[jeffwarne]

Because it will not end with one ball for the pros and one ball for us. Everyone will have a ball that fits either their age, skill level or gender.

Wouldn't it be simpler if we all played the same tee with the different balls you suggest?
cheaper-less land-less maintenance
faster
more social
safer


Glad to see you're thinking outside the box

[Jeff Schley]

Tom I don't understand.  I listed the yardages to demonstrate the lengthening of major championship venues presently utilized.

Sorry.  I thought you were presenting the yardages to compare against the older ones to show what % the ball might be rolled back.  The writers are all trying to prove that whatever % is suggested is far too much.

Gotcha, np.  I'm certainly not suggested courses have kept up with the tech.

Another point is the constant marketing by club manufacturers who have loved to give us iron sets with lofts 2-4 degrees strong so your 6 iron today was a 5 iron 10 years ago, or even a 4 iron in some cases. Most 3 irons (which many people don't even carry today) used to be 23 degrees, now all are 20 and some 19 degrees.  Sure you hit it farther it is 3-4 degrees stronger.  That is why pros are playing 4 wedges now because the iron lofts have continued to get stronger.

[John Kavanaugh]

I often played with the small ball when the option existed. I found the ball size we use today to be a better ball. Of course as in all things there were mitigating factors.

[John Kavanaugh]

Because it will not end with one ball for the pros and one ball for us. Everyone will have a ball that fits either their age, skill level or gender.

Wouldn't it be simpler if we all played the same tee with the different balls you suggest?
cheaper-less land-less maintenance
faster
more social
safer


Glad to see you're thinking outside the box

Golf requiring skill and my desire to beat people straight up under the same rules with the same equipment is the one thing that has kept me alive. Assuming that weighing 400 lbs would kill me. Can't we have one thing left in our world where you are rewarded for effort?


I'll never forget the day I lost a club match and finally went to the doctor because my hands were shaking so badly I couldn't make a four footer. Losing that match saved my life. The hack of a golfer that beat me that day still reminds me every time I see him.

[Tim Gavrich]

here is the top 10 of all time length courses for a major:

• 7,741 yards Erin Hills Golf Course, Erin, Wis., 2017 U.S. Open
• 7,695 yards Chambers Bay (2nd round), University Place, Wash., 2015 U.S. Open
• 7,676 yards Kiawah Island (Ocean Course), Kiawah Island, S.C., 2012 PGA Championship
• 7,674 yards Hazeltine National, Chaska, Minn., 2009 PGA Championship
• 7,637 yards Chambers Bay (3rd round), University Place, Wash., 2015 U.S. Open
• 7,603 yards Torrey Pines G.C. (South Course), La Jolla, Calif., 2008 U.S. Open
• 7,600 yards Quail Hollow Club, Charlotte, N.C., 2017 PGA Championship
• 7,561 yards Medinah No. 3, Medinah, Ill., 2006 PGA Championship

This years majors will play the following:
 Augusta is just below 7500 - par 72

Shinnecock will play 7445 - par 70
Carnoustie will play 7421 - par 71

Bellerive will play 7547 - par 71

These numbers are meaningless because they don't express how long those golf courses WOULD BE if they had unlimited space to expand and try to stay the same playing length as they were.  The courses at today's yardages still play quite a bit shorter than they did in the 1970's or 1980's.

Tom--


I'm extrapolating from your statement - which seems entirely true - about these courses playing shorter now than they did in the 70s and 80s that you believe they're playing in an inferior way.


My question: on what measure do you base that claim? A lot of others claim courses have become inferior tests because pros hit shorter irons to approach the holes than they used to. Is this the main basis for your claim as well?


If so, what would be an example of an ideal distribution of clubs to hit full shots with over the course of a round? How much room for flexibility is there in this distribution from one round to the next? From one course to the next? From a major championship to a rank-and-file Tour event?


Suppose for the sake of argument a pro is going to hit 34 full shots in a round (2 each on the ten par 4s, 1 each on the four par 3s and 10 total over the four par 5s, assuming for the sake of argument that they're going to go for 2 of them and lay up on 2 of them). Leaving aside the usual variables, how would you like to see the clubs distributed in order for the course to constitute a thorough test?


