Is it not a big deal Dustin Johnson hit 3w/6i on the 18th green at PB?

[Garland Bayley]

In the first paragraph you provide an illustration of how "elite" athletes are bigger/stronger than they used to be.  In the second paragraph, you list that among potential reasons why distance increased during 1995 to 2005.  I don't see any reason why you think that is limited to elite athletes, though.  Why shouldn't amateur athletes get bigger/stronger for whatever reason you may attribute to this happening for elite athletes?

Doug,

Elite players have improved their technique for hitting the ball far, which the new equipment encourages, while the average player has not. This is part of the definition of elite I think.

That said, when the average player catches one today they gain at least as much as the better players did.

Elite players previously hit the ball far given the equipment they had. They honed their technique to suit the equipment.

The equipment changed, so they adapted.

You make it sound like in 2000 or so, elite players suddenly woke up and smelt the coffee.
If average players were not working on improvements, there wouldn't be all the high tech equipment in every retail golf shop on the planet.

[JESII]

All I'm really saying is that when today's ball (ProV1) is struck well with today's driver it goes much farther the ball and drivers of 20 years ago...the problem is the best players hit the ball properly more frequently than lesser players so they gain the benefit more frequently.

The ball, the shaft, the driver head and the understanding of launch conditions have all improved greatly over the last 20 years with the best players best able to exploit those improvements.

IF, in total, those improvements equal 40 yards, the ball is only one part of it...the key part, but just one part.

[Garland Bayley]

...
Do you really think that the ProV1x is comparable distance wise to the old rock Pinnacle?  How about if we just focused on carry distance?  Still comparable?

Of course the ProV1x is comparable distance wise to the old rock Pinnacle! The ProV line was engineered to obtain the distance of the Pinnacle.
Another way of thinking of it is that the Pinnacle (actually TopFlite to Strata) was engineered to have the spin of the balata.
That's where the modern balls got their distance, by copying the Pinnacles and TopFlites.

[Patrick_Mucci]

All I'm really saying is that when today's ball (ProV1) is struck well with today's driver it goes much farther the ball and drivers of 20 years ago...the problem is the best players hit the ball properly more frequently than lesser players so they gain the benefit more frequently.

Jim,  Mis-hits aren't really the issue, and modern equipment has greatly compensated for off center hits.

The ball, the shaft, the driver head and the understanding of launch conditions have all improved greatly over the last 20 years with the best players best able to exploit those improvements.

It's enabled everyone to make strides in distance

IF, in total, those improvements equal 40 yards, the ball is only one part of it...the key part, but just one part.

Agreed, but, it's a major part.

[DMoriarty]

Jim

My issue with the Pinnacle comparisons is that no matter what happens with the technology, people always claim, "Well the old Pinnacle went just as far."   Take a look again at that experiment done by Andrew Rice.   The 2011 ProV1 was 12 yards longer than the ProV1-392 from about a decade before.  And the ProV1x-392 was another 9 yards longer than than that!   So which one exactly equaled the old Pinnacle?    It cannot be all of them, can it?    There have been other ball improvements since the old Pinnacle, including improvements in aerodynamics of the balls, and I think we are past the point that we can say all the balls equal the old Pinnacle distance-wise.  

As for slower swing players, I really don't know if they were better off distance-wise with a Pinnacle or a Balata, but given they usually need relatively more spin to optimize distance, I have trouble understanding how a lower spin ball served them best.    

[Garland Bayley]

Jim

My issue with the Pinnacle comparisons is that no matter what happens with the technology, people always claim, "Well the old Pinnacle went just as far."   Take a look again at that experiment done by Andrew Rice.   The 2011 ProV1 was 12 yards longer than the ProV1-392 from about a decade before.  And the ProV1x-392 was another 9 yards longer than than that!   So which one exactly equaled the old Pinnacle?    It cannot be all of them, can it?    There have been other ball improvements since the old Pinnacle, including improvements in aerodynamics of the balls, and I think we are past the point that we can say all the balls equal the old Pinnacle distance-wise.  

As for slower swing players, I really don't know if they were better off distance-wise with a Pinnacle or a Balata, but given they usually need relatively more spin to optimize distance, I have trouble understanding how a lower spin ball served them best.    

Please don't attempt to draw meaningful conclusions from a poorly controlled experiment with one player.

