Time to move on from USGA and R&A?

[BIG STU]

3 hours ago, Roody said:

 

^^This. I plan on doing the same. I'll play the current technology golf ball until I run out of them, and then I'll have to adjust to the new ones. And when it hits 2025 or 2026 or whenever they decide to put the new rule in place, if I still have some of the current balls I will still play them. I don't get into too many "official" tournaments anymore, so I don't see why anyone would care what I do with my weekend games. 

I did this a lot before I was injured. I played with vintage clubs which by the Almighty USGA rules are deemed "non conforming" because they have not been tested and approved and on some list. I still play vintage irons and balata or wound balls on a little Par3 up the road from me. Now in my league play etc I play the more modern stuff with graphite etc because of my back and shoulder issues. That permits me in my retirement to play 3 to 5 days a week. As far as me playing I play what I darn well please. If you or anyone else tees it up with me play any clubs and balls you like it is more than fine with me. 

[golfortennis]

Michael Breed had a good point quite some time ago:  There is nothing stopping the PGA Tour, PGA of America, or some other organization from coming up with their own rules.  We simply choose to follow the USGA or R&A rules, mostly "because that's how it's always been done."  But there is no hard and fast law.  The only thing those orgs really have are their championships.  But as far as rules go, why couldn't someone come up with a new set?

[MelloYello]

If Mike Whan is in charge of it, I'm on board. 

 

Where he goes, tides rise and everyone ends up better for it. You can't have a better leader than him and the standards governing the game can't be in better hands IMHO.

 

He's as rational and data-driven as it gets while being sensible, balanced and more than willing to listen to all parties in things like this. Whan is a guy who's going to attack an issue and get the right thing(s) done instead of just talking. That's what a leader should be doing. 

 

His team obviously met with all parties over an extended period of time and developed a final plan (after many iterations) that everyone can live with.

 

Pretty clear to me he's making the smartest move. 

 

.

Edited December 6, 2023 by MelloYello

[Nels55]

The roll back will have very little to no effect on recreational golfers:
https://golf.com/gear/golf-balls/golf-ball-rollback-official-what-it-means/

[Nels55]

Oops posted twice, anyway it seems like the ball will be a marshmallow at 127 mph and virtually the same at lower speeds maybe 100 mph.  This change will close the gap for shorter hitters.

Edited December 6, 2023 by Nels55

[brucedeuce]

PGA Tour used to be the only Pro tour too.

 

Let’s see LIV play by existing specifications that most ball manufacturers agree with and most golfers want to remain the same.  See if the USGA and R&A change their tune like they did with biurification.

Edited December 7, 2023 by brucedeuce

[Warrior42111]

14 hours ago, Nels55 said:

This change will close the gap for shorter hitters.

Kind of seems like it takes a skill set away from some. To me it's like saying you're too fast in football you have to wear some weights to slow you down or you can't play basketball over a certain height. 

 

A straight 15 yard reduction for all would make more sense from a competition standpoint at the profession level. Why take a skill and ability someone has an reduce it but not for others? OF course this idea sucks for 99% of normal golfers. 

[5oclockhitter]

1 hour ago, Warrior42111 said:

Kind of seems like it takes a skill set away from some. To me it's like saying you're too fast in football you have to wear some weights to slow you down or you can't play basketball over a certain height. 

 

A straight 15 yard reduction for all would make more sense from a competition standpoint at the profession level. Why take a skill and ability someone has an reduce it but not for others? OF course this idea sucks for 99% of normal golfers. 

Couldn't agree more, I understand the handicapping system and why the weekend golfer Needs it and enjoys it, however there is no handicapping system in competition for a reason, we want to see who is the best, not who is the best relative to what they normally shoot. With that being the case,  I hate the idea of someone like myself suffering because I am someone who has an okay short game and suspect irons but can bomb the golf ball (125,130 SS) which allows me to still shoot decent scores. You wouldn't make a sprinter who is faster than the others start farther back in the Olympics,  if you want to move the line back do it for everyone 

[Nels55]

3 hours ago, Warrior42111 said:

Kind of seems like it takes a skill set away from some. To me it's like saying you're too fast in football you have to wear some weights to slow you down or you can't play basketball over a certain height. 

 

A straight 15 yard reduction for all would make more sense from a competition standpoint at the profession level. Why take a skill and ability someone has an reduce it but not for others? OF course this idea sucks for 99% of normal golfers. 

