Planned 2030 Golf Ball Rollback

[vandyland]

Also, as a general plug, I would bet @RickyBobby_PR can find 10 yds hiding in most people's (especially mine) inefficient swings. We often disagree on many things on this board but he has a great eye for the golf swing and knows a great deal. Maybe I should start agreeing with him more? 

[DaveP043]

22 minutes ago, vandyland said:

Also, as a general plug, I would bet @RickyBobby_PR can find 10 yds hiding in most people's (especially mine) inefficient swings. We often disagree on many things on this board but he has a great eye for the golf swing and knows a great deal. Maybe I should start agreeing with him more? 

While I respect his knowledge of the golf swing, I also disagree with him on some things.  That's just life, knowledge of one thing doesn't make you an expert on other things, at least in my opinion.  I'm qualified as an expert in the Rules of Golf, but my knowledge of the golf swing, or of course maintenance, or of pro shop inventory control, (all within the job description of most club professionals) all are pretty limited.  I enjoy respectful disagreements, its a great way to learn, a great way to evaluate my own opinions.  

[Franc38]

8 hours ago, DaveP043 said:

 

In general, I agree with @RickyBobby_PR here, the USGA and R&A have never had the power to regulate course set-up.  I don't believe the reason is as he describes.  Golf is played in every climate and every continent, jungles and deserts and links and forests.  Its played on courses with multi-million dollar maintenance budgets, and courses with volunteers doing most of the mowing.  Even for a single course, weather varies tremendously through a year, and from year to year, significantly influencing the ability of a staff to maintain conditions.  There's simply no realistic way to write rules to apply to all of these situations.  

They never had the power to regulate equipment... until they took it. They never had the power to regulate based on outcome instead of properties... until they took it.
As they are OK saying "a ball is conforming if it does this or that distance when submitted to x or y condition", they can perfectly say "a course is conforming for handicapping and competition purposes if a conforming ball landing this or that way doesn't roll more than x yards... Or "greens are conforming if the stimp is less than x and more than y". Or "no fairway should be wider than X or Y for a course to be acceptable for competition"

Would equalise some things, too. The "super long drives" they seem to cry about are way more likely to happen in high altitude during the summer than at lower altitude when it's freezing. As they don't want super long drives they should ban competitions at high altitude courses, particularly in the summer.

Tongue in cheek, we could expect, for the purpose of limiting that atrocious distance that so irks them, that it is now forbidden to play golf when the temperature is more than 15° Celsius (59 Fahrenheit) and when the last heavy rain fall is more than 2 days ago. Would be just as good for the game, and just as logical as their rules on the balls.

 

Ultimately, they never had the power to regulate distance. They just happen to try to take it, right now (well, it started, low key, before but now it's really visible and "official"). Nobody voted for that, agreed to that... And the USGA as the R&A have very little legitimacy to do stuff, except historical. I could well see national federations (or tours) branch out on ball rules, same as they had before the WHS, used very different rules for handicap calculations (and still do, to some extent).

[HikingMike]

21 hours ago, storm319 said:

ESPN did a sports science segment with Rory 10 years ago:

https://www.espn.com/video/clip/_/id/10737949

22 hours ago, Shapotomous said:

Somewhere in the 95 pages of this thread there was a mention of pros hitting persimmon drivers 300 yards.  Maybe somebody did but I came across this video comparison of Rory hitting a persimmon vs modern driver.  I wish they would have listed the modern driver he used, I guess it would have been his gamer at the time of the video, I didn't see a date on it.  255  vs 316 carry, big difference in ball speed and spin.

 

 

These are fantastic. I would love to see some left-right dispersion data too though. Throw in a mid-90s driver too

[HikingMike]

17 hours ago, Subdiver1 said:

I am a data guy.  Love data.  It bugs me when people leave data out to try and twist it like we see happening in some of the articles and postings out there on this topic.  I've pulled some of the same data and when Amateur distance has essentially not changed while we have access to the same equipment something really smells funny.  I find it ironic that you mention the green speeds at Augusta as I played a tournament last year or so where the greens on each course were in the 12-14 range; I had trouble getting the ball to the hole on the faster greens because I was so scared of them.  

Your point on the club lofts makes sense to me.  I pulled the data on my old Titleist irons earlier in the year and played a tournament with them just for fun.  Everything was about 2 clubs off (e.g. old 3I was carrying new 5I distance).  There are so many points going into this that one can pick and chose one or more to try and show support for one side or another, but in aggregate, I agree with you that there is no "distance problem."  Especially when you go back and show how little Amateur distance has changed.  I'll include the relevant part of my post from Dec 4th:

In March 2022 the USGA and R&A released "a wide-ranging and detailed look at distance in the game of golf" providing a picture of how amateur performance has  changed over the years form 1996 to 2019 (https://golf.com/instruction/driving/driving-distance-average-golfers-new-report/).  The report shows that, despite access to the same (or very similar) equipment and fitting that the Pros have access to and showing ~30 yards for the elite players, driving distance has stayed pretty stable (~10 yards gained across handicaps over 25 years for us lowly amateur/recreational players).  How come we have't gained 30 yards as well if it is all equipment driven?  I wonder what would happen to that stat if all of us played on tour conditioned fairways that were set up to roll, and roll, and roll, and roll, and roll...  Which goes back to the fact that changes in course grooming and design is also a factor that needs to be considered when trying to determine the Root Cause of this horrendous problem of herculean distance  

Great data. So this is demonstrating that for the amateurs, the driver distance increase is significantly lower than for pros. That legend shows handicaps? Look at those 21+ distance gains though, haha. That may be driver head tech forgiveness improvements.

