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

[Pnwpingi210]

9 minutes ago, ThinkingPlus said:

It doesn't give them what they want. It isn't just about how far the ball is being hit with one club. It is about style of play. This is an esoteric issue. Touchy, feely non-rational subjective preference for returning golf to mostly (none, so far, have expressed a desire for cow pasture fairways and stimp 7 greens) ye olden times.

I think there are varying levels.

 

watching a pro struggle/take on the risk of swinging faster or closer to their maximum club head speed to achieve a 300-330 yard vs the field being able to hit that as their average is drastically different that wanting to see pros hit it 265 which for most is a utility iron or 5 wood.

[smashdn]

3 hours ago, Simpsonia said:

 

You've quoted anecdata. Just because a handful of courses are being remodeled, or a handful of new courses are being built with long yardages has no impact on the overall game of golf as a whole. The average male amateur still drives the ball roughly ~220yds, even less for female ams. You keep making it sound like hundreds or thousands 8000yd courses are going to be springing up all over the world. To the extent that any 7500-8000 yd courses are being remodeled or built, they are outliers amongst all the other courses across the world. My munis that tip out at 6000yds will be just fine. 

 

You guys are moving the goal posts a bit.  It goes from "none" to "okay, some are but average amateur game this, that and the other." 

 

Maybe you haven't been paying attention, but the phrase "professional and elite amateur men" is brought up by the regulatory bodies for a reason.  That is the group causing the impacts or problem if you like.  But the impact is felt by everyone playing on a course that hosts or desires to host those players.

 

Your muni is likely not a Tillinghast design and almost certainly not a course with a prominent spot in the competition history of the game.

[Simpsonia]

12 minutes ago, smashdn said:

 

You guys are moving the goal posts a bit.  It goes from "none" to "okay, some are but average amateur game this, that and the other." 

 

Maybe you haven't been paying attention, but the phrase "professional and elite amateur men" is brought up by the regulatory bodies for a reason.  That is the group causing the impacts or problem if you like.  But the impact is felt by everyone playing on a course that hosts or desires to host those players.

 

Your muni is likely not a Tillinghast design and almost certainly not a course with a prominent spot in the competition history of the game.

 

Yet you fail to realize what a bubble you live in belonging to a private club, with apparently dozens of elite male players who hit well over 300yds. Tillinghast's (or Ross or whomever august designers you want to name) designs are literally a drop in the bucket amongst all of golf. They are outliers not worthy of regulating all of golf over. Professional and elite amateur men are an even smaller population than just plain 300+ hitters (whom themselves are only ~0.1% of all golfers). They can probably be measured in the thousands worldwide against the tens of millions of golfers and tens of thousands of golf courses.

 

There's a term for that, and it's called "de minimis", it means too trivial to merit consideration. 

[GoGoErky]

41 minutes ago, gvogel said:

I doubt that those performance advances are of the same magnitude as the advances in driving distance.

Driving distance hasn’t gone up. Try e average distance has gone up because more golfers are hitting the ball 300 am yards because there are better athletes playing professional golf. Which is what the USGA says when they refer to distance gains coming from the golfer and what we have been referring to.

 

We have shown this stat over and over. Yes you and everyone else keep lookig

past this data to keep making some claim distance is increasing when it’s not

[GoGoErky]

48 minutes ago, gvogel said:

Every year or two the engineers make incremental gains in clubface technology or ball technology.  For example, the new Ping G430 Max 10K has some secret sauce that is providing higher launch and less spin than previous models.  Face technology, weighting, aerodynamics, etc.  The ball manufacturers are hard at work tweaking rubber, and now tweaking the firmness from the middle of the inside to the outside of the inner layer.

 

These incremental gains add up over the year.

And yet as has been shown in the lat 10-20 pages pros have lost distance and we can see trainer that the top end distance is down significantly. Rory was nearly at 327 last year he’s not even at 319 and the guys at 321 are under that. Tour average is down 1.6 yards. 

 

Where’s all this distance gain?

