Ball rollback: a different angle

[Richard Choi]

Bullshit.  I used to hit random balls like Top Flight and Pinnacle in scrambles back in the 80s and 90s, and I never hit a drive that carried 300 yards.  Probably didn't come within 20 yards of doing so.  But somehow in the early to mid 00s, when I was in my mid 30s to around 40 and swung more within myself than I used to when I was younger, I managed to do so often enough that it was not at all a freak occurrence.  I'm talking flat ground, no wind, no elevation, just normal conditions.  I know, must be improved fitness and nutrition that caused that!  That might have been around the time I started taking a daily multivitamin

I noticed the difference between the rock flites and the balata/professional balls not by their carry distance off the driver, but by their roll.  In that, with the rocks I actually got roll, something I only saw on very firm ground with the spinnier balls.  I hit the ball so damn high even with a 6.5* driver that it'd just balloon up in the air and roll very little after landing.  That was a terrible driver trajectory to have pre-Pro V1.  The Pro V1 changed things to where you wanted the high launch angle and rather than ballooning and dropping like a dead duck it flattened at the top and soared for extra yards.  Suddenly my biggest problem with the driver became an asset.  If the Pro V1 is just a 80s/90s rock that doesn't suck around the greens, how come I didn't see that soaring trajectory with those?  They ballooned up too, they just landed with less spin so they still rolled unless it was pretty wet.

I also studied fluid dynamics and spent a quite of bit of time at wind tunnels. Bryan is correct. It is incorrect to say that with Pro V1's you want a higher launch. You want a higher launch (with lower spin - for fast swingers) because that is how you maximize distance for any flying object. Pro V1's are designed so that it is easier to recreate an ideal launch conditions. Not the other way around.

You can recreate a similar launch condition with rock-flites and pinnacles. They are basically ProV1's without soft covers.

The reason why your past experience is mis-leading is because the ball is not the only variable. Your clubs of the past were not designed to produce an ideal launch condition. Today's drivers have deeper faces with lower center of gravity further away. When combined with a contact point above the center of the clubface, you can launch higher with less spin than what you could produce with drivers from 10-15 years ago.

Go ahead and hit Top-Flites and Pinnacles with you current driver. You will find they fly just as long or even longer than your ProV1s.

[A.G._Crockett]

Golf balls do NOT go farther than they used to go 25 years ago.  PREMIUM golf balls go farther than they used to go 25 years ago!  I used to use a Pinnacle or TopFlite off the tee in scrambles, then balata, or later a Professional, into the greens.  Now I don't bother to switch because my Bridgestone RX goes as far as the Pinnacle anyway.  A ProV1x is basically a Pinnacle with a soft cover.

Bullshit.  I used to hit random balls like Top Flight and Pinnacle in scrambles back in the 80s and 90s, and I never hit a drive that carried 300 yards.  Probably didn't come within 20 yards of doing so.  But somehow in the early to mid 00s, when I was in my mid 30s to around 40 and swung more within myself than I used to when I was younger, I managed to do so often enough that it was not at all a freak occurrence.  I'm talking flat ground, no wind, no elevation, just normal conditions.  I know, must be improved fitness and nutrition that caused that!  That might have been around the time I started taking a daily multivitamin

I noticed the difference between the rock flites and the balata/professional balls not by their carry distance off the driver, but by their roll.  In that, with the rocks I actually got roll, something I only saw on very firm ground with the spinnier balls.  I hit the ball so damn high even with a 6.5* driver that it'd just balloon up in the air and roll very little after landing.  That was a terrible driver trajectory to have pre-Pro V1.  The Pro V1 changed things to where you wanted the high launch angle and rather than ballooning and dropping like a dead duck it flattened at the top and soared for extra yards.  Suddenly my biggest problem with the driver became an asset.  If the Pro V1 is just a 80s/90s rock that doesn't suck around the greens, how come I didn't see that soaring trajectory with those?  They ballooned up too, they just landed with less spin so they still rolled unless it was pretty wet.