On the 14 par-4/par-5 holes, do you want our pro hit driver most every time? If so, that leaves 20 full shots distributed throughout the 12 remaining non-putter clubs in his bag. Do you favor an even distribution of those shots across those clubs? Would you favor a little higher incidence of mid-iron approaches?


I just penciled out a crude distribution along similar lines for myself. My general driving distance would be in the bottom half on Tour. The numbers in parentheses are the full shots hit with each club, and the numbers after the colons are the product of how far I hit each club and the number of times I'd be hitting said club. Let me know what you think:


285y - Dr (12): 3,420y
260y - 3w (3): 780y
235y - 5w (2): 470y
215y - 7w (1): 215y

205y - 4i (1): 205y

195y - 5i (1): 195y

185y - 6i (2): 370y

170y - 7i (2): 340y

160y - 8i (2): 320y

150y - 9i (2): 300y

140y - PW (2): 280y

125y - GW (2): 250y

105y - SW (2): 210y


TOTAL: 7,355 yards


Interestingly, a lot of PGA Tour courses today are in this general ballpark, give or take a couple hundred yards' worth of variables (elevation, weather, wind, firmness).


If we're going to go down a rollback path, I think we need to keep this in mind. The governing bodies would need to step in and engineer the way pros play in this sort of way. Do we want that level of micromanagement applied to our championship tests?

[Bob Montle]

For somewhere around 95% of golfers, 6500 yards is plenty. I think this whole "monkey see, monkey do" thing is largely a myth. I think relatively few courses have spent significant money to add significant distance in the last 20 years. The ones that host PGA Tour events have, some of them, but they're - like PGA Tour players themselves - a relatively small percentage of the population.

That is exactly the point that JK and others are missing.
For 95% of golfers the current balls are okay.
But...

All baseball pitchers and batters use an "official" ball and an official wooden bat.
Tennis players use official uniform balls.
NBA players shoot an official league basketball.
NFL players throw and kick an official football.
NHL players shoot an official league puck.

Yet amateurs in these sports often use what they buy at Dicks or WallMart and we don't seem to complain of bifurcation in these sports

So what is the problem with requiring golfing professionals to use an official ball supplied by the USGA?

[Jim Hoak]

For somewhere around 95% of golfers, 6500 yards is plenty. I think this whole "monkey see, monkey do" thing is largely a myth. I think relatively few courses have spent significant money to add significant distance in the last 20 years. The ones that host PGA Tour events have, some of them, but they're - like PGA Tour players themselves - a relatively small percentage of the population.

That is exactly the point that JK and others are missing.
For 95% of golfers the current balls are okay.
But...

All baseball pitchers and batters use an "official" ball and an official wooden bat.
Tennis players use official uniform balls.
NBA players shoot an official league basketball.
NFL players throw and kick an official football.
NHL players shoot an official league puck.

Yet amateurs in these sports often use what they buy at Dicks or WallMart and we don't seem to complain of bifurcation in these sports

So what is the problem with requiring golfing professionals to use an official ball supplied by the USGA?

No problem--except that the USGA can not control the equipment used at any tournament other than the one they run (US Open), and the pros at PGA Tour events do not want a reduced distance ball.

[Tom_Doak]

Tom--


I'm extrapolating from your statement

...


If we're going to go down a rollback path, I think we need to keep this in mind. The governing bodies would need to step in and engineer the way pros play in this sort of way. Do we want that level of micromanagement applied to our championship tests?

Tim:


No, don't extrapolate!  The last thing in the world I want is what you suggest in your last paragraph.


Not every course "tests every club in the bag", and I don't necessarily think that's important.  Because if you change the driving distance you used to a different number, you'll see that it doesn't work out so neatly for players of different lengths.


We are not trying to make the game "fair" or "even" for everybody here.  We are just trying to restore some of the challenge for elite players, without changing every course in the world on their behalf.

[Tom_Doak]

Chicken Little said the sky was falling. I'm for the status quo. I'm more of the Emperor with no clothes. Now enjoy lunch with that image in your mind.

Duly corrected.  (And disgusted.)


