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

[wfrogge1]

Just now, nosedive32 said:

 

They say this but there is obviously going to be a trickle effect on the average golfer. OEMs will have to put money into R&D to design elite competition balls. I highly doubt that will be in addition to their current budget on balls for the masses.

 

This means less progress and innovation for the average golfer. Best case is likely ball technology for everyone else becomes stagnant moving forward.

 

In the hypothetical they remove the initial velocity test as discussed to benefit amateurs there may actually be some benefit, but I'm skeptical any company not named Callaway (because of non traditional golf revenue such as top golf) would pour the required money into R&D f=to take advantage of that.

Guessing they have years worth of R&D in their back pocket that is ready for market so for the mid-terrm we will be ok. 

[caniac6]

1 minute ago, nosedive32 said:

 

They say this but there is obviously going to be a trickle effect on the average golfer. OEMs will have to put money into R&D to design elite competition balls. I highly doubt that will be in addition to their current budget on balls for the masses.

 

This means less progress and innovation for the average golfer. Best case is likely ball technology for everyone else becomes stagnant moving forward.

 

In the hypothetical they remove the initial velocity test as discussed to benefit amateurs there may actually be some benefit, but I'm skeptical any company not named Callaway (because of non traditional golf revenue such as top golf) would pour the required money into R&D f=to take advantage of that.

I’m ok if remains stagnant for the average player. Just don’t go back.

[gvogel]

Since the modified ball rule won't go into effect until 2026 (and then only for select elite competitions), you all can complain for another 2-1/2 years. 

 

But by that time most of you will have gone to the gym, bulked up, read up on Bryson's distance paradigm, bought a new driver - so what's the big deal?

[JessD]

The outrage over this is hilarious lol

 

Roll the ball back for everyone. I'm tired of cosplayers playing the tips or tees longer than their own game and spraying the ball all over the place. Rounds are near 5-6 hours because of egos.

 

As said by others in this thread, this could help shorter courses remain relevant. It's crazy to demand that courses redo their designs or landscaping instead of changing a cheap ball.

[bscinstnct]

So it’s all based on the ball not carrying over 317 yards in the tests at the specified swing speed 

 

They want to raise the speed from 120mph to 127, there’s up to 3 yards of gained distance per mph of speed so the ball would need to be rolled back so only guys who swing 127mph can carry 317.

 

Is that right?

 

And then most guys who swing like 115-120 would lose up to 20 yards with the new ball. 
 

It’s not fair to make guys who played a ball their whole lives adjust to a such a different ball as adults. They gotta make the rule take effect for college kids and actually top juniors ideally. 
 

But I think maybe they will just increase the test swing speed by like 2-3mph and the “roll back” will be under 10 yards but at least they “capped” distance for now

[gaffs]

A modification to the tour pro ball is the most sensible thing to do. It feels like the least disruptive change.

 

You cant keep lengthening courses. Stokes gained shows that length is the biggest factor in lower scoring.

 

Manufacturers don't want to stop the club innovation because it's what makes them their money.

 

This may allow the tours to start including more interesting courses to the schedule and may even allow some of the shorter players to compete again.

 

People shouldn't worry - Tour Pros will still be hitting a limited ball miles.

[kasting333]

57 minutes ago, hollabachgt said:

The USGA has done it in the past with the ball.

The slope is slippery so why not slide down it, amirite?

[PracticeSwinger]

31 minutes ago, caniac6 said:

According to the ruling bodies, this won’t affect the recreational golfer, so I really don’t understand the outrage. I have no control what these knuckleheads decide. The game is extremely strong at the club level. I just hope they are not stupid enough to screw it up at that level.

I agree with this in principle... I'm just wondering if it won't affect it indirectly - companies uses 'winningest ball on Tour' to sell them to us (and you just have to look at the Pro-V1s threads in the sub-section to see what WRXers play) ... will it become : 'play the spinny marshmellow Rory uses' or 'longest hackers dead ball allowed, the Ams-V1X !'... tough sell on both accounts : where will WRXers fall ?

[Hawkeye77]

1 hour ago, TLUBulldogGolf said:

 

So they abandoned a change to the driver for the time being. I just don't see this really doing enough, but it does sound like they have the manufacturers on board. 