Not to mention that hitting the Pro V1 into a strong wind was massively different than hitting a 90s rock into the wind.  I used to always play those rocks I'd found the previous season on the first couple rounds of a new season because I always hit more wild ones than usual until I get the kinks worked out.  You know, those really windy early spring days.  The rocks were easier to control into the wind, no doubt about that - hitting a Professional or Balata into a really strong wind on a tight hole with trouble on both sides was terrifying unless you were really golfing your ball that day and had utter confidence in your swing.  I still clearly remember the first time I hit a Pro V1 into a 20 mph wind and I was astounded when I drove it past the 150 yard marker on a 423 yard hole, and even though I felt like I hit it with a bit of a closed face, it just gently drew into the wind rather than violently twisting left into the rough as I would have normally expected for that swing into that wind.  It was a huge change from what I was used to, immediately noticeable as something I had never seen before, whether with the Professional, the Balata I played a decade earlier, or the rocks I'd randomly play from time to time.  You have to understand, for the ballooning trajectory I'd normally see until that day, I would have been pretty damn happy with a drive to 185 or so.  Gaining 40 yards with less worry about losing a not quite perfect shot sideways was massive.  For me at least, I think that was the single biggest change with the new ball - one that certainly reduced the required skill to hit a drive into a strong wind.

Doug,
Thanks for calling my post/opinion bullshit.  Greatly appreciated, and a good example of why I don't bother to spend much time on this site anymore.  

What driver/shaft combo were you using in those scrambles back in the 80's and 90's?  In the 80's, I was using persimmon (didn't even know the loft!) with a steel shaft, and then in the 90's I was using one version or another of the Big Bertha with a stock shaft or the Grafalloy Prolite in it.  The Big Bertha was about 225 cc's I think. 

I currently use a 460cc Ping K15 with a 56g Xcon5 shaft that I was fit to in an hour and a half session with one of Ping's best fitters in a PingNflight center using a Trackman.  I know my launch angle, spin rate, smash factor, clubhead speed, ball speed, and both my carry and overall distances.

[Brent Hutto]

You can recreate a similar launch condition with rock-flites and pinnacles. They are basically ProV1's without soft covers.

This.

Elite players in the 80's or 90's could have hit drives that were not limited by excessive spin. They just did not like the "rock" covers on those balls being uncontrollable into and around the green. And that's what caught USGA asleep at the switch. They thought that temporary lull in golf ball technology meant that the old ODS would apply only to hacks playing Rock-Flites. The assumption was elite players would always voluntarily play balls with far below optimum distance in order to get those soft rubber covers.

When technology obliterated that assumption, they remained in denial for the better part of a decade while elite players switched to balls limited only by the generous ODS that was designed to put a ceiling on Rock-Flite distance. And honest to god, they are now throat-clearing and sabre-rattling about trying to come up with balls that spin more like the old Balatas for elite players. Apparently USGA still thinks that particular cat can be put back in the bag and they can force elite players to quit actually trying to hit the ball as far as possible.

USGA's power of denial (or belief in its own power to control behavior) is truly impressive. The colossal stupidity of wedge-groove bifurcation being the most obvious case in point.

[A.G._Crockett]

You can recreate a similar launch condition with rock-flites and pinnacles. They are basically ProV1's without soft covers.

This.

Elite players in the 80's or 90's could have hit drives that were not limited by excessive spin. They just did not like the "rock" covers on those balls being uncontrollable into and around the green. And that's what caught USGA asleep at the switch. They thought that temporary lull in golf ball technology meant that the old ODS would apply only to hacks playing Rock-Flites. The assumption was elite players would always voluntarily play balls with far below optimum distance in order to get those soft rubber covers.