[fixyurdivot]

10 hours ago, RickyBobby_PR said:

This way of thinking is gone. Strokes gained is out of the box and distance is an advantage. Many knew it but there wasn’t data to show it. Now we have it and everyone knows it. Being closer is better than being father away. That doesn’t mean tae unnecessary risks, but getting closer to the hole is better

Not to take this thread off track, spinning wrecklessly out of orbit, but this is pretty much what Odyssey is stating and marketing with the Ai-One putters.  Make percentage goes up every inch closer we get and the Ai face insert yields more consistent distances - across the face.  

Do you suppose the USGA and R&A might start looking to rollback putters for excessive accuracy?

Now back to your regular scheduled program 

[HikingMike]

On 12/15/2023 at 6:30 AM, RickyBobby_PR said:

Equipment and ball haven’t changed in 20 years

Rickie Fowler said that the governing bodies are “20 years late” in making these changes.
https://www.si.com/golf/news/rory-mcilroy-lee-westwood-golf-ball-rollback-debate-usga-pga-tour-2023

On 12/15/2023 at 6:30 AM, RickyBobby_PR said:

Brian Harmon, Colin Morikawa to name a few that aren’t that long yet have won on tour including majors. Lots of skills involved in playing good golf.

Morikawa's driving average is 295.2 yards, and that is below average on tour now. 
https://www.golfdigest.com/story/players-2023-bomb-and-gouge-era-is-over-entering-golfs-plus-1-era

On 12/15/2023 at 6:30 AM, RickyBobby_PR said:

also the courses having to grow or longer courses needed has been debunked by the superintendents associations study along with the data that shows courses are built at 6700ish yards in the last 5-10 years and have been built shorter than the previous 10 years of that

From the data I've seen, pro event courses have gotten longer.

"This report investigates changes in the average lengths of golf courses on the PGA European Tour and PGA TOUR over recent seasons,"

From the USGA report-

I'm not sure where this one is from. It's in a docx file that I found googling and the URL appears to be just a file host. 

This excerpt below is from golf.com - https://golf.com/news/usga-distance-report-10-takeaways/

Quote

2. Golf courses have gotten longer, and they’re going to continue getting longer

This squares with our findings at No. 1: As players have hit the ball farther, the playing fields have grown accordingly. Some numbers:

In that 1900-1930 window, average courses were 5400-5500 yards, with 90th percentile courses measuring 6100 yards. From 1930 to the 1990s, course yardage increased by six yards/year, leading to average of 6600-6700 yards by the 1990s, with 90th percentile courses at 7100 yards. In the next 20 years, both the average and 90th percentile numbers rose about another 100 yards each.

Golf course footprints have grown substantially over time, the report states, and that trend shows no real signs of slowing down, despite obvious constraints some courses face.

[HikingMike]

On 12/15/2023 at 5:56 PM, RickyBobby_PR said:

Some data debunking the game have become a pitch and putt or that more guys are having shorter clubs into greens 

as the average distance has increased

Again not a driver wedge game being played on tour 

Great data. This is kind of what I was looking for. It's not showing which club was used (or loft), but at least approach shot distance. Do you have any more info, context about this chart or a link? I would love to see it go back to 1995 or something.

I found this, which has some similar data though not exactly the same. It has par 4s and par 5s separate, not combined like your image. And it only goes from 2004 to 2018.

That shows that median approach distances on par 4s have stayed close to the same in those 15 years, and the same for par 5s. And the hole distances have increased a bit on average, although there are also more shorter par 4s lately. I wish this data went back farther too.

Quote

The above suggests that increasing hole lengths on Par 4s could be mitigating the impact of the increasing driving distances on the PGA TOUR.

Quote

Despite the increase in Par 4-hole lengths on average, we can see that there has been an increase in short Par 4s in recent years. This could suggest that more risk/reward Par 4s are being set up due to a larger percentage of the field being able to reach these shorter holes.

Quote

At the left-hand side of the distribution in Figure 2, we can see the increase in short Par 4s in 2018. We can also see the same at the right-hand side of the distribution, where there are more long Par 4s. This helps explain the increase in drives finishing within 50 yards of the pin on Par 4s, seen in the bump of the left-hand side of the distribution in Figure 1.

