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

[maamold]

2 hours ago, Archimedes65 said:

No, I’m saying that the entire golf world shouldn’t be beholden to a small group of people who run an amateur organization.  I wasn’t commenting on whether they were ex pro golfers or not.  This is like giving FIBA the power to write the rules of how the NBA and NCAA Basketball is played.  I wonder how US players would feel if all of the sudden they had to use that golf awful Molten ball.

 

Yep, you're right. Much better to be beholden to the billions of dollars that manufactures, media companies, advertisers, and the PGA Tour make off you. /s

[James the Hogan Fan]

On 5/13/2024 at 2:13 AM, Pnwpingi210 said:

Ha.  It’s money!    The pros and a lot of elite amateurs don’t pay for equipment.  Bifurcation means oems will have to r&d and produce a whole line of equipment that needs to best it can be for a customer that doesn’t pay for it…..while continuing to produce and innovate of a retail model for the masses.  
 

  That just means costs will go for the oems and passed on to their paying customers.   People will buy less and less frequent cause it will cost them measurable more.  Hugely disruptive from a business perspective  to the oems at a time where they have people upgrading on a 1-2 year cycle.

I think it has little to do with equity of experience 🙂

 

 

But they kind of already do that and the costs are kind of passed on to the masses. See Costco and the DTC brands for the price difference.

 

I'm not sure if I'm too worried about the equipment makers having to innovate in different ways and break the 1-2 year cycle and $600 driver trend

[smashdn]

14 hours ago, Barnacle said:

*sigh* First of all nice deflection, you didn't come up with the random number but you sure where happy to use it. Can't believe I have to explain this still but whatever. You don't have a bunch of people at your club that hit it over 300 yards. You have a bunch of people that connect once in a while and actually hit it straight with a 280 carry and maybe 20 yards of roll out. The rest of the time they are slicing it 260 into the next fairway but because they hit it 300 once a round they tell everyone they can actually hit it that far. 

I play about twice a month and that has been pretty consistent for the last 2 decades. I play in Northern California and Northern Nevada and even in Nevada at 3000+ feet I don't run into people that can hit it far. You are basically suggesting that we need a crappier golf ball because a few people like me exist that don't play on tour. 

 

It was a direct reply to someone using the number they provided as an example.  I used the same number in my example in my reply TO THEM that you saw fit to attempt to tear apart based on that number alone.  Sigh, this is getting old.

 

Thanks for giving me some insight into the types of golfers I play golf with, I had no idea until you cleared up.  I am sure the guy carding a 60 is slicing it everywhere(+1.6).  The other guy who was club champion (0.2) and acing the 327 yard par four with a three wood, he is all over the place too.  The guy (2.6) who partnered with the guy who carded the 60 to win the annual two ball tournament is probably slicing it too.

 

You play twice a month?  Not that this is some kind of measuring contest but I play twice per week and that isn't a lot compared to some of the people I play with.  (I just looked at the handicaps for our club on ghin.  300 member club (not 300 handicaps though) and there were 7 plus handicaps in there, one +4.1 (college golfer).)

 

Just saying, maybe my perspective and yours is different.

[SlothofDespond]

8 hours ago, maamold said:

 

Yep, you're right. Much better to be beholden to the billions of dollars that manufactures, media companies, advertisers, and the PGA Tour make off you. /s

 

YES! They actually have some incentive to pay attention to more than 0.001% of people playing the game.

[smashdn]

14 hours ago, Archimedes65 said:

 

Why can’t you just play those tournaments with a different ball, like they did there?  The idea that it would be too costly for the manufacturers is nonsense.  They’re already making those types of balls!!  Geez, Titleist could just revert back to the last ProV model that would meet the specs and be done with it.

 

I am all for those golfers playing a rolled back ball.  Implement a model local rule and let the committees do it.  All the majors and I would think eventually the professional tours would get on board.  A fair number of state associations would adopt as well I bet.  It would either stop "trickling down" as far as it should or it would go all the way to the bottom and we would all play the ball.  Suits me either way.

 

Preaching to the choir on the ball manufacturer stuff.

 

14 hours ago, Archimedes65 said:

 

And you do know that if you added up all the people playing the top level amateur events in the entire US, it would represent a fraction of 1% of the total golfing population, right?  Even if you threw in every golfer scratch or better, and all the fat old tweed wearing golf elitists, you’d still be well below five percent of the total golfing population.  Is this not the very definition of the tail wagging the dog?

