enough already""Both of these have been used as reasons for not making any changes. Now which is it gonna be? Can't have it both ways."

Not everyone is arguing it both ways, even though technology has impacted different groups of golfers in different ways. Therefore, it's a misrepresentation, or strawman, to say you can't have it both ways as 1) not everyone is arguing it both ways and 2) depending on who is making the argument, both ideas can co-exist and be correct.

[smashdn]

Try stats from around 1970-1988 or so. A wood driver with a 43" steel shaft hitting a pre-proV1 ball and you have your wish. The variables you might leave out in that scenario are impact of trackman and what the understanding of strokes gained in relation to strategy has done plus guys working out in the gym and agronomy.