[RickyBobby_PR]

52 minutes ago, fixyurdivot said:

Not to take this thread off track, spinning wrecklessly out of orbit, but this is pretty much what Odyssey is stating and marketing with the Ai-One putters.  Make percentage goes up every inch closer we get and the Ai face insert yields more consistent distances - across the face.  

Do you suppose the USGA and R&A might start looking to rollback putters for excessive accuracy?

Now back to your regular scheduled program 

I hope not. But knowing them anything they don’t like from an optics perspective they will change.

45 minutes ago, HikingMike said:

Rickie Fowler said that the governing bodies are “20 years late” in making these changes.
https://www.si.com/golf/news/rory-mcilroy-lee-westwood-golf-ball-rollback-debate-usga-pga-tour-2023

Morikawa's driving average is 295.2 yards, and that is below average on tour now. 
https://www.golfdigest.com/story/players-2023-bomb-and-gouge-era-is-over-entering-golfs-plus-1-era

From the data I've seen, pro event courses have gotten longer.

"This report investigates changes in the average lengths of golf courses on the PGA European Tour and PGA TOUR over recent seasons,"

From the USGA report-

I'm not sure where this one is from. It's in a docx file that I found googling and the URL appears to be just a file host. 

This excerpt below is from golf.com - https://golf.com/news/usga-distance-report-10-takeaways/

They are 20 years too late and it makes no sense to do a rollback now. Its trying to put the toothpaste back in the tube. They could see the changes starting in 2000 and could see it between 2003-2014, but they kept pushing the grow the game narrative. But as we see with the data nothing has changed in the last 20 years that indicates distance will blow up 

Course length hasn’t increased on the pga tour by any significant amount in the last 2 decades and speed has been consistent for that same time.

more data that contradicts everything being said in support of a rollback

From acushnet. If you want to see the whole release you can back to page 26.

”Golf is an aspirational sport, and we believe at its very best when equipment and playing regulations are unified. Golf’s health and vibrancy are at historically high levels,” said David Maher, President and Chief Executive Officer, Acushnet Company. “As we see it, existing golf ball regulations for Overall Distance and Initial Velocity are highly effective. During the past two decades, PGA TOUR average course playing length has increased by less than 100 yards and scoring average has remained virtually flat. Average PGA TOUR clubhead speed of 114.6 mph in 2022 was well below the current 120 mph and proposed 127 mph testing conditions. The proposal of golf ball bifurcation is in many respects a solution in search of a problem.”  

And page 61.

We note that the mean of the fastest 1% of measured clubhead speeds on the PGA TOUR was flat from 2019-2021 and declined in 2022 and 2023. The mean of the fastest 5%, 10%, 20% and 50% of measured clubhead speeds has been flat since 2017. We consider that the average course playing length on the 2023 PGA TOUR is less than 7,200 yards, just as it has been every year since 2004. We also note that U.S. golf courses built during the period 2010-2020 averaged 6,652 yards – 274 yards shorter than those built between 1990-2010, which is at odds with the notion that equipment has forced courses to expand.  

[fixyurdivot]

14 minutes ago, RickyBobby_PR said:

”Golf is an aspirational sport, and we believe at its very best when equipment and playing regulations are unified. Golf’s health and vibrancy are at historically high levels,” said David Maher, President and Chief Executive Officer, Acushnet Company. “As we see it, existing golf ball regulations for Overall Distance and Initial Velocity are highly effective. During the past two decades, PGA TOUR average course playing length has increased by less than 100 yards and scoring average has remained virtually flat. Average PGA TOUR clubhead speed of 114.6 mph in 2022 was well below the current 120 mph and proposed 127 mph testing conditions. The proposal of golf ball bifurcation is in many respects a solution in search of a problem.” 

I think David maybe a forum member... dude stole my words .  The USGA and R&A are looking pretty foolish and out of step with the golf world.

[RickyBobby_PR]

6 minutes ago, fixyurdivot said:

I think David maybe a forum member... dude stole my words .  The USGA and R&A are looking pretty foolish and out of step with the golf world.

They are. They are 0 for 4 lately. Their only possible win is the rules update a few years back 

[Subdiver1]

7 hours ago, HikingMike said:

Great data. So this is demonstrating that for the amateurs, the driver distance increase is significantly lower than for pros. That legend shows handicaps? Look at those 21+ distance gains though, haha. That may be driver head tech forgiveness improvements.

I also found the spikes and valleys interesting (kind of follows my game at certain points ).  I am not sure whether they are due it changes in volume of available data during those points or a variation in data sources.  The overall mean numbers are what caught my eye.  Variation exists in everything, but the trend lines are pretty consistent.

[DaveP043]

14 hours ago, Franc38 said:

And the USGA as the R&A have very little legitimacy to do stuff, except historical.