 

Total guess - the language about not making changes that are club related is the result of discussions/study/possible compromise/possible "could be worse don't push it"/any other possibility I'm not coming up with, lol. 

[tungstenplug]

It's almost as if golf holes were designed with a certain driving distance in mind, and then over time that distance increased. Would love to bring back the designers' original intentions, and test the best tournament golfers accordingly

 

 

[PracticeSwinger]

14 minutes ago, gvogel said:

But by that time most of you will have gone to the gym, bulked up, read up on Bryson's distance paradigm, bought a new driver - so what's the big deal?

Why... I'll just use my Ams-V1X to drive it past elite players in a few years!

[gaffs]

8 minutes ago, bscinstnct said:

 

It’s not fair to make guys who played a ball their whole lives adjust to a such a different ball as adults. They gotta make the rule take effect for college kids and actually top juniors ideally. 

 

My heart bleeds for them.

 

The ball they play changes year on year anyway. The manufacturers are tweaking each year. They will get used to this.

[CLEVELAND59]

There's an old line about those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it.  This is exactly the case here.  There was a time where the R&A ahd USGA had different ball specs and played under different rules.  They were very different.  So after a whole lot of grandstanding by a bunch of grumpy old men on both sides of the fence as to whose rules were better and why that went on for a very long time, somehow common sense prevailed and there was an agreement on a common ball because 2 balls caused nothing but issues and headaches and everyone agreed that bifurcation was a bad thing for the sport.  And that began a series of agreements and changes to unify and make common the rules of golf for all competitors regardless of location or level.   In 2002 the 2 bodies held a summit and they agreed again that bifurcation was not at all in the best interest of the sport.  

 

Now here we are a generation or 2 later and the same 2 bodies are telling us that the sport needs bifurcation?  All it really shows is exactly how ignorant the supposed leadership of the game truly is when it comes to the USGA and R&A.  

[kasting333]

2 minutes ago, tungstenplug said:

It's almost as if golf holes were designed with a certain driving distance in mind, and then over time that distance increased. Would love to bring back the designers' original intentions, and test the best tournament golfers accordingly

 

 

Soooo protect par at all cost

[The Aspidistra in the Hall]

2 minutes ago, tungstenplug said:

It's almost as if golf holes were designed with a certain driving distance in mind, and then over time that distance increased. Would love to bring back the designers' original intentions, and test the best tournament golfers accordingly

 

 

What? And mandatory shot shaping in both directions as fundamental skillset. Why, I do believe you are taking us back to persimmon drivers, blade irons with competition feedback. Galleries going wild at the skill on display, no more bomb and gouge....it'll never catch on.

[Bonneville85308]

16 hours ago, bekgolf said:

 

It's a solution to a problem that doesn't exist.  So what if today's pros are scoring lower?  Lowest score will always win.

 

Protecting par is as easy as rerating holes.  With that said I've never understood the whole "protecting par" aspect.

 

Your thoughts on this are exactly the same as mine...and it seems like this never gets mentioned in these "rollback" discussions. So what if the lowest score for 18 holes in a pro event ends up being a 52? Seriously, what the hell does it matter? Leave the course and the ball alone where they are now. Lowest score wins and everyone in the event is competing on equal terms. This affects such a tiny fraction of a percent of golfers anyway.

[mizuno player]

I don't care. Just don't pass along the costs of designing a new ball. Manufacturing it. Then give it away for free with zero return on investment.  Oh wait. That's exactly what they will do. For that reason. I'm out.   

 

 

 

 

[smashdn]

1 hour ago, TheDominator273 said:

So the new test for a conforming ball is it needs to be less than 320 yards carry based on 127 mph club head speed and 11° launch and 2,220 rpm spin.

 

1.5 smash on 127 mph club speed is 190.5 ball speed, which at 11° launch and 2,220 spin is 315.5 yards of carry on the Flightscope Trajectory Optimizer

 

 

 

That seems plenty to me.  If you want to hit it farther, swing faster - at the risk of it flying into the next county.

