Ball limits; should they be changed?

[Wabinez]

Do we know for that sure? If a pro will hit it 300 yards instead of 330, then that's 91%. 91% of a 220 yard drive is 200 yards.

Pretty much. Diminishing returns. The loss of distance at the new calculation will be of 14-15 yards at the highest swing speeds (around 127mph)

An amateur will not generate those speeds (unless they are tour level...and there aren't many of them around). Hell, even the vast majority of pros now do not have a clubhead speed of 127mph..however, it's about future proofing the game in 10/20/30 years, as people will find a way to swing it that quickly.

 

[Orikoru]

You’re using a linear equation there, won’t it differ as the ball will be affected differently by slower swing speeds? As a bit of a physics nerd I’d be interested in seeing some data on this, if it actually exists.

Well the ball is already affected by different swing speeds, that's why one has gone 330 and one has gone 220. I figure it's not as simple as the percentage I've put up, but the point was supposed to be, does anyone know what the actual real maths would be? People say slow swings aren't affected but it can't have been tested because the ball doesn't exist yet?

 

[The Fader]

Golf should be a mixture of power and accuracy.

As has been said earlier, the big hitters should not be penalised for their skill. BUT......

Fairways should be narrowed to put an equal premium on accuracy. But they should be narrowed along their whole length. Why should moderate hitters have a bigger target?

And rough should be toughened up. I don't buy the idea that courses can't set up this way for a week. Courses holding pro and elite events are not short of financial and labour resources
and if the members suffer for a few weeks - that's the cost of belonging to a premium club and will reap the untold benefits of the finance generated by the events for the rest of the year.

As far as the ball roll back is concerned - I'm not bothered what they do as long as 99.9% of golfers don't have their pleasure diminished to accommodate the 0.1%

 

[Beezerk]

Well the ball is already affected by different swing speeds, that's why one has gone 330 and one has gone 220. I figure it's not as simple as the percentage I've put up, but the point was supposed to be, does anyone know what the actual real maths would be? People say slow swings aren't affected but it can't have been tested because the ball doesn't exist yet?

You know what I meant you

 

[Springveldt]

As has already been stated many times, unless you have tour level speed and consistency, a ball roll back will not affect amateurs in any noticeable way. If you currently hit it 220 off the tee, you will still hit it 220 (maybe 219). Amateurs thinking they will lose 30 yards are clueless or do not understand. Same as those who constantly say 'just grow the rough' and 'plant more trees'. They have zero clue either.

The ball will probably fly 10% less at all distances from what I've read. I doubt they will be able to manufacture a ball that still spins at 10K on pitch shots and still spins at 2K when travelling 140mph yet suddenly starts spinning at 3K when going 180mph with the same spin loft delivered. Spin loft and ball flight laws aren't going to change. The 30 yards was just to highlight marketing spiel, I know not everyone is going to lose that.

Still doesn't change the fact that all manufacturers already have tour only balls and mass production balls which is why they won't change the amateur market. They have pushed the distance angle so much that there is no way they can say "Hey, this new £50 a dozen ball will go 10% less than last years ball. Please come and buy it."

 

[Wabinez]

The ball will probably fly 10% less at all distances from what I've read. I doubt they will be able to manufacture a ball that still spins at 10K on pitch shots and still spins at 2K when travelling 140mph yet suddenly starts spinning at 3K when going 180mph with the same spin loft delivered. Spin loft and ball flight laws aren't going to change. The 30 yards was just to highlight marketing spiel, I know not everyone is going to lose that.

Still doesn't change the fact that all manufacturers already have tour only balls and mass production balls which is why they won't change the amateur market. They have pushed the distance angle so much that there is no way they can say "Hey, this new £50 a dozen ball will go 10% less than last years ball. Please come and buy it."

amateurs won’t have a choice when they just become the ball at sale.

i stand by 99% of amateurs will not notice any difference. Strike plays a bigger issue with amateurs.

only the elite guys may see some difference.

changing the ball is the best way of future proofing

 

[Springveldt]

amateurs won’t have a choice when they just become the ball at sale.

i stand by 99% of amateurs will not notice any difference. Strike plays a bigger issue with amateurs.

only the elite guys may see some difference.

changing the ball is the best way of future proofing

Amateurs won't buy the new ball if they know it's shorter, even if it means they are only losing 5% distance. Everyone will be on eBay buying used balls instead for as long as they can. The manufacturers know this, that's why they are kicking up a stink about it. They can see billions in ball sales being lost until the new ball is the only one in circulation.