Valid point for sure.  The current measurement system in place already limits how far the ball can go at high speed, 120 mph off the top of my head so there is already an evening out effect in place.  The new rule will simply increase the effect a little bit.  I don't think that it will make much difference at the tour level as far as competition goes but time will tell.   

[BIG STU]

On 12/6/2023 at 2:23 AM, Chunkitgood said:

The USGA equals the people who own and run golf courses.  If you “moved on” from them you wouldn’t have any place to play.

I can see where you are coming from here. It is more than likely true in a lot of places. Here in general it is different. Most course owners here do their own thing and could care less about the USGA. When the anchoring ban went into effect most courses here in the leagues voted to ignore it because a lot of members are retirees with certain issues. My league is independent of management and we have our own officers etc. But like my course owner said one time He and his partner own the course and the USGA R&A did not own or run it or dictate how things are done here. On your part I can see it if a course Is USGA affiliated and runs stipulated events etc.

[Warrior42111]

38 minutes ago, Nels55 said:

Valid point for sure.  The current measurement system in place already limits how far the ball can go at high speed, 120 mph off the top of my head so there is already an evening out effect in place.  The new rule will simply increase the effect a little bit.  I don't think that it will make much difference at the tour level as far as competition goes but time will tell.   

Very well could be true, but my engineering brain is thinking of so much on this. So they have a way to reduce the distance somehow on the ball with the transfer of energy and maybe some aerodynamics? 

 

My next question is say that they get the ball to affect on high swing speeds like they say. Will the ball still travel with dispersion the same? For making numbers easy lets say a SS of 120 and 110 will now produce the same distance. If the club to path is of 2 degrees for both currently the 120 SS will be further offline. The only way to prevent that is to have a ball that can receive a maximum amount of energy. So where does the extra energy from the faster SS go? Back into the club (more wear and tear)? More ball deformation ( that will affect flight on the same shot characteristics) perhaps that's how?

 

And yes I went of the rails technical wise here I'm a nerd at heart. 🤓 

[Oliver Klozoff]

I'm glad they are trying to tame distance and I guess they picked one solution.  But I would have picked a different one.  The problem isn't how far the ball goes but how straight you can hit it at that length.  You wanna make it interesting, then limit clubhead size to < 360cc and watch those drives go into rough.  And while I get the desire to remove trees for various reasons, having 1-2 well placed large trees per hole and tighter fairways would place premiums on accuracy.  Most tour courses are 2x wider and far flatter than my home club.  The forgiveness of the driver both in manufacturing changes and in course design has changed a lot in the past 20 years

Edited December 7, 2023 by Oliver Klozoff

[cardia10]

21 hours ago, MelloYello said:

If Mike Whan is in charge of it, I'm on board. 

 

Where he goes, tides rise and everyone ends up better for it. You can't have a better leader than him and the standards governing the game can't be in better hands IMHO.

 

He's as rational and data-driven as it gets while being sensible, balanced and more than willing to listen to all parties in things like this. Whan is a guy who's going to attack an issue and get the right thing(s) done instead of just talking. That's what a leader should be doing. 

 

His team obviously met with all parties over an extended period of time and developed a final plan (after many iterations) that everyone can live with.

 

Pretty clear to me he's making the smartest move. 

 

.

If the ruling bodies are so on top of it, why did they go against their own survey results to solve a problem in search of an issue (that only a handful of their grandaddy courses have?) Amateur distance has increased about 14 yards in 25 years. Hardly earth shattering and if they represent all golfers, maybe they should focus on the 99%. Of course, I guess the popular thing to do these days is to focus on the vocal minority.

[BCC1898]

They made this so much more complicated than it needed to be.  You make it on Tour, you get a ball that goes 10% shorter (or whatever).  It wouldn't be that big of deal.  Instead, they are doing something that adversely affects 99% of players for a problem that honestly negatively affects NOBODY.

[Nels55]

5 hours ago, Warrior42111 said:

Very well could be true, but my engineering brain is thinking of so much on this. So they have a way to reduce the distance somehow on the ball with the transfer of energy and maybe some aerodynamics? 

Basically the softer the ball the less the less rebound off the clubface at higher speed.  A couple of years ago a long drive guy told me that a ProV1 was not conducive to long shots for him because of this effect.  He claimed that he hit range balls farther.  The concept of the rule change is to setup a system of diminishing returns for higher clubhead speeds.  I can see why guys who can hit it far and keep it in play don't like the rule change.

 

There is a guy on Youtube who hits golf balls at super high 'clubhead' speeds with various apparatus and at some point the ball simply disintegrates.  

