Where Have All The Distance Gains Gone

[Bryan Izatt]

on the PGA Tour?



From 2003 onwards the average distance hasn't moved much.  The longest driver hasn't moved much.  The delta between the longest and shortest on tour hasn't changed much in 9 seasons.

Have the last two generations of Pro V1's (and their competitors) failed to improve on the original Pro V1?

Has the advent of 460cc drivers failed to increase distance?

Have the new MOI geometries failed to increase distances?

Have lighter carbon nanotube shafts failed to deliver distance gains?

Could the USGA have been right that the distance gain had leveled off?

Is it possible that no more quantum leaps in distance are possible?

Can classic courses stop being lengthened?

Has the distance sky stopped falling?

[Jim Nugent]

Brian, the stats don't show how courses and course setups have changed.  Take ANGC.  It is now longer, tighter, with more trees and rough than it was in 2002.  If that is true of many other courses, balls may well be getting longer.  

e.g. I've read that Tiger now hits more 3-woods and 2-irons off the tee, ala Hoylake.  That puts a big dent on driving distance.    

 

[Rich Goodale]

The latest data seem to imply that the mean global temperature plateaued in about the same time frame as did driving distance.  Perhaps it was global warming which led to the distance problem of the1980-2000 period, and not technology?

[TEPaul]

"Could the USGA have been right that distance gains had leveled off?"

Of course the USGA could've been right. It's amazing to me how many people seem to assume since distance increased in the last few decades for various reasons it will continue to increase or increase at the same rate in the future. It seems those people forget the USGA does have a ODS standard regarding the distance the ball goes and the USGA does have the ability and the capacity to deem golf balls nonconforming to that ODS standard.

Obviously the manufacturers are aware of that and attempt to conform to it within the present ODS Rules and Regs for fairly obvious reasons!  

[Mike_Cirba]

So, we're basically talking about the average tour player gaining 30 yards per drive over 25 years, and probably a good percentage of that per shot.

So, suddenly, for the professionals since 1980, each par four and par five played about 50 yards shorter than it did when Nicklaus won at Baltusrol.  

So, for courses to play equitably, we're talking about adding 700 yards for the 4s and 5s and what, another 100 to the 3's?

[JESII]

For a guy that doesn't think they can play equitably today no matter what you sure spend alot of time wondering why...

[TEPaul]

Mike:

I don't know that equitably would be the right word to use---probably more like similarly (to 25 years ago), but sure, to return the same basic club selections throughout a course for top caliber players today would probably need to add about 800 yards compared to 25 years ago.

Most people fixate on just the increase of the driver sometimes forgetting that today's good players are probably another 25-30 yards longer with every other club in their bag.

That kind of thing adds up to a pretty steep total over an entire golf course.

[Mike_Cirba]

For a guy that doesn't think they can play equitably today no matter what you sure spend alot of time wondering why...

Jim,

I'm just curious where those 800-1000 yards are going to come from on courses that have been there since the Golden Age.  

If you then think of making them play like they did in their heyday, or even like 1950 in the case of Ben Hogan as we discussed for Merion's 18th, I think any course built prior to 1950 would need to be between 7,700 and 8,200 yards.

So yes, theoretically and hypothetically, if you adjusted every tee back as far as adding 30-50 yards to a drive would go, and then you backed every green up...oops..

There's my point.

You can't get there from here, so the whole idea of making classic courses PLAY like they did in terms of club selections is fallacious prima facie.  

[JESII]

I agree...so why do you keep bringing it up?

Do you think greens are more difficult today...on those Golden Age courses?

[tlavin]

I think the term plateau might be appropriate here.

[Mike_Cirba]

I agree...so why do you keep bringing it up?

Do you think greens are more difficult today...on those Golden Age courses?

Because we keep hearing from architects and clubs trying to justify changes to Golden Age courses that they "are just trying to make them play like they did when MacKenzie...Wilson...Ross...Crump...Fownes, et.al. built them, as if that were even remotely possible.

As far as greens difficulty, I think that it's likely a wash.  I grew up on some greens that putted like shag rugs and the bumpiness and inconsistentcy of those surfaces, while not as frightening as really speedy ones, probably offered the same odds of holing any particular putt as the incredible smoothness and true roll one gets today on sheer ones.  

[John Kavanaugh]

I agree...so why do you keep bringing it up?