[DMoriarty]

Garland,

Have you looked at the experiment?  It may not be dispositive, and it may be flawed regarding the Balata because of apparent degradation, but I don't think it was poorly controlled regarding the other balls.  And the numbers on tour corroborate the jump in distance for players who switched to the ProV1x.  

So which of these new balls was a match distance-wise for the Pinnacle?  The original ProV1 as has often been said?  The original ProV1x? Later versions of either ball?  It cannot be all of them, can it?  Were there multiple version of the Pinnacle that suited different elite players?  

How much longer will the ball have to fly before we can finally drop this nonsense about how the old Pinnacles flew just as far?  

[Garland Bayley]

David,

My best guess is that the ProV type balls have yet to catch up with the Pinnacles. The Pinnacles flew longer than the ProV type balls when they were the official ball of the Long Drive Championships, and the official ball of the Long Drive Championships is now the TopFlite. Although not conclusive, this suggests to me that the ProV type balls have yet to catch up. Why would the Long Drive Championships want to extoll the abilities of their competitors if someone could take a ProV type ball and hit it longer than these champions get all the press for?

[Garland Bayley]

David,

My impression on first reading the Andrew Rice "experiment" was that it was nearly meaningless.

I just took time to re-read it. I have not changed my opinion. He took a "great driver" of the ball (who probably has had his swing and equipment optimized for the ProV1x) and found that the ProV1x went farthest.

Furthermore, I wouldn't take ball selection advice from him either. I happen to agree with other experts that say the multiple piece balls are the best for everyone. The small difference in distance produced by the various balls for the average player is meaningless compared to the ability to get some spin with lofted clubs from the multiple piece balls.

[DMoriarty]

Garland, call me crazy, but I think sponsorship of the Long Drive Championship might have more to do with marketing than any objective analysis of ball performance.

[Garland Bayley]

David,

Call me crazy, but I don't understand what marketing a real estate company has to do at all with ball distance.

[JESII]

David, or anyone really,

What do you think would happen if we tested a balata against a ProV1 using equipment from 20 years ago?

[Jim Sherma]

David, or anyone really,

What do you think would happen if we tested a balata against a ProV1 using equipment from 20 years ago?

I remember seeing a test done on this a while ago. I think the clubs amounted for a pretty good chunk of the gains but under 50%.

One source of distance gains has to be more than the physics of the balls and clubs at the optimum. I break out old persimmons a couple of times a year and have to tone down my swing in order to hit the smaller sweet spot with any regularity. You just can't swing at a small heavy head with the same abandon unless you are really-really good. The last time I had persimmons and my old MacGregor M2T's in the bag I felt like I could probably score about the same from the white tees (6480 on the Maurice McCarthy West course) if I committed to them for a while (I am currently at a 4.9 index and was as low as a 3 with persimmons and blades back in the 1980's). The style of the game would be different but I think I could figure out the shots needed. At north of 7000 yards on the West or on the 1970 George Fazio East course that demands more of an aerial game I don't think I could compete with what I can do with the new equipment.


Something else I have not seen mentioned here was the natural governor against high club head speed that resulted from the wound balls over compressing. Optimizing the performance of the ball was not about maximizing club head speed. The dispersion went way up and the up-shoot of an over-spinning ball from too much backspin used to become self defeating.

[Garland Bayley]

David,

I am probably out of date on golf balls. After doing some searching on the web, it appears that both Pinnacle and TopFlite have softened their balls from the good old days when I used to blast away with them.

With three piece balls available for some time now, I dropped using TopFlite rocks quite awhile ago first for Strata Pros, and then TopFlite Tours and TopFlite Gamers.

[Garland Bayley]

David, or anyone really,

What do you think would happen if we tested a balata against a ProV1 using equipment from 20 years ago?

ProV1 will go farther just like the TopFlites used to go farther for me more than 20 years ago.

[Garland Bayley]

Perhaps the website http://www.gbt-tech.com/ can answer some of the questions posed on this thread.

[Bryan Izatt]

David, or anyone really,

What do you think would happen if we tested a balata against a ProV1 using equipment from 20 years ago?

Jim,

Not quite what you're asking and only one anecdotal test, but Golf digest published this in 2009.  It was based on a test with Chad Campbell.  



New ball, olde driver added 7 yards.  New ball, new driver added 44 yards.  GD ascribes the distance gain to increases in swing speed attributable to the lighter and longer driver shafts and the the combination of the driver and ball optimize the launch conditions.  

