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

[Titleist99]

8 minutes ago, gvogel said:

Golf - the only game I know of where I could hit the ball farther at age 60 than at 30.  And I was a 5 handicap at age 30.

Don't worry, the USGA will take care of that and soon you can go back to being a short knocker......🙂

[bladehunter]

22 minutes ago, gvogel said:

Golf - the only game I know of where I could hit the ball farther at age 60 than at 30.  And I was a 5 handicap at age 30.

You’re not supposed to say that part out loud !  
 

it’s a generational phenomenon.  Wanting to “ live forever “ at the expense of youths future. Very odd and off putting.  

[Stevens24]

Acushnet is upset because the ProV1 rules the golf ball industry. And if the pro's play a different version( which they already do) it can cost them millons. We will see hwere it goes but i would not be surprised if The Open Championship is played with a different ball in the future.

[Mike412]

31 minutes ago, CLEVELAND59 said:

It's a huge difference.  This proposed ball is completely different than anything being made currently.  Sure there are multiple versions of Pro V1's currently but they are from a manufacturing and engineering point of view tweaks upon current designs that have undergone testing and validation.  Making a whole new ball to a whole new set of rules is an incredibly expensive and difficult process.  

I have been around a lot of manufacturing in different industries, mostly building and modifying lines for different models, and I would be surprised if this is a big deal. Titleist manufactures a catalogue of balls from soft to hard with different covers, cores, layers, etc.. Once the balls are designed, manufacturing just isn’t a big deal.

[CLEVELAND59]

2 minutes ago, Mike412 said:

I have been around a lot of manufacturing in different industries, mostly building and modifying lines for different models, and I would be surprised if this is a big deal. Titleist manufactures a catalogue of balls from soft to hard with different covers, cores, layers, etc.. Once the balls are designed, manufacturing just isn’t a big deal.

I am an engineer by trade, and I've designed in the golf industry and in other industries.  We are really looking at a clean sheet design given the drastic change in the rules they are designing to.  Put that with the need to add manufacturing capacity and likely equipment, molds, materials, etc and its not a insignificant change.  We are easily talking in the 10's of millions.

[caniac6]

2 hours 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 ?

I think it will mostly affect the average golfer in the pocket. The OEMs are going to have to spend a ton of money in R&D, and manufacturing to build a ball that will be virtually unsellable. These costs will be passed on to all of us.

Edited March 14, 2023 by caniac6

[hollabachgt]

26 minutes ago, CLEVELAND59 said:

Taking a current design that's been proven and validated and tweaking it versus starting out with a clean slate to a completely different standard.  We are talking millions to create a golf ball for a very very small segment of the game.  That cost will be passed along not only in terms of the cost of that ball for those who aren't at the highest levels (who likely would receive them gratis) but are mandated to use that ball but to the cost of other balls and products as well.  

you mean like the $11 million Southern Hills spent recently on their course, or the $12 million Oakland Hills spent on the south course, or the $14 million spent on Torrey Pines, or the $17 million Baltusrol spent on the lower course, or the $20 million Colonial spent on their course, or the $24 million spent on Harding Park, or the $25 million Augusta National paid for the land behind 13 tee, or the . . . you get the picture.

[gvogel]

10 minutes ago, CLEVELAND59 said:

I am an engineer by trade, and I've designed in the golf industry and in other industries.  We are really looking at a clean sheet design given the drastic change in the rules they are designing to.  Put that with the need to add manufacturing capacity and likely equipment, molds, materials, etc and its not a insignificant change.  We are easily talking in the 10's of millions.

I bet that Titleist will have to tweak the core a bit, but the other parts of a Pro V1 will be easily transferred.  I also bet that they have already engineered this; they just don't want to market it, because of the fear of losing market share.

[Mike412]

13 minutes ago, CLEVELAND59 said:

I am an engineer by trade, and I've designed in the golf industry and in other industries.  We are really looking at a clean sheet design given the drastic change in the rules they are designing to.  Put that with the need to add manufacturing capacity and likely equipment, molds, materials, etc and its not a insignificant change.  We are easily talking in the 10's of millions.

I have to disagree, they’ve been in the golf ball game too long with too many models with all kinds of different characteristics to not know which direction to go with this right now.
 

