Here comes the rollback..maybe

[Imurg]

Is this the start of rolling back the equipment?
Or a Bifurcation of equipment rules?
https://www.geoffshackelford.com/ho...-and-golf-course-lengths-is-brought-to-an-end

 

[Orikoru]

I don't agree with limiting distance with a particular ball or whatever, it feels gimmicky. Just make the fairways & greens harder to hit and the rough more punishing.

 

[USER1999]

They will still bottle it. The PGA will complain about damage to their brand, and the players who have grown up bombing it will moan like moany people about losing distance.
A lot of modern players don't care about the history of the game, shot making, the relevence of classic courses, etc. They just want to bomb it, and roll about in cash.
Sadly this is not entertaining viewing, and eventually the golf watching public will wise up to this, purses will drop, and rich spoilt brats will wonder what happened to the magic money tree.

 

[Imurg]

I don't agree with limiting distance with a particular ball or whatever, it feels gimmicky. Just make the fairways & greens harder to hit and the rough more punishing.

The problem there is that, as Leishman showed the other week, you don't have to hit fairways to win.
Narrowing fairways leads to everyone missing more of them and then the bombers have the advantage that they can wedge it into the green.

I dont know how they can reel in the bombers without disadvantaging the shorter hitter.
Limiting the ball by 10/15% means the shorter hitter hits it even shorter and is still left with a longer shot.
I suppose a ball that goes a maximum of 250 yards or so could be the answer as all Pros can hit that far.

I hope they limit this to Pro and elite amateurs...the vast majority of us dont hit the ball too far - unless we've knifed one out of a bunker

 

[Wolf]

No thanks to Bifurcation or limiting it.

I don't believe there is any way it can be done fairly without disadvantaging shorter guys. Also don't feel the need for it.

 

[Grizzly]

I don't agree with limiting distance with a particular ball or whatever, it feels gimmicky. Just make the fairways & greens harder to hit and the rough more punishing.

I think you've hit the distance argument right on the head there. Yes, players - especially pros - hit the ball further now than they did 20-30 years ago. Some of that is down to equipment, some to improved fitness and conditioning and some to improved knowledge of biomechanics. This is not massively different to most sports, where the best and most dedicated steadily push the boundaries - indeed there are few sports where records do not have a steady downward trajectory (women's athletics being the notable and obviously drug fuelled exception).

We shouldn't fear people being able to do things that were previously thought impossible.

Nor, in my opinion, should we be looking to go back to wooden drivers, blades and the like. Put simply, the game is just more fun for the amateurs now than it was 20 years ago, which brings people into the sport, keeps them in the sport longer and, generally, makes them happier in the intervening years.

Where I think the professional game has gone wrong is in marrying those physical and technical improvements with a general move toward supplying the beer and chips American market for the professional game, played on courses that are set up to encourage big booming tees shots because there is, put bluntly, a lot of space out there. If there is no real penalty for missing the fairway by 20, 30, even 40 or 50 yards then players will focus on getting as close to the green as they physically can.

Sometimes, this can be entertaining of itself. But the best tournaments are those that are played on courses set up to be more difficult. The Players at Sawgrass is a great example. Its not a hugely long course by Pro standards, but players are forced to make decisions on probably 13 tees. There are lots of ways of making the Pro's think. It might be penal bunkering at the 290 yard line, maybe in the fairway even. Or cutting the fairway much narrower and letting the rough grow out to 4 inches. My real bugbear, more than any though, is the rarity with which courses use out of bounds rules to make players think - it gets silly when Phil Mickelson, for example, is allowed to hit over four fairways to get back on track - just have a line of white stakes and say if you can't keep it on your hole, go back to the tee...

 

[Orikoru]

The problem there is that, as Leishman showed the other week, you don't have to hit fairways to win.
Narrowing fairways leads to everyone missing more of them and then the bombers have the advantage that they can wedge it into the green.

