Monty says a new tour ball is needed to counter Bryson DeChambeau's crazy distance

[bscinstnct]

 

But here is where the USGA could accomplish its goal and stick it to the tour and avoid confrontation/litigation.

 

Mandate the new ball specs for junior golfers and under a certain age (say, 10 years old) and for their junior/amateur competition moving forward. The tour can’t do anything, bam! Then, tell the tour that the new ball takes effect after their TV deal is done in 9 years. The players can’t complain they don’t h as be time to adjust. And all the new tour players will want to play the ball they have been playing their whole lives.

 

There is your blueprint ; )

[mahonie]

...because the modern game is half the game it used to be and nowhere near as rewarding...or as much fun. I started playing because I wanted to play like Seve. I was, and still am, playing shots from where Seve would’ve played from. I just don’t have his recovery skills...but it is great fun trying to hit a 30 yard fade through a 6 foot gap to a green 180 yards away.

Just the opinion of an old(ish) guy who’s played over the last 40 years and seen and played throughout.

I played tennis with a wooden racquet too...what a game that was. You may think I have rose-tinted glasses but I’ve analysed it from every angle...it was so much more fun and rewarding when you had to rely on your own skill rather than the technology in the equipment.

[smashdn]

"Do you think a ball the spins more would be enough? How much more spin? Are we talking wedges can't hold greens because they spin back too much? I'm only curious, I think this may be able to work. At least until manufacturers developed even lower spin shafts and heads. I suppose restrictions could be placed on that as well though."

 

Honestly, no. Even with a ball that spins say 30% more than today the other equipment and/or stroke will be optimized via trackman et al to reduce it's impact. I think it will cause some guys to be mindful of the spin and may even cause them to throttle back (in certain situations), drop down a club or two etc., but without a reduction in distance the ball travels the SG math will still be what it is today - proximity to the hole trumps being in the fairway, especially the closer you get to the hole.

I don't think spin with wedges and irons is that great of worry. The old balata balls spun more than today's balls and the golfers of yore learned to play "dead hand" chips and pitches to kill some spin. More back spin with a long iron you just need to flight lower and fend off ballooning. If you believe that the groove rule negated those guys' abilities to spin the ball they were hitting approaches with more spin pre-rule.

I don't think more spin is the whole answer. It might be a step, albeit a small one, towards getting to the end that I spoke of. If you still have the big driver that also doesn't punish the off-center hits as much by imparting that side-spin it won't amount to a hill of beans.

[smashdn]

By all accounts he worked his butt off to get it too. I have no issue with that save for the fact he was starting somewhere hitting it north of 300 with driver pre-work. I agree, it will be scary when the other naturally long guys hit the weight room or take steps that BD has taken. That's why I don't think we have plateaued yet distance wise. Maybe we aren't far from it but I bet most of these guys have 15-20 yards left in the tank.

[smashdn]

All you got to do is move up a tee and you are hitting approaches right where you do today. Main two differences are height the ball can be hit with a driver and size of the sweet spot with the woods, and mostly with the driver. Three wood and four wood aren't much different than a modern three wood or hybrid.

Height with the driver might be the biggest factor in the difference in play from 1980 to now. Distance a close, close second though.

[J13]

If playing older equipment makes you happy then by all means enjoy. Golf is a game just like tennis, they are meant to be fun. With that said 99.999% of people want to maximize performance with their skill and the modern game has some amazing talent. Bubba Watson can do things with a golf ball that Seve could only dream off. Around the green Seve was superior but off the tee and with irons Bubba moves it better than anyone.

[ThinkingPlus]

And which tee box would you suggest all the women head to?

[15th Club]

As far as I am aware, no serious person on the pro-rollback side of the debate wants to return to old equipment.

No one is suggesting persimmon clubs. Or balata balls. Or wound balls.

I’ve suggested, purely half-heartedly, that a rule that somehow (?!) mandates a return to steel shafts in all clubs might not be bad.

That was before Jimmy Walker made news two weeks ago.

And my thinking was more in line with making golf more affordable than any real distance argument. There have been many good developments in golf equipment technology. Steel shafts was a really good one.

But again, I want the golf world to squeeze every ounce we can out of technology, and produce a golf ball that reins in elite player distances so that historic courses are preserved, and yet recreational players can’t even tell the difference.