 

Again, I ask you to think of the impact that that small percentage has.  If the courses add tee boxes "way back there" just for those people, is the cost not a burden taken up by all the golfers or members?  If a group with one player who has the length (of thinks he has the length) to drive a green or reach in two shots, do they not have the potential to hold up the group behind them?

 

I know there aren't many in here who care or appreciate the architecture side of golf but wouldn't hole #10 at Augusta be a lot nicer a hole if the "MacKenzie Bunker" were in play and the green not 100 yards past it?  That course is a prime example of what can happen to a place (to the detriment to what the original architect put down) if you are constantly chasing what the best golfers are doing.  Donald Ross isn't building more golf courses.  When you tear out or move what he put down it ceases to be a Ross design at some point.  So too with a Flynn, a Raynor, a MacKenzie, a Dye (now).

[Archimedes65]

Weird that both Homa and Tiger commented that they were having to hit long irons and five woods into the greens at Valhalla and that you can’t score out of the rough there.  It’s almost as if they were saying that a course could be set up to penalize the guys who bomb and gouge.  Very strange.

[Archimedes65]

2 hours ago, smashdn said:

 

I am all for those golfers playing a rolled back ball.  Implement a model local rule and let the committees do it.  All the majors and I would think eventually the professional tours would get on board.  A fair number of state associations would adopt as well I bet.  It would either stop "trickling down" as far as it should or it would go all the way to the bottom and we would all play the ball.  Suits me either way.

 

Preaching to the choir on the ball manufacturer stuff.

 

 

Again, I ask you to think of the impact that that small percentage has.  If the courses add tee boxes "way back there" just for those people, is the cost not a burden taken up by all the golfers or members?  If a group with one player who has the length (of thinks he has the length) to drive a green or reach in two shots, do they not have the potential to hold up the group behind them?

 

I know there aren't many in here who care or appreciate the architecture side of golf but wouldn't hole #10 at Augusta be a lot nicer a hole if the "MacKenzie Bunker" were in play and the green not 100 yards past it?  That course is a prime example of what can happen to a place (to the detriment to what the original architect put down) if you are constantly chasing what the best golfers are doing.  Donald Ross isn't building more golf courses.  When you tear out or move what he put down it ceases to be a Ross design at some point.  So too with a Flynn, a Raynor, a MacKenzie, a Dye (now).

 

If you’re talking a pro or high level amateur tournament, I’d be fine with a restricted ball that is only used at certain venues.  The idea that the golf industry can’t foot the R&D to develop such a ball is nonsense.  They develop new balls all the time and each of the manufacturers already offer a variety of compressions and spin characteristics.

 

This is non-issue for 99% of the golfing world and what the 1% needs should not be dictating what the 99% do.

[Pnwpingi210]

7 minutes ago, Archimedes65 said:

 

If you’re talking a pro or high level amateur tournament, I’d be fine with a restricted ball that is only used at certain venues.  The idea that the golf industry can’t foot the R&D to develop such a ball is nonsense.  They develop new balls all the time and each of the manufacturers already offer a variety of compressions and spin characteristics.

 

This is non-issue for 99% of the golfing world and what the 1% needs should not be dictating what the 99% do.

Yes and  most all those come to retail with some form of paying customer.  Who is going to purchase this ball?  Based on this thread nobody wants to play a ball that flys shorter.

 

we know that most elite ams and professionals don’t pay for their golf balls.  So i ask again, who’s the paying customer for these tournament only balls?

Edited May 14 by Pnwpingi210

[maamold]

3 hours ago, SlothofDespond said:

 

YES! They actually have some incentive to pay attention to more than 0.001% of people playing the game.

They're on my side because they want to make money off me and my buddies. Beautiful reasoning.

[smashdn]

28 minutes ago, Archimedes65 said:

Weird that both Homa and Tiger commented that they were having to hit long irons and five woods into the greens at Valhalla and that you can’t score out of the rough there.  It’s almost as if they were saying that a course could be set up to penalize the guys who bomb and gouge.  Very strange.

 

I have never argued you cannot make a dull course hard.  It is pretty easy.  Move the tees way on back (#1-484y par four, #2-500y par four...)  Narrow the fairways.  As you grow what was fairway into rough, have it meander this way and that, bonus points if you can incorporate a slope that causes the ball to run out into the rough.  Grow the rough to about 4".  It has been raining regularly for the last two weeks.  Rough should be pretty juicy.  (Hole 6 is a 495 yard par four with a forced lay-up before a creek.  Hole 12 has a forced lay-up as well and is 494 yards.)

