Ball rollback: a different angle

[Paul Gray]

Bob,

In 1964, soon after Ken Venturi won the U.S. Open he came to my home course to play an exhibition match for charity against my dad.

I've probably played that course 2,000 times, so I'm reasonable familiar with it.

Venturi was long, but the distance gap between his game and my game wasn't that pronounced, maybe a club length or so.

Today, there's an enormous gap.

Was golf terrible in 1964-1970 ?

Or did it enjoy increasing popularity ?

Most on this site keep harping about "affordable golf" on one hand, yet on the other hand, they don't want to see the ball rolled back.

They have no understanding of how "distance" and all that comes with it, including multiple tees, INCREASES the cost of golf, making it less affordable.

They can't have it both ways.

Agreed Pat, but just one caveat:

When ever the roll back issue raises its head, I can't help but feel we tend to lean towards hysteria. Let's not even consider the modern tour pro in the argument. Even the least inclined modern tour pro has a personalised exercise regime, a moderately healthy diet and a physio at ever turn. The old tour pro thought he was doing well to have steak and eggs for breakfast and a pack of Marlboro to hand, thus he still existed on the same plan as the amateur golfer.

When we talk about these huge differences, for a clearer perspective, look at the club pro vs the 20 capper of a similar age and take a position from there.

[Bryan Izatt]

So he greatest ball engineers in the world, who have managed to make balls that go 10-15% farther, spin better when needed, more durable, and more consistent, couldn't produce a ball that goes shorter on a consistent predictable basis?
Couldn't or wouldn't?
Total BS.
Of course there would be initial inconsistencies, and it might take more than 5 minutes to figure it out-but give me a break.

...........................

As I read the article, they are not saying they couldn't, just that it gets complicated.  Having done post-grad word in fluid dynamics, I'd agree that it is complex.  But, of course, they could do it. 

The real question is to what specs do you want the new ball rolled back to and how do you get agreement to that.  People who think that it's all as simple as increase the spin rate or lower the restitution of the core have no idea how complex it would be to design a ball that met but did not exceed whatever ball regulation that they want to impose.  As I understand it there is a lot of science in designing golf balls but there is also a lot of trial and error.  Why do you think that there are round dimples and hex dimples and double dimples and 2 layers and 3 layers and 5 layers?  Because the manufacturers are trying out different techniques to get a competitive advantage.  That trial and error would have to go into any rolled back ball as well.  It could be done but none of it is simplistic.

I also note that Newport points out the obvious about driver heads, shafts, faster fairways and player athleticism and their contribution to the distance issue.  The poor new rolled-back ball has to make up for all those ills too.

[Bryan Izatt]

Bob,

Sorry to go all Mucci on you, but it's the easiest way to address your points below.

There's an idea, frankly idiotic, that gets touted every time this sort of thing comes up. It claims that the current golf balls have somehow magically granted huge increases in distance to the strongest players while lesser player gain very little.

Once that meme gets lodged into the conversation it starts seeming perfectly natural to demand that Something Be Done!!!!!! to magically punish the strongest players while having little effect on weaker players. It's only fair, right?

I don't know who started the entire line of thinking but it's pure conjecture with no relation to reality, in addition to being bloody-minded.

Brent -

You have said similar things in the past and I'm not sure I follow. First, as a matter of simple math, if you increase the distance all players hit drives by, say, 15%, those who originally hit it 295 will get a larger yardage boost than those who hit it 230. 15% of 295 is a larger number than 15% of 230, no?

Your conclusion would be true if the premise was true.  However, there is no data, that I know of, which demonstrates that there was a 15%, across the driver speed range, increase in distance.

But beyond that, my understanding from the USGA is that there are exponential (not arithmetic) distance benefits as swing speeds increase. I don't have the relevant studies at hand, but I've heard it from reliable sources. You dismiss such notions out of hand. I will defer to your superior math skills, so if you have something contra, I'd love to see it.

The only USGA study I've seen was by Quintavalla in 2006 and revisited in 2011 that demonstrated that for the modern ball there is a linear increase in distance vs swing speed.

Here is his graph.