[knock it close]

5 hours ago, Oliver Klozoff said:

I'm glad they are trying to tame distance and I guess they picked one solution.  But I would have picked a different one.  The problem isn't how far the ball goes but how straight you can hit it at that length.  You wanna make it interesting, then limit clubhead size to < 360cc and watch those drives go into rough.  And while I get the desire to remove trees for various reasons, having 1-2 well placed large trees per hole and tighter fairways would place premiums on accuracy.  Most tour courses are 2x wider and far flatter than my home club.  The forgiveness of the driver both in manufacturing changes and in course design has changed a lot in the past 20 years

Lets look at winged foot, bethpage and oak hill. Narrower fairways than most stops, long rough, still plenty of trees. The winners there? Bryson, Brooks, Brooks. It's almost like when its so narrow that everyone misses fairways that the stronger players get even more of an advantage. 

[dugue4]

Pros have to use wood woods (like pro baseball).  There, problem solved.  Where's my check?

[Nels55]

1 hour ago, dugue4 said:

Pros have to use wood woods (like pro baseball).  There, problem solved.  Where's my check?

The problem is that there are not millions of baseball fans buying new bats every year based on what is working for Mike Trout.

[J13]

The only reason there will be a rollback from amateurs is because ball manufacturers like Titleist fought to not have that happen.  We can blame the USGA but why are ball companies not taking heat?

[bigred90gt]

11 hours ago, knock it close said:

Lets look at winged foot, bethpage and oak hill. Narrower fairways than most stops, long rough, still plenty of trees. The winners there? Bryson, Brooks, Brooks. It's almost like when its so narrow that everyone misses fairways that the stronger players get even more of an advantage. 

I mean, it couldn't possibly be that for those 4 days, those guys just played better than everyone else, could it? 

[cardia10]

19 hours ago, Warrior42111 said:

Very well could be true, but my engineering brain is thinking of so much on this. So they have a way to reduce the distance somehow on the ball with the transfer of energy and maybe some aerodynamics? 

 

My next question is say that they get the ball to affect on high swing speeds like they say. Will the ball still travel with dispersion the same? For making numbers easy lets say a SS of 120 and 110 will now produce the same distance. If the club to path is of 2 degrees for both currently the 120 SS will be further offline. The only way to prevent that is to have a ball that can receive a maximum amount of energy. So where does the extra energy from the faster SS go? Back into the club (more wear and tear)? More ball deformation ( that will affect flight on the same shot characteristics) perhaps that's how?

 

And yes I went of the rails technical wise here I'm a nerd at heart. 🤓 

That is a great point and brings up another good angle. If the engineering is that complex, the USGA will have to share that info essentially making all balls the same. Now the public would know that all balls are equal even though they are essentially now, but some just spend $10,000,000 more in marketing per year to claim they are the best. Knowing all balls will be equal, I guess the big guys think they can then out market the small guys because now they won't be able to claim a true difference other than a much higher price point.

[dugue4]

12 hours ago, Nels55 said:

The problem is that there are not millions of baseball fans buying new bats every year based on what is working for Mike Trout.

I see your point, and my comment was semi-facetious, but no one would be stopping the equipment companies from selling the tour spec wood drivers to amateurs.  

Edited December 8, 2023 by dugue4

[Nels55]

2 hours ago, cardia10 said:

That is a great point and brings up another good angle. If the engineering is that complex, the USGA will have to share that info essentially making all balls the same. Now the public would know that all balls are equal even though they are essentially now, but some just spend $10,000,000 more in marketing per year to claim they are the best. Knowing all balls will be equal, I guess the big guys think they can then out market the small guys because now they won't be able to claim a true difference other than a much higher price point.

All golf balls are not close to being equal now.  Surlyn covered balls are not in the same universe with urethane.  Also the engineering is not all that special.  According to the USGA more then 30% of balls manufactured today are already conforming to the new rule.  I am guessing that balls called super soft or noodle or whatever are the ones that already conform.  Longer for short hitters and shorter for long hitters.  It's not that difficult to do.

[cardia10]

53 minutes ago, Nels55 said:

All golf balls are not close to being equal now.  Surlyn covered balls are not in the same universe with urethane.  Also the engineering is not all that special.  According to the USGA more then 30% of balls manufactured today are already conforming to the new rule.  I am guessing that balls called super soft or noodle or whatever are the ones that already conform.  Longer for short hitters and shorter for long hitters.  It's not that difficult to do.