 

But, if you have also been following along, and I realize you are coming late to the 400+ page game, you would have read numerous times the desire is not wholly about score.  Score is just a manifestation of what distance and the play of these guys can do to a course.

 

The above "remedies" to score are, to me anyway, pretty undesirable in the fact you have to shut down a course and change how it plays so severely to make it "tough enough" for these guys.  The phrase "tricked up" comes to mind.  Though I will admit they (PGAofA, USGA) have gotten much better at controlling themselves in recent years as opposed to when they would completely lose greens and grow out shin-high rough.

[Pnwpingi210]

3 hours ago, SlothofDespond said:

 

YES! They actually have some incentive to pay attention to more than 0.001% of people playing the game.

Yes.  Those .001 percent can’t move back a tee.  How much of the 99.999 could move up a tee (or two tees) to offset the 4-12 yards and see no impact to their game?

[smashdn]

36 minutes ago, Archimedes65 said:

If you’re talking a pro or high level amateur tournament, I’d be fine with a restricted ball that is only used at certain venues.  The idea that the golf industry can’t foot the R&D to develop such a ball is nonsense.  They develop new balls all the time and each of the manufacturers already offer a variety of compressions and spin characteristics.

 

Again, preaching to the choir here.  I am talking it is a MLR and whatever committee wants to use it and communicate that ball (or any other MLR they choose to use) is in play, is between the player and the committee.  

 

I would have much rather preferred the MLR route but it does not appear that is what is going to happen.

[Archimedes65]

34 minutes ago, Pnwpingi210 said:

Yes and  most all those come to retail with some form of paying customer.  Who is going to purchase this ball?  Based on this thread nobody wants to play a ball that flys shorter.

 

we know that most elite ams and professionals don’t pay for their golf balls.  So i ask again, who’s the paying customer for these tournament only balls?

 

It would add $.01 to the cost of every ball we buy.  Titleist probably sells 10,000 Pro V-1s for every one it gives to a touring pro.  The incremental cost to offer a unique pro ball would be a drop in the bucket of money the ball manufacturers make selling ridiculously overpriced balls to us mooks.  And if they had to, I’m sure the pros could afford to pay for their own balls for a few weeks out of the year.

[Pnwpingi210]

Just now, Archimedes65 said:

 

It would add $.01 to the cost of every ball we buy.  Titleist probably sells 10,000 Pro V-1s for every one it gives to a touring pro.  The incremental cost to offer a unique pro ball would be a drop in the bucket of money the ball manufacturers make selling ridiculously overpriced balls to us mooks.  And if they had to, I’m sure the pros could afford to pay for their own balls for a few weeks out of the year.

Interesting take, but your just making numbers up.

 

i don’t know what the real cost is, but I do have experience in products and manufacturing.  The last thing you want to do as a manufacturer is bifurcate your product line for a non paying customer 

[Barnacle]

4 hours ago, smashdn said:

 

It was a direct reply to someone using the number they provided as an example.  I used the same number in my example in my reply TO THEM that you saw fit to attempt to tear apart based on that number alone.  Sigh, this is getting old.

 

Thanks for giving me some insight into the types of golfers I play golf with, I had no idea until you cleared up.  I am sure the guy carding a 60 is slicing it everywhere(+1.6).  The other guy who was club champion (0.2) and acing the 327 yard par four with a three wood, he is all over the place too.  The guy (2.6) who partnered with the guy who carded the 60 to win the annual two ball tournament is probably slicing it too.

 

You play twice a month?  Not that this is some kind of measuring contest but I play twice per week and that isn't a lot compared to some of the people I play with.  (I just looked at the handicaps for our club on ghin.  300 member club (not 300 handicaps though) and there were 7 plus handicaps in there, one +4.1 (college golfer).)

 

Just saying, maybe my perspective and yours is different.

For crying out loud my guy, it sounds like you play at a private club? If that is the case then of course your perspective is off. I play twice a month and that is at essentially a different course every week. And in no world is twice a week not an absolutely insane amount of golf. Honestly your debate skills suck. You are comparing private members to Jack showing up to the local muni course in blue jeans and a Lynyrd Skynyrd tee shirt who only hits driver at the range. 

[gvogel]

9 minutes ago, Barnacle said:

For crying out loud my guy, it sounds like you play at a private club? If that is the case then of course your perspective is off. I play twice a month and that is at essentially a different course every week. And in no world is twice a week not an absolutely insane amount of golf. Honestly your debate skills suck. You are comparing private members to Jack showing up to the local muni course in blue jeans and a Lynyrd Skynyrd tee shirt who only hits driver at the range. 

