USGA and R&A announce proposal to limit golf ball performance for elite level competition

[Mike412]

1 minute ago, CLEVELAND59 said:

Until today unless you were a big time PGA fan, you had never heard of Brandon Matthews and couldn't pick him out of a lineup.  Spieth basically said the tour will do what the membership wants and he clearly had no interest in a change.  And given how we've seen the evidence lately of the big names controlling the tour I think this is DOA.

There’s going to be a ton of discussion and changes in opinion during the comment period. We’ll see how it plays out. The interesting thing with Matthew’s comment is he arguably has the most to lose in the entire field regardless of his popularity.

[So_Cal]

Should roll it back 20% or more.  Courses could be shorter and rounds faster.  No reason why some back tees can’t be shuttered.  5% is not nearly enough. 

[Krt22]

5 minutes ago, Dutch1008 said:

You think they'll skip Augusta before putting a Vice/Snell ball in the bag? I don't. 

 

Doesn't really matter because it'd never get to that point. Titleist would never play chicken with the tour. They'll cave and the Left Dash or Left Dot, will become the Right X or Right Triangle. The ball manufacturers have no leverage as they are already making too many damn models to begin with.  

I think they have a lot more leverage than you are giving them credit for. The premium ball business model relies on tour presence to help bolster retail sales, given those retail sales fund the development. Two balls puts a big kink in that model. Titleist has the most to lose from this, so I don't expect them to just fold unless their development costs are going to be subsidized by the tour. 

[CLEVELAND59]

Just now, Mike412 said:

There’s going to be a ton of discussion and changes in opinion during the comment period. We’ll see how it plays out. The interesting thing with Matthew’s comment is he arguably has the most to lose in the entire field regardless of his popularity.

The bigger hitters won't be bombing it as long, sure.  But its the lower swing speed guys who will be disproportionally impacted in terms of overall impact. 

[CLEVELAND59]

1 minute ago, So_Cal said:

Should roll it back 20% or more.  Courses could be shorter and rounds faster.  No reason why some back tees can’t be shuttered.  5% is not nearly enough. 

Rounds wouldn't be any shorter, in fact they may become longer.  More shots required with longer clubs which will result in more missed greens, more time spent around the greens and an overall slower round.  

[Dutch1008]

7 minutes ago, CLEVELAND59 said:

the fact of the matter is the scoring average is basically unchanged.

I'd like to see Mark Broadie dig into this. If distance is up, why isn't scoring better? Have all the gains be offset by tougher set ups and longer courses? How has the average reading from a stimpmeter changed over time? Has the width of fairways narrowed? Rough increased?  

[So_Cal]

Just now, CLEVELAND59 said:

Rounds wouldn't be any shorter, in fact they may become longer.  More shots required with longer clubs which will result in more missed greens, more time spent around the greens and an overall slower round.  

Fair point.  I would say in general rounds at 6,000 yards are faster than 7,000.  That’s in my experience.  Not as much turf would need to be maintained leading to lower costs as well. 

[Golfnutgalen]

24 minutes ago, CLEVELAND59 said:

Even with your numbers, the fact of the matter is the scoring average is basically unchanged.  And that is the most telling fact.  

 

Actually it has even after lengthening courses and firming up the greens to at times ridiculous amounts. I'll go by 5 year increments to simplify things.

 

Scoring average (actual)

 

1990: 72.02 Tour average (1st Mize 70.2)

1995: 71.63 Tour average (G Norman 69.88)

2000: 71.42 Tour average (Tiger 68.17)

2005: 71.39 Tour average (Tiger 69.11)

2010: 71.04 Tour average (Kuchar 69.43)

2015: 70.95 Tour average (J Day 68.89)

2020: 70.56 Tour average (JT 68.76)

 

2022: 70.68 Tour average (JT 68.84)

2023: 70.54 Tour average (Rahm 68.03)

 

You could say it's flatlined very recently, but that's hard to tell at this point. There is seasonal variation due to course difficulty alone. 

Edited March 14, 2023 by Golfnutgalen

[Krt22]

2 minutes ago, CLEVELAND59 said:

The bigger hitters won't be bombing it as long, sure.  But its the lower swing speed guys who will be disproportionally impacted in terms of overall impact. 

Yep. The big hitters go maye hit 1 or 2 more clubs, but still have a chance to score on longer holes and par 5s. The shorter guys are hitting long irons and woods into long par 4s, no longer reaching par 5s. 

[Chrysalis99]

The USGA and the R&A are trying to address an issue that doesn’t exist and doesn’t matter. It’s only fitting that both these organization don’t matter either. Is there anything less important to golf than these two? If they vanished tomorrow nothing about the game of golf would be worse off.
 