He also notes, by the way, that:  "Tests have proven repeatedly that the energy “boost" at Tour-level speeds is a myth: balls are actually less effective at translating energy into distance at higher swing speeds.





Finally, I don't get the argument based on just rewards. A player should enjoy the benefits of his ability to hit it long. But that is not an axiom that ends the discussion. Constraints on distance are not inherently unfair. Such constraints are the whole point of USGA ball standards, as flaccid as they may be. Are you suggesting that we should dispense with all standards in the name of just rewards for those with high swing speeds?

For those who oppose a roll-back based on notions of 'just rewards', couldn't it be argued just as easily that if longer players benefited disproportionately from the new balls, shouldn't they also bear the burden of a roll-back?

Again, if your premise is true then your conclusion sounds "just", but there is no data that I've seen that proves the premise.  The questions, I suppose, are twofold.  Should distance increase in a linear fashion with swing speed?  And, at what rate should the distance increase?  Should it be at 2 yards per mph increase of swing speed, or 3 yards per mph or something else.  What is the "just" rate to fairly reward the swing speed skill?  The current rate is around 2.7 yards per mph.  Presumably the roll-backers want something that is less - but what?  

As an exercise here is the USGA graph and I've placed a yellow line that is 15% below the current line.  To me it does not represent driving distance with the balata ball as I remember it and I've been playing since the 1950's.  I also placed a purple line where I think that most "roll-backers" would like.  What's missing is the objective, data driven, line that represents what was the reality of the balata ball vs swing speed.  And, of course that begs the question of whether the old balata ball and equipment of 1990 or 1980 or 1970 is the "right" goal to be trying to achieve.



At bottom the distance issue is about the game you want golf to be. If there were a tennis ball that was unreturnable against stronger players, tennis would ban it. The game as we know it would break down if you didn't. The parallel with golf is not exact, but haven't we reached the point in golf where golf courses can't return serve, as it were?

Sure, for some courses for a small percentage of servers

Bob

[Bryan Izatt]

Bob,

In 1964, soon after Ken Venturi won the U.S. Open he came to my home course to play an exhibition match for charity against my dad.

I've probably played that course 2,000 times, so I'm reasonable familiar with it.

Venturi was long, but the distance gap between his game and my game wasn't that pronounced, maybe a club length or so.

Today, there's an enormous gap.

..............................

Patrick,

What was you swing speed relative to Venturi's in 1964 when you were 21?  What is yours today at 71 relative to Bubba or Tiger?  Why are you astonished that there is an enormous gap? Your swing speed has gone down and Bubba and Tiger are probably at least 10 mph faster than Venturi.     

[BCrosby]

Bryan -

1. Whether the distance increases are 15% or 9% or whatever (the percentage will depend on what year you take as your baseline, btw. If it's 1920 vs. 1950 vs. 2000, you will get a different percent gain), X% of a bigger number is always more than X% of a smaller number.

2. I've heard different conclusions from USGA guys about exponential increases. But even given your graph, that is is steep slope. (I would love to see the same graph done in 1980. I'd guess it is much less sloped.) But note big gaps between normal speeds and higher speeds. For example, at 95 mph I'm hitting it 240. At 115 I'm hitting it 300. That's a huge gap in raw yardage and gaps in raw yardage of that magnitude matter. They are without precedent in the history of the game.

Specifically, a 490 yd par 4 is too long for the 95 mph guy; it is a mid/short iron approach for the 115 mph guy. Which is another way of asking how do you design a hole that requires longer players to hit mid or long irons while making it playable at the same par for the rest of us? That is a common problem these days. It was rare until recently.    

3. The foregoing suggests that the mph/yardage relationship is out of wack. Longer players have benefited disproportionately. I say that not because there is a magic mph/yardage ratio or that there is an upward sloping curve in that ratio, but because we all see what today's longer players do to the  golf courses we consider classic, the courses where we want our major championships to be conducted.

Bob    
  

[Garland Bayley]

That's just nonsense. The three piece ball penalized the player with the 95 mph swing speed proportionally more than it penalized a player with a 115 mph swing speed. So it has nothing to do with socialism, or capitalism. It simply has to do with returning golf to what it was and playing the courses they way they used to be played.