When technology obliterated that assumption, they remained in denial for the better part of a decade while elite players switched to balls limited only by the generous ODS that was designed to put a ceiling on Rock-Flite distance. And honest to god, they are now throat-clearing and sabre-rattling about trying to come up with balls that spin more like the old Balatas for elite players. Apparently USGA still thinks that particular cat can be put back in the bag and they can force elite players to quit actually trying to hit the ball as far as possible.

USGA's power of denial (or belief in its own power to control behavior) is truly impressive. The colossal stupidity of wedge-groove bifurcation being the most obvious case in point.

Brent,
To quibble a bit, the changeover for pros and top amateurs from balata to ProV1's didn't take a decade; it was almost overnight as equipment changes go.  (View the Professional as a bridge between the two.)

Technology changes in synergies, and at a very, very uneven rate.  That the USGA didn't anticipate titanium and therefore MUCH larger clubheads or the changes in golf balls (much less the two occurring almost simultaneously) makes the USGA just like everybody else. 

Nobody could have predicted texting while driving as a problem 20 years ago; now it's a huge issue.  Nobody could have predicted what has happened in the music industry 20 years ago; I have 900 songs on my phone now and haven't bought an "album" in years, all because of a college kid who realized he could share music files using software developed for college libraries.  Who saw Napster coming, much less itunes?  Certainly not the recording industry!

I'm willing to give the USGA a break on this.  I'm also willing to assume that the USGA is trying to catch up as best it can while preserving both the amateur and professional game under one set of rules.  It isn't an easy task, IMO, and the groove rule is a failed attempt at finding a low impact way to do part of that.  The ball is not so simple, no matter what so many here like to imagine.  Simple answers to complex questions are rarely successful in my experience.

[Garland Bayley]

Garland,

I think you need to study the topic a lot more before opining.  Try reading this article from Scientific American as a start on understanding dimples.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=how-do-dimples-in-golf-ba

What's your point? That article says exactly what I said. The one difference is that it said changing the size of the dimples would change ball flight without specifying how, whereas I supposed larger dimples might increase movement.


Second you could read the Quintavalla report (there's aPDF that you can link to through this summary of the report.  The detailed report talks about spin in passing. 

Just a case of my knowing what I mean when I write it, but not thinking well enough about what the reader will think. My intended point was that they did not show results from varying spin rate nor dimple size.

You'd be interested to know that spin increases as swing speed increases.

Well duh!

http://www.usga.org/news/2006/April/Speed-Vs--Distance--Do-Long-Hitters-Get-An-Unfair-Benefit-/

High spin rates are the reason that balls, old or new, balloon. 

This is exactly what I have been saying forever. Back when I was young with excessive swing speed I was witness to this excessive ballooning with the balata covered balls.

[Brent Hutto]

The change was overnight. The decade was the time USGA spent denying that any substantial increase in elite player distance was underway. They "studied" the problem for year after year until finally concluding that it was too late to do anything meaningful about it. I know they can't change the Rules overnight. But I clearly recall year after year of denials that were absolutely absurd.

P.S. And making everyone in the world buy new wedges is hardly "low impact". It's an attempt to do something with an overly clever bank shot instead of addressing the (supposed) problem squarely.

[Garland Bayley]

Clearly with too much time on my hands I spent a while on a monitor today hitting a Pro V1, a (probably) 15 year old Titleist Tour Balata  100 and a (probably) 14 year old Titleist Professional 100.  Now, I'd bet that the two old Titleists have lost a bit of their pop over the years, but it was worth a try.  The monitor I was on was questionable on clubhead speed, but it was near what my speed is on more accurate monitors and the club speeds were pretty consistent.  I don't have a robot-like swing so there is plenty of variation amongst the results within each ball, but I think the average results are indicative.  I believe the ball speed and spin are reasonably accurate.  The distances are, of course, dependent on the system's algorithm, but they are comparable to my results on other more accurate monitors.