I suppose you could say the same thing about any "government".  Nobody asked ME about forming the United States, a few men just took it upon themselves, and now they expect me to follow all their rules.  The same for France, the only "legitimacy" the government has is "historical".  Perhaps we should go back to the origins of golf, where each club had their own rules for their own members on their own course.  Even in the early years of the Open Championship, different Rules were in effect when played at St Andrews as compared to those in effect when it was played at Musselburgh.  Clubs CHOSE to accept the Rules of Golf when they became more unified, chose to play under R&A rules instead of the Honorable Company Rules, and eventually the Honourable Company CHOSE to accept the R&A version of the Rules.  When the need for regulating equipment became apparent (in the early 1900s), the R&A and USGA stepped in to formulate rules, and clubs CHOSE to follow those, as they followed the Rules of Golf.  Nobody "forced" them, they chose that.  

14 hours ago, Franc38 said:

Ultimately, they never had the power to regulate distance. They just happen to try to take it

Did they "take power", or did they assume the responsibility to fill a necessary role, that of regulating equipment?  

14 hours ago, Franc38 said:

I could well see national federations (or tours) branch out on ball rules

You assume that major manufacturers will still produce balls that exceed the USGA/R&A criteria.  I think that's extremely unlikely.  

[GolfSpy_APH]

Our main site article just dropped. Competed with custom graphics, quotes and more. Drop us a comment in the section and let us know where you stand.

 

https://mygolfspy.com/news-opinion/what-the-forum-is-saying-about-the-rollback/

[Stuka44]

2 hours ago, DaveP043 said:

You assume that major manufacturers will still produce balls that exceed the USGA/R&A criteria.  I think that's extremely unlikely.  

Dave I mentioned it somewhere in another thread.  I would not be surprised, depending on this alleged deal that is supposed to be worked out between PIF and the PGA by the end of the year, if it does not come about that LIV would do the following.  

If most or all ball manufacturers commit to not making for lack of a better expression 2023 version balls, that LIV would purchase(a factory if need be) and market, toward the "recreational player" the ability to sell 2023 version balls, with the marketing slogan

"Don't let them take your fun away"   We at LIV are here for you the "for fun player" !

Any way to subvert the status quo. I hope they see it as a possibility, because it is clear that money, and cost, and at this point return on investment,  is ABSOLUTELY NO IMPEDIMENT TO THEM. 

Edited December 20, 2023 by Stuka44

[ILMgolfnut]

I don't play the same game as Koepka or Rory or Rahmbo. I just don't. The inconsistency of my swing, and the creaking of my 63-year-old joints, costs me much more distance than a ball rollback would. And I don't reach par 5s in two, or often in three, and rarely reach par 4s in two with the existing balls and equipment. So it won't matter to me. I'll keep working to get as much distance as I can with what I have to work with, but if the best I can do with the new balls is 225 instead of 230, so what?

Edited December 20, 2023 by ILMgolfnut

[HikingMike]

9 hours ago, Subdiver1 said:

I also found the spikes and valleys interesting (kind of follows my game at certain points ).  I am not sure whether they are due it changes in volume of available data during those points or a variation in data sources.  The overall mean numbers are what caught my eye.  Variation exists in everything, but the trend lines are pretty consistent.

Yeah those spikes and valleys are strange. It makes sense if they don't have much data. If they had a lot of data, things would average to a lot smoother line.

However, I do see the different lines have peaks/valleys at the same time in some places (like 2000-2006). So that could be an environmental effect that affected all the groups - like if this is data from just one golf course and the weather affected things. 

Ok... I was able to dig it out of the USGA distance report, thankfully not too deep. That is from page 16 and 17. Here is the context, and it's helpful. Let me put the whole little section in here-

Quote

2.2.2 Recreational golf hitting distances

The hitting distances of recreational golfers have not been the subject of many systematic measurements. The most longstanding effort has been the driving distance measurements conducted by The R&A annually at six venues between 1996 and 2019 (R05 - Analysis of Amateur Driving Data 1996-2018). Where possible, the same venues and competitions were studied every year, with distances measured on the same holes.

Figure 11 shows the average driving distances of male players in each handicap category2 each year between 1996 and 2019.

Over the period of the study, driving distances increased for these UK-based male players from all handicap categories, with the overall combined average increasing from 200 yards in 1996 to 216 yards in 2019. The largest increase in 2018 was for category 4 male golfers (handicaps of 21 and above), whose average increased from 165 yards in 1996 to 187 yards (but it fell back down to 176 yards in 2019, demonstrating the volatility in some of this data). These results compare well with the values collected during a different study conducted at the World Amateur Handicap Championship (R05 - Analysis of Amateur Driving Data 1996-2018). These results are also consistent with a study published by the golf performance tracking system Arccos which reports that average driving distance for male amateurs in 2018 was 217 yards (R51 - The divide between professional and amateur golfers is growing). Finally, these distances are also consistent with a study by Trackman which reported that the average distance of amateur male golfers is 214 yards (https://blog.trackmangolf.com/performance-of-the-average-male-amateur/).