Also, when a golf manufacturer starts telling you that a 5 iron shot might travel 40 yards shorter, either he is a total incompetent, because he doesn't know how far it would travel, or he is simply trying to scare you with highly improbable outcomes, because he is opposed to the idea.

Penalized how?  Not being a dick, wondering what you are referring to.  Distance? Slice? etc

Relative distance. After the drive, the 95 mph swing speed player is farther behind the 115 mph swing speed player than he was before the three piece ball. That also carries through to other clubs where more distance was gained by the faster swinger. Was it fair to the slower swinger to reduce the reward for finesse and increase the reward for strength?

[Brent Hutto]

Bob,

I mean no disrepect to yourself personally and should not have used such strong language to register my disagreement. But someone or another always seems to toss into the discussion this supposed "exponential" relationship between clubhead speed and distance. Then when it is made clear there's no evidence of any such effect the claims revert back to simple complaints that elite players today just hit it too darned far.

Which is fine. If you think elite players hit today's ball too far and you want to see the ball regulations changed to make elite players hit it shorter that is a perfectly understandable point of view. It simply does not require reference to any straw-man "exponential" or non linear increase in distance.

Several things happened at roughly the same time. Elite players got a lot more athletic. Swing technique evolved (akin to pitching in baseball) to emphasize sheer clubhead speed and power as an absolutle priority,  beginning with the way chlldren learn to swing and continuing all the way to the highest levels. Ball designs continued their improvement as more was learned about materials and about the interaction between clubs and balls...with the biggest improvement occurring when manufacturers found a way to create golf balls that spin less (akin to a "distance" ball) on full shots while remaining perfectly controllable with plenty of short-game spin.

It was that last piece falling into place that created a near discontinuity in the ball performance experienced by elite players. I think casual observers conflate the gradual upward trend in elite-player distance that accrues due to the other factors I mention and the very sudden shift upward in that trend line due to the one-time change that happened when the traditional choice between "Tons of spin on every shot" and "No spin on every shot" became moot due to the multipiece solid core ball.

The reason it seems this "unfairly" aided the better player is that only the better players were being constrained by having to use a ball that spins too much off the tee in order to gain acceptable control around the greens. Lesser players were either already using "distance" balls or they were using Tour type balls but not suffering greatly from spin because their clubhead speeds were low. So the misapprehension arose that somehow the upward trend in distance was now an "exponential" curve. In fact it's still a more or less linear trend (probably more like a slightly downward inflected curve due to the compression-rebound losses at higher speeds that Bryan mentioned) combined with a one-time step function displacing the entire curve upward for the highest clubhead speed players.

[jeffwarne]

Brent,
That was an excellent explanation you provided.
Elite players always had the choice of distance balls, but most chose not to use them.
Jim Ferree used Pinnacle Golds back in the late 80's/early 90's-my fear using them was flyers out of the rough(Jim didn't have that problem)

[Patrick_Mucci]

Paul Gray,

Palmer was a bull, a physical specimen, Nicklaus was a great athlete, Stranahan and Player physical fitness buffs, and Hale Irwin an All-big 8 defensive back, so I'm not sure your depiction is accurate.

[jeffwarne]

Pat,
 Good point as well.
Jack Nicklaus had 32 inch thighs, played with a 42 inch driver, and killed it, at a time when high spin made it difficult to create distance with a fade (broke many,many inserts in his youth with his speed)

[Pat Burke]

"Relative distance. After the drive, the 95 mph swing speed player is farther behind the 115 mph swing speed player than he was before the three piece ball. That also carries through to other clubs where more distance was gained by the faster swinger. Was it fair to the slower swinger to reduce the reward for finesse and increase the reward for strength?"

Most amateurs that I caddied for as a kid used top flites, molitors and Pinnacles when they came out
It was a gift from God to find a Hogan, Titleist, or even a Tourney.  We saved those golden eggs for competitive rounds!

The original technology in golf balls was directed at the masses.  Surlyn gave durability, and happened to spin less, thereby flying
a little straighter (and going further).

The one ball rule came about because of better players putting Molitors in play on long par threes and some par fives.
On the long par threes they flew straighter and went further. 