I just don't see why the distances players hit it in the 1950's or 1970's wouldn't work today, and the whole game would fall apart.

[John Kavanaugh]

Fine, if the game can survive by making it even more difficult for everyone I can live with that. What I don't believe is that the game should be made easier for me because I make bad choices in life. That can only lead to more poor choices.


I play regularly with tour caliber players and 18 handicaps. It all works perfectly well under one ball - one world. I can't afford to lose either group of playmates because of a bifurcation of the rules. Do we really want to go back to the 70's when most games were segregated with the good players on one side and the hacks on the other? We were just starting to get along.

[Tim Gavrich]

Tom--


I'm extrapolating from your statement

...


If we're going to go down a rollback path, I think we need to keep this in mind. The governing bodies would need to step in and engineer the way pros play in this sort of way. Do we want that level of micromanagement applied to our championship tests?

Tim:


No, don't extrapolate!  The last thing in the world I want is what you suggest in your last paragraph.


Not every course "tests every club in the bag", and I don't necessarily think that's important.  Because if you change the driving distance you used to a different number, you'll see that it doesn't work out so neatly for players of different lengths.


We are not trying to make the game "fair" or "even" for everybody here.  We are just trying to restore some of the challenge for elite players, without changing every course in the world on their behalf.

Tom--


Fair enough; I appreciate the response and had a feeling you weren't down for that kind of prescriptive approach to course setup for the elite players.


That being the case, if you're not concerned that every course tests every club, how do you measure that loss of challenge for the elite players, then? Is it more about the scores the elites are shooting? I went back and looked at the 2000 PGA Tour season - i.e. pre-ProV1, whose invention many rollback advocates seem to point to as a precipitating action of our current conundrum - and was shocked at how many winning scores were better than -20. The players that year torched a bunch of courses.


Going back to 1980, which has been cited as a year to roll the ball back to, five tournament winners shot -18 or better. So even in the days when golf was at its peak, elite golfers did what they've always done - made tons of birdies.


At a certain point, I really do think we have to sort of punt on trying to get professional golfers to experience golf courses the way we struggling amateurs do. If golf course developers would rather continue to chase a PGA Tour event that will likely never happen, why do we need to punish the pros to stop them?


Now, I still wholeheartedly agree to the importance of the sentiment you express in your last sentence. But in light of the seemingly eternal "betterness" of the pros, I am just a little skeptical as to whether that restoration requires the sort of drastic action that I believe a rollback constitutes. What about a mere freeze, which could conceivably be done tomorrow? That way we wouldn't have to death-march toward some theoretical day of 10,000-yard golf courses.


Of course, the available evidence seems to suggest that the freeze has more or less happened organically. Driving distance seems to have leveled off in the past six to eight years. Players building swings maximize distance, damn the consequences, are hurting themselves far more than ever. And despite the many anguished cries of "wedgefest!" in reaction to every tournament, I suspect we'd find that pros' full bags get a more regular workout than we think.


Do we need to cap golf equipment when it looks like it's already been capped?

[Jay Mickle]

It seems that with the patent on the ProVI getting close to expiration it might be time for Titleist to make a bold move.

[Jason Topp]

I find it very interesting that even though one claim against the modern golf ball is that long hitters have a bigger advantage than they used to, the data that Jeff cites does not bear that out. In 2017, McIlroy averaged 317.2 yards off the tee. William McGirt and Chez Reavie shared 149th at 285.2 yards - 32 yards behind Rory. In 1980, Dan Pohl led, averaging 274.3 yards, while Calvin Peete and Alan Tapie tied for 150th at 248.5 - a 25.8 yard difference.

If you look at the stats over the intervening years, you'll see that the longest hitter on tour has been about 30 yards longer than the 150th-longest hitter on tour.Why is it necessarily better that the Tour distance leader average 275 yards, rather than 315?

Jeff Schley, where are you getting the 7,500-7,700-yard number for Tour course length? Which courses on this season's PGA Tour schedule are in that range? I'm not sure there's more than 1 or 2. Many are closer to 7,200 yards, which is the length of the course that Al Geiberger shot the first 59 on way back in 1977.