Will it cost? Yeah, everything does. I think what we may see in the future is companies bidding on the yearly or multi-year contract to supply all the balls on tour that adhere to the guidelines. Much like we see in other products geared to a specific use.

[hollabachgt]

15 minutes ago, CLEVELAND59 said:

I am an engineer by trade, and I've designed in the golf industry and in other industries.  We are really looking at a clean sheet design given the drastic change in the rules they are designing to.  Put that with the need to add manufacturing capacity and likely equipment, molds, materials, etc and its not a insignificant change.  We are easily talking in the 10's of millions.

 

From the notice this morning, the MLR ball will be tested with ALC values of 127mph, 11* launch and 2200 rpm spin. While all other balls will still use the ALC values of 120mph, 10* launch, and 2520 rpm spin. With the ODS the same at 317 +/- 3 yards. Those are the only technical specs listed in the notice. Please tell me how this is a drastic change and would require a clean sheet of paper? This feels like an Pro V1x vs AVX type comparison.

[Poor Mans Ty Webb]

2 hours ago, wildcatden said:

Other ways to change the game: Limit the driver to 38" long and they MUST use driver on all par 4's and par 5's.

 

I mean if we are going to go nuts, let's go all the way.

Bladed irons only.  Ban all fairway woods and hybrids at the Tour level.

[MattC555]

15 minutes ago, gvogel said:

I bet that Titleist will have to tweak the core a bit, but the other parts of a Pro V1 will be easily transferred.  I also bet that they have already engineered this; they just don't want to market it, because of the fear of losing market share.

 

I enjoy the arm chair engineering.  I constantly design stuff to specs I've never seen. 😂

 

The reality will be whether it makes financial sense for Titleist to create a totally new ball - because you are talking about a large up front NRE and tooling spend.  Probably would be, but I'm an engineer not an MBA. 

[kasting333]

22 minutes ago, Obee said:

 

It's not at all because it's all of those things combined. NOT just scoring.

And the actual carry numbers are irrelevant. Do you deny that many otherwise elite courses have out of date fairway bunkering?

Abstract arguments without specifics aren't worth having. 

 

Do you deny that many elite courses have up to date modern bunkering? 

 

[bekgolf]

8 minutes ago, hollabachgt said:

 

From the notice this morning, the MLR ball will be tested with ALC values of 127mph, 11* launch and 2200 rpm spin. While all other balls will still use the ALC values of 120mph, 10* launch, and 2520 rpm spin. With the ODS the same at 317 +/- 3 yards. Those are the only technical specs listed in the notice. Please tell me how this is a drastic change and would require a clean sheet of paper? This feels like an Pro V1x vs AVX type comparison.

 

One benefit would be a serious reduction in quantity of "Number one ball on tour" commercials during broadcasts. 

[kasting333]

1 hour ago, Golfnutgalen said:

 

That's more than I expected at 290+. This season is far from complete, so the best stat we have is last year's 27.9% over 290. Let's compare that to 2007 when Tiger was at his peak - and also the oldest available data:

 

290+ Carry

• 2007: 2% (4/196)
• 2022: 28% (54/193)

 

Average carry distance

• 2007: 265.7
• 2022: 282.9

You might realize that, but I think most fans would be shocked to learn that a majority of tour pros aren't averaging 290+ carry.

 

I also wouldn't attribute any of those distance gains from 2007-2022 to the golf ball. 

[bekgolf]

1 hour ago, gvogel said:

Golf - the only game I know of where I could hit the ball farther at age 60 than at 30.  And I was a 5 handicap at age 30.

 

Maybe I'm reading this wrong? 

 

What I'm getting is that you now hit the ball farther but your index has gone up in spite of the longer distance?  It's almost as if skill is still needed above all other things including how far you hit the ball.

[CLEVELAND59]

4 minutes ago, hollabachgt said:

you mean like the $11 million Southern Hills spent recently on their course, or the $12 million Oakland Hills spent on the south course, or the $14 million spent on Torrey Pines, or the $17 million Baltusrol spent on the lower course, or the $20 million Colonial spent on their course, or the $24 million spent on Harding Park, or the $25 million Augusta National paid for the land behind 13 tee, or the . . . you get the picture.