As shown in Figure 12, these studies also recorded the golfers’ club selection, which is known to influence driving distances.

As with driving distance, while the data in Figure 12 represents a robust sample of golfers enabling long-term trends to be evaluated, significant year-to-year variations may occur for various reasons. It can be seen in Figure 12 that, except for the lowest handicap golfers, recreational golfers in this study are using driver more often now than in the late 1990s (see Section 3.2.1.1 for comments on driver forgiveness). In the early years of the study, driver usage by handicap category went down with increasing handicap. Since the mid 2000s, however, the likelihood for all handicap categories to use driver has become more similar. The overall increase in driver usage accounts for approximately 4 yards of the 15-yard increase in driving distance.

So it was only done at 6 courses, and perhaps just 1 competition each year. It isn't a ton of data, so that explains it.

That second chart gives good context for why the high handicappers had such a big increase in driving distance. They are using driver a lot more than in the past. That was around the time of driver head size increases I believe. 

Really neat that they mentioned another study and Arccos data was consistent, at least for the recent data that matches time frame.

 

[RickyBobby_PR]

9 minutes ago, HikingMike said:

Yeah those spikes and valleys are strange. It makes sense if they don't have much data. If they had a lot of data, things would average to a lot smoother line.

However, I do see the different lines have peaks/valleys at the same time in some places (like 2000-2006). So that could be an environmental effect that affected all the groups - like if this is data from just one golf course and the weather affected things. 

Ok... I was able to dig it out of the USGA distance report, thankfully not too deep. That is from page 16 and 17. Here is the context, and it's helpful. Let me put the whole little section in here-

So it was only done at 6 courses, and perhaps just 1 competition each year. It isn't a ton of data, so that explains it.

That second chart gives good context for why the high handicappers had such a big increase in driving distance. They are using driver a lot more than in the past. That was around the time of driver head size increases I believe. 

Really neat that they mentioned another study and Arccos data was consistent, at least for the recent data that matches time frame.

 

It’s also comparing data form different equipment eras and standards.

Of course distance had in crease from 96 to 2016. The prov1 came out in 2000 and the current equipment standards came out in 2003. This is why the pga tour players and others have called out the ruling bodies for cherry picking data.

When the data from 2003-2023 is compared there is no distance gain at the top end and only a 10 yard distance gain for the average. 
 

And this is the data many on the pro rollback side use to say there’s a distance problem by saying look at the difference between the 90s and 2000s. The ruling bodies claim if they don’t do anything distance will keep increasing, he the data for the current equipment and the current conforming standards show that’s not the case

[HikingMike]

24 minutes ago, RickyBobby_PR said:

It’s also comparing data form different equipment eras and standards.

Of course distance had in crease from 96 to 2016. The prov1 came out in 2000 and the current equipment standards came out in 2003. This is why the pga tour players and others have called out the ruling bodies for cherry picking data.

When the data from 2003-2023 is compared there is no distance gain at the top end and only a 10 yard distance gain for the average. 
 

And this is the data many on the pro rollback side use to say there’s a distance problem by saying look at the difference between the 90s and 2000s. The ruling bodies claim if they don’t do anything distance will keep increasing, he the data for the current equipment and the current conforming standards show that’s not the case

Good points. I am in favor of a rollback in part due to effects from the Pro V1 and bigger driver heads. I know those were more than 20 years ago. Those had big effects on the game. Pro player fitness and training definitely plays into it now too, but of course I don't think we need to tell anybody they can't train or something, lol.

Distance will keep increasing. Average pro distance will continue increasing for a bit longer as other pros/new pros catch up a bit. It hasn't levelled off yet. You can look at any of the charts for that. Changes in the game haven't shaken out for the entire field and taken effect immediately. There is some lag time. I don't think top-end distance will change much from the current point. And eventually a human limit will be reached and distance will change very little after that.

[GolfSpy_SHARK]

I know there are probably some spellings or nuances in the article that we could split hairs over. BUT I would like to say lets just be happy it is on the main site and the forum is being recognized

[RickyBobby_PR]

1 hour ago, HikingMike said:

Distance will keep increasing. Average pro distance will continue increasing for a bit longer as other pros/new pros catch up a bit. It hasn't levelled off yet.

Show me data that that based on the current equipment and ball with the current confirming specs where distance will continue to increase?

The data shows it won’t. The current equipment and standard have been in place ball (2000 with the Prov1) and 2003 (460 cc) and CT (2004).

if we look at 2003 thru today the top end distance hasn’t increased. Show me data that this will change in 20 years.

Average distance has only increased 10 yards in that period of time? Will more golfers get to 300 yards on tour? Of course because the younger kids are capable of that. Will there be an increase in the average? Yes. As the shorter hitters age out and the younger longe than the short hitters come on tour the average will go up, but that’s what happens when more people hit the ball the same distance which is what we have seen.

saying distance increases from mid 90s to early 2000s isn’t data that proves it will still go up. That using data with different equipment, balls and standards

there’s no lag time. We have 20 years of data with the same equipment and standards and top end distance is flat. 

