Roll Back a thread for people to debate the need for it.

[Tony_Muldoon]

Her'es a thought form Craig Sweet.

Tony, you said it best in your original post "some people don't understand change"  Yourself included.....

Let's just say I disagree with a lot of what you are advancing.

Doesn't seem to be an accurate quote Craig?

Say what you want to say, but please say it on this one.

[Jeff_Brauer]

Moved from Tony's other thread to maintain gca.com harmony.....

Cue the music.......

You say you want a revolution
Well, you know
We all want to change the world
You tell me that it's evolution
Well, you know
We all want to change the world
But when you talk about destruction
Don't you know that you can count me out
Don't you know it's gonna be all right
all right, all right

You say you got a real solution
Well, you know
We'd all love to see the plan
You ask me for a contribution
Well, you know
We're doing what we can
But when you want money
for people with minds that hate
All I can tell is brother you have to wait
Don't you know it's gonna be all right
all right, all right

In fact, I love the line of the OP - "Well, I could stop buying Pro V I's."  So, I guess its a case of it "hurts so good" I have to use the equipment I hate so much, eh?  Riddle me this - do you want to hit gutties? Take a mighty whack and see it go 180 yards?

This is the only revolution I know that proposes to reverse human progress and technology. A real reformer seeks the best progress for the greatest number of golfers, not taking away from the rich (ie. long hitters) in spite......

Lastly, every time this comes up, no one really answers as to "why its different" this time, when the same arguments have been made for over a century?  Or make it harder to play for the 90+% of golfers who still struggle to get the ball up in the air and benefit from better equipment and enjoy golf more?

Or why it would be so bad to just limit tournaments to the few existing (or easily converted) 73-7600 yard courses and stop building tournament courses elsewhere that work for only 0.0001% of golfers? (and that get played at 6300 yards most of the time?) Yeah, we may lose TOC and a few beloved classics, just like we lost Prestwick and (we thought) Merion to "progress."  In most endeavors, that has happened and while sad, its not irreversible, nor is it catastrophic as so many here make it out to be.  Or is global warming to be blamed on Prestwick not being in the Open rotation?

Short Version - While I understand the argument for a rollback, and as a gca have seen it first hand (the cost of longer golf courses) I just don't see anything more than capping the equipment at what they are now as practical.  And, it would be a good political compromise in the world of golf.

[Tony_Muldoon]

Jeff one of the things that 'inspired' my thoughts on this was a Hickory round, in October this year, on the course I learnt on. So much fun, short by the standrds of todays courses and wide. Rolling in an 8' putt for Birdie with my Dad's putter ("Roses Point") was as much fun as it gets. I have a gutty given to me by Alfie Ward (see feature interview on here), unfortunately I lost another one playing with another GCA member this year, so I can't really see your point. Golf over a shorter course can be at least as much fun, cheaper and quicker.

"Progress".  It seems in other sports they've kept the distance the same and seen times come down. Why has golf tried to keep the score the same and made the courses, longer, narrower and harder?  No one's ever explained the reason for that to me.

Roll back the distance the ball goes. The simple beauty of this idea seems to elude many who are to close to the golf business. IMO

[Melvyn Morrow]

Is it about change, a revolution in golf or is it a cry to take control of technology and stop the slow overthrow of the traditional game of golf. Injection of some long awaited common sense by removing the well stuck round balls from the square holes that weak administrations have allowed to creep into the game of golf. Dislodging them is not for the faint of heart.

Golf is not about distance it’s about the challenge and enjoyment of the game. Whatever the size and weight of the ball it should be able to be played upon the land available and not have to be modified every few years.

Course changes cost us the ordinary golfer money, it disrupts our game and offers no long-term viable comparison of our skills/game over the years. Increasing the length of a course is IMHO just putting off the inevitable.

Changes also attack our old historical courses, which are the corner stone of our game in GB&I.

If you want to hit the ball on to the next course, why not just get a bucket of balls and go to your shooting range for the fun and challenge that may somehow give you.