To me some of that is purely vanity money.  Of the examples you cited Torrey, Augusta National and Colonial are the only ones who host tour events annually.  The rest host major professional or amateur events every few years and quite frankly I question whether or not those courses actually needed to make significant changes or if it was more of the membership saying "omg that guy shot 15 under on our course and that's unacceptable and we need to make a championship set of tees that makes me feel better about the even par I shoot every week from the member tees", because that's a reality too.  And the other point I'd like to make is that a lot of the money spent on these refurbs wasn't spent on the course itself, much of it was in the areas of infrastructure, ranging from irrigation systems, sub air systems and the like, regrading areas to allow for more tournament infrastructure such as hospitality tents, spectator viewing.  These are choices these clubs are making out of some sense that these are changes they need to make in order to be able to continue to be part of the picture to host events going forward and I'm not sold that's the case at all at least in the terms of the physical course design itself....the work done to increase the infrastructure in terms of hospitality tents, spectator viewing options etc. may be more true.  

 

As for places you cite like Agusta spending $25 million, not really a fair example due to the circumstances regarding the purchase of that land.  The land they purchased had a background bidding war and some other considerations that drove the price well beyond what it was expected to be.  Harding Park spending $24 million on its face looks enormous but then you have to subtract from that number all the costs in that project that had nothing to do with the course itself but to the further development of the course for public use that had no relation to the actual physical golf course itself so far as its design or layout for tournament play.

 

I'll give you an example of a course that just went through a complete redo and that is Oak Hill East, which will host the PGA Championship this year.  They didn't go the route of making the course as long as they could stretch it, building new tees to increase the length, etc.  Instead they went for a restoration of the original Ross design from when it was built.  It actually removed some of the tees that had been added, rebuilt all the greens, restored bunkers, returned to its traditional routing.  And having seen it first hand I can tell you this course will give a tremendous test of golf this May without having to be tricked up, tricked up, elongated, and turned into an unrecognizable course.  

[caniac6]

24 minutes ago, Poor Mans Ty Webb said:

Bladed irons only.  Ban all fairway woods and hybrids at the Tour level.

Min Woo Lee hit his driving iron almost 300 yards.

[kasting333]

2 minutes ago, caniac6 said:

Min Woo Lee hit his driving iron almost 300 yards.

Edited March 14, 2023 by kasting333

[m d g]

2 hours ago, kasting333 said:

Outlaw flop shots and dancing while we're at it

I like the cut of your jib.

[Golfnutgalen]

2 minutes ago, kasting333 said:

You might realize that, but I think most fans would be shocked to learn that a majority of tour pros aren't averaging 290+ carry.

 

I also wouldn't attribute any of those distance gains from 2007-2022 to the golf ball. 

I wouldn't attribute those gains to the golf ball either. From 2007 until now it's probably due to optimizing launch angles and spin rates first combined with even stronger faster players and In the elephant in the room low spinning forgiving drivers. 

 

If they really wanted a rollback to prior standards they would limit the driver size, but I can understand why they aren't going there because it's much simpler to just focus on the ball. 

[Poor Mans Ty Webb]

15 minutes ago, caniac6 said:

Min Woo Lee hit his driving iron almost 300 yards.

Sure, but it ain't a bladed iron, now is it?

 

I'd also like to see him hit a bladed 2 iron 300 yards out of 4-6" of Bermuda rough.

Edited March 14, 2023 by Poor Mans Ty Webb

[subrew]

34 minutes ago, hollabachgt said:

 

From the notice this morning, the MLR ball will be tested with ALC values of 127mph, 11* launch and 2200 rpm spin. While all other balls will still use the ALC values of 120mph, 10* launch, and 2520 rpm spin. With the ODS the same at 317 +/- 3 yards. Those are the only technical specs listed in the notice. Please tell me how this is a drastic change and would require a clean sheet of paper? This feels like an Pro V1x vs AVX type comparison.

 

Indeed.  The new Titleist ProV1-C "conform" will likely be a ball that 95% of average players should be playing.  Something like a 70 compression ball with good feel, that they might actually hit a tad farther off the driver with their 90mph swing speed.