The GOAT plays in blue jeans and tee shirts?

[Barnacle]

1 minute ago, gvogel said:

The GOAT plays in blue jeans and tee shirts?

Yeah, See him every week out there. Hits driver off into the great beyond on the first and don't see him again until the 19th. 

[Ashley Schaeffer]

8 minutes ago, Barnacle said:

For crying out loud my guy, it sounds like you play at a private club? If that is the case then of course your perspective is off. I play twice a month and that is at essentially a different course every week. And in no world is twice a week not an absolutely insane amount of golf. Honestly your debate skills suck. You are comparing private members to Jack showing up to the local muni course in blue jeans and a Lynyrd Skynyrd tee shirt who only hits driver at the range. 

 

Hey, these amateurs for whom the game is too easy are everywhere from Columbia Edgewater to Noname CC.  They score too low.  The homies were saying one dude shot a 60, another destroyed Columbia Edgewater to the tune of 9-10 under, and yet another dude hit a 3w over 300 to get a hole in one.  The scores are too damned low, and rolling everybody back will help a lot of egos. I honestly believe a great percentage of rollbackers fantasize about being able to point at the TV and say, "See? Not so easy with sh*tty equipment, is it?"  They live for that day.

[SlothofDespond]

1 hour ago, Pnwpingi210 said:

Yes.  Those .001 percent can’t move back a tee.  How much of the 99.999 could move up a tee (or two tees) to offset the 4-12 yards and see no impact to their game?

No one is moving up a tee. Please.

[Pnwpingi210]

2 minutes ago, SlothofDespond said:

No one is moving up a tee. Please.

That wasn’t the question that was posed.

[smashdn]

1 hour ago, Barnacle said:

 You are comparing private members to Jack showing up to the local muni course in blue jeans and a Lynyrd Skynyrd tee shirt who only hits driver at the range. 

 

No, just answering your questions with my perspective, which you seem to want to argue with.  I believe you started this "comparison".

 

Yeah, I belong to a private club.  A small one in a small town in rural KY.  And I still play plenty of public courses in and around Nashville, while on vacation, and here too.  Again, maybe I am in an oddly golf rich area that skews the caliber of player I run across.  Maybe it is my age that has me playing with mostly middle-aged down to 25 year old or so guys.

[klebs01]

27 minutes ago, smashdn said:

 

No, just answering your questions with my perspective, which you seem to want to argue with.  I believe you started this "comparison".

 

Yeah, I belong to a private club.  A small one in a small town in rural KY.  And I still play plenty of public courses in and around Nashville, while on vacation, and here too.  Again, maybe I am in an oddly golf rich area that skews the caliber of player I run across.  Maybe it is my age that has me playing with mostly middle-aged down to 25 year old or so guys.

The bickering about who understands golf better a guy who barely plays or a guy who plays often has a material impact on the discussion. Who is more important to golf: the single digit that belongs to a club and plays multiple times per week or the rando at a public course that maybe plays twice a month. To me, the clear answer is the guy who plays a ton.

 

Honestly, the game is already bifurcated. No one cares what the folks who don’t even play by the rules do. Keep your nitros. The rules are made for those that actually play by them and play a lot of golf. 

[GoGoErky]

18 minutes ago, klebs01 said:

The bickering about who understands golf better a guy who barely plays or a guy who plays often has a material impact on the discussion. Who is more important to golf: the single digit that belongs to a club and plays multiple times per week or the rando at a public course that maybe plays twice a month. To me, the clear answer is the guy who plays a ton.

 

Honestly, the game is already bifurcated. No one cares what the folks who don’t even play by the rules do. Keep your nitros. The rules are made for those that actually play by them and play a lot of golf. 

Both are important to the game and the rules are for anyone who keeps a handicap or who cares to play by them even if they don’t keep a handicap.

 

This is the issue with this thread is one side discredits the others opinions with things like this about your opinion doesn’t matte because you don’t play enough or you aren’t at a country club.

 

As fans of the game and participants all opinions matter 

[klebs01]

9 minutes ago, GoGoErky said:

Both are important to the game and the rules are for anyone who keeps a handicap or who cares to play by them even if they don’t keep a handicap.

 

This is the issue with this thread is one side discredits the others opinions with things like this about your opinion doesn’t matte because you don’t play enough or you aren’t at a country club.

