[Joe Hancock]

With all the discussion about the state of the game and how the best golfers are managing to reveal Erin Hills, it made me think about what changes could be made to the ball, and how that might affect the game.


Ball size- A slightly larger ball would have more surface area, meaning more wind resistance. Also, it would have some effect on rolling resistance, which, I assume, would mean putts would break more on grades.


Aerodynamics- Is there any regulation on this attribute? I would think it would have a huge impact on the game if the ball reacted more to the wind. A 350 yard drive would be a lot less appealing if a 10 mile per hour wind would move the ball significantly. I think this is overlooked as a contributing factor in why these young guns swing so hard.


Velocity- The attribute that gets talked about, and no one in the golf world wants to address.


None of this is new thinking, but it seems like a good time to bring it up again. Thoughts and additions?

[Mike Sweeney]

1) Golf is the only game where the ball the players play with is supplied by the players, both pro and amateur.


Every other sport (football, baseball, basketball, tennis...), the ball used in competition is supplied by the organizing organization/entity sponsoring the event.


Golf can issue the balls for an event and take back some control of distance.


2) Fitness is simply leaps and bounds above the days of Nicklaus. All reports are that Nicklaus was also a great all around athlete. These guys today are mostly not great all around athletes, but they are dialed into the mechanics of the golf swing at a very early age. Combined with fitness and nutrition, that ship has sailed. They would hit it farther with persimmon woods and balata balls.


3) Agronomy - I am not advocating for plugged balls, but modern agronomy is whatever the course setup guys want. Obviously rain and water can slow it down, but in general, fairway cuts are lower and turf is firmer.


Simple solution to start the change - The invitation to next years Masters says, "And you will be playing The Masters Ball during competition."

[Tom_Doak]

Just make them play persimmon, with any ball they want.


Nobody's going to be able to swing a 460cc persimmon driver.

[BCowan]

Just make them play persimmon, with any ball they want.


Nobody's going to be able to swing a 460cc persimmon driver.

Tom,


   My buddy JP was playing practice round last year with an US AM participant. The kid was blowing it 50 yards by JP.  He asked the kid to hit his 1990 Mizuno driver with graphite shaft.  They were both neck and neck at around 250.  Save the trees and go back to steel, no Thai

[Tom_Doak]

Ben:


I'm sure there are other ways to regulate the equipment, besides my suggestion of persimmon.


I just see the metal driver as the fulcrum for all the subsequent changes, in hindsight.  Allowing metal drivers led to all sorts of other technological improvement that would not have been in the cards with wooden clubs.  It was a boon to the people who wanted to make a profit out of golf.


Do you know who made the best wooden drivers back in the day?  It was a handful of club professionals who loved to make things by hand.  One of the best was the old pro at Walton Heath, Harry Busson ... he made the drivers that Seve and Norman and many of the guys on the European Tour played.  But he couldn't turn out millions of them each year, so they were reserved for the very best players.


I'm not for eliminating metal woods now -- just for the Tours and for the biggest amateur competitions.  I'm fully in favor of bifurcation, if the alternative is watching guys hit 667-yard par-5's in two.

[MCirba]

...with two 3 woods... 

I find myself wanting to watch women's golf more than men's because I simply can't relate.

[Bob Montle]

I'm not for eliminating metal woods now -- just for the Tours and for the biggest amateur competitions.  I'm fully in favor of bifurcation, if the alternative is watching guys hit 667-yard par-5's in two.

Exactly. Baseball does it. No aluminum bats in the majors.

[Brian Walshe]

The clubs make a difference but not as much as you think.  My 19 yr old son managed to carry the bunkers on a corner of a dogleg hole last week which was a lazy 250m carry..... with a 100 year old hickory shafted brassie.  The ball is the major problem and an easy fix would be to change the Overall Distance Standard.  Ramp the swing speed up to 125mph and the bring the allowed distance down to 270yds.  Bear in mind that it used to be 100mph and 270yds (it is now 120mph and 317yds) so it has already been altered before and the ball makers accepted it.  I'm guessing that would make it harder for them to argue against a change now.

[Jon Wiggett]

Brian,


fully agree. Changing the ball would be the cheapest, easiest and quickest fix that could be made. It is only the governing bodies who do not seem to want to do this now.