Not surprisingly (given they are 15 years old) the old balls were about 9 yards shorter than the Pro V1.  The ball speeds were about 3 mph slower.  The Professional was surprisingly close in spin, while the Tour Balata was significantly higher.  Despite the extra spin with the Tour Balata, the distances weren't any shorter than the Professional.

I now have one point I could put on the Quintavalla chart - a point about 9 yards lower at around 99 mph.  Now all I need is a person who swings at at 90 mph and another at 110 mph and another who swings at 120 mph and I'd have a rough cut at what the old ball and modern driver distance/swing speed line would be.  Sadly, I don't know where to find those two people.   

Good piece of work Bryan. Note the Balata spins close to 4000, whereas the ProV spins close to 3000 for you. Now if you go back to
http://probablegolfinstruction.com/PGI%20Newsletter/news05-02-04.htm
you can see how the high swing speed player gains disproportionally more at their swing speeds over what you would gain.

[Garland Bayley]

Golf balls do NOT go farther than they used to go 25 years ago.  PREMIUM golf balls go farther than they used to go 25 years ago!  I used to use a Pinnacle or TopFlite off the tee in scrambles, then balata, or later a Professional, into the greens.  Now I don't bother to switch because my Bridgestone RX goes as far as the Pinnacle anyway.  A ProV1x is basically a Pinnacle with a soft cover.

Bullshit.  I used to hit random balls like Top Flight and Pinnacle in scrambles back in the 80s and 90s, and I never hit a drive that carried 300 yards. ...

That's just you. I hit Top Flites regularly in the 70s and regularly carried them over 300 yards.

[A.G._Crockett]

The change was overnight. The decade was the time USGA spent denying that any substantial increase in elite player distance was underway. They "studied" the problem for year after year until finally concluding that it was too late to do anything meaningful about it. I know they can't change the Rules overnight. But I clearly recall year after year of denials that were absolutely absurd.

P.S. And making everyone in the world buy new wedges is hardly "low impact". It's an attempt to do something with an overly clever bank shot instead of addressing the (supposed) problem squarely.

I play a lot of golf, including many, many tournaments at the club level.  I haven't bought a new wedge yet, and won't have to for at least another decade or so IF the USGA leaves the rule in place.  By that time, I imagine I will have either replaced my i5's or stopped playing anyway.  The people that have had to buy new wedges almost certainly would have anyway; they replace wedges routinely in the course of their golf careers.  The guys on TV change several times a year, and expert amateurs that play state and national level competitions at least every couple of years, for the most part.  That's pretty low impact, IMO.

[jeffwarne]

The decade was the time USGA spent denying that any substantial increase in elite player distance was underway. They "studied" the problem for year after year until finally concluding that it was too late to do anything meaningful about it. I know they can't change the Rules overnight. But I clearly recall year after year of denials that were absolutely absurd.

P.S. And making everyone in the world buy new wedges is hardly "low impact". It's an attempt to do something with an overly clever bank shot instead of addressing the (supposed) problem squarely.

+1
word for word.

now we gotta get those sneaky yippy bastards with those putters.

Nobody's saying it's simple.
But an organization with 250 MILLION IN THE BANK can surely find a way.
just stop spending limited goodwill on stupid solutions (grooves, anchors) that address nothing about our everchanging fields of play and the disproportionate distance disparity between elite players and good players

Funny how GJ and Bryan can figure out this impossible conundrum, but the USGA can't (won't).
You can pull out all the fancy charts you want, but players with clubhead speeds higher than Bryan gain more distance proportionately with modern equipment than players lower than his speed, which is why a rollback should work exactly the opposite.
It's not socialism just a return to where we were pre ProV 1.
An added bonus would be creativity, shotmaking, and wind management skills would return.

[Garland Bayley]

...
Clubheads the size of tennis rackets need to be reduced and the maximum length for clubs established.
...

Aren't clubs currently limited to a max 48"?

[Garland Bayley]

...