[Long_Left]

10 hours ago, nauticaltownship said:

Since the idea of bifurcation is upsetting so many people, here's my explanation for why it's a good idea: the professional games gotten too one dimensional. Even on 480 yard holes, players are hitting driver wedge. The solution to this is not to take all the character out of the courses by further narrowing fairways and growing rough, since this would make the pro game even more one dimensional. By requiring a spinner ball that goes shorter, pros will be required to be more creative and have a bigger variety of shots. The goal isn't to "protect par" and increase scores, but to bring back aspects of the game that were lost since technology eliminated them. An extreme of this would be if the MLB allowed tech in bats to get so out of control that every at bat was either a strike out or a home run. Something would be lost in the game of baseball, so a return to wood bats would restore the integrity of the game. 

 

"Gotten too one dimensional" is simply an opinion. There is a percentage of elite golfers who have a distance advantage over their peers. This fact has not changed in the last 100+ years. Articles to this effect have been written since the turn of the 20th century. 

 

"Even on 480 yard holes..." PGA Tour average driver club speed is 114mph, and average distance is 297.xx. So can some players hit it 330+ and potentially have a wedge in? Of course. Can the average tour player? No, unless it's downwind and the fairway is running 8+ and firm, and then the big hitters are hitting it 400. If you roll the pro ball back, reclaim some land, and make that par 4 450 yards, will the top tier of hitters be able to still hit a wedge in? 100%! If you keep that hole at 480, and average distance drops from 297 to 277, the average player is now hitting 5 or 6 iron from 200 vs 6 or 7 iron from 180. Does that make the game more "traditional?"

 

Personal anecdote, I know this change doesn't impact me, but it feels relevant: I started playing golf in the early 90s with a persimmon 3w as my longest club that was so rotted that the only place you could hit it was the insert, all roll, no bulge, OG twisted face. I learned to swing it and outdrove my buddies. 30 years later I hit a 460cc Titanium driver, and I still hit it longer than my college buddies when we met up last year, because I move the clubhead faster while making similar, or better, contact. One of those buddies just started intense speed training, I don't expect him to seriously decline in ball striking ability, because I don't believe the old wives tales.

 

Equipment changes change nothing at all but will make the game less enjoyable to watch.

 

The game has changed because of GPS, and civilian doppler radar, and high precision optics, digital photo sensors and microprocessors and phenomenally precise mowers, and soil science and nutrition and sport science. "Ball go too far" isn't it, never has been.

 

The ball flight laws have changed in the last 15 years! So we believed something that was wrong for the first 150+ years of golf being played because we had no means to measure it precisely. Knowledge and information have changed this game, the only thing left is the opinion of that change.

 

[bscinstnct]

13 minutes ago, gaffs said:

 

My heart bleeds for them.

 

The ball they play changes year on year anyway. The manufacturers are tweaking each year. They will get used to this.

 

It’s not going to happen.

 

Mainly because it’s not like the average/shorter players gain anything. They will just have the number…

 

“255 carry” next to their name on the shot tracker on TV 🤣

 

So all the pros will lobby against it. 

 

 

Edited March 14, 2023 by bscinstnct

[Nard_S]

I joined up as a single last year with guys who "bombed" it. On the 18th, 340 yards , elevated tee. If you go high enough over trees you can hit the green. 2 of 3 came within 20 yards. I didn't hater it or was I super impressed. I just thought, 'if these guys did this with a King Cobra DF from 1995, that would be impressive, this here, not so much". I'm 59 and longer than ever and yes it's the ball & the driver. A great swing is a great swing and if result is 240 or 270 or 300 it is all rather meaningless & irrelevant in comparison to a great pass at the ball.

[kasting333]

The local rule already exists so why hasn't the USGA and R&A proved to us that this change to the ball is what's best for the game? 

[Hawkeye77]

Since it's never going to affect me, I don't really have a rooting interest in any dog in this fight.  Issues with ball and equipment are definitely real, certain aspects of equipment, including balls are regulated in other sports in various ways.  This looks to affect, if anything comes of it in whatever way it does, only the elite in the game and I assume there will be a lot more discussion and back and forth among governing bodies, manufacturers and players the next several months and few years.  The fact the horse has been out of the barn for so long does make it seem more dramatic than if the issue had been attended to on a more regular and consistent basis, but that wouldn't seem to be a reason to do nothing.  I've been a little disappointed it hasn't been handled better the last 20 years, but I enjoy getting basically the same distance I was getting 20 years ago ---- the only time it gets to me is thinking if I was say, 28 years old now, the distances I'd be getting! Darn!