Melvyn 

[Tony_Muldoon]

Lastly, every time this comes up, no one really answers as to "why its different" this time, when the same arguments have been made for over a century?  Or make it harder to play for the 90+% of golfers who still struggle to get the ball up in the air and benefit from better equipment and enjoy golf more?

Or why it would be so bad to just limit tournaments to the few existing (or easily converted) 73-7600 yard courses and stop building tournament courses elsewhere that work for only 0.0001% of golfers? (and that get played at 6300 yards most of the time?) Yeah, we may lose TOC

Another 'inspiration' was my first visit to St Andrews this year. Its thoughts like this that show me how great the gulf between those who get it and those that don't is.  Am I being mean to suggest a practicing Architect wants to see old courses becoming obsolete when it keeps him in work designing ever longer courses?  How much would golf loose when The Old Course becomes a museum piece like Prestwick?  I would have thought that prospect might scare a few people in the R&A and in Georgia enough to porpose action, but apparently not.


(PS thanks for preserving The Harmony)

[Brent Hutto]

Sorry, Tony but the basic gist seems to be that there's zero chance to avoiding further increases in the distance elite players hit the ball...which means every classic course will eventually be disfigured beyond recognition...so let's not settle for keeping distance from increasing further let's knock it all the way back to 19th century levels. Or do I oversimplify the argument?

Nothing wrong with putting ones money where ones mouth is, as Sean Arble might say, but it's hard for me to see how arguing for a serious decrease in ball and implement performance is somehow more likely to succeed than the attempt to arrest future increases in distance. This isn't a political debate where you're expected to stake out an unreasonably extreme position so that the opposition can gain face by dragging you back to the center.

[Jeff_Brauer]

Melvyn,

When do we start calling you the Unigolfer?

You exagerate when you say courses need to be changed every few years. Look at the distance changes to the Old Course used in the original example, in terms of the years it stayed the same.  There seems to be a few periods of big jumps and long periods of relative inactivity. In % terms it looks like 8% over the first 100 years of the course. It looks like 5% in the last ten years, which is granted more, but we are in one of those jump periods, or have been and the course is catching up.

Tony,

Many think the Old Course is already just a museum piece, but it made a nice comeback as a competition course with changes just at the tee end, which speaks to its greatness, no?

[Melvyn Morrow]

Jeff

With respect, my years are a generalisation as I do not have time to name and date each modification. Nevertheless, I feel you understand my point.

The problem is not having addressed technology, other sports have with their pitches and courses hardly changed in the last hundred years. Their governing bodies have not been scared of getting involved. Perhaps the real problem is that The R&A are a club and that they should no longer have control over our game, well unless they act and address the problems. Counting money is not a major requirement of the Governing Body IMHO.

Melvyn

[Jim_Kennedy]

Tony,
I'm in a position to see 1,000's of golfers per season tee off on hole #1 and come in on hole # 9. Those who are in no danger of hitting the ball far, far, far, far, etc., outnumber those who are.

If the USGA/R&A and the PGA Tour agree to yank back the ball for tournament play than I say OK, but leave everyone else alone, they're having a hard enough time out there as it is.

[Tony_Muldoon]

Sorry, Tony but the basic gist seems to be that there's zero chance to avoiding further increases in the distance elite players hit the ball...which means every classic course will eventually be disfigured beyond recognition...so let's not settle for keeping distance from increasing further let's knock it all the way back to 19th century levels. Or do I oversimplify the argument?

Nothing wrong with putting ones money where ones mouth is, as Sean Arble might say, but it's hard for me to see how arguing for a serious decrease in ball and implement performance is somehow more likely to succeed than the attempt to arrest future increases in distance. This isn't a political debate where you're expected to stake out an unreasonably extreme position so that the opposition can gain face by dragging you back to the center.

Brent with your love of links and land in general I'm sure you'd shake your head if you could see the change being proposed to the 17th tee.  Instead of a short walk off a lovely green to the tee, this year they will be going backwards through a taken down fence, across a road, through another gap in a fence to a flat field used as a driving range.  I guess this is my answer to Jeff as well – “why this time” - it's a walk too far and using TOC as a yardstick makes sense to me.  Let’s go back enough for us all to play a roound just on the TOC.