I agree that the vast majority of amateurs won't really notice a difference but still they won't buy a ball that is marketed as being shorter even if manufacturers market is a new ball that gives "more height, more spin, more stopping power. Better scores! *5% shorter than last years model".

 

[r0wly86]

Amateurs won't buy the new ball if they know it's shorter, even if it means they are only losing 5% distance. Everyone will be on eBay buying used balls instead for as long as they can. The manufacturers know this, that's why they are kicking up a stink about it. They can see billions in ball sales being lost until the new ball is the only one in circulation.

I agree that the vast majority of amateurs won't really notice a difference but still they won't buy a ball that is marketed as being shorter even if manufacturers market is a new ball that gives "more height, more spin, more stopping power. Better scores! *5% shorter than last years model".

I'm presuming it will be like when they banned the drivers with the trampoline face, for amateur golfers the ban didn't come into effect for a few years. If they did something with the balls they would allow several years leeway, so ball manufacturers would start selling the new balls, after a few years the majority of the old balls would be lost or damaged

 

[Wabinez]

I'm presuming it will be like when they banned the drivers with the trampoline face, for amateur golfers the ban didn't come into effect for a few years. If they did something with the balls they would allow several years leeway, so ball manufacturers would start selling the new balls, after a few years the majority of the old balls would be lost or damaged

Bingo. they’ll filter out eventually. Just like the wedge grooves when they changed.

remember when that kicked up a stink when announced…

 

[Orikoru]

I'd honestly buy up about 20 boxes of my current ball as soon as it was announced, and I think a lot of other people would too.

I can't see any of it happening though, I think it's a big hullabaloo about nothing. LIV won't subscribe to a new ball because they're all about being bigger and better and shorter distances don't tie in with that. PGA then won't bother either because they don't want the big hitters jumping ship or more viewers going where the big hitters are. Hence the whole thing will blow over and it's back to the drawing board.

 

[Springveldt]

You’re using a linear equation there, won’t it differ as the ball will be affected differently by slower swing speeds? As a bit of a physics nerd I’d be interested in seeing some data on this, if it actually exists.

Using the flightscope trajectory optimiser https://trajectory.flightscope.com/ I had a play around with it to see what the difference currently is.

If we use the 120mph/127mph that they are proposing and we assume everything is the same (launch angle, spin) and use the same 1.5 smash factor then the difference is more than the 15 yards for the longest hitters.

At 120mph with launch angle of 11, spin at 2100 and ball speed at 180mph then we get a carry of 296.9 yards.
At 127mph with the same conditions we get a ball speed of 190.5mph and a carry of 315.8 yards.

So the new ball at 127mph club speed needs to "only" carry 296.9 to be equal to the old ball. So not only is it losing 19 yards of carry, it's going to lose roll out as well since it's lost 10.5mph ball speed.

I'd imagine the loss won't be linear with decreasing speeds but even the weekend chopper will suffer distance loss.

 

[Imurg]

I can just see a pre-rollback dozen ProV1x on ebay for £100..no offers....

 

[Wabinez]

Using the flightscope trajectory optimiser https://trajectory.flightscope.com/ I had a play around with it to see what the difference currently is.

If we use the 120mph/127mph that they are proposing and we assume everything is the same (launch angle, spin) and use the same 1.5 smash factor then the difference is more than the 15 yards for the longest hitters.

At 120mph with launch angle of 11, spin at 2100 and ball speed at 180mph then we get a carry of 296.9 yards.
At 127mph with the same conditions we get a ball speed of 190.5mph and a carry of 315.8 yards.

So the new ball at 127mph club speed needs to "only" carry 296.9 to be equal to the old ball. So not only is it losing 19 yards of carry, it's going to lose roll out as well since it's lost 10.5mph ball speed.

I'd imagine the loss won't be linear with decreasing speeds but even the weekend chopper will suffer distance loss.

I just ran the numbers through the optimiser.

I used my own ball speed with driver

Shot 2 is with the 'new' launch characteristics
Shot 3 is with the 'old/current' launch characteristics that balls are tested on.



Launch data taken from the release from the R&A here: https://www.randa.org/en/articles/p...el-local-rule-option-for-golf-balls-announced

Based on these, I actually gain yardage with the new ball if you take them as they are written on screen.

