Ball roll-back

[Shilgy]

On 3/13/2023 at 6:38 PM, rogolf said:

Here's a scorecard for a course in Japan from about 20 years ago.  Maybe the future?

What’s the elevation?

[Shilgy]

On 3/14/2023 at 7:46 PM, grm24 said:

True to a point. The issue is that if any professional golf tour wants to earn OWGR points part of the approval process for that is following the ROG as defined by the USGA and R&A.

Not using the proposed model local rule IS still playing by the rules of golf. So the PGA Tour, LPGA, LIV or whoever is most certainly still following the official ROG even if they don’t use this Local Rule.

[rogolf]

6 hours ago, Shilgy said:

What’s the elevation?

Varies from 500 to 760 feet. 

See it on Google Earth Pro, Fugaku Country Club, 1783-1 Shishihara, 清水区 静岡市 Shizuoka, Japan

Edited March 18, 2023 by rogolf

[Hawkeye77]

18 hours ago, rogolf said:

I wonder if the Ruling Bodies just considered reducing the weight of the ball (for everyone) instead of just the elite tours/events/players.

 

I can't comment (with any knowledge) about the physics of that, maybe @ThinkingPlus can, and totally different balls now than decades ago, but anecdotally, they did try that once and ended up rescinding because of the performance of the ball, particularly in the wind.  

[ThinkingPlus]

21 minutes ago, Hawkeye77 said:

 

I can't comment (with any knowledge) about the physics of that, maybe @ThinkingPlus can, and totally different balls now than decades ago, but anecdotally, they did try that once and ended up rescinding because of the performance of the ball, particularly in the wind.  

Folks who play in windy conditions would be punished more severely by either reduced weight or increased diameter. Those options might not have been pursued very much because the R&A might have felt their golfers were being unfairly persecuted. They already got punished when the British small ball was banned in favor of the larger American ball back in the early 90s (time frame?).

 

The RBs are playing with the law of unintended consequences again. Typically the outcome isn't what they wanted (groove rule) or is possibly worse (ban anchoring - get armlock). The RBs are trying to legislate a style of play that they find aesthetically pleasing. I suspect they will get similar results as when governments try to legislate morality.

[DaveLeeNC]

25 minutes ago, ThinkingPlus said:

They already got punished when the British small ball was banned in favor of the larger American ball back in the early 90s (time frame?).

 

https://www.golfcompendium.com/2020/06/american-ball-british-ball.html#:~:text=The End of the British Ball&text=In the early 1970s%2C the,it was withdrawn in 1973.

 

dave

[ThinkingPlus]

5 minutes ago, DaveLeeNC said:

 

https://www.golfcompendium.com/2020/06/american-ball-british-ball.html#:~:text=The End of the British Ball&text=In the early 1970s%2C the,it was withdrawn in 1973.

 

dave

So the banning of the small ball started in 1974, but the ball wasn't completely eliminated for play until 1990.  Thanks!

[Hawkeye77]

40 minutes ago, ThinkingPlus said:

Folks who play in windy conditions would be punished more severely by either reduced weight or increased diameter. Those options might not have been pursued very much because the R&A might have felt their golfers were being unfairly persecuted. They already got punished when the British small ball was banned in favor of the larger American ball back in the early 90s (time frame?).

 

The RBs are playing with the law of unintended consequences again. Typically the outcome isn't what they wanted (groove rule) or is possibly worse (ban anchoring - get armlock). The RBs are trying to legislate a style of play that they find aesthetically pleasing. I suspect they will get similar results as when governments try to legislate morality.

Thanks for the explanation!  The time frame I was looking at was even decades before that - they'd legislated a lighter ball and ended up having to unlegistlate it, but apples and oranges I know to balls in the 60s, just happened to notice the reason was lighter didn't work.

 

Yep, slippery slope here.  They got buy in on the putter anchoring rule from most over time, except the PGA Tour which didn't buy in until after the final rule was announced.  The politics of it all are a lot different now and this won't just throw 5 or 6 players under the bus, so to speak.

 

I know it won't affect me so easy to say, but whatever comes out of this, if the final rule is something the major stakeholders have bought into, is fine by me. If not, kind of depends on which stakeholder(s) and what the arguments and impacts are shown to be, and with all that's going on and will be the next couple of years I don't think the USGA should overestimate its position (maybe, just maybe, there won't be what came off as stubbornness in the past).

[nsxguy]

On 3/14/2023 at 9:02 AM, Schulzmc said:

If the ball were flying further simply because people were swinging harder, then I get the “leave things alone” arguments. But the reality is the ball today flies farther than the balls I used when I started playing 50 years ago. In some ways that is nothing new, as the ball 50 years ago flew further than the one from 100 years ago. But we have reached a breaking point. Consider the 13 hole at my home course. It’s a par five with water in front of the green. It’s designed to force you to stay down the right with your drive, then lay up before the water with your second shot. If you really bomb your drive you have a decision to make to try and carry the water and go for the green in 2. Once you have played the hole a bit you realize the green sets up best from the left side, so if you lay up you have to take the drive you hit down the right and keep the shot left. Really fun hole. But now the long hitters at our club simply smash a drive over the trees on the left and hit it as far down the 12th fairway as they can. That leaves them a 7 iron into the green, with no water between them and the hole. Besides the fact that a good hole design becomes irrelevant, it’s dangerous. Guys on 12 have to worry about who is in that group ahead of them and be wary walking up the 12th fairway. 

 

Roll back the ball and that hole is back to being a great hole. And for guys who need to you can always move up a tee.

 

Perfect argument for in-course OB.

[charli]

This is almost as bad as taking the shift out of baseball

[mogsta]

Forget the ball , just limit the maxinum allowed loft on a driver to 10 degrees and maxinum allowed loft on a wedge 56 degrees for everyone - simple

[Shilgy]

On 3/21/2023 at 7:54 PM, charli said:

This is almost as bad as taking the shift out of baseball

They didn’t take the shift away in baseball….just changed how the shift can be accomplished.  Infielders must be on the dirt and two to each side of second base…but, for example, when facing a left handed pull hitter the left fielder CAN move to the spot traditionally manned by the second baseman moving back.  I believe it was the Red Sox doing it this preseason.

[charli]

7 minutes ago, Shilgy said:

They didn’t take the shift away in baseball….just changed how the shift can be accomplished.  Infielders must be on the dirt and two to each side of second base…but, for example, when facing a left handed pull hitter the left fielder CAN move to the spot traditionally manned by the second baseman moving back.  I believe it was the Red Sox doing it this preseason.

After watching Rory drive a green at 370…. I retract my statement