modify game, but without changing ball

[300_yard_drives]

my idea

How about they make a rule that a club cannot be under 13* or something like that, and it will keep some of the courses playing longer.

[phillypete]

How about they make a rule that a club cannot be under 13* or something like that, and it will keep some of the courses playing longer.

 

 

That would be the best rule ever for me... if they forced me to hit three wood off every tee, I'd be at scratch in no time!

 

Actually there are a couple dog tracks around my area that play less that 6000yrds from the tips. I play them without woods just too keep it interesting. It takes so much self control not to hit driver on the par 5s, I really hate to turn down eagle putts like that.

[arkstorm]

 

Actually there are a couple dog tracks around my area that play less that 6000yrds from the tips.

 

 

Pete, unfortunately, there are a lot of dog tracks in Philly playing under 6000 yards.

[Goose]

 

Actually there are a couple dog tracks around my area that play less that 6000yrds from the tips.

 

 

Pete, unfortunately, there are a lot of dog tracks in Philly playing under 6000 yards.

 

I second that!!!...LOL :)

 

GoOsE

[DemolitionMan]

Maybe the PGA should try one tournament under 6500 yards with some doglegs and trees to prevent all the par 4's being drivable. It will still be a wedge-putting contest and the winner -24 or so, but let's see golf's version of Survivor - 1st to miss a 3 footer is out of contention.

[300_yard_drives]

i mean with every club but the putter. Otherwise just make everything a par 3 contest then it will be asif everyone hits the ball the same length off the tee and has the same length second shot. They should just make rough unmanagable, then driving distance=worthless unless you have accuracy.

[taylormadefan]

If they make it a rule that a club can't be under 13*, does that actually accomplish anything?

 

Cory Pavin will still be 100 yards behind tiger woods, and both will still be that much further from the green.

 

What they're trying to do with the ball change is rule out the "advantage" that guys who swing at 120mph+ get over guys who hit it in the 110-115 range. Supposedly balls like ProV1X and B330 and Nike One Black all give guys who really compress the ball with superhuman swing speeds a bigger advantage over guys who don't.

 

It's a touchy subject, and no one really knows if the ball does provide any advantage for the guys who swing faster (other than their faster ball speeds).

[sladevol]

I don't think equipment is the major issue. I think the bigger threat to golf is the fact that long hitters can miss fairways and still win tournaments. If a greater premium was placed on hitting the fairway, tour golf would easily yield more average sized winners. Each year, we see courses adding length to make it more difficult for the longer hitters, when all really does is play into their hands.

 

Slade

[taylormadefan]

If you take a guy with 132 mph club speed and pair him with a guy with 100 mph clubhead speed, guess who has an advantage. The guys with the most clubhead speed will always have less club into every hole even if they play with a uniform ball. I always get a laugh when I hear the distance debate. Who on tour plays a ball that is so good they have an advantage? They all play prov1s or hx tours or whatever multilayer they get for free. The only to make it fair is to have a separate tour for short hitters, oh I forgot, its called the champions tour.

Besides there is plenty of low compression balls out there that give the slow swingers a boost in distance.

 

You're still missing the point. Of course someone who swings faster should have less club. The point is that they're getting 2-3 sometimes even 4 clubs less. When it shouldn't be that big of a difference.

 

Not convinced?

 

Here's what Fred Funk had to say about it:

With the golf ball going when I first came out on Tour, it was 30, 35 yards between me and the longest guys on Tour, and now it's 70, 75 yards. It's all the golf ball. They can talk about all the technology and how not technology, but how athletic the guys are. Our best guys that hit it the best back then were as athletic as anybody could be. You just get this huge gain hitting the ball a certain speed, and this golf course stands up to that because it's not how far although there's no substitute for length, there's no substitute for power. Most of these golf holes out here are position golf holes, and that's more important.

 

Perhaps you should set Mr. Funk aside and tell him about the Champions Tour . . . :)

[dorfblee]

If anything, they should lower the club limit- maybe 10 or 12?

[glcoach]

Actually they could make it to where you have 13 clubs plus the putter, but the 13 other clubs have to be between 12 and 56 degrees. This takes away the lob wedge and puts lofts back to what they were intended to be.

 

IMO this would put a lot more emphasis and skill back into the short game and you wouldn't have guys carrying around 4 and 5 wedges that could basically take full swings from several different yardages. You would have to learn how to really PITCH the ball with different length swings for different yardages.

 

The 12 degree driver minimum, would help everyone, even the short hitting tour pros.

 

Every other sport has standard equipment with standard calibrations, I think golf needs to incorporate SOME of this philosophy into the way the game is played.