[mahonie]

I don’t dispute Bubba’s talent, he just lacks a bit of Seve’s charisma. Whatever Seve had got me excited about golf, I’m not sure the modern crop of pros do that for today’s younger generations. Bomb and gouge doesn’t have the same appeal across the board and I’m sure that is what the ruling bodies are seeing. The long term viability of the sport is under question and something needs to be done to ensure its sustainability.

[J13]

Seve and Bubba are a lot alike in a sense that they are either loved or hated. Both have amazing hands and are/were fun to watch. I think sustainability is important but the only way it can be achieved is the have a Tour ball that is rolled back 20-25%. Problem there is the lawsuits would be massive. Instead golf courses will continue to get longer and to be honest that doesn't effect anyone on this board. If Pebble Beach goes away for newer courses then that's fine by me. Pebble will still be there for everyone to play and doesn't change the history of the course.

[Lincoln_Arcadia]

Well, if you struggle? Tee up behind the first fairway bunker? The bunker provides an obvious challenge off the tee.

Seriously, all the people fighting tooth and nail for ball rollback likely own and/operate executive courses? 4000 yards is the new standard Hahaha!

[Lincoln_Arcadia]

 

Originally built for my son when he turned 16. Broke two carbon shafts, not sure how. The heavier shaft slowed his swing to 110mph. I lose about 2mph down to 104 with this club.

Guessing in a pros hands it will go much farther. They would have the skill to absolutely bomb with a low torque shaft like this.

[Titleist99]

LOL!.....You do know they're playing a golf course 6841 yards as we speak. I have to question your credibility>>>LOL!

[Titleist99]

Because you repeat something a million times doesn't make it true. Golf's integrity is fine. If they changed the ball tomorrow those old school golf courses do not have the logistic for today galleries and corporate tents and parking......etc. etc .etc. yardage in way down the list.

 

[Titleist99]

You have that now on the pgatour. Anybody can win at any given time.....Remember earlier in the season Brendon Todd almost won three tournaments in a row. Last year he was contemplating selling insurance.

Why would the tour want to change that?

[Titleist99]

they're playing a 6841 yard course today.........what course can't be played? I'll wait.

[15th Club]

And AGAIN, for the umpteenth time, I am not talking about “just” Tour events and major championships.

In case you haven’t caught on yet, I don’t much care about “the Tour.” I do care about our national championships, including the US Open. But there are a great many other elite-level events that never see any corporate hospitality tents.

[15th Club]

I'm going to presuppose that your question is posed in good faith. And that you can't think of an example so you've got me trapped. But you're not really thinking about your own question in context.

The PGA Tour goes to courses it can go to. They are all a kind of regular rota for the most part, and the exceptions (very rare, but also majors like the US Open, and PGA Championship) are all alike; they are courses that have been selected and prepared for 3, 4, 6, 8 or sometimes 10 years in advance. All other courses aren't even in consideration. And the preparation as a Tour or even as a Major venue goes on and on. Lengthening, etc.

You think I can't name a current Tour course that can't effectively hold a Tour event. But you see how that question answers itself. Augusta National is the great barometer; it regularly hosts a major tournament. It was about 6800 yards as we entered the golden age of golf equipment after WWII. Steel shafts, MacGregor persimmon heads designed by Toney Penna. Balata balls.

And it remained at 6800-6900 yards for almost 50 years. In 2000, at the dawn of the ProV era, the course was about 6,980 yards. Then as distance exploded with multilayer urethane balls, the course length jumped to 7,450 by 2010 and now to 7,768 in 2020. With the club buying more land all the time to squeeze out extra distances. A terrible precedent, and an awful example for other golf clubs who cannot afford to purchase entire neighborhoods and re-route streets to move championship tees. The members' tees in all that time haven't moved much at all.

Augusta can continually host a Tour event because it has regularly stretched itself almost beyond imagination. A Tour course needs to do that, or else trick itself up beyond recognition. Or else it is abandoned for Tour/elite play.

Respectfully to you, that is the better question. "What has Augusta done, to maintain itself as the Masters course?" "What did Muirfield do, to maintain itself as an Open course?" "What do they do to The Old Course, to enable it to host an Open?" "What has Oakland Hills done, to attract another US Open?" "What would need to be done to Scioto, to host another US Open?" "What does Jack regularly do to MVGC, to host the Memorial?"

[bscinstnct]

Lol, the thread title...