Every organized golf group or association should just tell them to pound sand.

 

I’m listening to Rocco right now and it’s a good segment on the issue.   

[Mike412]

1 minute ago, CLEVELAND59 said:

The bigger hitters won't be bombing it as long, sure.  But its the lower swing speed guys who will be disproportionally impacted in terms of overall impact. 

How? Everyone will have a % decrease in distance. The ball doesn’t know who’s hitting it. Everyone’s advantage will still be their advantage. Everyone is going to have 1 - 1 1/2 extra clubs into greens than they do now. It just keeps courses from having to be 8,000 yds in the future. 

[hammergolf]

1 hour ago, flushem said:

https://www.golfwrx.com/709301/a-pga-tour-players-response-to-the-usgas-new-golf-ball-proposal/

IMO, this is insane.  

Typical bowtie madness from usga….. It’s much harder for oems to change a golf ball than the face of woods. They could have decreased CT and COR measurements for professional events a decade ago. However they despised bifurcation with a passion then. There are two ways to combat the distance debate on professional tours. One is simple, it’s called ROUGH. Grow up the rough to be an actual deterrent and guys will stop smashing driver. The second, in my opinion should have been done years ago. Make the ct and cor limits lower for professional golf. The data I read a few years ago was that every tenth of a point results in a 3-4 yd distance change. So if the bowties set the professional limit for cor at .730 it would reduce distance 30 to 40 yards. It’s a much easier process and cheaper for oems to slow down a driver than change the entire construction of a golf ball. It would also be an easy adjustment for professional golfers as it would effect fewer clubs in the bag.

 

https://golf.com/gear/drivers/how-much-farther-would-you-hit-an-illegal-driver/

Edited March 14, 2023 by hammergolf

[m d g]

51 minutes ago, Double Mocha Man said:

 

I read somewhere this morning that they would relax the regulations on the ball most of us use and it would go farther.  We'll all be outdriving Rory...

So I'll finally be able to outdrive Rory's 5-iron?

[CLEVELAND59]

Just now, Mike412 said:

How? Everyone will have a % decrease in distance. The ball doesn’t know who’s hitting it. Everyone’s advantage will still be their advantage. Everyone is going to have 1 - 1 1/2 extra clubs into greens than they do now. It just keeps courses from having to be 8,000 yds in the future. 

It's physics.  I could sit here and give you all the math equations and bore the hell out of you and everyone else here but its a fact.

[Titleist99]

12 minutes ago, CLEVELAND59 said:

Until today unless you were a big time PGA fan, you had never heard of Brandon Matthews and couldn't pick him out of a lineup.  Spieth basically said the tour will do what the membership wants and he clearly had no interest in a change.  And given how we've seen the evidence lately of the big names controlling the tour I think this is DOA.

I said the exact same thing....Of course he wants to bring the big names down.😀

[Dutch1008]

9 minutes ago, Krt22 said:

I think they have a lot more leverage than you are giving them credit for. The premium ball business model relies on tour presence to help bolster retail sales, given those retail sales fund the development. Two balls puts a big kink in that model. Titleist has the most to lose from this, so I don't expect them to just fold unless their development costs are going to be subsidized by the tour. 

I'd like to see the actual sales data before making any definitive conclusion. Ams aren't buying blades and cavity backs or playing the TSR4 or Triple Diamond drivers. They're playing P790s and T200s, TSR2 and Paradym X. I find ProV1's on the course but I probably find more Kirkland's. 

 

I agree that Titleist will push back and I think the rule is stupid. But if this actually does go through, the manufacturers will cave. They wont have a choice because they'll still want their product on TV.  

[Krt22]

1 minute ago, Mike412 said:

How? Everyone will have a % decrease in distance. The ball doesn’t know who’s hitting it. Everyone’s advantage will still be their advantage. Everyone is going to have 1 - 1 1/2 extra clubs into greens than they do now. It just keeps courses from having to be 8,000 yds in the future. 

Because scoring get's disproportionately harder once you are a certain distance from the hole. The shorter guys absolutely going to benefit the least from this. 

 

This is the current SG trend, at around 200 yrds you can see the slope get more steep, so it's not a simple linear relationship. If the ball is rolled back, the short guys are going to be on the wrong side of that transition more often, so they will be punished harder than the long guys. 

