Bifurcation? Pros & Cons?

[Sats]

Bifurcation on equipment for the pros?

Would we see a level playing field? Would it change anything for the better?

I can see both good and bad aspects of doing this.

Thoughts?

 

[Blue in Munich]

If we reined in the ball & possibly clubs for pros, it would save an awful lot of currently good courses wasting money Tiger-proofing themselves, sadly it's too late for a number of them.

The game the pros play is now so far removed from mine I don't see that it matters one jot if they played with different equipment, however those selling the equipment would view it differently and I think that's where the money & influence lie, so I don't see it changing.

 

[Lord Tyrion]

All pros, no cons for me.

Have a pro version of a pro V1 and an amateur version, other balls are available ?. They do it with rally cars and no one blinks.

It won't damage the game one jot and might bring back into play some fabulous courses which have been beaten into submission. It may also help end the monotonous lengthening of courses which is simply dull.

Hopefully it will happen sooner rather than later.

 

[rulefan]

Bifurcation on equipment for the pros?

Would we see a level playing field? Would it change anything for the better?

I can see both good and bad aspects of doing this.

Thoughts?

It's not bifurcation, the LRs would be available to all.

 

[Crow]

It would be great if they introduced a ball that played and span like the old balata ball did, I'd be buying them straight away.

 

[Imurg]

It's not bifurcation, the LRs would be available to all.

It will effectively be bifurcation as the changes won't affect amateurs for years.
They can't suddenly drop the prospect of us being unable,e to use the clubs we have in a monthly medal this summer....
No club is going to impose that on their members.

 

[jim8flog]

Because the pros do not have handicaps there is already a small amount of bifurcation. Eg Tees are put wherever the organisers want them, lift clean and place is a club length.

There are drop zones for water hazards (never since this anywhere other than a pro tournament).

 

[jim8flog]

On a personal level I do not see the problem. It happens in other 'sports' such as snooker with the 'miss' rule.

 

[MarkT]

One that always comes up is when an amateur qualifies for the Open so has to change ball or do elite amateurs play with the 'pro ball'? Where does the pro ball come in?

 

[USER1999]

One that always comes up is when an amateur qualifies for the Open so has to change ball or do elite amateurs play with the 'pro ball'? Where does the pro ball come in?

It works with baseball. Aluminium bat but pro's play with wooden. It's not like this is impossible to work out.

 

[Imurg]

One that always comes up is when an amateur qualifies for the Open so has to change ball or do elite amateurs play with the 'pro ball'? Where does the pro ball come in?

To be fair, the only amateurs likely to qualify for The Open are going to be Elite and they should probably already be using Pro equipment if they have an eye of turning Pro..

 

[jimbob.someroo]

Have written an article on this recently which I think might be coming out soon but essentially;

The issue with the rollback / bifurcation debate is that they haven't even come close to sorting out the logistics.

As Mark says, there's an issue around 'elite amateurs'. It's all well and good saying that they should use the pro ball if they want to turn pro, but what do you use in the English Amateur, or County Am - where do you draw the line? What balls do they play in US colleges? What about our University system, where less people are looking to 'make it'.

If elite Ams need to move over to the 'pro' ball, what ball does my local pro play? We've got lads of +2 that are already 30 yards longer than our pro, and our pro played in the Walker Cup! What happens in a Pro-am? Not just your local club Pro-Am, but things like the Pebble Beach pro-am?

How does the pro get his 'pro' ball? Does he have to buy them for his own use?

Will there be just 1 pro ball to standardise it, or will every company have their own?

What facilities are there to test people aren't sneakily using the wrong ball? Pretty easy to cover a logo with a sharpie etc?

Where do you roll it back to? John Daly was averaging over 300 yards in the late 90's - with metalwoods which went much shorter than today's?

There's definitely ways around restricting distance, but very worried that this will get rammed through at the top of the game, without proper thought of how it filters down.

 

[Orikoru]

I'm not sure why they mention limiting the length of the driver shaft - that appears to be designed to only punish Bryson, since I'm pretty sure it's only him and Mickelson who are using longer drivers. Most stick with 44-45 for control I thought.

 

[jimbob.someroo]

I'm not sure why they mention limiting the length of the driver shaft - that appears to be designed to only punish Bryson, since I'm pretty sure it's only him and Mickelson who are using longer drivers. Most stick with 44-45 for control I thought.

100% agree. If he wants a 48" shaft, he'll just get it cut to 47.99" - this was a bit of a daft one for me.

Would much rather they explored things like the number of clubs in a bag, size of club head, minimum loft on driver - but as per the above, I still don't know how you actually implement this stuff successfully throughout the game as a whole.

 

[USER1999]

It's really being over complicated. There used to be two balls, one small, one big. Players adapted. It really wasn't that big an issue.
We have transitioned through different balls, grooves, drivers, all with little difficulty. It can be done again.
At the moment, the rules bodies have bottled it. They are frightened the pga tour will break away, and end up playing something that looks like golf, but isn't, because their members are stakeholders and won't like it.
I agree with Jimbob, to an extend, go to 10 clubs for pro's, limit driver loft to 9 degrees plus, bin off anything over a 56, and re-introduce some shot making. Play a spinnier ball, give the best a real chance of showing just how good they can be. It's only the journeymen who will struggle, and who turns on the telly to watch them?

 

[Mandofred]

Haven't I seen it somewhere where somebody had suggested only giving them tees that were an inch or so long?

 

[rulefan]

lift clean and place is a club length.

It's a club length in North America and most of the rest of the world amateur game.

 

[badgermat]

Would much rather they explored things like the number of clubs in a bag, size of club head, minimum loft on driver - but as per the above, I still don't know how you actually implement this stuff successfully throughout the game as a whole.

As far as I can see it, this would be easiest way to deal with the professional game without affecting everyone else. Just limit the pros to a minimum loft of, say, 20 degrees, with an appropriate shaft length and maybe head volume too.

You could even go the whole hog and create a specific PGA club-set, but I doubt that's really necessary. The point of all this seems to be to limit driving distance more than anything else.

bm

 

[sweaty sock]

Its already bifurcated. Pros clubs and balls are far superior to amatuers. Better fitted, better matched, made tot tighter manufacturing tolerances, tested more. Some pros even have specific ball recipies made just for them....

 

[GB72]

Its already bifurcated. Pros clubs and balls are far superior to amatuers. Better fitted, better matched, made tot tighter manufacturing tolerances, tested more. Some pros even have specific ball recipies made just for them....

Exactly this. I remember and interview with Ian Poulter, going back a few years now when he was with Cobra. It used to cost £20000.00 to make him a set of irons and they bore very little resemblance to what was being sold as the same clubs off the shelf. Guess it is the same across the bag with everything being made to order. I am happy to be proved wrong but I think it is one of golf's great illusions that amateurs and professionals are playing with anything like the same equipment.