100 yards is 100 yards on the track and in the pool.  The time it takes elite athletes to cover these distances gets shorter and shorter, golf has this ass backward. The Olympics attract a huge audience who don’t follow the events in the period in-between but they can respond to the blue ribband events.   But change the roster of Major courses every 10 years and you’ve lost so much of what makes golf what it is. Slower, more difficult golf has no future.

People dream of a 9.5 sec 100 yard dash in the same way the 4 minute mile was world news.  Why not a 58 to win a major? Preferable to the first one played on an 8000 yard course.

That’s how I see it and I don‘t expect to change the minds of anyone who has already decided on this. I would just like to see if those who think like this are prepared to stop talking and take action to make the great golf public aware of the beauties of the classic game of golf played on magical courses full of history.

  

[JMEvensky]

Tony,
I'm in a position to see 1,000's of golfers per season tee off on hole #1 and come in on hole # 9. Those who are in no danger of hitting the ball far, far, far, far, etc., outnumber those who are.

If the USGA/R&A and the PGA Tour agree to yank back the ball for tournament play than I say OK, but leave everyone else alone, they're having a hard enough time out there as it is.

I take it that you're a Head Pro somewhere.

Not trying to be snarky,I promise,but what happens when you suggest to these guys that they are not being commensurately helped by "technology"?If you said to them,for example, "taking away your Pro V's would actually help you but hurt the PGA Pro",would they understand your point?

[Jeff_Brauer]

JMV,

No, because you can't explain how taking away their pro v 1 hurts them.  In reality, I think its the perimeter weighted irons and metal drivers that help average golfers most though. Or, a trip to a short game school.....

[Chuck Brown]

Tony,
I'm in a position to see 1,000's of golfers per season tee off on hole #1 and come in on hole # 9. Those who are in no danger of hitting the ball far, far, far, far, etc., outnumber those who are.

If the USGA/R&A and the PGA Tour agree to yank back the ball for tournament play than I say OK, but leave everyone else alone, they're having a hard enough time out there as it is.

Jim, the majority of the people you are watching off the first tee are not even using Pro V1's or other urethane-covered balls.  That is, if golf equipment purchase statistics based on SKU-number data is correct.  The Pro V1 era, which put the professional tour game on a kind of technological steroid, hasn't done much for the average player.

I don't advocate any kind of a rollback that kills interest among recreational golfers.  But really, it ought to be a relatively straightforward matter to craft something that addresses the elites without affecting recreational play.  After all, the Pro V era helped elites without doing much for recreational players.  As a matter of fact, I think that there ought to be something done that 1) does not bifurcate the game 2) reigns in distance gains among the elites and 3) does not affect recreational play.  How's that for a list?

[Dan_Callahan]

Tony,
I'm in a position to see 1,000's of golfers per season tee off on hole #1 and come in on hole # 9. Those who are in no danger of hitting the ball far, far, far, far, etc., outnumber those who are.

If the USGA/R&A and the PGA Tour agree to yank back the ball for tournament play than I say OK, but leave everyone else alone, they're having a hard enough time out there as it is.

I couldn't agree more. I've heard all the arguments against a tournament ball and a bifurcated set of rules, but I don't think any of them are strong enough to convince me this isn't the right approach. New equipment, including the modern ball that lasts a hell of a lot longer than the old balatas, makes the game better for most golfers without making courses obsolete. It is the top percentile of exceptionally talented players who are able to make a mockery out of sub-7,000-yard courses. If holding down scoring is important to tournament organizers and hosts, require a tournament ball. For the rest of us, I really don't think distance is an issue.

[Bill_McBride]

Tony,
I'm in a position to see 1,000's of golfers per season tee off on hole #1 and come in on hole # 9. Those who are in no danger of hitting the ball far, far, far, far, etc., outnumber those who are.

If the USGA/R&A and the PGA Tour agree to yank back the ball for tournament play than I say OK, but leave everyone else alone, they're having a hard enough time out there as it is.

