LICC

From Golf magazine: How many yards will golfers lose with the rollback? Don’t believe everything you read online. According to the governing bodies’ research, recreational players should expect to see a decrease of less than five yards in driving distance, based on an average swing speed of 93 mph for male golfers and 72 mph for female players. And when they get into their irons, they’re likely to see no perceptible change in distance. “The way it works, especially if you make the change through aerodynamics [of the ball], it goes actually to the square of the velocity,” John Spitzer, the USGA’s managing director of equipment standards, told GOLF.com. “So we don’t expect to see much distance loss at all — even at the highest levels — once you get to the 5-iron. And when you have low swing players like myself, I’m going to lose my distance almost all on the drive and I won’t see anything in the fairway woods or hybrids. But the rest of the golfers at the highest level, by the time they get to 5-iron [their distances] would be the exact same.”

All distances, top, middle, and bottom on all professional tours have increased over recent and longer term periods. The facts are clear for those who look at them.

Of course it’s not just the ball that led to distance increases. No one ever said that. It’s all the equipment technology- club heads, balls, shafts.

What are you basing this on? It doesn’t seem intuitive that the effect would be exactly proportional at different compressions.

DJ did that with a modern ball. Maybe the top 5% or so would hit it over 300, but most players would not.

From 1980 to 1989 the Tour driving distance average went up 5 yards.

Which shorter hitters have left the Tour in the last ten years? Do you think players who were long hitters haven't left the Tour?

The PGA Tour sample size is quite a large number. The averages are highly significant and valid in analyzing differences over the years. What you described in your last sentence is an average. It is a "median" as opposed to the "mean" or "mode".

In 2013, the average was 288 and the leader (Luke List) was at 306. Of course there are outliers. That is why you look at averages. No need to get testy because your arguments aren't lining up with facts.

In 2000 the average driving distance on the Tour was 273 and the leader (John Daly) was at 301. In 2023 the average distance was 297 and the leader (Rory) was 327.

I do. I enjoy watching golf more when all the par-5s do not become long par 4s. When every par 3 doesn’t have to be 200 yards or have an insanely small green. When every par-4 isn’t a short iron or wedge into the green.

Agree to disagree. Elite golfers today swing slightly differently than years ago because of the equipment. They adjust their swings to what works best for the different type of equipment.

No, it’s almost entirely the equipment. There have been pages of discussion on this with the reasons why and the counter arguments.

I agree with you both. Recreational golfers by and large don’t play the same field as pros, so the game is bifurcated as is. But I’ve changed my mind on the ball. If they can roll it back exponentially more for the highest swing speeds with minimal effect on average swings speeds, that would work best to address the issues.

Surprised no one had commented: https://www.golfdigest.com/story/usga-ra-rollback-announcement-december-2023 Big news! I hope they have tested this and determined this won’t impact the 95-105 mph swing speed in any significant way. Maybe less than 5 yards compared to 15 for the 120 mph elite golfers. From the article: The USGA and R&A are expected to announce early next week that they will be changing the rules to roll back distance in golf—and not just for elite players. The expected decision likely would make nearly every popular golf ball played both professionally and recreationally non-conforming. The news comes from multiple industry sources with direct knowledge of the plans of golf’s governing bodies, speaking on background. The change involves a revision to the way golf balls are tested to see if they conform to the rules. Specifically, it is expected to be announced that the test for the Overall Distance Standard would increase the swing speed at which golf balls are tested from the current standard of 120 mph to 125 mph. While increasing the swing speed, the test would not change the distance limit of 317 yards.

Rory showed great leadership this past year and was stabbed in the back. I can see him deciding to get out of the politics of the tours merging. That said, I can't see him moving and playing mainly in DPWT events. He is too competitive for that. He either stays and plays mostly PGA Tour events (and majors) or scales back entirely and only plays majors and a handful of other events.

The OWGR is not supposed to be determining who are the best players on the planet. It is supposed to be ranking the players who play in events on tours that have sufficiently similar competitive attributes. When Mickelson and Tiger and Rory and JT et al play for millions of dollars in The Match events, no one would think the OWGR should award points for it. But they are playing for a significant dollar amount and they are among the top talented golfers on the planet. But those matches don't have the competitive tour elements to compare to events on tours that get OWGR points. If LIV had a more competitive qualification and relegation process, I'm guessing OWGR would give its events some level of points reduced from PGA Tour events.

I have to agree that if you take this as “love of money over all else” then you don’t really understand it.

No one other than entitled LIV players will consider OWGR obsolete for not degrading its criteria for an exhibition tour. As for the majors, the ones not already in can try to qualify for the Opens. And I really don’t care if I don’t see Talor Gooch play the Masters or the PGA.

LIV events are real competition, but they don't include the same competition requirements that OWGR needs to validly and fairly compare to other tours. These LIV players knew or should have known that they were going to a tour that is really a money exhibition and not a true competitive tour in the sense of qualifying and having to perform to remain.

That is not what they mean by “closed shop”. It is not the limited field, but the lack of qualifying and relegation season to season.

Definitely the Masters, by a wide margin. It is by far the most watched and most popular event in golf. I love the Ryder Cup but not nearly as the Masters. The US and British Opens are bigger too IMO.

Except the PGAT events with no cuts require qualification based on prior performance for everyone to get into those events. I'm surprised OWGR denied LIV entirely. LIV does have a competitive season playing for substantial monetary stakes. The 54 holes, no-cut, shotgun start, lack of any real substantial qualifying and relegation would drop the points values a lot, but I thought those events would be worth something. Maybe 10-20% of the level of a PGAT event. But I can't stand LIV or the sell-outs who joined, so I'm not upset about them getting denied. I hope the PGA Tour players somehow torpedo the merger deal and carry on without them.

Homa, Cantlay, Clark, Koepka, and Harmon went a combined 9-7-5 I believe. The top players (except Sheffler) held their own and did well.

The top US players played just as good as Rahm, Rory and Hovland. But when a third of your team doesn’t deserve to be there based on playing performance, you lose big. And taking five weeks off is ridiculous if you are serious about wanting to win.