 

I imagine Bryson is in the no roll-back camp

[Lincoln_Arcadia]

Nah, he hits so far now he likely doesn’t care. He’ll just bulk on another 25 pounds Lol

It’s more likely for the short hitters to fight against rollback.

[mahonie]

That’s the point, Pebble and courses like it won’t survive. Perhaps that’s ok for you as there are plenty of modern courses to take its place in the US? Over here in the UK, the majority of courses are 90+ years old and don’t transfer well to bomb and gouge. Either they are too easy and not a proper challenge in that you only need 5 clubs in your bag or they are too tight and too short where the bomb and gouge crowd can’t get out their drivers and wedges enough to make the game enjoyable to them. The upshot is that participation has fallen off the cliff and the majority of courses are struggling to make enough money to stay open. Whereas I could aspire to hit shots like Seve, the PGA Tour product that is peddled is out of reach of most kids and doesn’t attract them to the game.

£500 drivers, £5 balls and £130 wedges also preclude a massive part of the population from participating even if they wanted to.

[smashdn]

If we confine it to just the elite women's game (college, high level am, LPGA) they move up a box too as I bet they aren't playing the farthest forward tees now.

If you include all women that are already playing up as far as they can, then they probably deserve some attention. But truthfully, we need more tee boxes or flat spots further up anyway. I am in the process of teaching my six year old daughter to play. The other day we just rode out to about 150 yards and teed up a ball in the fairway. Legitimately though, you get to looking, and I haven't ever really done this until I took my wife and now my daughter out, the forward-most tee boxes (red tees where I play) are only about 30-40 yards forward of the very farthest back tee (blue). That's not adequate. There is about 120 yards difference between my average drive and when my wife absolutely flushes one.

So, if you are trying to say that we can't roll a ball back for lack of appropriate forward tee boxes or because courses need to build more tee boxes and there is not a money savings, we are already in that situation. Not to mention the conversation should stay confined to the topic at hand, which is a "Tour" ball. I don't see a real need to change anything outside of elite men's golf. I think most courses can handle even the very longest ladies players' games as constructed today.

[smashdn]

I went back to look and cannot find it now, may not have been posted in this thread, but it was a comparison between the relative impact of accuracy on scoring versus distance on scoring from like 1980 to sometime in the 2000's. The gist was there has been a great shift from "being in the fairway is very important to scoring well" to "being long is very important." And it wasn't just that the latter went up but both the latter went up in correlation and the former went down. The style of play that is rewarded is long above all else, accurate is nice but not necessary.

 

Specifically, to answer your last question, they wouldn't want to change it. When you view it through the lens that the ultimate goal of the Tour is to produce an entertainment product that draws viewers so they can sell the "rights" to put it on tv for more money, the Tour doesn't want parity or some super accurate driver or iron player winning. Chicks dig the long ball. Some of you guys here dig it too. What is a more compelling story to sell, a different player winning every week with the wins scattered relatively evenly among the "top" players and a journeyman winning every now and again or is it more compelling and builds more hype to see DJ going for win 6 in a row or Koepka going for the third major in a row or something like that?

Did you have more people tuning in to watch Greg Maddux nibble the corners every fifth day or watching Sosa and McGuire chase homerun records?

Golf Entertainment /= Game of Golf Integrity

 

The touring professionals of the PGA (now PGA Tour) has a history of using the Game as a vehicle to suit their purpose. 1958 (PGA Championship to stroke play for TV), 1968 (break from PGA of America over TV money) as examples. ^That's not contempt, that's just me acknowledging that the things that the PGA Tour are looking out for are not the same things the the USGA and R&A are looking out for.

[ThinkingPlus]

Yes, we agree that there are not enough more forward tee boxes. Whether the RBs mandate a ball that is distance restricted or not, there won't be any new tee boxes (if you believe otherwise I have some ocean front property in Az I can make you a good deal on ;-) ).

If we restrict ourselves to a bifurcation only discussion, then it seems even fewer folks want that solution. It would be awkward at best. It would turn the golf ball industry upside down. My guess is the RBs would have to make their own balls. The existing companies would have very little incentive to make balls for such a tiny market especially since every ball made in the last 75 years would be superior in performance to that new tour ball. It would be interesting to see how the RBs handled handicaps for elite male ams. Would they bifurcate the handicaps or maybe disallow for handicap purposes all rounds played with the nerf ball? The bottom line is the RBs are going to make a giant mess whether they bifurcate or nerf us all.