 

As fans of the game and participants all opinions matter 

No, not everyone’s opinion counts the same. There is a reason businesses don’t treat the $5k per year customer the same as the $500k customer or the $5m customer. 

[Ashley Schaeffer]

33 minutes ago, klebs01 said:

The bickering about who understands golf better a guy who barely plays or a guy who plays often has a material impact on the discussion. Who is more important to golf: the single digit that belongs to a club and plays multiple times per week or the rando at a public course that maybe plays twice a month. To me, the clear answer is the guy who plays a ton.

 

Honestly, the game is already bifurcated. No one cares what the folks who don’t even play by the rules do. Keep your nitros. The rules are made for those that actually play by them and play a lot of golf. 

 

Grow the game (for the important people who play the requisite number of times at country clubs).  

[GoGoErky]

13 minutes ago, klebs01 said:

No, not everyone’s opinion counts the same. There is a reason businesses don’t treat the $5k per year customer the same as the $500k customer or the $5m customer. 

The golfer is a fan and participant their opinion counts regardless of how much time they play.

 

but if we use your logic what happens on the tour which is what the problem claims to be the the pro roplbackers opion doesn’t matter. They don’t watch the pro game as has been stated because it’s boring. They want to do away with bomb and gouge. So since the pro rollbackers arent the target audience their opinion doesn’t matter.

 

 

Edited May 14 by GoGoErky

[Pnwpingi210]

24 minutes ago, GoGoErky said:

Both are important to the game and the rules are for anyone who keeps a handicap or who cares to play by them even if they don’t keep a handicap.

 

This is the issue with this thread is one side discredits the others opinions with things like this about your opinion doesn’t matte because you don’t play enough or you aren’t at a country club.

 

As fans of the game and participants all opinions matter 

This is so true.  A solution should be about finding something that can accommodate all.  The problem about picking sides (as this thread assumes you pick a side and blindly support all arguments for “your” side) is people tend to dig in and shut down on finding something that accommodates all.

[klebs01]

2 minutes ago, GoGoErky said:

The golfer is a fan and participant their opinion counts regardless of how much time they ply, but if we want to use your logic then the anti rollback era opinion don’t count because most aren’t watching the pga tour so their opinion about what’s good for the game or that the pro game is bad doesn’t matter and we should just leave the pro game alone because they aren’t the target audience.

 

 

Not sure what the pga tour has to do with what I said. I simply said not all players should be counted the same. I couldn’t care less what the pga tour does. They can afford to build 7500-8000 yard boring tpc courses. The issue is at the amateur level and that the game doesn’t fit properly on a ton of courses. A lot of the better courses in fact. That a lot of people aren’t exposed to how prevalent 300 yard drives are is important to the discussion as well as who is actually driving the spend in golf. This isn’t a 0.001% issue. It’s much larger than that. 

[bekgolf]

8 minutes ago, klebs01 said:

Not sure what the pga tour has to do with what I said. I simply said not all players should be counted the same. I couldn’t care less what the pga tour does. They can afford to build 7500-8000 yard boring tpc courses. The issue is at the amateur level and that the game doesn’t fit properly on a ton of courses. A lot of the better courses in fact. That a lot of people aren’t exposed to how prevalent 300 yard drives are is important to the discussion as well as who is actually driving the spend in golf. This isn’t a 0.001% issue. It’s much larger than that. 

 

Not sure I follow.  I'm paraphrasing here so let me know if I get it wrong, I don't like people putting words in my mouth and I try my best not to do the same.

 

I'm retired and play 3x a week with other retirees.  None of us are overpowering a course with sheer distance.  We also don't want to lose more distance because it happens to us already as time goes on.  Are you saying that my opinion doesn't matter because I'm not subjected to folks in my group hitting the ball too far?  If so it's a very narrow viewpoint imo.

[klebs01]

57 minutes ago, bekgolf said:

 

Not sure I follow.  I'm paraphrasing here so let me know if I get it wrong, I don't like people putting words in my mouth and I try my best not to do the same.

 

I'm retired and play 3x a week with other retirees.  None of us are overpowering a course with sheer distance.  We also don't want to lose more distance because it happens to us already as time goes on.  Are you saying that my opinion doesn't matter because I'm not subjected to folks in my group hitting the ball too far?  If so it's a very narrow viewpoint imo.

Your opinion matters, but it’s not the only voice. I play with a lot of players that over power courses. Some people don’t see those players. Others do. Not sure people that don’t see it have a full view. Also, not sure someone who barely plays should be weighted the same as someone who plays 4x a week.