Around 2000, some good senior golfers in the southeast started using Bridgestone Lady golf balls when one very good senior amateur
discovered it went hugely further than his previous ball.  I used the Lady in the Nike Tour Championship (RTJ Trail course).  It flew 6-10 yards further, almost a full club with the irons, and made a course that hugely favored long hitters within reach.  It was a give back on wedges though (for me).
Funny thing was, The Lady distance caught Bridgestone by surprise.  They were simply trying to make a softer feeling ball for women with a cover that was thicker for a little bit of distance.  They triggered the softer cores/dynamic covers partly by accident.

All I believe, is that IF a roll back happens, I do not believe there should be a penalty against high club head speed (or lower speeds)
10 percent more speed should be 10% more distance if struck solidly/squarely

[Bryan Izatt]

Bryan -

1. Whether the distance increases are 15% or 9% or whatever (the percentage will depend on what year you take as your baseline, btw. If it's 1920 vs. 1950 vs. 2000, you will get a different percent gain), X% of a bigger number is always more than X% of a smaller number.

I don't dispute your math or the possibility of different percentages in different eras.  But, your premise that the % increase was the same for 95 mph speeds and 115 mph speeds is unproven.

2. I've heard different conclusions from USGA guys about exponential increases. But even given your graph, that is is steep slope. (I would love to see the same graph done in 1980.   As would we all.  Unfortunately it doesn't seem that anybody has done that test or published it.  Perhaps we could get Jeff to send his box of tour balatas to Far Hills and ask them to do it under the same conditions as the Quintavalla study.   I'd guess it is much less sloped.)  Maybe, but it would be nice to know for sure before trying to ratchet ourselves back to that slope.   But note big gaps between normal speeds and higher speeds. For example, at 95 mph I'm hitting it 240. At 115 I'm hitting it 300. That's a huge gap in raw yardage and gaps in raw yardage of that magnitude matter. They are without precedent in the history of the game. We don't know if it's "without precedent" since there doesn't seem to be a study that shows what the gap was at any point in the past.

Specifically, a 490 yd par 4 is too long for the 95 mph guy; it is a mid/short iron approach for the 115 mph guy. Which is another way of asking how do you design a hole that requires longer players to hit mid or long irons while making it playable at the same par for the rest of us? That is a common problem these days. It was rare until recently. When I was much younger (and stronger) playing a 450 yard par 4 was pretty difficult or me while it wasn't much of an issue for professional players and top amateurs.  Same problem on a different scale from today from a design point of view.  I think you are mistaken to say that it's only become a design problem recently. 

3. The foregoing suggests that the mph/yardage relationship is out of wack. Longer players have benefited disproportionately. I say that not because there is a magic mph/yardage ratio or that there is an upward sloping curve in that ratio, but because we all see what today's longer players do to the  golf courses we consider classic, the courses where we want our major championships to be conducted.  I understand the desire to use classic courses for major championship without altering them.  What's more difficult to deal with is the major war that would have to be waged with the majority of players, both professional and amateur, and manufacturers to make this happen.  I'm OK with compressing the top end distances because that would not really affect me, but there are many who would object.  I do think there is a major question of fairness about compressing the slope without some historical norm to compare it to.  Even then, it would be a major war in my opinion.

Bob    
  

[Bryan Izatt]

Pat,

All I believe, is that IF a roll back happens, I do not believe there should be a penalty against high club head speed (or lower speeds)
10 percent more speed should be 10% more distance if struck solidly/squarely

Sounds fair.  Using the current chart, a 21% increase in driver speed gets you a 25% increase in distance.  So, some tweaking required to get to your "fair" approach, but nothing major. So, the current slope is not too far off the mark.

[Pat Burke]

Pat,

All I believe, is that IF a roll back happens, I do not believe there should be a penalty against high club head speed (or lower speeds)
10 percent more speed should be 10% more distance if struck solidly/squarely

Sounds fair.  Using the current chart, a 21% increase in driver speed gets you a 25% increase in distance.  So, some tweaking required to get to your "fair" approach, but nothing major. So, the current slope is not too far off the mark.