[300_yard_drives]

If they make it a rule that a club can't be under 13*, does that actually accomplish anything?

 

Cory Pavin will still be 100 yards behind tiger woods, and both will still be that much further from the green.

 

Corey Pavin will match up better with a 13* driver than Tiger will, so he will maximize distance better.

Another solution is cut fairways off 300 yards from the tee. Make it so if they hit it past 300 they are in thick rough. Then there is no advantage.

[dorfblee]

If they make it a rule that a club can't be under 13*, does that actually accomplish anything?

 

Cory Pavin will still be 100 yards behind tiger woods, and both will still be that much further from the green.

 

Corey Pavin will match up better with a 13* driver than Tiger will, so he will maximize distance better.

Another solution is cut fairways off 300 yards from the tee. Make it so if they hit it past 300 they are in thick rough. Then there is no advantage.

 

Well, from 200 yards out, Pavin is still hitting a 7 wood or hybrid and Paul Casey will have to club down from the 230 yard bomb of a 5i of his and hit a 6i or 7i. There will always be a distance advantage whether it be a Par 3 tourney or a regular course because they (higher swing speed players) will still hit their irons longer and higher and will still have shorter irons into every green.

 

And 13* driver will just have deeper faces with the COG closer to the face and higher up- it will be less forgiving but the high swing speed players will still be able to bomb it.

 

Course changes are expensive and growing rough out will make it near impossible for the regular club members to play. I have problems just finding my ball in thick rough, much less hitting it well out of it. <- That's more of a personal problem though. lol.

[bradkv]

Doglegs are a great weapon for the course to use to fight us mere mortals that don't carry the ball 300+. Basically, because of the ridiculous distances that a lot of these guys hit the ball, the PGA is deadlocked on their course setups. Doglegs aren't the answer, because they hit it so high and far that they would just cut the corners and have wedges left from fairway or rough. Sure, new courses could be designed, and old courses redesigned to counteract the long hitters, but the bottom line is that the fans love to see 360+ drives and wedges that spin back 10 feet for kick in birdies.

 

The guys we watch now can't carve shots like Nicklaus and his counterparts could, but they are the best in the world at what they do, and technology has taken the art out of the game to a large extent, and brought the power in to replace it.

 

I think the only way to change the game is to change the equipment. Higher spinning balls and shorter hitting drivers is the only answer I can see. My humble opinion of course, but I am certainly not taking anything away from today's pros, they have evolved just like the clubs and balls, and technology has made the courses scratch and claw to be hard for the players.

[titleistpro2]

golf does have standardized equipment rules. I hate this discussion. Should we make Kobe Bryant wear weights on his legs because he jumps higher, or make Albert Pujols bat left handed because he is better than every other hitter (right now). competition is competition, some people will always be better simply due to genetics...it is what it is.

[rok78]

I also agree that there shouldn't be any new restrictions made upon equipment to make the field more equal. I don't necessarily think that the longest guys on tour now would be any longer than the longest hitters in history because a freak of nature is a freak of nature. But I do think there are MORE guys who bomb it than before because of better instruction, equipment, and training.

 

In the end, although demanding shot shaping would be nice, length is and should be a requirement for a professional and if the short hitters (ie Fred Funk) are getting phased out, then that's a natural evolution of the athletic requirement to play the game at the highest level. It's like in MLB baseball, a pitcher who only touches 90 mph once in a while is now average when before that was fast.

 

As far as long hitters gaining more advantage than short hitters, I don't think that's true. I forget where I read it, but there was a study done that showed the increase in driving distance over the last 10 years or so for Corey Pavin and John Daly. It showed that both gained approx the same distance in yards, showing equipment benefits both long and short hitters equally.

[housey]

I think the punishment for missing fairways should be diabolical. Reward the straighter hitters not the bombers. If you miss a fairway 7 out of 10 = bogey or worse. What do you think????

[phillypete]

I think the rough at most non tournament courses is too thick now. It doesn't too much grass around the ball to keep it from spinning like it would out of the fairway. Thicker rough would just mean my five hour round would now be 6.5 most of which spent waiting for groups ahead look for their ball in the jungle they call the rough.

 

I feel real bad for Fred Funk right now, because he is getting beat up around here. The guy is having a great year and everyone is ready to push him off with the seniors. Have we already forgot the run he made at the Masters. The National was set up to be a bombers paradise... real long off the tee and no rough. Everyone on tour plays the same course and they all have the same technology. It seems to me the only variable is natural talent... and whats so wrong about that?