Roll back the ODS to 290 (or the number of your choice) yards for all balls.  Then let the manufacturers figure out how to do it.  You could try to regulate the slope and linearity of the distance/swing speed line, but it then gets way more complicated to design and build and to police.  IMHO, this is a nightmare can of worms.

Not sure what you mean by this. If you mean rollback to the old ODS before they increased the distance specified by the ODS, then all balls will pass that test.

If you mean make all balls limit to 290 no matter what, then you are advocating exactly what the USGA decided they couldn't do when the new balls came out and created a problem. You would be obsoleting the vast majority of balls, and creating a great financial hardship for many ball manufacturers.

[Mark Pearce]

Brent, Bryan,

Are either (or both) of you arguing that because  a "roll-back" (and that's an unfortunate phrase, no one really wants a rollback, rather a new, reduced distance specification) would be complicated and difficult, the R&A and USGA shouldn't try?

The original article is at best misleading, by the way.  It's well known that both the R&A and USGA have been conducting tests on reduced distance balls for several years now, the balls produced by ball manufacturers and the results have been quite playable.  Designing a new ball would be nowhere near as difficult as the article attempts to portray.

[Garland Bayley]

...
Funny how GJ and Bryan can figure out this impossible conundrum, but the USGA can't (won't).
You can pull out all the fancy charts you want, but players with clubhead speeds higher than Bryan gain more distance proportionately with modern equipment than players lower than his speed, which is why a rollback should work exactly the opposite.
It's not socialism just a return to where we were pre ProV 1.
An added bonus would be creativity, shotmaking, and wind management skills would return.

The roll back I have proposed in the past, addresses the (what I choose to call) unnatural behavior of the ProV1. If you plot the slope of face angle against spin, you get a higher sloped line than you did with all the previous balls before the three piece balls like the ProV1. Regulate the slope of this line. It lets all rockflite like balls in, which is exactly the conundrum the USGA faced and couldn't solve when they dallied on taking action against the 3 piece ball. The first time I proposed it, it was criticized here for being to difficult to determine, but now every Tom, Dick, and Bryan Izatt have the technology to determine the spin rates.

I actually have been of the opinion that the USGA and R&A may be using wedge grooves and putter anchoring to build up to ball roll back when the three piece ball patents expire in a few years.

[Greg Clark]

Clearly with too much time on my hands I spent a while on a monitor today hitting a Pro V1, a (probably) 15 year old Titleist Tour Balata  100 and a (probably) 14 year old Titleist Professional 100.  Now, I'd bet that the two old Titleists have lost a bit of their pop over the years, but it was worth a try.  The monitor I was on was questionable on clubhead speed, but it was near what my speed is on more accurate monitors and the club speeds were pretty consistent.  I don't have a robot-like swing so there is plenty of variation amongst the results within each ball, but I think the average results are indicative.  I believe the ball speed and spin are reasonably accurate.  The distances are, of course, dependent on the system's algorithm, but they are comparable to my results on other more accurate monitors.




Not surprisingly (given they are 15 years old) the old balls were about 9 yards shorter than the Pro V1.  The ball speeds were about 3 mph slower.  The Professional was surprisingly close in spin, while the Tour Balata was significantly higher.  Despite the extra spin with the Tour Balata, the distances weren't any shorter than the Professional.

I now have one point I could put on the Quintavalla chart - a point about 9 yards lower at around 99 mph.  Now all I need is a person who swings at at 90 mph and another at 110 mph and another who swings at 120 mph and I'd have a rough cut at what the old ball and modern driver distance/swing speed line would be.  Sadly, I don't know where to find those two people.   

I swing pretty close to 110 (probably average 107) and have plenty of titleist balatas, professionals and prov1's.  I'll hit some on a monitor in the next few days and provide the data to you.

[Brent Hutto]

Brent, Bryan,

Are either (or both) of you arguing that because  a "roll-back" (and that's an unfortunate phrase, no one really wants a rollback, rather a new, reduced distance specification) would be complicated and difficult, the R&A and USGA shouldn't try?