Edited December 20, 2023 by RickyBobby_PR

[GolfSpy_APH]

1 hour ago, Lacassem said:

I know there are probably some spellings or nuances in the article that we could split hairs over. BUT I would like to say lets just be happy it is on the main site and the forum is being recognized

V2 graphics were uploaded by accident. Stuff happens from time to time. Resolved now.

[HikingMike]

2 hours ago, Lacassem said:

I know there are probably some spellings or nuances in the article that we could split hairs over. BUT I would like to say lets just be happy it is on the main site and the forum is being recognized

We could say that the MGS forum is driving golf news!

[Stuka44]

1 hour ago, RickyBobby_PR said:

Show me data that that based on the current equipment and ball with the current confirming specs where distance will continue to increase?

Exactly right!  Since 2003-Tiger Woods specifically people saw an immaculately fit individual playing the game of golf, and realized "being really fit" gave him an advantage..  As more and more young fit people entered the sport, they drove up the average, because of their fitness, not the equipment they were  using compared to older golfers, with the beer bellies who aged out of being competitive , whose idea of a workout were 12 oz. curls.

Some of the most fit golfers, best practiced, and technically proficient golfers are now driving the ball.  Sure their will be "outliers", who just seem to be able to hit it a little farther than the average golfer.  But that doesn't mean that everyone can  achieve this higher standard, and that  everyone playing or coming into the game will keep driving the average up, and will be able to hit the ball farther, and farther, with the same standards of equipment.

I will admit when it comes to golf, I know nothing about how they actually achieve their "driving stats", but this could possibly make quite a bit of difference.  Give me the average amongst all PGA golfers over the last 10 years on 1 almost perfectly flat hole they played on each course.  Lets eliminate the holes that "DRIVE UP" the driving average by providing 60 + yards of roll out.  Someone who hits it 300 and get 360, and someone who hits it 330 and gets 400 out of it is to a certain degree artificially driving up the "AVERAGE", again as many have said, this is a course set up, fairway width, rough length problem, not a ball problem.

 

 

Edited December 20, 2023 by Stuka44

[RickyBobby_PR]

2 minutes ago, Stuka44 said:

Some of the most fit golfers, best practiced, and technically proficient golfers are now driving the ball.  Sure their will be "outliers", who just seem to be able to hit it a little farther than the average golfer.  But that doesn't mean that everyone can keep achieve this higher standard, and that the everyone playing or coming into the game will keep driving the average up.

And the social media link from Lou Stegner that cnosil posted about 30 pages ago with a clip from the USGA equipment person stated it’s the golfer. So that faster, younger, fit golfer who is hitting the ball 300 to a little over which is where most guys on tour are will drive up the average. Data shows that 180ish ball speed seems to be the sweet spot for where the pros are seeing their best results from distance and dispersion. Going beyond that starts to bring in more risk.

when you look at the guys pushing between 180-190 not many of them are winning on tour which shows it’s more than just driver wedge that is needed to win

[HikingMike]

1 hour ago, RickyBobby_PR said:

Show me data that that based on the current equipment and ball with the current confirming specs where distance will continue to increase?

The data shows it won’t. The current equipment and standard have been in place ball (2000 with the Prov1) and 2003 (460 cc) and CT (2004).

if we look at 2003 thru today the top end distance hasn’t increased. Show me data that this will change in 20 years.

Average distance has only increased 10 yards in that period of time? Will more golfers get to 300 yards on tour? Of course because the younger kids are capable of that. Will there be an increase in the average? Yes. As the shorter hitters age out and the younger longe than the short hitters come on tour the average will go up, but that’s what happens when more people hit the ball the same distance which is what we have seen.

saying distance increases from mid 90s to early 2000s isn’t data that proves it will still go up. That using data with different equipment, balls and standards

there’s no lag time. We have 20 years of data with the same equipment and standards and top end distance is flat. 

I honestly don't care about top end distance outliers, and I just said "I don't think top-end distance will change much from the current point" in my previous comment. But I'm glad you agree that average distance will increase further.

I have heard some people say that it will be a never-ending thing and distance will continue going up indefinitely. I do not have that belief unless there are equipment changes that enable it. There is a human limitation.

The lag time - there was lag time as new drivers were introduced over the years, as new balls were introduced. One manufacturer did something, and eventually others made something comparable. It took time for players to adopt those as well. There is also lag time with the physical fitness and training of golfers. Tiger was doing something new, and now a lot more pros have adopted some of what he did. Just look at the increase of the average driving distance over time. I don't think all of that is played out yet. There is other new-ish tech like launch monitors that are more accurate now, and pros are likely using them more than before. There is a little bit left probably to shake out of the average pro distance tree. Neither of us has future data, but I can look at those lines and see they have not levelled off yet. 