[PJE]

1 hour ago, gvogel said:

ARe you kidding me?  They roll the ball back 15 yards and they are still going to be very long.

 

The USGA didn't go far enough.  Game is a better game when the players have to hit more clubs in the bag.

If the USGA of today was around when Gene Sarazen invented the sand wedge, they would have outlawed sand wedges. 

The self appointed guardians of the game are snobs and generally incompetent. They are more worried about their elite home clubs becoming "obsolete" (only because they think par is sacred) than anything else.  This mind set is why they consistently screw up pin placements in the US Open, e.g., Shinnecock (twice as I recall), the Olympic Club, etc.  It's the same mind set that drives their worry about how far around a miniscule number of golfers out of 21 million or so non professional or elite golfers hit the ball. 

I've played golf since the days persimmon woods and balata balls.  Pros back then were long but they're longer today and I think it's awesome. 

Most amateur players don't play in competitions and they can't hit the ball out of their own shadow. Not going far enough is not a good thing. I'm older now and I am glad I can still hit a ball a reasonable distance thanks to modern technology.  ( I don't trust the USGA as far as bifurcation for elite competitions. I think it's plausible everyone ends up with a reduced distance ball for various reaons; but I have to get back to work, so enough ranting for now.)

Edited March 14, 2023 by PJE

[geesecougar2]

Limit pro drivers to 360cc and 45". Limit wedges to 56*. Much more elegant solution.

Edited March 14, 2023 by geesecougar2

[dwboston]

1 hour ago, Ferguson said:

 

I believe your approach is valid but it alters the design's original character.  Don't get me wrong, I am all for removing damaged trees and moving dirt for better drainage, but change the course to deal with distance?  No. 

 

 

 

How is growing the grass longer (or watering differently) altering the character of the design?   Most greens are far quicker today than they were 100 years ago.  How is this any different? Golf courses evolve with time as agronomy improves.  It seems that growing the rough and fairways would cut down a bit on course maintenance costs.  Win-win and less intrusive than mandating an arbitrary ball standard. 

[dwboston]

25 minutes ago, MtlJayMan said:

I agree with this in principle... I'm just wondering if it won't affect it indirectly - companies uses 'winningest ball on Tour' to sell them to us (and you just have to look at the Pro-V1s threads in the sub-section to see what WRXers play) ... will it become : 'play the spinny marshmellow Rory uses' or 'longest hackers dead ball allowed, the Ams-V1X !'... tough sell on both accounts : where will WRXers fall ?

 

AVX will be the hot new Tour ball.

[Ferguson]

1 minute ago, dwboston said:

 

How is growing the grass longer (or watering differently) altering the character of the design?   Most greens are far quicker today than they were 100 years ago.  How is this any different? Golf courses evolve with time as agronomy improves.  It seems that growing the rough and fairways would cut down a bit on course maintenance costs.  Win-win and less intrusive than mandating an arbitrary ball standard. 

 

If a fairway is designed to have a ball that's hit too long to runout beyond edge of dogleg (and  possibly to a bunker or trees)  it should be allowed to runout.   Growing the rough stops the ball and thus alters the look, design and how the hole is played. 

 

 

 

[dmecca2]

34 minutes ago, JessD said:

The outrage over this is hilarious lol

 

Roll the ball back for everyone. I'm tired of cosplayers playing the tips or tees longer than their own game and spraying the ball all over the place. Rounds are near 5-6 hours because of egos.

 

As said by others in this thread, this could help shorter courses remain relevant. It's crazy to demand that courses redo their designs or landscaping instead of changing a cheap ball.

Not opposed to a general rollback or what this seems to be, which is a better limit to what we currently have, but rounds are not 5-6 hours because of egos. They're 5-6 hours long because it takes members 4 shots to hit a par 4. No one hits the ball too far except the 3 pros that average over 320.

[Titleist99]

1 hour ago, Mike412 said:

Disagree. I want to see the players play a full bag of clubs. If all I cared about is distance I’d turn on a long drive competition. 

Who knows if they'll be considered elite golfers.🙂Having a long drive competition while rolling the golf ball back seems rather ridiculous to me.......

 

We do know that this nonsense will trickle down to all elite Amateur players and maybe some elite club players...

Edited March 14, 2023 by Titleist99