The original article is at best misleading, by the way.  It's well known that both the R&A and USGA have been conducting tests on reduced distance balls for several years now, the balls produced by ball manufacturers and the results have been quite playable.  Designing a new ball would be nowhere near as difficult as the article attempts to portray.

Not at all. A reduction in the performance of the golf ball can either be done (legally, politically) or it can not. I am totally unqualified to judge that probability. All I'm saying is technically if it is going to be at all, it needs to be done in a straightforward manner because any attempt to out-clever the industry or the elite players will either be laughably ineffective or it will backfire with unintended consequences.

If the "problem" is defined as Today's Golf Ball Flies Too Far When Struck By Elite Players then the "solution" can only be to require that Golf Balls In Future Fly Less Far When Struck By Elite Players. There is no "exponential curve" and futzing around with spin or dimples without an outright distance restriction is sure to fail. Specify what you want to happen, don't specify unrelated parameters in the vain hope that it ought to somehow indirectly result in less distance.

[Garland Bayley]

...
If the "problem" is defined as Today's Golf Ball Flies Too Far When Struck By Elite Players then the "solution" can only be to require that Golf Balls In Future Fly Less Far When Struck By Elite Players. There is no "exponential curve" and futzing around with spin or dimples without an outright distance restriction is sure to fail. Specify what you want to happen, don't specify unrelated parameters in the vain hope that it ought to somehow indirectly result in less distance.

I don't get what you mean. There is and has been an outright distance restriction. It failed, and continues to fail.

[Brent Hutto]

No, they had a distance restriction governing how far the ball could travel when struck by an old wooden club at 60's vintage clubhead speeds. That was accompanied by an assumption that if you hit the ball much harder than that it would be so uncontrollable that no good player would bother.

Then balls came to market that when struck much, much harder by a much, much superior club by an elite player could in fact be controlled. To no ones surprise but the USGA's, the result was distance far beyond their "ODS" number.

So they dithered around "studying" the problem for a few years and then basically shrugged their shoulders and accepted the new status quo. They updated the testing regime and set a new limit based on how far modern golf balls of the day were travelling when struck at somewhat more realistic elite-player clubhead speeds with somewhat more realistic impact conditions. No actual reduction in allowed distance occurred.

And that's the situation we have now. Players are hitting the ball the better part of a hundred yards longer than the old test ever reckoned was possible and controlling it nicely, thank you very much. Since the new, more realistic standard had its parameters set to avoid ruling any ball that existed in the mid-2000's non-conforming it had to be set pretty darned high. Not surprisingly, the strongest players are now swinging even faster and the optimized ball/driver equipment is performing slightly better than even a few years ago. That will continue.

So having sat on the sidelines when it was (arguably) possible to rein in ball speeds and distances early in the modern era, they are now stuck with two unappealing options. Continue to do nothing and let the prevailing standard of course setup for elite competition get longer and longer or try to convince the industry and the players to see the parameters of the ball test "rolled back" to 5, 10, 15 percent less distance than the current Rules allow.

P.S. My prediction is they will, a couple years hence, come up with some ill-advised ruling that some "tournament ball" be used at the highest levels of competition [sic]. And that even that ball will not be distance limited but will have some sort of high-spin specification. I further predict that the result is the strongest players will continue to hit it farther and farther but also crookeder, thereby necessitating courses that are both longer and with more buffer area for safety.

The reason I predict this is because I believe all USGA rule making recently has been motivated by a desire to somehow force the game to be played as it was in that comfortable interregnum during which the elite player preference for wound balata balls made rule-making trivially easy. Rather than deal with the world as it is, they are trying their damndest to force the world to go back to how it was when they did know how to deal with it.