Their theory:

It is worth theorizing that a larger percentage of the improvement might just be attributed to the shaft's effect on swing speed. Today's modern shaft usually weighs 75 grams or less, about half what the steel shaft on the MacGregor Byron Nelson driver weighed. But the 200 grams on the end of that shaft is the same force on today's heads, although the weight is better distributed. The faster you can swing that mass, the more it can improve your distance. Moreover, shaft technology has elevated to the point where the same stability that better players with faster swings found in steel shafts years ago is nearly the same today in graphite shafts that weigh half as much.

Their ultimate paragraph:

It's not clear whether one set of numbers and a few swings through history on the range of a PGA Tour event last week confirm that idea or call it into question. But isolating the effect to either club or ball seems impossible. Rather, today's club-ball system seems to exceed the sum of its parts.

[Doug Siebert]

David,

I am probably out of date on golf balls. After doing some searching on the web, it appears that both Pinnacle and TopFlite have softened their balls from the good old days when I used to blast away with them.

With three piece balls available for some time now, I dropped using TopFlite rocks quite awhile ago first for Strata Pros, and then TopFlite Tours and TopFlite Gamers.

I was going to point this out, but I guess you beat me to it.

The Pinnacles and Top Flites of today (or probably the last 15-20 years) are nothing like the Rock Flites of the early 80s I remember and everyone who was even remotely close to decent used to joke about.

When I first started and became halfway decent, I was playing wound three piece surlyn cover balls, not balatas.  Heck, back then I remember it was pretty easy to cut the cover of a surlyn ball with a mishit, let alone what it would do to balata, so it was purely a financial decision.  When I'd run out of "good" balls I'd play whatever I found, which was sometimes Top Flite type balls.  I don't remember them going any further at all.  Had they done so, I'm sure I would have considered using them on par 5s to increase my chances of going for the green in two (back when eagle putts were rather more rare than they are today)

When I was in college in the late 80s, I started playing balatas, at least when I was hitting it well.  I don't remember any real difference in driving distance between them either, but maybe the Top Flite was already being improved, or more likely the fact that by then I was using a 6.5* driver meant I had "optimized" my equipment for the high launch high spin drives I hit - perhaps if I used a Top Flite with a 9* driver I'd have seen it go further.

At any rate, I'm highly skeptical of suggestions that an old Top Flite is anything remotely like a Pro V1.  Perhaps that is true for certain people, but I can state with certainty it was by no means universal.  The distance benefits of the Pro V1/V1x, by contrast, to seem to have been rather universal for those of us with swing speeds well over 100 mph.

[Doug Siebert]

My problem with tests like this is that guys like Chad Campbell have optimized their swings for the newer equipment, and the new ball is certainly optimized for the launch characteristics of new equipment.  So how much is it really worth?  I used to pull out my old persimmon driver every year or two but it has been a while since I have since I can't really swing it anymore.  It feels as heavy as a baseball bat with a donut on it, and the shaft is so stiff (X100 tipped 1.5") that it feels like it is made of rebar.  God knows how I used to swing that thing so well!

It is weird that if they did that test they didn't include a new driver / old ball test, just to see what would happen.  I do wonder where they got the 1990 balata.  Was it 19 years old, or does Titleist still have a balata making line in operation in some corner of one of their factories that can make new balatas?

[Garland Bayley]

...  Was it 19 years old, or does Titleist still have a balata making line in operation in some corner of one of their factories that can make new balatas?

I contacted Titleist quite awhile ago (probably after I had been on this site for a short while and got into these discussions) about that and they said the old equipment had been scrapped long ago, and it was not possible to make new "balatas".

When I was young I used to hit drives with a 2 wood as driver was just a slicing machine. The TopFlites flew long and relatively straight, whereas the Balatas ballooned up and dropped down much more vertically.

[Bryan Izatt]

Doug,

My recollection of TopFlites and Pinnacles was that they were longer, but you couldn't spin them at all around the greens.  My experience with cutting and cost was similar to yours.  I always lamented putting smiles in the balata balls.  

The distance balls had a faster (higher COR) core and a hard cover and that accounted for the increased distance compared to the wound balls.

From a PGA Tour article about the evolution of the Titleist Pro V1:

As legacy ball companies such as Top-Flite, Wilson and Dunlop began giving way to new-guard Callaway, Nike and TaylorMade, Titleist stood tall. It had the No. 1 ball in competitive golf.