Meanwhile, what about golf courses? We've had all these distance increases from various factors, especially since the mid-90s. But golf courses are not built to change a lot. 

[RickyBobby_PR]

34 minutes ago, HikingMike said:

honestly don't care about top end distance outliers, and I just said "I don't think top-end distance will change much from the current point" in my previous comment. But I'm glad you agree that average distance will increase further.

Top end distance is the most important. If that’s not increasing then why rollback? It’s because the ruling bodies don’t like to see a lot of people hitting 300 even though it has done nothing to lower scoring average by more than a stroke in 20 years while playing the same course length over that same period. 
 

That’s not a distance issue it’s a subjective preference for how the game should be played.

Rolling back only puts more of a premium on distance as pointed out by broadie and others. Strokes gained shows that distance is key and when courses play longer it give the advantage to longer hitters. What happens when distance becomes more of a premium? You get more guys going after it and end up with more guys hitting the same distance. What does that do? it puts even less of a gap between the longer hitters and now your average is up. It also drives the shortest hitter of tour because they have less of a chance to win. Which then drives distance even more closer to the leader

34 minutes ago, HikingMike said:

I have heard some people say that it will be a never-ending thing and distance will continue going up indefinitely. I do not have that belief unless there are equipment changes that enable it. There is a human limitation.

Exactly where we are. If it made sense to hit the ball further than what the pros are hitting it now they would. But it’s not as beneficial. This is what Sasho was pointing out in his recent comments. These guys have more in the tank. The ones that don’t will be off the tour because they can’t keep up. So if we have reached our limit what is being protected against? Nothing. What’s being done is the ruling bodies saying we don’t like how the pros play the game and we want to change it. Which means they are either naive to strokes gained or they are ignoring.

It also shows they either don’t know how to interpret data or they are trying to limit the increase in average distance which gets back to the point about strokes gained.

34 minutes ago, HikingMike said:

The lag time - there was lag time as new drivers were introduced over the years, as new balls were introduced. One manufacturer did something, and eventually others made something comparable. It took time for players to adopt those as well. There is also lag time with the physical fitness and training of golfers

That’s all settled. We can even shorten the timeframe from 2003 down to 2005 which is when the end of the big jump between the 90s and 2000s occurred which is also the year after Ct was instituted for testing. 
 

The training protocols aren’t going to change much and again the limitations of what the players and equipment are at has shown that over the course of the last 20 years average has only gone up 10 yards. 
 

34 minutes ago, HikingMike said:

I don't think all of that is played out yet. There is other new-ish tech like launch monitors that are more accurate now, and pros are likely using them more than before. There is a little bit left probably to shake out of the average pro distance tree. Neither of us has future data, but I can look at those lines and see they have not levelled off yet. 

The accuracy of then launch monitors isn’t going to impact anything. It’s going to be a small amount of difference in the readings of the data. The pros are pretty much optimized with their bag setups. They are lucky to squeak out a couple yards. DJ did and interview 5-7 years ago or so with meandmygolf and said he woukd be happy to get 3 yards from a new driver. The gains just aren’t there.

unless someone comes out with a new formula strokes gained is the gold standard and doubt there’s anything that’s going to say add more risk by going longer so you can get even closer to the pin. Equipment is capped, unless there’s some magic device or pill nobody knows about under the current standards there’s nothing to suggest an explosion of distance is coming

34 minutes ago, HikingMike said:

Meanwhile, what about golf courses? We've had all these distance increases from various factors, especially since the mid-90s. But golf courses are not built to change a lot

Literally been debunked multiple times in this thread by actual studies. Courses on the pga tour have remained the same for the last 20 years. Course construction has decreased by just under 400 yards from 2010-2020. Courses haven’t been getting longer despite how many times it’s repeated. You like data well it’s all over r this thread, feel free to go look at the post with titleist statement that gives you the stats about courses not growing. Go read the post I made with the 18 year study from the superintendents association and see how courses haven’t gotten longer.

Sure in the 90s there were courses that got longer, but that was happening even before the 90s and they didn’t grow in the 90s because there was a distance problem. But we can look at what happened as a result of Tiger and Tiger proofing. It causes the pros to get longer because it was an advantage. Same thing a rollback would do. Which is what strokes gained says too

 

Even if the tour got to 120 vice ~100 golfers hitting 300 it doesn’t create a problem. It doesn’t make courses obsolete, whatever that means. Nobody has provided what that means because all it ever comes back to is scores are too low yet somehow the winner is still determined by who scores the lowest. That is nothing more than a preference for how one wants to see golf played

 

a little more data for you from the titleist statement on March 14th. The average tour player is well below the current ODS. So where is the distance issue if the average is below 120 now and even further below the 125.

Average PGA TOUR clubhead speed of 114.6 mph in 2022 was well below the current 120 mph and proposed 127 mph testing conditions. The proposal of golf ballbifurcation is in many respects a solution in search of aproblem.”  