[Michael Wharton-Palmer]

Phew, That was alot of reading getting through all of those posts and getting to this point.
The head guy at Nike Balls, excuse that title, has told me he can produce a ball that is comparable in durabilibty to the modern ball but matches the distances of the Old balatas any day you want them.
For what that is worth.

[A.G._Crockett]

Phew, That was alot of reading getting through all of those posts and getting to this point.
The head guy at Nike Balls, excuse that title, has told me he can produce a ball that is comparable in durabilibty to the modern ball but matches the distances of the Old balatas any day you want them.
For what that is worth.

No doubt true, but that's not the issue, is it?  Of course a ball can be made that ALL of us will hit shorter distances! 

The issue is not whether or not a shorter ball can be produced; it is whether the ball can (or should!) be shorter for long hitters but not shorter for short hitters.  MOST (though not all) agree that making everybody use a shorter ball than the Pinnacle/TopFlite type ball which now has a premium cover is not a winning strategy for the golf industry.

And MOST (though not all) also agree that bifurcation is not desirable.

And therein lies the difficulty.

[Garland Bayley]

No, they had a distance restriction governing how far the ball could travel when struck by an old wooden club at 60's vintage clubhead speeds. That was accompanied by an assumption that if you hit the ball much harder than that it would be so uncontrollable that no good player would bother.

Then balls came to market that when struck much, much harder by a much, much superior club by an elite player could in fact be controlled. To no ones surprise but the USGA's, the result was distance far beyond their "ODS" number.

So they dithered around "studying" the problem for a few years and then basically shrugged their shoulders and accepted the new status quo. They updated the testing regime and set a new limit based on how far modern golf balls of the day were travelling when struck at somewhat more realistic elite-player clubhead speeds with somewhat more realistic impact conditions. No actual reduction in allowed distance occurred.

The did not "set a new limit". The limit is the same. It has just been updated with modern clubheads speeds, but is derived from the old limit, so it does not (or certainly is not intended to) let balls travel farther than the old limit did.

And that's the situation we have now. Players are hitting the ball the better part of a hundred yards longer than the old test ever reckoned was possible and controlling it nicely, thank you very much.

The average driving distance in 1999 was 272. The average driving distance in 2011 was 291. How is this "the better part of a hundred yards"?


Since the new, more realistic standard had its parameters set to avoid ruling any ball that existed in the mid-2000's non-conforming it had to be set pretty darned high. Not surprisingly, the strongest players are now swinging even faster and the optimized ball/driver equipment is performing slightly better than even a few years ago. That will continue.

Again, there was no setting to "pretty darned high".


So having sat on the sidelines when it was (arguably) possible to rein in ball speeds and distances early in the modern era,

Ball speeds have long been regulated. There is no reining in to do. Ball speed was reined in a long time ago. Even before the distance standard was set.

 they are now stuck with two unappealing options. Continue to do nothing and let the prevailing standard of course setup for elite competition get longer and longer or try to convince the industry and the players to see the parameters of the ball test "rolled back" to 5, 10, 15 percent less distance than the current Rules allow.

P.S. My prediction is they will, a couple years hence, come up with some ill-advised ruling that some "tournament ball" be used at the highest levels of competition [sic]. And that even that ball will not be distance limited but will have some sort of high-spin specification. I further predict that the result is the strongest players will continue to hit it farther and farther but also crookeder, thereby necessitating courses that are both longer and with more buffer area for safety.

The reason I predict this is because I believe all USGA rule making recently has been motivated by a desire to somehow force the game to be played as it was in that comfortable interregnum during which the elite player preference for wound balata balls made rule-making trivially easy. Rather than deal with the world as it is, they are trying their damndest to force the world to go back to how it was when they did know how to deal with it.

[Brent Hutto]

The comment about "better part of 100 yards" was comparing today to something more like 1949 than 1999. Back when wooden clubs and rubber-band wound balls were the only realistic options for good players and back when the test they were still using in 1999 was actually meaningful.