[PracticeSwinger]

Just throwing in a few graphs on the subjects at hand here: average course length, driving distance and scoring average throughout the years (last two from the previous USGA R&A report)… definitely not earth shattering but you can clearly see trends… 

[KensingtonPark]

While it is fairly radical, it is certainly a good response to the challenges that they are facing in the game. There are very few other ball sports where the ball is changing in a way that improves performance. Tennis, baseball, basketball, football, etc. all regulate the ball. You don't see annual announcements of a new ball that does something different in these sports. It only seems insane to us because we are so used to balls changing in golf.

[Mike412]

29 minutes ago, CLEVELAND59 said:

Rounds wouldn't be any shorter, in fact they may become longer.  More shots required with longer clubs which will result in more missed greens, more time spent around the greens and an overall slower round.  

I see what you’re saying in terms of actual play. But when you have to walk 30 yds farther (one way) to get to tee boxes, rounds are going to take longer.

[bekgolf]

9 minutes ago, Dutch1008 said:

I agree that Titleist will push back and I think the rule is stupid. But if this actually does go through, the manufacturers will cave. They wont have a choice because they'll still want their product on TV.  

 

Hypothetical here: 

 

Let's say ball manufacturers do some number crunching involving what they spend for network ad time, sponsoring players, and other ads.  As a result they all go DTC and stop sponsoring pro play.  Pros no longer get money to play a ball and PGA golf loses the network sponsors that allow PGA golf to be aired to golf fans for free.  That would be an unintended consequence. 

 

It's unlikely but I hope the powers that be think about all the dominoes that could fall.

[Mike412]

26 minutes ago, CLEVELAND59 said:

It's physics.  I could sit here and give you all the math equations and bore the hell out of you and everyone else here but its a fact.

Go for it, I love math equations.

[munichop]

So the women now average what the men did a generation ago. 

[Bogey Fett]

The moaning and wailing coming from the sack cloth and ashes covered zealots who worship at the Altar of Distance is more entertaining than any televised golf since Big Cat won the Masters.

[Krt22]

 

 

4 minutes ago, Mike412 said:

I see what you’re saying in terms of actual play. But when you have to walk 30 yds farther (one way) to get to tee boxes, rounds are going to take longer.

There are very few courses that require a hike back to back tees on every hole, most of the time you just walk past them.

[Mike412]

20 minutes ago, Krt22 said:

Because scoring get's disproportionately harder once you are a certain distance from the hole. The shorter guys absolutely going to benefit the least from this. 

 

This is the current SG trend, at around 200 yrds you can see the slope get more steep, so it's not a simple linear relationship. If the ball is rolled back, the short guys are going to be on the wrong side of that transition more often, so they will be punished harder than the long guys. 

But we’re not talking 200 yds. We’re talking short iron instead of wedg or mid iron instead of short iron. The scoring difference is going to be minimal but courses are running out of real estate among other issues, that’s what this is about.

[kasting333]

1 minute ago, Mike412 said:

I see what you’re saying in terms of actual play. But when you have to walk 30 yds farther (one way) to get to tee boxes, rounds are going to take longer.

Do you think a slight rollback like what’s being presented would impact that walk at all? 
 

I honestly can’t imagine a majority of courses or players shortening their playing yardage bc the cat is too far out of the bag. 

[Orange Hog]

I'm absolutely against this move.  Technology has definitely played it's role with both the ball and equipment.  That being said, both are now capped from a regulatory perspective so if there are measured gains it's going to be from tour pro's becoming better athletes and dialing in their equipment.  I think that is actually a reason why we've seen a short-term increase in distance and it's also why I don't think we'll see dynamic differences in the future as long as equipment remains under current regulations.  Rolling back the ball means you'll still have long hitters and short hitters on the tour so the impact to the outcome of tournaments is going to be net-neutral IMO.

 

I personally love seeing these guys hammer the ball 300+ yards.  It's exciting and to the casual fan I think that's what they want to see on TV.

[Krt22]

Just now, Mike412 said:

But we’re not talking 200 yds. We’re talking short iron instead of wedg or mid iron instead of short iron. The scoring difference is going to be minimal but courses are running out of real estate among other issues, that’s what this is about.

If the ball is rolled back, that number will likely shift from 200yrds to 185-190yrds. For the shorter players, that length will absolutely come into play on long par 4s and par 5s. That is exactly why this will impact them more than the longer guys, long par 4s turn into short par 5s for them and they will have to play mid to long par5s as 3 shot holes.

 

 

[Mike412]

4 minutes ago, kasting333 said:

Do you think a slight rollback like what’s being presented would impact that walk at all? 
 

I honestly can’t imagine a majority of courses or players shortening their playing yardage bc the cat is too far out of the bag. 

Nope, but it will prevent it from inevitably getting longer.