But Titleist knew it could not rest on its laurels. In a move that at the time seemed more evolutionary than revolutionary, the engineers sought to combine its two types of balls. For the next five years, they went through countless prototypes.

As robot testing took place at Titleist's Manchester Lane test facility in Acushnet, Mass., where the company's main headquarters are located, one prototype kept drawing their attention -- a solid core (taken from the distance balls), surrounded by the surlyn casing (taken from the performance balls), with a 392-dimple icosahedral design homegrown urethane cover that gave the ball a veneer look and helped transmit a softer sensation to the hands while providing more spin.

It doesn't appear that there was some magical revolutionary technological breakthrough at the time.  They just managed to combine the best of two approaches to ball design.  And it started with the distance friendly two piece ball core.

In other readings I see suggestions that improvements in the composition of the polybutidiene (synthetic rubber) used in the core of most golf balls might lead to distance gains only for slow swingers and not high speed swingers.  I wouldn't have thought that possible, but never say never.

In yet other readings, it seems Titleist is promoting the ProV's compress similarly for all golfers and are good for use by all, contrary to the myth that they are only useful for high speed swings.  But, then that campaign could just be an effort to keep and increase market share.

[Garland Bayley]

Bryan,

I wouldn't trust the author of that quote too much as he seems to have gotten the composition of the balls incorrect. Shouldn't it say ionomer casing?

Furthermore, it makes it sound like Titleist was the leader in inventing the three piece ball when actually they were the "Johnny come lately".

[Bryan Izatt]

...............................   

You keep circling back to swing speed and athleticism as having played a large role in the increased distances. I don't deny that these things may have played some sort of role (especially as young players develop within this new equipment regime,) but I think you and others are dramatically overstating the significance of these variables in helping explain the changes over the relevant period.  You never seem to accept my efforts to do so, but you are savvy enough with the numbers so that you could go into the data and (as best you can) try to control the swing speed and athleticism.  If you do, I think you will see that the primary factor is indeed changing technology.

................................   

Where are the studies indicating a significant increase in swing speed or athleticism has played a major role in the increased distances?  Likewise, where is the study indicating that what you call the "likely fact" that the gap in swing speeds has increased?  I understand the anecdotal appeal of such a claim, and there may be a grain of truth to it, but I simply don't buy that it is responsible for the magnitude of changes we have seen.  Also, Bryan, keep in mind that swing speed and technology are very much related.  Lighter shafts, better materials, less twisting, different, larger club heads.  All theoretically allow a golfer to swing harder without adverse consequences.  That is technology.

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

David,

Re the above, who are you arguing with?

I stated above that:

I attribute that gain to the ball, the 460cc driver head, lighter driver shafts (both resulting in higher  swing speeds), optimization, better conditioning of most elite athletes, and probably faster course conditions.  I have no idea, nor apparently does anybody else, as to how much each contributed to the gain.

I "believe", but can't prove, that these factors (mostly technology) are involved.  I don't know what percentage to attribute to each.  You seem to "believe" that it's primarily (?? %) the ball.  I get it.  So far, I'm agnostic on this.  When you can provide some credible statistically significant data that clarifies it, I'll happily consider it.  And, I'll keep looking on my own.

Re the R&A "data", do you have any further insight in how they conducted their testing?  Did they control for any of the possible variables in question?

[Garland Bayley]

...
I "believe", but can't prove, that these factors (mostly technology) are involved.  I don't know what percentage to attribute to each.  You seem to "believe" that it's primarily (?? %) the ball.  I get it.  So far, I'm agnostic on this.  When you can provide some credible statistically significant data that clarifies it, I'll happily consider it.  And, I'll keep looking on my own.
...

Look at the blue diamonds (average tour driving distance) for the years 2001 and 2003 in your graphs. Then look at the preceding years. Impossible to think it is swing speed that did that. The spring-like effect of drivers had been limited in 1998, so it couldn't be that. Hard to believe it was a sudden fitness craze that came in two waves. Graphite shafts didn't have significant weight loss. If you are agnostic with the evidence of the data you keep publishing, then you are going to be agnostic forever.

[DMoriarty]

Bryan, I believe it is mostly due to technology.  I focus on the ball because the ball has played a very large role and also it seems easiest to fix.

Re the R&A study, you have the same info I do.