I'm in accord with Jim here.  Guys like me don't need to give up our Pro V1s, we would love to find that missing 30 yards.  It's at the top 1/2 of 1% of golfers that the problem lies, and I don't think anything but a tournament ball is going to change anything.   I think the answer lies with Billy Payne and the poobahs at Augusta, who surely will find it more difficult to continue to add yards to that course as the manufacturers continue to find ways to make the ball go further - for that top elite of players.

[JMEvensky]

JMV,

No, because you can't explain how taking away their pro v 1 hurts them.  In reality, I think its the perimeter weighted irons and metal drivers that help average golfers most though. Or, a trip to a short game school.....

Unless you mis-typed,I think Pro V's hurt most golfers.Taking them away would be helpful.

Agreed that new clubs help more.

However,the mindset for most is to "play what the Pro's play".In addition to metal woods and perimeter-weighted irons,Pro's play Pro V's or equivalents.So long as the Tour Pro's play them,everyone will--unless/until they're educated.

What's the saying?There's no bigger schmuck than a golfer with a credit card.

[Jim_Kennedy]

JM/Chuck,

There is enough data to suggest that a PROV1 helps a wide range of players, and I could give you personal examples but I don't think that will change much.

Over 70% of all golf balls sold in Pro shops are ProV's, but there are many other balls that suit the average player as well. Overall, the compression of modern balls has widened the range of players who can use them, including the ProV1.

Players who will never, or rarely, buy ProV's new are as gleeful today when they find one on the course as they were when Pro V's came out.

Go figure.  

[Brent Hutto]

My game is poor in ways that no golf ball is going to significantly help or hurt score-wise. If you duff chips, chunk wedges, leave balls in bunkers and fail to get the ball off the ground with full swing it matters not what ball you use either way.

That said, there's no way using a c. 1980 Top-Flite or Tour Balata makes the game more enjoyable for me. A hard 2-piece ball is cheaper and rolls farther while actually falling out of the air more quickly with slow clubhead speeds. Older soft-cover balls just generally stink which is why they disappeared (notwithstanding distance). So if you could legislate away modern high-performance golf balls, don't pretend you're somehow doing the hacker a favor.

[Craig Sweet]

You see Tony, YOU had fun playing with hickories..good for you. That was your choice.  I have fun playing with the equipment currently available to me.  My problem with this type of thread is it's all about LIMITING MY fun by suggesting that I be given fewer choices via rollbacks in current technology.

Now, I do think a discussion about placing limits on PGA and Nationwide Tour players is worthy.  Several professional sports do have technology/equipment limits placed on the elite performers. NASCAR for example pretty much dictates that all cars are set up equal...and ski racing places limits on many things, right down to height of ski boots. Putting limits on the ball used in PGA and Nationwdie events does not strike me as being a big problem for anyone EXCEPT the manufacturers.

[Garland Bayley]

Tony,
I'm in a position to see 1,000's of golfers per season tee off on hole #1 and come in on hole # 9. Those who are in no danger of hitting the ball far, far, far, far, etc., outnumber those who are.

If the USGA/R&A and the PGA Tour agree to yank back the ball for tournament play than I say OK, but leave everyone else alone, they're having a hard enough time out there as it is.

Jim,

You are operating under a mistaken assumption here. The less far the ball goes, the better everyone plays. If everyone were playing the Cayman ball at a course made for it, such as in the Cayman Islands, the difference between skills would diminish and the poorer players would be less frustrated. Because of this, I would suggest that if the pros were dialed back to 6700 yards, the average Joe would be more willing to play from 6200 yards, instead of trying to manage 6700 yards as he does now.

It's time to drop the tired old logic, and start thinking outside the box Jim.

[Bill_McBride]

Tony,
I'm in a position to see 1,000's of golfers per season tee off on hole #1 and come in on hole # 9. Those who are in no danger of hitting the ball far, far, far, far, etc., outnumber those who are.

If the USGA/R&A and the PGA Tour agree to yank back the ball for tournament play than I say OK, but leave everyone else alone, they're having a hard enough time out there as it is.