 

[bobmac]

You either leave it as it is or change it for everyone.
How can an elite amateur be expected to play a short ball in big events and a long ball in the monthly medal

 

[D-S]

Titleist currently have 14 different balls in their range, Srixon have 12. The vast majority of these balls are not used by Pro’s - so it would be no issue at all for ball manufacturers to offer 2 or 3 variants in their range for Pro’s and elite amateurs and still have sufficient scale to make a decent variety of other balls for amateurs. Having an elite range and an amateur range is easily done, although their might be some player sponsorship marketing loss but as this would be applicable across the whole market it wouldn’t be a deal breaker.

 

[D-S]

You either leave it as it is or change it for everyone.
How can an elite amateur be expected to play a short ball in big events and a long ball in the monthly medal

Didn’t they have to do this with grooves and trampoline faces for quite a while? Also didn’t Pro‘s use different size balls when they played in the US or Europe for a time?

 

[Springveldt]

I just ran the numbers through the optimiser.

I used my own ball speed with driver

Shot 2 is with the 'new' launch characteristics
Shot 3 is with the 'old/current' launch characteristics that balls are tested on.

View attachment 47967

Launch data taken from the release from the R&A here: https://www.randa.org/en/articles/p...el-local-rule-option-for-golf-balls-announced

Based on these, I actually gain yardage with the new ball if you take them as they are written on screen.

I missed that article from the R&A, thanks for that.

What's interesting is that if you use the current launch conditions (120mph chs, 10 launch and 2520 spin) then it comes in way under the 317 yards total that they set the limit at. According to Flightscope this would total out at 302 but it's only giving 9 yards of roll which is obviously wrong. I can't find the option to change the fairway type.

Since the "new" ball has been calibrated at 11 launch and 2220 spin then the only option they have really is to decrease the ball speed so we won't be seeing a 1.5 smash factor or else that new ball is going to go even further. Using the optimizer with an 11 launch and 2220 spin you only need 176mph ball speed to match the old ball for carry at 294 yards. So you have a club head speed that is travelling 7mph faster but generating 3mph less on ball speed, that's a pretty drastic difference as the old ball would generate nearly 191mph ball speed. So, you are looking at around a 1.39 smash factor with driver for the new ball.

Since you generate 153mph ball speed currently and if we take a max smash factor of 1.5 then you are swinging at 102mph. With the new ball that will will give you just under 142mph ball speed, so you are going to lose 11mph ball speed on your drives. If we plug these into the optimizer (142, 11, 2220) then you are looking at your drives with the new ball carrying 219.9 yards, so you are losing 20 yards of carry.

If you can change the launch to 17 then you can get back to 235 carry so amateurs are really going to have to learn how to swing up on the ball while keeping spin loft down which most really struggle with.

 

[cleveland52]

As has already been stated many times, unless you have tour level speed and consistency, a ball roll back will not affect amateurs in any noticeable way. If you currently hit it 220 off the tee, you will still hit it 220 (maybe 219). Amateurs thinking they will lose 30 yards are clueless or do not understand. Same as those who constantly say 'just grow the rough' and 'plant more trees'. They have zero clue either.

Yep, I guess Scottie Scheffler is clueless .....because he stated the other day, that exact statement. LOL!

 

[Alan Clifford]

My views on the 'roll-back' debate are keep things as they are but make spectator areas out of bounds for the pros. Narrow the fairways a little. A bit more premium on accuracy might see them reign it in a bit organically. If a player is able to tonk it 350 yards and hit a 30 yard wide fairway, then all power to them.

Definitely not option 3. I would absolutely hate having to play with a ball that doesn't go as far as what I'm used to. I'd basically have to stop playing in winter as I'd be hitting fairway woods for all of my second shots, which would be boring. Game's hard enough for us mortals, I wouldn't want to see anything come in that makes it harder.

And perhaps make the rough rougher. And maybe look at the grasses in the first cut of rough - some kikuyu on more courses perhaps?

 

[Wabinez]

Yep, I guess Scottie Scheffler is clueless .....because he stated the other day, that exact statement. LOL!

correct. PGA pros are entirely filled with their own self interest. they move from course to course and don’t care about the other 51 weeks of the year when ‘normal’ people play the courses.

USGA and R&A wanted to ensure that amateur golfers were not affected/not affected as much by the MLR.

growing grass, planting trees etc is unsustainable as well as affecting amateur play.

reducing size of the clubheads will affect amateur play. Manufacturers would very clearly object to this.

the ball makes the clearest sense to adjust, and then, in my opinion, it will simply be adapted into the amateur game without much fuss at all