All I know is this. If they want elite players NOT to be hitting the ball such-and-such distances in the year 2033 then they have to enforce a meaningful limit on ball speed AND carry distance as measured at the clubhead speeds likely to prevail at that time for the strongest players. If you don't want a 150mph swing to propel the ball at 220mph and see it travel 400 yards through the air then make a rule that say just how far a ball is allowed to travel when struck at 150mph.

Don't make a rule intended to make 130mph swingers today hold back and not try to swing 150mph tomorrow. Or a rule that tweaks the dimples on a Pro V1 to produce a ball that upshots and flies crooked. Cleverness is not going to work. Not for long, anyway.

[Michael Wharton-Palmer]

Phew, That was alot of reading getting through all of those posts and getting to this point.
The head guy at Nike Balls, excuse that title, has told me he can produce a ball that is comparable in durabilibty to the modern ball but matches the distances of the Old balatas any day you want them.
For what that is worth.

No doubt true, but that's not the issue, is it?  Of course a ball can be made that ALL of us will hit shorter distances! 

The issue is not whether or not a shorter ball can be produced; it is whether the ball can (or should!) be shorter for long hitters but not shorter for short hitters.  MOST (though not all) agree that making everybody use a shorter ball than the Pinnacle/TopFlite type ball which now has a premium cover is not a winning strategy for the golf industry.

And MOST (though not all) also agree that bifurcation is not desirable.

And therein lies the difficulty.

In reality that SHOULD be the issue, nothing else matters, a shorter ball for everyone, just as with the Balaltas.
We shouldnt even be wasting our time trying to pinpoit who loses the most length, just a shorter ball.
Big hitters will still be big hitters and shorter sraighter hitters like me will hit more fairways, that is all we should be worrying about...if even that!!

[A.G._Crockett]

Phew, That was alot of reading getting through all of those posts and getting to this point.
The head guy at Nike Balls, excuse that title, has told me he can produce a ball that is comparable in durabilibty to the modern ball but matches the distances of the Old balatas any day you want them.
For what that is worth.

No doubt true, but that's not the issue, is it?  Of course a ball can be made that ALL of us will hit shorter distances! 

The issue is not whether or not a shorter ball can be produced; it is whether the ball can (or should!) be shorter for long hitters but not shorter for short hitters.  MOST (though not all) agree that making everybody use a shorter ball than the Pinnacle/TopFlite type ball which now has a premium cover is not a winning strategy for the golf industry.

And MOST (though not all) also agree that bifurcation is not desirable.

And therein lies the difficulty.

In reality that SHOULD be the issue, nothing else matters, a shorter ball for everyone, just as with the Balaltas.
We shouldnt even be wasting our time trying to pinpoit who loses the most length, just a shorter ball.
Big hitters will still be big hitters and shorter sraighter hitters like me will hit more fairways, that is all we should be worrying about...if even that!!

Michael,
Most players did NOT use balata back in the day.  They used other, cheaper, more durable balls that also went much farther.  You are in effect  asking for a standard that exceeds the balata standard.  This isn't realistic or wise.

[Paul_Turner]

Comparing PGA and LPGA tour stats shows evidence that stronger players have gained more in distance in the last 20 or so years.  Thsi obviously covers all tech gains and other changes which are harder to quantify (fitness?  course speed?).  

Of course the adoption of tech may be slightly different for the two tours.  I suspect that the solid ball was more widely used on the LPGA tour in the 1990s when compared with the PGA tour...so that might be one reason that the gain has been less.

Estimate the stats from both tours cover current swing speeds of approx 90-95Mph (weakest 10% LPGA) to 125-130Mph (strongest 10% PGA).



About a 7yard extra for the strongest PGA relative to weakest LPGA



Slightly closer together.. 5yd or so comparing the strongest LPGA with weakest PGA


No difference within the PGA tour.   Same as in the USGA report.


Small advantage for the strongest LPGA when compared with the weakest.