Jon

[Erik J. Barzeski]

The clubs make a difference but not as much as you think.  My 19 yr old son managed to carry the bunkers on a corner of a dogleg hole last week which was a lazy 250m carry..... with a 100 year old hickory shafted brassie.  The ball is the major problem and an easy fix would be to change the Overall Distance Standard.  Ramp the swing speed up to 125mph and the bring the allowed distance down to 270yds.  Bear in mind that it used to be 100mph and 270yds (it is now 120mph and 317yds) so it has already been altered before and the ball makers accepted it.  I'm guessing that would make it harder for them to argue against a change now.

It was changed but basically kept within the same sort of linear progression, in case a ball maker could "supercharge" a ball that behaved exceptionally well at 120 MPH while passing the test at 100 MPH.

It wasn't extended… 317/120 = 2.64, 270/100 = 2.7 of course. So if anything it was decreased a bit (because more deformation at 120 MPH results in more lost energy).

The average PGA Tour player swings several MPH faster than they did in, say, 1987. That's why the ball goes farther. They swing faster because they have longer, lighter clubs, with bigger heads. They swing faster because they're more fit. They get more out of whatever they swing because we understand what can create optimal launch conditions now. Fairways are cut tighter. More and more athletes are playing golf because there's money involved (DJ would not have picked up a golf club if he was a teen in the 50s or 60s… he'd have played baseball or football, maybe basketball).

The Pinnacle or Top-Flite from 1990, with a little better understanding of dimple design, could easily match a Pro V1 off the tee these days. All the modern ball did was get the low-spin characteristics of the distance balls from decades ago but retain enough spin that they offered control to good players with their shorter clubs.

[Peter Flory]

Baseball has kept the wooden bats, tried to maintain a similar baseball (with fluctuations back and forth), and field dimensions have been increasing- for example the old Polo Ground had a HR fence only 258 to right field... a park where Babe Ruth once hit a HR estimated at 550 feet.  But the power inflation has always been a thing, despite constant improvement in the effectiveness of pitchers (more speed, better technique, more specialization in relievers, etc.)

If you look at home runs per game per team per year, there has been noticeable inflation since the beginning of the league.

Per decade:
1870s: 0.10
1880s: 0.20
1890s: 0.26
1900s: 0.14
1910s: 0.17
1920s: 0.40
1930s: 0.55
1940s: 0.53
1950s: 0.84
1960s: 0.82
1970s: 0.75
1980s: 0.80
1990s: 0.95
2000s: 1.07
2010s: 1.02

If amateur baseball were a thing and everybody played at MLB ballparks, the average 20 handicap equivalent player probably couldn't hit a baseball out of the infield on the fly off of a tee.  Maybe they'd average 150 feet if they were lucky.  Meanwhile, the average baseball player could probably average 400 feet.  In golf, it is kind of the same, say a 180 yard drive vs 300. 

The issue here is that pros and amateurs in golf really are playing on the same exact field.  It's a great part of golf, but it definitely highlights the ludicrousness of the gap between am and pro. 

On the bright side, a 6,800 yard course is still too much for the vast majority of golfers. 

According to this: http://www.golfdigest.com/story/how-far-do-average-golfers-really-hit-it-new-distance-data-will-surprise-you
Most golfers average less than 230 yards with their drivers. 

[Phil McDade]

More and more athletes are playing golf because there's money involved (DJ would not have picked up a golf club if he was a teen in the 50s or 60s… he'd have played baseball or football, maybe basketball).

Perhaps THE most under-rated factor in the distance explosion we've seen.


I've had long debates on this forum about today's generation of golfers vs. those of Arnie and Jack's generation. But there is little question that better athletes are drawn to the game, and money has a lot to do with that.

[Jon Wiggett]

Erik,


two points to address. Firstly, I hit my 1980's steel shafted, persimmon headed driver just 10 yards behind my modern Taylormade when I hit it well so club advances are not so significant for me though I suspect you are correct about the tour pros. I am now longer off the tee than I was 30 years ago despite hitting the ball much worse and being far less athletic than I was.


The second point is about speed, cost and practicality. It would be far easier, quicker and cheaper to produce either tour balls just for the pros or alter for all so that the distance hit was reduced. The stupid distances players are hitting it these days is slowly killing the game.


Jon

[Jason Thurman]

I have little issue with the distance the ball travels. I have issues with the reactions to the distance the ball travels.