[smashdn]

1 hour ago, Simpsonia said:

 

Yet you fail to realize what a bubble you live in belonging to a private club, with apparently dozens of elite male players who hit well over 300yds. Tillinghast's (or Ross or whomever august designers you want to name) designs are literally a drop in the bucket amongst all of golf. They are outliers not worthy of regulating all of golf over. Professional and elite amateur men are an even smaller population than just plain 300+ hitters (whom themselves are only ~0.1% of all golfers). They can probably be measured in the thousands worldwide against the tens of millions of golfers and tens of thousands of golf courses.

 

There's a term for that, and it's called "de minimis", it means too trivial to merit consideration. 

 

I agree.  Bifurcation would have been my druthers.

 

Mr Erky likes to laugh, but I seem to recall that he made a statement regarding courses holding the BMW Championship, that was proven quite false via my anecdata.

 

ETA - I have been a member at a club for a little more than a year.  I ran into and played with long hitters at public courses and munis as well.  Probably due to my age.  If you are decently athletic and coordinated 300 yards with modern equipment is not a difficult task.  Gasp, Thursday scramble random draw and there were two players longer than I am off the tee.  One guy a little younger, one guy probably mid forties.

 

Edited Friday at 06:13 PM by smashdn

[Ashley Schaeffer]

3 hours ago, ThinkingPlus said:

It doesn't give them what they want. It isn't just about how far the ball is being hit with one club. It is about style of play. This is an esoteric issue. Touchy, feely non-rational subjective preference for returning golf to mostly (none, so far, have expressed a desire for cow pasture fairways and stimp 7 greens) ye olden times.

 

Spot on.  I wonder why they aren't mad about the fast greens.  When you watch old golf footage, those players could just chip it to the hole.  Much less skill involved in the short game/putting back then.  Those architects didn't intend for greens rolling at 12+.  

[smashdn]

21 minutes ago, Ashley Schaeffer said:

Spot on.  I wonder why they aren't mad about the fast greens.  When you watch old golf footage, those players could just chip it to the hole.  Much less skill involved in the short game/putting back then.  Those architects didn't intend for greens rolling at 12+.  

 

Probably overlooked.  (I am not to the level to get bad about any of it by the way.)  I kind of tend to think that slower greens might even be more difficult to putt on.  You can certainly keep more slope on them at slower paces, have more pin placements, be closer to the edges without the risk of balls being putt off the edge, etc.  Might even make the angles from the fairway more important.

 

If I am being downright honest about it, that older generation golf had more dimensions to it to contend with.  Seemed to be much less formulaic in the approach to the game as well (not all related to equipment or agronomy but also SG understanding).  Maybe all the "advancements" have distilled professional golf almost to the extent of tedium.

[chisag]

1 hour ago, smashdn said:

Mr Erky likes to laugh

 

 

... "You see what you want to see and you hear what you want to hear" A quote from The Rock Man. Some of the more condescending anti rollback posters could learn a lot from Nilsson's The Point. They continue to make snarky comments that nobody is in favor of. Over 13,000 posts repeating the same things over and over again in black and white. This is a gray subject and even those in favor of a rollback mostly don't want it for Ams, yet they throw 💩 out there about how we want to set the clock back to courses and players from the 50's and 60's. 🙄 It reached a peak with this ridiculous comment: we want everyone to hit 265 yd drives. The only thing us old schoolers are interested in returning to is common courtesy and respect for others opinions. So in the nobody cares category I'm out and I leave them with this:

 

 

[ThinkingPlus]

11 minutes ago, chisag said:

 

 

... "You see what you want to see and you hear what you want to hear" A quote from The Rock Man. Some of the more condescending anti rollback posters could learn a lot from Nilsson's The Point. They continue to make snarky comments that nobody is in favor of. Over 13,000 posts repeating the same things over and over again in black and white. This is a gray subject and even those in favor of a rollback mostly don't want it for Ams, yet they throw 💩 out there about how we want to set the clock back to courses and players from the 50's and 60's. 🙄 It reached a peak with this ridiculous comment: we want everyone to hit 265 yd drives. The only thing us old schoolers are interested in returning to is common courtesy and respect for others opinions. So in the nobody cares category I'm out and I leave them with this:

 

 

I'll give you props for at least caring about what I wrote even if you didn't care for it. Most of the others discount everything I post as the only woman in the conversation. 