[smashdn]

Owentsia Club in Chicago. It is a CBM course but tips out at 6650 yards par 71. Rating is relatively low as well and of modest slope. They'd have to play it as a par 68. Doak did a renovation not long ago.

 

Been a while since they've been to Cherry Hills for a major. They were there for the BMW in 2014 (-16 won). Pegs out at 7400 par 71 but that might be short given altitude. William Flynn design, again with a reno by Doak. In 1960 the US Open was played right around 7000 yards(-4). In 1985 it was played right around 7000 yards (-6).

[clevited]

I think you pretty much sum things up. The best thing to do about this is nothing other than make sure limits currently in place keep things limited. Imo, the USGA should be vigiliant and forward think any new possible limit breaking technologies. A change to the ball to the degree they would logicially need to change it is too high and will cause too many problems as pointed out numerous times in these threads. Bifurcation is even less liked by the vast majority of roll back people and it has been made clear the USGA doesn't want to do that anyway.

As far as I can tell the arguments for rolling back the ball have to do with an idealistic way of playing the game, percieved dimished skill level of the average elite player, old courses falling out of favor in the elite realm of golf, and unsustainable course length.

Each and every one of these has a counter argument that is undeniably sound imo. Both sides can make strong points but if the USGA were to follow the logical solution to what they propose the problem is, the change to the ball would have to be very large which I feel I have logically laid out to people many times before in these threads.

When a change to a problem not everyone, (or even close to everyone) agrees is even a problem, and when there are alternative, less drastic and more localized ways to address said problem first, it would be a very poor and unessessarily risky decision to do anything regarding the golf ball. I really think that is the truth of this matter, yes it is my opinion but at the same time, I really truly believe it to be the logical conclusion when all information is gathered and understood. I hope the USGA comes to that same conclusion, though I know this discussion will never stop until past generations that largely hold this opinion diminish as time goes by.

[smashdn]

About the best I can hope for for the kids is they get a few of those plates out in the fairway that get rated and there is a halfway flat spot for them to start from.

 

There are golf ball manufacturers that make non-conforming balls now. I would think that market is also rather small but they justify making them somehow?

I play with persimmon and blades and walk most of the time. All of those clubs I think are conforming (or are not as good as conforming clubs) and I play by the rules so I put my scores down for my handicap. To my knowledge there is no guidance or requirement to keep different handicaps for different sets of clubs and walking versus riding. I am about three strokes better with modern clubs and riding. About a 260 drive average with the persimmon versus around 285-290 with the modern driver with the same ball. I play that AVX ball with the modern driver I pick up another 5-7 yards and get much straighter. Not much wedge spin though.

I am far from elite but can drive the snot out of the ball. I've said it here before, driving far is not hard. Even driving it far and playably accurate is not hard. Swing fast. Hit range balls enough to keep the face relatively square. Tee it high and hit up on it. You hit these towering moon shots that just float out there.

I remember I went from a GBB to a TM r425. The 425 was hot high and slightly out on the toe. It was stupid easy to hit once I started teeing it higher and someone gave me the tip about hitting it farther on the toe. I hit these stupid high draws. Really no need to hit a draw at that point but when you hit it out there on the toe it drew about ten yards. I fiddled with the weights and straightened it out a touch. I have a titleist driver now. It is hot dang near all over the face. Still want to be a shade high with it. I started playing a cut now though. But it is easy enough to close my stance and hot a draw when needed. With those modern drivers I never have to worry with over cutting or over drawing the ball, they aren't as finicky as the persimmon drivers I play.

[Smada962]

I'm curious what the average age is of the people who are in favor of a rollback. I'm pretty sure I know the answer, but I'd still like to confirm my theory.

[Smada962]

Hitting the ball long and keeping it in play is a skill, a really difficult skill to master at the level guys like Rory and Bryson have.

[ThinkingPlus]

Much bigger potential market for non-conforming equipment. Most everyone not competing or keeping a handicap. Basically millions of golfers vs. maybe tens of thousands for a elite males ball (at least theoretically - I don't have a good understanding of the mentality of those willing to use NC equipment). Since most of the time driver is the least important club in my bag, my personal experiences in these rollback threads tend to be not applicable. I post only as an advocate for women in general.