Brooks Koepka just shot -16 over four rounds on a 7800 yard US Open course. If 7800 yards in the US Open isn't enough to hold scoring around level par, then trying to hold scoring around level par is a fool's errand.


Leave the courses as they are. Leave the equipment as it is. The game in its current form would work just fine for everyone if the average course was still around 6500 yards from the tips. Elite players might have to leave their 350 yard club in the bag a little more often, and they'd also need to be able to take it real, real low to win on shorter courses. Personally, I'd love to see an occasional tournament from <6500 yards in which 240 or so is what it takes to win. And sure, the pros could play the occasional event from 7500 yards too, just to give them a canvas on which to really display how much better they are than the rest of us.


When Roger Bannister broke 4 minutes, we didn't lengthen the mile. We applauded and learned to run faster instead. Personally, I think we should allow the definition of excellence to evolve, instead of changing the game to preserve an antiquated standard of excellence from decades past.

[Mike_Young]

As TD says, go back to persimmon but if you also control the cliubface size then you control the sweetspot size and if you control the sweet spot size you will control the length of the shaft and if you control the length of the shaft you will lower the swing speed.  And if those shafts have a controlled torque then one cant swing it like they do anyway.   At the end of the day the equipment allows the player to consistently hit a larger sweet spot at a higher swingspeed.  All of that can be stopped.  And yet , sure, some kid may still carry a hickory 250 here and there but the top players will not swing at the speeds they do now in competition.  JMO

[BCowan]

Soft greens are the Achilles heal.  Boy do I continue to still appreciate Pinehurst #2 open. 


I think the other fail was the fescue fairways this week. 


It would be nice if we didn't over react every time something doesn't go our way.  Didn't steroids increase interest in baseball?  I left it, but masses loved it. 

[Kalen Braley]

Soft greens are the Achilles heal.  Boy do I continue to still appreciate Pinehurst #2 open. 


I think the other fail was the fescue fairways this week. 


It would be nice if we didn't over react every time something doesn't go our way.  Didn't steroids increase interest in baseball?  I left it, but masses loved it.

Except Steroids and Baseball is every day for 7 months out of the year, day in and day out barrage.


The US Open is once per year, and I think the so-called train wreck phenomena is real.  Most fans probably don't want to see it every week, but its the one tournament per year that fans get to see the pros go thru what they do on the course...at least in perception, even though its not actual reality...

[Erik J. Barzeski]

two points to address. Firstly, I hit my 1980's steel shafted, persimmon headed driver just 10 yards behind my modern Taylormade when I hit it well so club advances are not so significant for me though I suspect you are correct about the tour pros. I am now longer off the tee than I was 30 years ago despite hitting the ball much worse and being far less athletic than I was.

Yeah, that's pretty unusual to only have 10 yards difference. The difference on average is a fair amount greater.

The second point is about speed, cost and practicality. It would be far easier, quicker and cheaper to produce either tour balls just for the pros or alter for all so that the distance hit was reduced. The stupid distances players are hitting it these days is slowly killing the game.

I don't agree with the premise that the distances players are hitting the ball is "slowly killing the game." I also think there are some issues with rolling back the ball for just the pros.

I've never really gotten much out of this type of discussion - nobody changes their minds, feelings are hurt - so I'll just agree to disagree on the "problem" right now and save us both some time. Hope that's okay.

[Brian Walshe]

Erik,


Thanks for responding.  I am interested in a couple of points you made and I promise I won't get offended by your differing view 


I am curious to as to why you don't think guys hitting 378yd 3 woods is hurting the game.  I find pro golf pretty boring these days, it is smash it, wedge it, putt it and declining attendance and TV viewers seem to support that.  The balance even for a "short hitter" on Tour is very much towards the power game but perhaps most importantly the distance they hit the ball is just not something that I can associate with.  I'm not sure that the gap between a touring pro and an amateur has ever been this big and whilst you can admire it for a while, it ends up being a very different game to the one most of us play.


I also worry about the additional land required for 8,000yd courses and the additional maintenance cost of all that extra acreage, after all they still need tees for regular humans to play off.  Perhaps it comes down to something simple, has all that extra distance made the game better or more entertaining? 