[Ashley Schaeffer]

28 minutes ago, smashdn said:

 

Probably overlooked.  (I am not to the level to get bad about any of it by the way.)  I kind of tend to think that slower greens might even be more difficult to putt on.  You can certainly keep more slope on them at slower paces, have more pin placements, be closer to the edges without the risk of balls being putt off the edge, etc.  Might even make the angles from the fairway more important.

 

If I am being downright honest about it, that older generation golf had more dimensions to it to contend with.  Seemed to be much less formulaic in the approach to the game as well (not all related to equipment or agronomy but also SG understanding).  Maybe all the "advancements" have distilled professional golf almost to the extent of tedium.

It can be more difficult to get a consistent break on putts inside of say 5ft., but, as someone who grew up playing a muni designed by the esteemed architect duo of Bill and Randy (who were the only ones who had access to heavy equipment because they dug basements for new homes), I can tell you, on slow greens like they used to play in the 70s, it's MUCH easier to (a) not three-putt, and (b) get up and down.  If you're short-sided, would you rather have the green be rolling at 7 or 13?  It took way less skill to be good around the greens back when the greens rolled at dog track speeds on championship courses.  

[Archimedes65]

I spoke with our pro about this the other day and he agreed with my take on this nonsense.  At the end of the day, nothing is going to stop the amateur from de-facto bifurcating, which is what I’m going to do (assuming I’m still golfing when this rule goes into effect).  I’ll just buy a 5-10 year supply of Pro Vs during that last year and I’ll play them in any non-tournament round I play.  I won’t post my scores, as they will be non-conforming practice rounds.  If I decide to play in a tournament or event, I’ll just use a conforming ball for that event.   I’ll keep my own index offline for games with friends, and if my play deviates from my index significantly, I’ll just go rip off some rounds at my club to get my index in line for any tournaments.  You don’t have to be regularly posting scores to have a valid index.  As long as you maintain membership in a golf club, your index is active and valid, regardless of how old the scores are.

[fbjim]

9 hours ago, Simpsonia said:

 

Yet you fail to realize what a bubble you live in belonging to a private club, with apparently dozens of elite male players who hit well over 300yds. Tillinghast's (or Ross or whomever august designers you want to name) designs are literally a drop in the bucket amongst all of golf. They are outliers not worthy of regulating all of golf over. Professional and elite amateur men are an even smaller population than just plain 300+ hitters (whom themselves are only ~0.1% of all golfers). They can probably be measured in the thousands worldwide against the tens of millions of golfers and tens of thousands of golf courses.

 

There's a term for that, and it's called "de minimis", it means too trivial to merit consideration. 

It is not this simple, however. The population of elite golfers is small, but the impact that professional golf has on golf as a sport is significant. 

 

"shrink the sport" arguments aside, I think there is the potential for golf to be harmed if the professional golf product starts to become boring, or one-dimensional. 

 

Obvious disclaimer here is that what I'd really want is bifurcation, but the multi billion dollar golf club industry probably wouldn't like that. 

[munichop]

13 hours ago, ThinkingPlus said:

It doesn't give them what they want. It isn't just about how far the ball is being hit with one club. It is about style of play. This is an esoteric issue. Touchy, feely non-rational subjective preference for returning golf to mostly (none, so far, have expressed a desire for cow pasture fairways and stimp 7 greens) ye olden times.

I would like to see a better balance of risk vs reward. This whole discussion is derivative of one shot on one hole and the change of risk vs reward on that shot. No 13 at Augusta and the 2nd shot with the ball above your feet and the chance to win the Masters. Faldo took forever to decide between 2 iron and 5 wood when he ran down Norman in ‘96. 
The proposed rollback won’t bring that balance back. Engineers have made the clubs and balls too forgiving.

[Archimedes65]

3 hours ago, fbjim said:

It is not this simple, however. The population of elite golfers is small, but the impact that professional golf has on golf as a sport is significant. 

 

"shrink the sport" arguments aside, I think there is the potential for golf to be harmed if the professional golf product starts to become boring, or one-dimensional. 