Why is it intrinsically better that a 400-yard hole be played with a driver and a 7-iron than with a 3 wood and a 9 iron or a driver and a wedge? If it's better to hit longer clubs into a given hole, and keeping golf courses from getting longer is important because of land/maintenance costs, then wouldn't it be better if a 400-yard hole required a driver and a 3 wood? Given that guiding philosophy, isn't 1980 an insufficient place to roll the ball back to? Why not go back to the 1800s?

It may be the case that we should freeze or slightly roll back the distance the ball goes. But we have nowhere near the evidence to make anything more than an arbitrary and likely rash decision at this time. We simply haven't come close to figuring out what the ideal golf equipment scenario looks like - for pros and ams alike - and I think we're obligated to have much more clarity on that before deciding to make a shockwave change to the game. Ready-fire-aim is an irresponsible strategy, IMO.

Tim:


1980 distance is certainly an arbitrary number but you asked the question.  In my view the precise number is not really critical but 10-20% would seem like the same game.


At my father's course - which stretches to 6,000 yards and provides plenty of challenge to the membership, a ball rollback would not help a bit.  It is plenty long for its membership.


However, my course strives to provide a pleasant challenge for all levels of golfer.  That goal is consistent with one of Mackenzie's 13 principles and is consistent with nearly every marketing piece one reads about every course in the county.  At my course, players range from tour professionals to rank beginners.  It was built in the early 2000's and has already added about 500 yards to its maximum length and built a number of tees to make the course more enjoyable from the forward tees.

• It now has 111 tee boxes (ranging from four on one of the par 3's to nine on a par 4 that requires a water carry off the tee). That number would be cut in half if 6800 yards were long enough for the best players.
• It sits on roughly 250 acres - a huge increase over the onetime standard of 160 acres.
• On average, I walk 7 miles to get around the thing - as compared to maybe 5 miles on a tightly routed 6800 yard course. 
• If I am going to play from my usual tees, I will tee up on average 100 yards behind my father (and you would want to play a set back from me - which would be 400-500 yards short of the back tees)

Golf ball distance drives up the cost of the game and slows it down.  The increased gap between the long hitter and the senior makes it much more difficult for an architect to design a course a course that meets the ideal of testing all facets of the game for every level of player. 


One option instead of a rollback is to build courses that cater to different populations but most courses are desperate to add to their potential customer pool rather than reduce it.

[jeffwarne]

Do we want that level of micromanagement applied to our championship tests?

That's a joke right?

[BCrosby]

I have no idea why people who visit this site who, presumably, have an interest in golf architecture, think the status quo with the ball is just fine.

The effect of the ball on golf courses is as profound as it is obvious. It has changed the nature of the game played by good golfers. And not for the better.

Are you ok with pros and good ams rarely having to hit a middle or long iron into a par 4? Are you ok with pros/good ams regularly hitting lofted 2nd shots to par 5's?

We can do the math together. A 7400 yard course today, given how far the 30th longest player hits his driver, plays like a 6400 yard course in 1975 or thereabouts. A 7400 course today is, on an apples to apples basis, extremely short by any historical measure.     

(Spare us the talk about scoring averages. It is child's play to to make a course resistant to scoring, and the USGA, the Masters, the PGA and sponsors of tour events know all the tricks. Heck, everyone knows all the tricks.)

Luke Donald said something interesting the other day. Looking at the strokes he loses off the tee (using Broadie's numbers), he said he can't possibly gain enough strokes in other phases of the game to make up the difference. When there are typically 30 or more players in an event averaging more than 300 yards from the tee, Donald is beaten before he take his clubs out of the trunk. Do we really want a modern day version of a Paul Runyan, an Art Wall or a Gene Littler or a Dean Beaman or even a Nick Faldo to be, essentially, unable to compete, even when they have their A games? That is what Donald has concluded. Is that a good thing?

But those are pros. They are the 1% at the top of the heap, you say. Which is obviously true, but it is also obviously true that they define the game for everyone, like it or not. Every Sunday afternoon on TV they model what the game should be about and how golf courses ought to play.

Yes, a rollback of the ball will make the game harder for hackers like us. At the end of the day, hopefully we will be playing with a ball not unlike the one we played with in the mid-1990's. Or pick your own rollback date. There will be a hue and cry. But note - whatever date you pick it will be a date in time when the game was more popular and growing faster than it is today.