[Shilgy]

41 minutes ago, hollabachgt said:

you mean like the $11 million Southern Hills spent recently on their course, or the $12 million Oakland Hills spent on the south course, or the $14 million spent on Torrey Pines, or the $17 million Baltusrol spent on the lower course, or the $20 million Colonial spent on their course, or the $24 million spent on Harding Park, or the $25 million Augusta National paid for the land behind 13 tee, or the . . . you get the picture.

Your examples are disingenuousat best.  For example….yes Southern Hills added 300 yards but a massive bulk of the restoration was unrelated to added length.

https://www.oklahoman.com/story/sports/pga/2022/05/09/2022-pga-championship-southern-hills-course-changes-gil-hanse-restoration/9627727002/

 

Same with Baltusrol

https://www.baltusrol.org/lower-course-restoration

 

Same same same.

 

Course need restorations as they age.  New greens….bunkers….you name it they don’t last forever.

So to blame it all on length is incorrect.

[hollabachgt]

5 minutes ago, Shilgy said:

Your examples are disingenuousat best.  For example….yes Southern Hills added 300 yards but a massive bulk of the restoration was unrelated to added length.

https://www.oklahoman.com/story/sports/pga/2022/05/09/2022-pga-championship-southern-hills-course-changes-gil-hanse-restoration/9627727002/

 

Same with Baltusrol

https://www.baltusrol.org/lower-course-restoration

 

Same same same.

 

Course need restorations as they age.  New greens….bunkers….you name it they don’t last forever.

So to blame it all on length is incorrect.

I, and the poster I was replying to didn't speak to length. They commented that it would be more cost effective to "tweak" courses to fit the current ball than it would be to have to build a new ball from scratch. I was just pointing out how much money is being spent to tweak courses in an attempt to stay professionally relevant.

[QuigleyDU]

I did say I was not going to post in this thread but I have a thought based on talking to people deep in R&D at a few different OEMs I feel is worth fleshing out. 

 

My thought is, you narrow the lane for these brilliant minds and I think they get better. By the time this rule takes effect. They will have figured out a way to both pass the tests implemented by the USGA and have zero limits or hindrances on actual performance.. 

Edited March 14, 2023 by QuigleyDU

[Shilgy]

5 minutes ago, Golfnutgalen said:

I wouldn't attribute those gains to the golf ball either. From 2007 until now it's probably due to optimizing launch angles and spin rates first combined with even stronger faster players and In the elephant in the room low spinning forgiving drivers. 

 

If they really wanted a rollback to prior standards they would limit the driver size, but I can understand why they aren't going there because it's much simpler to just focus on the ball. 

The first part I wholeheartedly agree with…..but driver size? What do you think that would accomplish?  They’re not hitting it all over the face so a reduced size would mean nothing imo.

 

They average distance has gone up mostly because there are more good players on tour.  And they are good AND long.  So the average goes up.  30 years ago a Daly, Couples or Love were 20-30 yards longer than the average player. Last year there were only 2 players as much as 20 yards longer than the average. Simply because they are all long.  
  The average in the last 15 years or so has gone up less because of equipment changes than that simple fact that there are just more good long players.  And when you take two players of equal skill in all aspects of the game but one is 20 yards longer the long player is effectively “better”.  Nothing you can do to alleviate that fact.

[Shilgy]

6 minutes ago, hollabachgt said:

I, and the poster I was replying to didn't speak to length. They commented that it would be more cost effective to "tweak" courses to fit the current ball than it would be to have to build a new ball from scratch. I was just pointing out how much money is being spent to tweak courses in an attempt to stay professionally relevant.

But most of the restoration work  was to restore what was lost over the years.  The ability to hold major events at Southern Hills, for example, was an added benefit.  Most of the work needed to be done even without professional events.

[MattC555]

1 minute ago, QuigleyDU said:

I did say I was not going to post in this thread but I have a thought based on talking to people deep in R&D at a few different OEMs I feel is worth fleshing out. 

 

My thought is, you narrow the lane for these brilliant minds and I think they get better. By the time this rule takes effect. They will have figured out a way to both pass the tests implemented by the USGA and have zero limits or hindrances on actual performance.. 

 

Totally agree.  The proposed local rule is limited to a very specific criteria.  I'm sure they'll find ways around it.

[Naptime]

OK with me.  The trend to lengthening holes is needlessly expensive and wasteful IMHO.