 

Edited December 20, 2023 by RickyBobby_PR

[ChiefMB]

If the pros are hitting it too far, don’t penalize amateurs.  Courses should add traps where the longer hitting pros end up.  Let them make the decision to hit it as far as they can or just play safe.

[HikingMike]

12 minutes ago, RickyBobby_PR said:

Top end distance is the most important. If that’s not increasing then why rollback?

Why rollback? Because average pro distance has increased so much. There will always be outliers, no big deal. They are outliers, and those are not so much affecting the whole of the pro game.

13 minutes ago, RickyBobby_PR said:

That’s not a distance issue it’s a subjective preference for how the game should be played.

I'm not sure how you make the distinction. It can be both. It is subjective preference how the game should be played, and whether we should change courses or not. Whether or not distance of shots is an issue is a subjective preference. Like I said in another post, this can be demonstrated by just extending this to an extreme. 

"Pros could hit the ball 500 yards and play par 5s like we play par 3s now, and some people would be fine with that."

"I doubt anyone would want to see driveable par 5s"

That indicates there is a certain point where more distance disagrees with your preference for how the game should be played. It's just different than my preference.

29 minutes ago, RickyBobby_PR said:

Rolling back only puts more of a premium on distance as pointed out by broadie and others. Strokes gained shows that distance is key and when courses play longer it give the advantage to longer hitters. What happens when distance becomes more of a premium? You get more guys going after it and end up with more guys hitting the same distance. What does that do? it puts even less of a gap between the longer hitters and now your average is up. It also drives the shortest hitter of tour because they have less of a chance to win. Which then drives distance even more closer to the leader

The cat is out of the bag already though. How about this... what if the next major has all par 4s under 300 yards? By that logic, this would remove some advantage from longer hitters, right?  Should we do it? This is also a subjective preference thing. They would score lower... also subjective preference.

30 minutes ago, RickyBobby_PR said:

What’s being done is the ruling bodies saying we don’t like how the pros play the game and we want to change it. 

It also shows they either don’t know how to interpret data or they are trying to limit the increase in average distance which gets back to the point about strokes gained.

Yep. But also, the average distance will continue going up for a while and it's also a reaction to future distance gains. I am good with them wanting to limit average distance.

33 minutes ago, RickyBobby_PR said:

That’s all settled. We can even shorten the timeframe from 2003 down to 2005 which is when the end of the big jump between the 90s and 2000s occurred which is also the year after Ct was instituted for testing. 
 

The training protocols aren’t going to change much and again the limitations of what the players and equipment are at has shown that over the course of the last 20 years average has only gone up 10 yards. 

Personally I am ok with the big gains in pros' distance from the mid-90s thru mid-00s being on the table as well. Those were mostly due to equipment. But even if that is disregarded, the average distance is still going up currently. The increase of the average over the last 20 years is 10 yards... ok, so why are we worried about 10-15 yards reduction? We just look at this differently.

40 minutes ago, RickyBobby_PR said:

They are lucky to squeak out a couple yards. DJ did and interview 5-7 years ago or so with meandmygolf and said he woukd be happy to get 3 yards from a new driver. The gains just aren’t there.

But in other places you say, and you mention Sasho says, they can just increase their distance in reaction to a ball rollback. Why don't they increase their distance now though if strokes gained dictates that? At some point it doesn't make sense. So that's why I am skeptical of the thinking they will just increase their distance, they have more in the tank, etc. If strokes gained told them to do that, they would have already done it.

39 minutes ago, RickyBobby_PR said:

there’s nothing to suggest an explosion of distance is coming

I agree there isn't an explosion of distance coming. There is some more, but I don't know how much.

44 minutes ago, RickyBobby_PR said:

Course construction has decreased by just under 400 yards from 2010-2020.

That's good to know, but I think that glosses over the issue. And I would favor considering more than just the last 10 years, and would also want to include some of the prospective future.

https://www.usga.org/content/usga/home-page/course-care/green-section-record/59/02/mapping-the-past--present-and-future-of-golf-courses.html

53 minutes ago, RickyBobby_PR said:

But we can look at what happened as a result of Tiger and Tiger proofing. It causes the pros to get longer because it was an advantage. Same thing a rollback would do. Which is what strokes gained says too

Would this not happen regardless? Did Tiger proofing lead more pros to gain length off the tee? Say there was no Tiger proofing, and a ball rollback does not happen. Use your imagination. Do other pros adopt Tiger's play or not? Distance is still an advantage, right? 

1 hour ago, RickyBobby_PR said:

Courses haven’t been getting longer despite how many times it’s repeated.

If courses aren't getting longer, and players are hitting longer...

1 hour ago, RickyBobby_PR said:

That is nothing more than a preference for how one wants to see golf played

Yes!

[GolfSpy_SHARK]

2 hours ago, HikingMike said:

We could say that the MGS forum is driving golf news!

I would love to say MGS forum is driving discussion, debate and is the go to spot for golf related news