Perfect!
Now if someone could convince me that a roll back would really help the "industry" of golf

[Sean_A]

Pat,

All I believe, is that IF a roll back happens, I do not believe there should be a penalty against high club head speed (or lower speeds)
10 percent more speed should be 10% more distance if struck solidly/squarely

Sounds fair.  Using the current chart, a 21% increase in driver speed gets you a 25% increase in distance.  So, some tweaking required to get to your "fair" approach, but nothing major. So, the current slope is not too far off the mark.

Perfect!
Now if someone could convince me that a roll back would really help the "industry" of golf

That is a can of worms, but considering all the industry talk a rollback is a bit of conundrum.  That said, if the rollback talk is serious, now is the time while golf is stagnated in the west and starting its boom in the east. 

Ciao

[Paul Gray]

Paul Gray,

Palmer was a bull, a physical specimen, Nicklaus was a great athlete, Stranahan and Player physical fitness buffs, and Hale Irwin an All-big 8 defensive back, so I'm not sure your depiction is accurate.

Pat,

I'm not suggesting mankind has undergone some sort of evolutionary leap in the past fifty years, simply that lifestyles have changed. Even at the tender age of 35 I've seen the huge strides in the understanding of, say, the dietary requirements of a modern athlete. And Palmer, Nicklaus et al, despite being supreme natural specimens, didn't even know what biomechanics was.

[A.G._Crockett]

BTW, who pays for the R&D for a product that:
    a.  has parameters that cannot be agreed upon
    b. may not be possible
    c. the mass market does not want

Just thought I'd ask. 

(I do enjoy a good discussion of technical matters by people who don't work in the industry and have no real qualifications or expertise but are willing to take over-the-top positions nonetheless!)

[BCrosby]

Brent -

I don't disagree with your historical account of how we got where we are today. That does not make where we are today any less troubling.

The bottom line is that the venues on which elite players compete are no longer providing the kinds of tests we have hitorically expected those venues to provide. That's because of how far elite players hit the ball. Whether that increase traces a steeply sloped linear relationship of mph to yardage or whether that slope curves upward, the fact of the matter is that modern venues don't match up with the state of modern elite play.

That mismatch is due to one thing and one thing only. Distance.

People want to dismiss that problem as a one that applies to only a small fraction of golfers. But that misses the real point. Major championships are critically important to any sport. For all sorts of reasons. One of those reasons is that if the game we see at US Opens or at the Masters starts to de-link from the game us ordinary golfers play, it bodes badly for the future of the game.

Other sports don't have this problem because they are self-regulating. In tennis, for example, no one wants to introduce a new, hot ball because everyone will need to return it. Ditto for baseball. I may hit it farther, but I've also got to pitch and field it. There is no similar inherent constraints on hot new balls in golf. Legislated limits on balls arre supposed to fill in that gap in golf. But the current limits aren't doing what they are supposed to do.

The 'fairness' argument I simply don't buy. Longer players have benefited more from advances in b & i more than any other segment of the golfing population. It is right, proper and just that they should bear most of the burden of any roll-back of those advances.


Bob     

[Brent Hutto]

Bob,

But is it really a "benefit" to, say, Brandt Snedeker to hit the ball 15% longer with every club in the bag than he would with a 90's era golf ball? After all, every player he competes against is in the same general category.

In my opinion a very real concern in evaluating any proposed ball-spec change is that it should not "unfairly" (for want of a better term) affect one specific type of player or another within a general category. If you make a change that affects the hell out of Bubba Watson while affecting Snedeker significantly less then that IMO would be an inequitable Rules change.

I am less concerned about the differential in the effect of a change in my game or yours relative to its effect on any given Tour player. It is only a problem in as much as it affects one Tour player but not another, affects you but not me or if it were to seriously make the game harder and/or more expensive for casual golfers. And I see those sorts of inequities as highly unlikely to arise from any realistic change.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Paul Gray,

Palmer was a bull, a physical specimen, Nicklaus was a great athlete, Stranahan and Player physical fitness buffs, and Hale Irwin an All-big 8 defensive back, so I'm not sure your depiction is accurate.