Do you think greens are more difficult today...on those Golden Age courses?

Because we keep hearing from architects and clubs trying to justify changes to Golden Age courses that they "are just trying to make them play like they did when MacKenzie...Wilson...Ross...Crump...Fownes, et.al. built them, as if that were even remotely possible.

Cirba,

Please provide one of those quotes from an architect.  I have never heard that before.

[JESII]

Mike,

Would it make any difference to you if the clubs just said they thought the particular hole played too short for the guys that play those tees today?

[Bryan Izatt]

Jim,

The Tour measures drives as follows:

"The average number of yards per measured drive. These drives are measured on two holes per round. Care is taken to select two holes which face in opposite directions to counteract the effect of wind. Drives are measured to the point at which they come to rest regardless of whether they are in the fairway or not."

I'd guess that they pick the two holes on the basis that they are likely to be ones where all players are likely to hit driver.  Tiger at Hoylake might be something of a singular exception to that rule.

**********************

From the stats you can see an average driving distance gain of say 30 yards, concentrated over a short period of time.  If you assume that irons are also proportionately longer, say 20 yards on average across the range of irons, then a course would need to be 50 yards per hole longer.   That's 900 yards per 18 holes.  So championship courses would need to stretched say from 6,800 yards in the golden age to 7,700 yards today.  I guess we haven't quite got there yet.  

You'd have to stretch the holes both back from the tee and further at the green to try to match the shot values.  Of course, the classic courses could just say NO.  Sad to see how influential the Tour is on length of courses.

I think current greens play more difficult today than they did in the golden age.  ANGC as a case in point, it would be hard to believe that playing them at a stimp of 8 or 9 wouldn't be a lot easier than playing them at 12 or 13.

[Mike_Cirba]

Mike,

Would it make any difference to you if the clubs just said they thought the particular hole played too short for the guys that play those tees today?

Jim,

But that's not what they say, and that's the problem.

First, if they believe it themselves they are delusional, and if it's just a falsehood being propagated to try to persuade a public or membership then it's deceitful.

What I don't like about it is the air of certainty, and careful study, and expertise the line implies.  It tries to speak from an expert, authoritarian tone that stifles dissent.

If they said that the hole, any hole was simply too short for today's top players then that point could be reasonably debated.

[Garland Bayley]

Well, I am going to sing the same old song. The pro v balls of today go as far as the top-flites of yesterday. Why? Spin off the driver! The USGA has allowed the manufacturers to virtually add vaseline to the ball even though it is illegal to added it to the club face. The pros can now hit their pro vs as far as I hit my top-flites 35 years ago. I did not have graphite or titanium or 460 cc then. I had a 2 wood, which appears to be a particularly appropriate choice given I was using a low spin ball. Yes, my physical conditioning was much better then, but I did nothing specific to golf.

To paraphrase WJC, "It's the ball stupid!"

[Mike_Cirba]

Garland,

Good to see that Tiger and the guys have finally caught up with you!    

[JESII]

Mike,

I think you might take these rationalizations a bit too personally...

[Chuck Brown]

The basic reply to the original post in this thread is so simple and so clear, I am surprised that no one has mentioned it.

The reason that distance gains have plateaued for the last four years or so is that multulayer urethane balls have remained largely unchanged during that same period.

For me, that fact is solemn proof that the large distance gains seen by tour players is not related to fitness, 21st century training and teaching, or launch monitors, or club design.  All of those things might have some small role to play in the general equation.  But the large gains of the past 20 years have been due, in overwhelming part, to advances in golf ball design and manufacture.

Remember that the next time that Peter Kostis says that pro golfers' new fitness regimes are the reason they hit the ball so far.  Remember that the next time Wally Uihlein says that turfgrass maintenance or club design are the reasons drives are going so far.

It's the ball.

Now, whether balls currently go too far for the classic championship golf courses is admittedly a value judgment.  The Joint Principles published by the USGA and R&A some years ago indicated that it was their value judgment that "further increases" with elite-competitor distances would be "undesirable."  Then, what happened?  Distances increased.  Now, they have leveled off.  What will the future bring?  Unless there are new rules and/or regulations, we can be assured that there we will see more distance gains, either incrementally or drastically.  Unchecked, the equipment manufacturers are assuredly not going backwards.