 

Obvious disclaimer here is that what I'd really want is bifurcation, but the multi billion dollar golf club industry probably wouldn't like that. 

 

But how do you define ‘one dimensional’? It might be very different from how others define it.  The idea that ‘bomb and gouge’ golf, as the Grey Poupon crowd likes to define it, is bad, is not shared by all.  I just want exciting golf.  I could give a rats behind whether they’re hitting four irons or gap wedges into the greens.  I care about whether there are multiple players in contention on Sunday and whether winning comes down to the last hole.  Getting to that end does not require long irons or playing 6,500 yard ‘iconic’ courses set up like U.S. Opens.  The vast majority of golfers out there are not part of the USGA Luddite community and really should stop taking their lead from them.

[fbjim]

I don't see why a rollback would mean you do not have multiple players in contention on Sunday, and exciting last holes. If that's your criteria, then you shouldn't care at all. 

[gvogel]

16 hours ago, ThinkingPlus said:

I'll give you props for at least caring about what I wrote even if you didn't care for it. Most of the others discount everything I post as the only woman in the conversation. 

I always listen to what you say.  You seem to have a lot of knowledge about golf balls and equipment ... almost like you work in the industry.

[gvogel]

12 hours ago, Archimedes65 said:

I spoke with our pro about this the other day and he agreed with my take on this nonsense.  At the end of the day, nothing is going to stop the amateur from de-facto bifurcating, which is what I’m going to do (assuming I’m still golfing when this rule goes into effect).  I’ll just buy a 5-10 year supply of Pro Vs during that last year and I’ll play them in any non-tournament round I play.  I won’t post my scores, as they will be non-conforming practice rounds.  If I decide to play in a tournament or event, I’ll just use a conforming ball for that event.   I’ll keep my own index offline for games with friends, and if my play deviates from my index significantly, I’ll just go rip off some rounds at my club to get my index in line for any tournaments.  You don’t have to be regularly posting scores to have a valid index.  As long as you maintain membership in a golf club, your index is active and valid, regardless of how old the scores are.

There is so much more to good or bad golf than the 5 to 10 yards that you might lose off the tee, that I doubt your index will move much at all.

[ThinkingPlus]

8 hours ago, munichop said:

I would like to see a better balance of risk vs reward. This whole discussion is derivative of one shot on one hole and the change of risk vs reward on that shot. No 13 at Augusta and the 2nd shot with the ball above your feet and the chance to win the Masters. Faldo took forever to decide between 2 iron and 5 wood when he ran down Norman in ‘96. 
The proposed rollback won’t bring that balance back. Engineers have made the clubs and balls too forgiving.

Amazing coincident that year. The tour average driving distance in 1996 was 265.9 yards. Faldo averaged 264.1 yards for the year.

[Titleist99]

7 hours ago, Archimedes65 said:

 

But how do you define ‘one dimensional’? It might be very different from how others define it.  The idea that ‘bomb and gouge’ golf, as the Grey Poupon crowd likes to define it, is bad, is not shared by all.  I just want exciting golf.  I could give a rats behind whether they’re hitting four irons or gap wedges into the greens.  I care about whether there are multiple players in contention on Sunday and whether winning comes down to the last hole.  Getting to that end does not require long irons or playing 6,500 yard ‘iconic’ courses set up like U.S. Opens.  The vast majority of golfers out there are not part of the USGA Luddite community and really should stop taking their lead from them.

90% of golf fans feel exactly the same way, yet the USGA/RA is changing the game for the nostalgic 10%. Wedge, 9i, 8i, 7i..... still must hit straight 150 yards and putts still have to be made.

 

~Golf tournaments are sporting events. I watch for the competition, not any exhibition. Most fans don't care what Pros hit into well manicured greens that most will never play. 