When you look at true testing with all things being equal, current balls typically have about a variance of 5-10 yards. I say that is the same. When you add "around the green spin" and personal preference and thinking you have to play what the pros play it typically leads to ill fitting balls. It is odd that the USGA used 125 mph for their test which is significantly higher than the PGA average yet they don't share any real results of the testing. This just tells me they have no clue what the next step in manufacturing will be, but you can bet that some of the OEM's will be left in the cold leading to lawyers making a lot of money. To say 30% of models conform now tells me that marketing has already won as that says 30% of golfers are playing balls not maximized but have been fooled by pricing or OEM marketing. I think we all see the DTC companies that cut the marketing portion out and we are starting to see some more realistic pricing.

[Lobby]

Many years ago, when the USGA develop the conforming ball test, they made a mistake.   They didn't realize how materials and technology was going to improve, and their test would become obsolete.

That's all that's happened, IMO.

While I disagree with the fussiness of the USGA rules, quitting the organization over this new test seems extreme to me.

[BIG STU]

On 12/7/2023 at 12:35 PM, Warrior42111 said:

Very well could be true, but my engineering brain is thinking of so much on this. So they have a way to reduce the distance somehow on the ball with the transfer of energy and maybe some aerodynamics? 

 

My next question is say that they get the ball to affect on high swing speeds like they say. Will the ball still travel with dispersion the same? For making numbers easy lets say a SS of 120 and 110 will now produce the same distance. If the club to path is of 2 degrees for both currently the 120 SS will be further offline. The only way to prevent that is to have a ball that can receive a maximum amount of energy. So where does the extra energy from the faster SS go? Back into the club (more wear and tear)? More ball deformation ( that will affect flight on the same shot characteristics) perhaps that's how?

 

And yes I went of the rails technical wise here I'm a nerd at heart. 🤓 

Well I analyzed what you said and thought about it. I am not a real engineer but consider myself a Redneck Engineer. In my mind it is certainly creditable food for thought.

[nsxguy]

All this handwringing over what amounts to, what, about 5 mph of wind speed.

 

Oh, and about 6 years away no less.

 

[MtlJeff]

I don't know what the solution is....you need a governing body to have some sort of set of rules. However the USGA and R&A are very clearly out of touch with 99% of the people they affect, and have become obsessed with the pro game only, which is more about entertainment than the game of golf at the end of the day. 

 

The tours and MFRs standing up to them might make them realize this. Or maybe not. 

[Nels55]

1 hour ago, MtlJeff said:

I don't know what the solution is....you need a governing body to have some sort of set of rules. However the USGA and R&A are very clearly out of touch with 99% of the people they affect, and have become obsessed with the pro game only, which is more about entertainment than the game of golf at the end of the day. 

 

The tours and MFRs standing up to them might make them realize this. Or maybe not. 

I don't see that at all.  They did the best they could with this rule change to only effect the very few players at the top end of the spectrum for clubhead / ball speed.  It will have no effect on the average golfer who shoots over 100.  It's on about the same level as the change in how to drop the ball.  Guys got all bent out of shape about the ruling bodies dumb rule change until dropping from knee level became the norm.  Nobody complains about how to drop the ball now and a year after the ball speed rule change goes into effect the change will be forgotten and everyone will be bitching about something else.

[Nels55]

3 hours ago, cardia10 said:

When you look at true testing with all things being equal, current balls typically have about a variance of 5-10 yards. I say that is the same. When you add "around the green spin" and personal preference and thinking you have to play what the pros play it typically leads to ill fitting balls. It is odd that the USGA used 125 mph for their test which is significantly higher than the PGA average yet they don't share any real results of the testing. This just tells me they have no clue what the next step in manufacturing will be, but you can bet that some of the OEM's will be left in the cold leading to lawyers making a lot of money. To say 30% of models conform now tells me that marketing has already won as that says 30% of golfers are playing balls not maximized but have been fooled by pricing or OEM marketing. I think we all see the DTC companies that cut the marketing portion out and we are starting to see some more realistic pricing.

How could any ball be 'ill fitting' if they are all the same?  From personal experience I can tell you that I score better with chrome soft ball then I do with a topflight.  There is a huge difference in spin and trajectory on iron and wedge shots even for a hack like myself.  If I hit a full sandwedge on my sim setup with a surlyn ball the ball will jump and hit the ceiling while a urethane ball will launch lower with more spin right into the screen.  They are not close to the same.