I dont know how they can reel in the bombers without disadvantaging the shorter hitter.
Limiting the ball by 10/15% means the shorter hitter hits it even shorter and is still left with a longer shot.
I suppose a ball that goes a maximum of 250 yards or so could be the answer as all Pros can hit that far.

I hope they limit this to Pro and elite amateurs...the vast majority of us dont hit the ball too far - unless we've knifed one out of a bunker

I said also make the rough more punishing though... Surely it wouldn't take a genius bit of planning to put the longest, thickest rough at the 300+ yard area, make the fairway narrower up there as well, etc etc. Throw in a few holes where they can't hit driver and have to find fairways with irons and so on. It must be doable.

 

[fundy]

Get the ball rolled back Get the courses back how they were designed to be with hazards where they should be, hitting the clubs into greens that they were designed for, make it more a shotmakers rather than a bombers game again

 

[Ye Olde Boomer]

The USGA and R&A are doing there best to makes themselves irrelevant.
I could easily see my club affiliating with a new sanctioning body if the USGA were to be challenged.

There should only be one set of rules regarding equipment, and they should be made with the recreational player, not the elite player, in mind.

Likewise, courses should be set up with the recreational player in mind as well.
Setting up 150 or more acres of highly valuable land for the best one or two hundred players in the world is absurd.

When the best players on the planet come to the UK to play in the Open Championship,
one of them should have to break 250 to win it
because the course should be playable for the real players of the game, not for a few genetic freaks that play on the world stage.

 

[Russ_D]

Dont bother with rollback. Just make all tour players spin round 10 times before each shot. Limits distance and makes tour golf more fun. The Peter Aliss commentary alone would be a hoot

 

[sunshine]

I think you've hit the distance argument right on the head there. Yes, players - especially pros - hit the ball further now than they did 20-30 years ago. Some of that is down to equipment, some to improved fitness and conditioning and some to improved knowledge of biomechanics. This is not massively different to most sports, where the best and most dedicated steadily push the boundaries - indeed there are few sports where records do not have a steady downward trajectory (women's athletics being the notable and obviously drug fuelled exception).

We shouldn't fear people being able to do things that were previously thought impossible.

Nor, in my opinion, should we be looking to go back to wooden drivers, blades and the like. Put simply, the game is just more fun for the amateurs now than it was 20 years ago, which brings people into the sport, keeps them in the sport longer and, generally, makes them happier in the intervening years.

Where I think the professional game has gone wrong is in marrying those physical and technical improvements with a general move toward supplying the beer and chips American market for the professional game, played on courses that are set up to encourage big booming tees shots because there is, put bluntly, a lot of space out there. If there is no real penalty for missing the fairway by 20, 30, even 40 or 50 yards then players will focus on getting as close to the green as they physically can.

Sometimes, this can be entertaining of itself. But the best tournaments are those that are played on courses set up to be more difficult. The Players at Sawgrass is a great example. Its not a hugely long course by Pro standards, but players are forced to make decisions on probably 13 tees. There are lots of ways of making the Pro's think. It might be penal bunkering at the 290 yard line, maybe in the fairway even. Or cutting the fairway much narrower and letting the rough grow out to 4 inches. My real bugbear, more than any though, is the rarity with which courses use out of bounds rules to make players think - it gets silly when Phil Mickelson, for example, is allowed to hit over four fairways to get back on track - just have a line of white stakes and say if you can't keep it on your hole, go back to the tee...

Good post.

I think the javelin is a good comparison. The progression in the record meant that the top athletes had outgrown the field of play. Just like golf. Instead of extending the field (which would cost a lot and render old unmodified stadia obsolete), they changed the dynamics of the javelin so it doesn't fly so far any more. Problem solved (for now).

 

[sunshine]

The problem there is that, as Leishman showed the other week, you don't have to hit fairways to win.
Narrowing fairways leads to everyone missing more of them and then the bombers have the advantage that they can wedge it into the green.

I dont know how they can reel in the bombers without disadvantaging the shorter hitter.
Limiting the ball by 10/15% means the shorter hitter hits it even shorter and is still left with a longer shot.
I suppose a ball that goes a maximum of 250 yards or so could be the answer as all Pros can hit that far.