[gvogel]

17 hours ago, chisag said:

 

 

... "You see what you want to see and you hear what you want to hear" A quote from The Rock Man. Some of the more condescending anti rollback posters could learn a lot from Nilsson's The Point. They continue to make snarky comments that nobody is in favor of. Over 13,000 posts repeating the same things over and over again in black and white. This is a gray subject and even those in favor of a rollback mostly don't want it for Ams, yet they throw 💩 out there about how we want to set the clock back to courses and players from the 50's and 60's. 🙄 It reached a peak with this ridiculous comment: we want everyone to hit 265 yd drives. The only thing us old schoolers are interested in returning to is common courtesy and respect for others opinions. So in the nobody cares category I'm out and I leave them with this:

 

 

Instead of talking about wanting everyone to hit 265 yard drives, I would like to see elite players play with drivers (and fairway woods) with a COR of about persimmon, and heads about the same size as in 1985.  If the modern athlete can hit the ball 300 with that equipment, game on!  That would make their accomplishments very impressive.

[ThinkingPlus]

5 minutes ago, gvogel said:

I always listen to what you say.  You seem to have a lot of knowledge about golf balls and equipment ... almost like you work in the industry.

Nope. STEM degree plus working more than 30 years in aerospace/defense. However, I have always tried to understand the technical aspects of golf, both equipment and swing, in order to play better. Occupational hazard. It also means all the fluffy, subjective arguments are largely incomprehensible to me.

[GoGoErky]

45 minutes ago, ThinkingPlus said:

Nope. STEM degree plus working more than 30 years in aerospace/defense. However, I have always tried to understand the technical aspects of golf, both equipment and swing, in order to play better. Occupational hazard. It also means all the fluffy, subjective arguments are largely incomprehensible to me.

Not surprised as the laughing emoji reaction you got. Good reply 

[farmer]

For the hundredth time, no OEM is going to build a club that cannot be sold to the vast, vast majority of players who do not hit it too far.  It could be done, but the R&D costs will be paid by me, the Thinker and every other person buying a club of any size.

As an aside, the three point shot upended basketball at every level.

[Titleist99]

24 minutes ago, farmer said:

For the hundredth time, no OEM is going to build a club that cannot be sold to the vast, vast majority of players who do not hit it too far.  It could be done, but the R&D costs will be paid by me, the Thinker and every other person buying a club of any size.

As an aside, the three point shot upended basketball at every level.

LOL! ...... The domination of the 3 point shot was born out of analytics just like the bomb and gouge in golf. I kinda agree with you. 😃😃

[mgoblue83]

27 minutes ago, farmer said:

For the hundredth time, no OEM is going to build a club that cannot be sold to the vast, vast majority of players who do not hit it too far.  It could be done, but the R&D costs will be paid by me, the Thinker and every other person buying a club of any size.

As an aside, the three point shot upended basketball at every level.

 

You cannot compare this to 3 point shots in basketball or really any other evolution in sport that isn't related to equipment.

 

Teams figured out 3 pointers are the most efficient way to score and players started taking more and more of them but NOTHING else changed to make it easier to do.

 

In golf the players realized how much of an advantage distance is so they worked harder to get faster (not a problem at all) and at the same time the golf ball and equipment have made it SO MUCH EASIER to consistently keep it in play while swinging fast.

 

Absolutely nobody would have a problem with 350 yard drives using equipment that requires real skill to accomplish it (John Daly in the 90s). The problem is when literally every professional and high level amateur can drive it near 300 yards or farther without any fear of mishits.

[AZBRONCFAN]

How was the roll back to 30 years come to be? I mean if we are rolling it back, shouldn't we roll it back to hickory shafts and feather filled balls?

[bekgolf]

8 minutes ago, AZBRONCFAN said:

How was the roll back to 30 years come to be? I mean if we are rolling it back, shouldn't we roll it back to hickory shafts and feather filled balls?

 

It goes back to the era when Jack was the supreme golf being.  Memberberries.

[Pnwpingi210]

12 minutes ago, bekgolf said:

 

It goes back to the era when Jack was the supreme golf being.  Memberberries.

Rolling it back 20 yards (the intent of the rollback per USGA and RA) for the longest hitters (Rory) putts his average drive around 300.  
 

jack averaged 265….so I think you may be exaggerating a bit? 

[bekgolf]

19 minutes ago, Pnwpingi210 said:

.so I think you may be exaggerating a bit? 

 

True statement.