Do you think the game is better today and if so why?  The longest guy at the Open was an amateur and we haven't seen the generation born with Trackman yet so potentially a 378yd 3 wood will be considered one of the shorter hitters on Tour in 5 years time.  At what point will it become too much or do you think it won't matter?

[Mike_Young]

Every club has a slapdick who is convinced he is as long as DJ.  He may only hit it 285 but one day he hit a cart path or the fairway wasn't watered or he hit a sprinkler head and the legend began.  Golfers eat that stuff up.  That cat is out of the bag and the consumer will not accept less.  The problem I see is that the USGA and others don't like to see the low scores.  The best way to solve this thing for the tour is to make a cup cutter that is 1/2 inch less in diameter and make some cups the same and then play the tour events with that cup.  That 1/2 inch will be huge....

[Peter Pallotta]

One average golfer's experience: like Jon W, I find almost no loss in distance between my 12 degree TM mini driver (43.5 inch shaft) and my run of the mill 1980 persimmon driver (43 inch shaft). And with both, I'm hitting it further and straighter than I did when I first picked up a club (for one summer) as an 18 year old. The technological changes to the golf ball over the last 20 years are, in my experience/for my game, much more of a factor than the 46 inch shafts with titanium heads. The modern balls simply won't spin off line the way they used to. Even when I try my best to hit one, I simply can't get one of those banana/gear effect persimmon ball flights anymore.

[MCirba]

I'm not sure what the biggest factor is in the explosion of distance in a single generation but it's not good for the long term health of the game, IMHO.   There are simply too many social, economic, and ecological reasons why golf courses requiring significantly greater hundreds of yards of acreage is not a sustainable reality, not to mention the effect on the existing 20,000 or so existing courses around the world.

Every now and then someone posts here trying to show that the increase in distance has been stalled using the measured distance of PGA events, and that we've now attained maximum terminal velocity.   I don't believe it.   I think Erin Hills showed that the issue is that most tour courses do not allow for the dispersion factor necessary for these vast drives today's players are capable of, and the normal 30-35 yard fairway widths cause most players to tone down to keep it reasonably in play on a week to week basis.

However, give them 60 or so yards as we saw at Erin Hills, or as we see at Kapalua, and it becomes a launch fest, with balls carrying well over 300 yards and rolling out to astounding drive and roll distances nearing 400 yards.   

Little Ricky Fowler reached the 681 yard 18th with a driver-long iron.   The hole is not downhill.

Let's compare that against Jack Nicklaus, one of the longest drivers of his generation, from his 1969 book, "The Greatest Game of All".   

Here's how far Jack hit each club;

Sand Wedge - up to 80 yards
Pitching Wedge - 80 to 105 yards
9-iron - 105 to 135
8-iron - 130 to 145
7-iron - 140 to 155
6-iron - 155 to 170
5-iron - 170 to 185
4-iron - 185 to 200
3-iron - 195 to 210
2-iron - 205 to 220
1-iron - 215 to 235
3-wood - 235 yards and up
Driver - 250 yards and up

Jack certainly had some in reserve, but I think that Jack would never have envisioned 380 yard 3 woods in his lifetime.

[Peter Pallotta]

And just for fun, Mike, here are the distances that, in 1950, Sam Snead suggested that a decent/average golfer should expect:

9 iron - for pitches and uneven lies
8 iron - for shots of 100 yards or less
7 iron - from about 120 yards
6 iron - up to 135 yards
5 iron - for shots of 150 yards
4 iron - 160 yards
3 iron - 170 yards
2 iron - 190 yards
1 iron - 200 yards
4 wood - from poorer lies, 175 yards
2 wood - 220 yards
driver - up to 240 yards

Ah, sweet Lord, I'm living in the 1950s! 
 

[Sam Andrews]

Peter,


Any idea what the lofts were on those clubs? I'll bet that the modern 6 iron is more like a 1950s 3 or 4. Lots to agree with on this thread but, to borrow from another, if the pros were left to find their own balls without the spotters etc, I bet we'd see a lot more conservative tee shots and/or calls of "provisional"!

[Garland Bayley]

...
Every other sport (football, baseball, basketball, tennis...), the ball used in competition is supplied by the organizing organization/entity sponsoring the event.
...

Wasn't the whole super bowl kerfuffle about each team supplying balls, and one team supplying balls that gave an advantage?

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