Jim,

You are operating under a mistaken assumption here. The less far the ball goes, the better everyone plays. If everyone were playing the Cayman ball at a course made for it, such as in the Cayman Islands, the difference between skills would diminish and the poorer players would be less frustrated. Because of this, I would suggest that if the pros were dialed back to 6700 yards, the average Joe would be more willing to play from 6200 yards, instead of trying to manage 6700 yards as he does now.

It's time to drop the tired old logic, and start thinking outside the box Jim.

There's a fallacy there, Garland.  If I swing 85 MPH and a pro swings 125 MPH (not an unrealistic assumption), the rollback is going to affect him much more than me.  I'll still be very happy playing 6200 yard courses, while a 7300 yard course is going to play a lot longer for him.

I'm no rocket scientist mind you.........

[Garland Bayley]

Tony,
I'm in a position to see 1,000's of golfers per season tee off on hole #1 and come in on hole # 9. Those who are in no danger of hitting the ball far, far, far, far, etc., outnumber those who are.

If the USGA/R&A and the PGA Tour agree to yank back the ball for tournament play than I say OK, but leave everyone else alone, they're having a hard enough time out there as it is.

Jim,

You are operating under a mistaken assumption here. The less far the ball goes, the better everyone plays. If everyone were playing the Cayman ball at a course made for it, such as in the Cayman Islands, the difference between skills would diminish and the poorer players would be less frustrated. Because of this, I would suggest that if the pros were dialed back to 6700 yards, the average Joe would be more willing to play from 6200 yards, instead of trying to manage 6700 yards as he does now.

It's time to drop the tired old logic, and start thinking outside the box Jim.

There's a fallacy there, Garland.  If I swing 85 MPH and a pro swings 125 MPH (not an unrealistic assumption), the rollback is going to affect him much more than me.  I'll still be very happy playing 6200 yard courses, while a 7300 yard course is going to play a lot longer for him.

I'm no rocket scientist mind you.........

I have no idea what you are trying to say.

[Mac Plumart]

I think this is an interesting topic for a variety of reasons.  I am unsure where I stand ultimately, but here is what I've got thus far.

#1---I don't like to see classic courses torn up to make them suitable for PGA tournaments.  IF there isn't going to be a roll back on the technology, then I think you have to put the pros on the new courses...like this new Pete Dye course in Indiana.  I think it is 8,000 yards.  Frankly, we could have an entire set of PGA specific courses and move past the mucking up of timeless gems to suit the .01% of players who can't enjoy them.

#2---I've started playing without a laser range finder, GPS, or using a yardage book.  I think it is fun.  Others might not...to each their own.  I am going to try to play with some hickory clubs to see how fun that is.  I might like it.  But why mandate these types of rules for the recreational golfer?

And I guess in closing...I could care less about how far the PGA players hit the ball.  Frankly, I am getting to the point where I don't care about the PGA Tour at all.  That is not what golf is about to me.  Let them carry on and build their business.  I just don't want to see them messing up the courses I want to play and have played and enjoyed.  

So rolling the technology back might be a good answer as this would allow them to play at these old courses OR don't allow them to play at these old courses and make specific courses for the PGA tour.  Hey...new courses would be built and that would be good for the archtiects...right?

Later!

[Melvyn Morrow]

PROV1 helps a wide range of players,

Viagra helps a wide range of men

Cocaine helps a wide range of idiots

GCA.com helps Pat spill his vile

However do any of them reflect the true nature of the individual, or do they just enhance performance proving yet again that help was need to achieve their goal. All are just an aid-de-help and proves nothing about the true ability of the individual, perhaps with the exception of poor old Pat.

Enhanced performance generated by equipment is as false record of ones real ability. As seen and proved by many a drink driver and junky. So keep telling yourselves you are not addicted and it is a true record of your actual ability, you only con yourselves, but then that is down to you and is your choice.

Melvyn

[Jim_Kennedy]

GB,
Who wants to diminish the difference between skills, strength being one of them?  They do still make forward tees for the horizontally challenged.  

I, and many of my cohorts, enjoy our 3,000 yard/9 holer, but we also enjoy getting beat up by the 7,700 yard Monster course at the Concord Resort.  

Sooner or later everyone who plays this game gravitates toward a length that suits them.