Pat,

I'm not suggesting mankind has undergone some sort of evolutionary leap in the past fifty years, simply that lifestyles have changed. Even at the tender age of 35 I've seen the huge strides in the understanding of, say, the dietary requirements of a modern athlete. And Palmer, Nicklaus et al, despite being supreme natural specimens, didn't even know what biomechanics was.

Paul,

I think they understood them, but, not in the same way that they're understood today.

Nicklaus's and Palmer's records support their understanding of biomechanics.

I think the difference today, is the method by which biomechanics are communicated to and/or acquired by the golfer.

Someone recently asked a great golfer why all of these young kids were making an immediate splash on the tour.
They stated that the instant visual feedback, provided by modern teaching methods had accelerated the learning process exponentially.

Decades ago, golfers had to be on tour for years before they "learned" to win.
Today, with the aid of the computers, tracking and visual aids, golfers are "learning" at a far more rapid pace and ready to win much sooner than their predecessors, because they're fundamentally sounder, sooner.

Not long ago I took my youngest son to a "teaching lab" for his putting.
He had an uncanny ability to read putts exceptionally well, but, his putting stroke was flawed.

Despite my numerous attempts to communicate the flaws to him, he retained his flawed stroke.

When he went on the monitors/computer devices, the feedback was immediate and visual.
There was no arguing with the results.

At address, his alignment was PGA Tour like, but his stroke, horrendous, outside/in with an open face.

When he saw this on the monitors/computers, it was irrefutable and he immediately corrected it and his putting improved dramatically, in terms of his mechanical stroke.

Now, he just has to work on "feel" which the monitors/computers/labs can't teach him.

But, my point is that his fundamentals were immediately improved.
Had he not had the benefit of the modern monitors/computers/visuals, who knows how long it would have taken him to figure it out, with or without my imput ?

So, there's no doubt that the modern hi-tech devices accelerate the learning process.

Nicklaus and Palmer just figured that out without those devices.

[JESII]

Pat,

Nobody "learns to win" on the PGA Tour...they either already know or it just happens to them.

[Pat Burke]

Pat,

Nobody "learns to win" on the PGA Tour...they either already know or it just happens to them.

I cannot find the quote, so maybe I'm mistaken, but I believe Tom Watson was quoted saying
it took him some time to learn how to win on tour?

[JESII]

Pat,

Win tournaments...or win Majors?

[Garland Bayley]

Pat,

Win tournaments...or win Majors?

Tom Watson was referring to winning on tour. What I believe he meant is that you can come close, but when you don't control your nerves well enough, you give up a shot or two that you shouldn't. He didn't have to learn to control nerves near so much to win a club championship for example

[Garland Bayley]

Bryan,

I hope you never drag out the USGA obfuscation graphs again.

What is of interest is not what a ball does as swing speed increases. What is of interest is how the factor that changed actually changed results from players. The factor that changed is ball spin!

This website

http://probablegolfinstruction.com/PGI%20Newsletter/news05-02-04.htm

gives distances for different spins.

First thing to note. The introduction of the three piece ball reduced spin and unfairly penalized the slow swing player. Notice that the slow swing player lost 5 yards. The removal of the balata balls from the market place removed balls spinning relatively highly off of the driver from the market place, thereby hurting the results of the below average swing speed player.

Looking for another reason golf is losing players. Maybe that's one.

Second thing to note. The 100 mph swing speed player gained at most four yards with optimal ball selection. The 120 mph swing speed player gained at most nine yards with optimal ball selection. Therefore, the new balls have given an extra advantage to the high swing speed player. The near sighted USGA is right. Distance does not increase super linearly with increased swing speed. But that is not the issue. The distance advantage gained with the new ball by the high speed swinger is super linear. That's unfair!

Notice that the gain by optimization for the 120 mph swinger over the 100 mph swinger is 2.25x.
Should he get that much gain?
120/100 = 1.2x
172/143 = 1.203 (ball speed comparison)

I think the USGA needs to require the spin be put back into the ball.

Perhaps naively I suggest the manufacturers could put a balata cover over a solid core. Wouldn't that do it? I don't see what difference a wound core and a solid core would make. I do know they all got rid of the ball winding equipment.