I hope they limit this to Pro and elite amateurs...the vast majority of us dont hit the ball too far - unless we've knifed one out of a bunker

But short hitters should be disadvantaged. Striking the ball is a key skill in golf (not the only skill). Tiger, Rory, Brooks etc should be rewarded for improving their technique and athleticism in order to hit the ball further.

 

[duncan mackie]

The intended purpose of this review is to consider whether any existing specifications should be adjusted or any new specifications should be created to help mitigate the continuing distance increases. It is not currently intended to consider revising the overall specifications in a way that would produce substantial reductions in hitting distances at all levels of the game.

So, you are either left with bifurcation or changes to the ball that have disproportionately high impacts as ball speed increases above, say, 160 ish. Basically a simple reduction in the maximum weight of the same sized ball would achieve that, is simple to implement etc etc (but would have some distance impact on everyone).

Given that the last change to the UK ball size did exactly that it seemed like a massive change at the time (for those involved) but very quickly gets forgotten.

 

[English golfer in Spain]

Good post.

I think the javelin is a good comparison. The progression in the record meant that the top athletes had outgrown the field of play. Just like golf. Instead of extending the field (which would cost a lot and render old unmodified stadia obsolete), they changed the dynamics of the javelin so it doesn't fly so far any more. Problem solved (for now).

Good point about the javelin. I agree that they need to stop these beautiful old course becoming obsolete. I want them hitting 3 and 4 irons into par 4 holes, not a wedge from 145 yards.

 

[robinthehood]

The problem there is that, as Leishman showed the other week, you don't have to hit fairways to win.
Narrowing fairways leads to everyone missing more of them and then the bombers have the advantage that they can wedge it into the green.

I dont know how they can reel in the bombers without disadvantaging the shorter hitter.
Limiting the ball by 10/15% means the shorter hitter hits it even shorter and is still left with a longer shot.
I suppose a ball that goes a maximum of 250 yards or so could be the answer as all Pros can hit that far.

I hope they limit this to Pro and elite amateurs...the vast majority of us dont hit the ball too far - unless we've knifed one out of a bunker

I watched leishman and he was so wild at a few times he was over the ropes and getting good lies as the rough was trodden down. So the fairways missed stat doesn't really tell the whole story.

 

[Jigger]

Tighten the fairways, grow the rough and make greens smaller. Also put width specifications on holes On tournament courses.

 

[Hackers76]

I saw that avg driving distance of the top 20 has gone from 278 yds in 1995 to 310 last year but there were no pros back then that looked like Brooks Keopka or DJ. I would love to see our current top 20 hit the drivers from 95 to get a clearer picture of how much is from the tech and how much it is down to players training regimes

 

[fundy]

I saw that avg driving distance of the top 20 has gone from 278 yds in 1995 to 310 last year but there were no pros back then that looked like Brooks Keopka or DJ. I would love to see our current top 20 hit the drivers from 95 to get a clearer picture of how much is from the tech and how much it is down to players training regimes

get them some Balata balls too

 

[Jigger]

The last two points are very relevant to the frequent issue of slow play.

 

[HomerJSimpson]

Tighten the fairways, grow the rough and make greens smaller. Also put width specifications on holes On tournament courses.

Sadly a lot of courses are members courses and so the tour is only in town once a year but it would take a significant amount of time to grown the rough and or install smaller greens and so that detriments the membership for a long period of time to enjoy the circus in town once a week and not always a guarantee they'll come back the following year.

You look at some famous courses, like Sunningdale, Forest of Arden, St Pierre etc that all hosted top events back in the year but have become redundant in the last few decades because the pros overpower them. I have no issue with the pros playing a different set of gear, especially the balls in order to reign in distance. Make it more important to hit target and have the necessary short game to deal with missing rather than blast away with impunity knowing it'll be a wedge out of not too deep rough into the green anyway. For the majority that play, i.e. the club golfer there is no need to change anything and most courses are still more than a challenge for the handicap player