I agree with the Joint Principles as they were stated, and I think it is clear that distance gains went too far and then beyond.  Again, it is a value judgment, and my own judgment is based simply on what it is that must be done to the classic and historic golf courses in order to make them usable as championship venues.  I make no judgments about who is doing most of the winning, or who should be winning or losing or what winning scores should be.

A relatively simple question, and a desrvedly simple answer...  Why the big distance gains, followed by a plateau effect in recent years?  It is the Pro V1 era, that's why.

[Bryan Izatt]

Chuck,

So, are you saying that the annual introductions of new ProV1's since 2002 is nothing more than a marketing ploy by Titleist?  That the new models haven't moved the yardsticks.  How can you be so sure that there is further gains to be had in ball technology?

As to the impact of other technologies or player fitness or skill or agronomics, that will remain an open question.  There is no statistical data to support or refute the impact of any of these factors.  However, it is simplistic to state that the ball was the only cause of distance gains.  

[Chuck Brown]

Bryan, what I say is that distance gains are in large part directly related to the ball designs.  Since the Pro V1 has been largely unchanged over the past three years or so, distance gains have been flat over the past three years or so.

If it were "fitness," we'd be seeing gradual increases along with any(?!?) gradual increases in the "fitness" of tour players, right?  If it were "fitness," one might wonder why Timmy Herron and John Daly could ever seen any distance increases.  Right?

Ditto agronomy, turfgrass, and driver designs.  Simply put, when there have been big changes in balls and ball usage during the past 10 years, there have been corresponding jumps in driver distance.  There are also qualitative changes, too, some of which translate into distance stats.

I would never be so absolutist to say that nothing matters but the ball.  I just think that the ball is far and away the most important thing, and that the numbers bear that out.  

(I also happen to think that the ball is by far the easiest and most cost-effective thing to control, limit, roll back -- however you may wish to phrase it.)

[JESII]

Chuck,

Why do we need a roll back?

My contention is that courses make their own beds with this deal...and very few clubs actually need to lengthen to meet the demands of their clientelle...

[Chuck Brown]

And, Bryan, to be more exacting with respect to annual new ball introductions by Titleist, I'd add the following.  Most of those changes were evolutionary, dealing with small differences in the hardness of covers and mantles.  Changes that mean the most to elite players and that mean very little to other recreational players.  But all incremental changes.  Not much that was really major.  The biggest changes were when we entered the Pro V1 era, and the way that players gradually responded to a new golf ball paradigm with the rest of their equipment.

As for whether there will be "no further advances" in golf ball/driver distances, I just don't know.  What I do recall was Frank Thomas, back in the mid-1990's declaring that driver head size (then about 275 - 325 cc) was not likely to get any bigger, that designs had reached the point of diminishing returns.  That judgment was badly mistaken, we now know.  Drivers continue to get bigger until the USGA capped volume at 460cc.  Then MoI increased until the USGA capped the formula.  I regard those as cautionary tales.  I wonder why anyone would not presume that somehow, some way, technology will find a way to produce a golf ball that meets the current ODS testing protocol, and yet still goes much farther?

[Bryan Izatt]

Chuck,

Re the fitness gains, I think it could be argued that there was a quantum leap in fitness that we could call the Tiger effect that happened about the same time as the ball.  There are always anomolies, like Daly.  Lumpy was below the average in 2007.  Maybe he needs to work on his fitness.

Although it is likely that the ball is the single largest factor, there are no numbers that reliably quantify the relative contributions.  Certainly not the numbers in the chart above.

I agree, the ball would be the easiest thing to control if someone wanted to do a rollback.

[Chuck Brown]

JES - Most of us DON'T need a ball rollback.  I know I don't.  

But I do want to play golf by a single set of rules that governs all play, as is now the case.  And I know that current tour players are stretching the limits of all of the classic championship courses.

It seems to me that if you oppose a generalized ball rollback for all, you have to choose:
A)  Do you want to abandon and/or alter courses like The Old Course and Augusta beyond recognition for championship play, or,
B)  Do you want to bifurcate the rules and use rolled-back equipment for the elites?

For me, I dislike both of those options and would choose neither.  I'd happily opt for a generalized ball rollback, mostly because I think that I have gotten very little benefit from the Pro V1 era in any event.  Can I imagine playing without any brand of urethane ball?  Absolutely!  Would it be a shock to Phil Mickelson to play without a urethane ball?  Absolutely!  And I am good with that!