To paraphrase Robert Hunter, what people like about golf is that it is hard.   

Bob   






     

[jeffwarne]

Beautifully said Bob.

[Craig Moore]

Any other options out there? 

[BCowan]

1980 distance is certainly an arbitrary number but you asked the question.  In my view the precise number is not really critical but 10-20% would seem like the same game.


At my father's course - which stretches to 6,000 yards and provides plenty of challenge to the membership, a ball rollback would not help a bit.  It is plenty long for its membership.


However, my course strives to provide a pleasant challenge for all levels of golfer.  That goal is consistent with one of Mackenzie's 13 principles and is consistent with nearly every marketing piece one reads about every course in the county.  At my course, players range from tour professionals to rank beginners.  It was built in the early 2000's and has already added about 500 yards to its maximum length and built a number of tees to make the course more enjoyable from the forward tees.

• It now has 111 tee boxes (ranging from four on one of the par 3's to nine on a par 4 that requires a water carry off the tee). That number would be cut in half if 6800 yards were long enough for the best players.
• It sits on roughly 250 acres - a huge increase over the onetime standard of 160 acres.
• On average, I walk 7 miles to get around the thing - as compared to maybe 5 miles on a tightly routed 6800 yard course. 
• If I am going to play from my usual tees, I will tee up on average 100 yards behind my father (and you would want to play a set back from me - which would be 400-500 yards short of the back tees)

Golf ball distance drives up the cost of the game and slows it down.  The increased gap between the long hitter and the senior makes it much more difficult for an architect to design a course a course that meets the ideal of testing all facets of the game for every level of player. 


One option instead of a rollback is to build courses that cater to different populations but most courses are desperate to add to their potential customer pool rather than reduce it.

Jason,  The 160 acre Golden age vs modern day 240 acres is more to do with modern day lawyers (everyone is a victim) and every puddle is a wetland imo.  The amount of environmental restrictions today, lead to 240 acre courses.  Also, unless you have proof that we are maintaining more turf on a 240 acre parcel then a 160 acre then lets not assume.  The 240 could possibly have less maint turf, more island hoping, more water, more wetlands and less maint turf due to holes being secluded or rough not mowed.  Also one advantage to the 240 acre course is more GREEN space.  The excessive amount of tee boxes is ridiculous, 4 tee boxes are fine, everyone thinks they are at Burger King and wants it their way.  One other overlooked aspect of the 240 acre track is many people (NOT ME) want secluded holes, because they don't wanna wave hi to their fellow neighbor. We live in an impersonal society.  The Golf ball isn't driving up the game, my god I can play 3 rounds with the same Golf ball 20 years ago i played 4 holes with.  Nobody is preventing you from joining a 6800 yard track?  Variety is the spice of life.  The average golfer doesn't read the marketing BS that people claim on this website.  Change is best from the bottom up.  Ohio Golf Assoc using one ball for it's Am tourney one year.  Top club golfers obtaining a reduced ball for the Championship bracket.  We should embrace innovation and get high level golf off Golden Age courses. 

[Jeff_Brauer]

We are not trying to make the game "fair" or "even" for everybody here.  We are just trying to restore some of the challenge for elite players, without changing every course in the world on their behalf.

Every course?  We really only need about 50 in the US (maybe 100 so they can move around a little bit from year to year on tour) and those probably exist already, either as a TPC, or the modern "classics" like Erin Hills, Chambers Bay, etc.  Seems like it is sort of working itself out. 


In reality, helping average golfers hit it further (or believe they can) does a lot more for golf than keeping a few dozen Golden Age courses that want to stay relevant in the tournament golf scene actually relevant.  (Believing that most don't really care, such as say, Fisher's Island, as one example, or NGLA< whereas Shinny does. Not sure the ratio, but the number of courses wanting to host tournaments is small)


If that lets tour pros overpower a few, so be it. If it requires them to limit play to modern courses designed mostly for that purpose, so be it, etc.


Sometime last year, I ran the average length of the tour courses, and it came to 7,209.  While the majors are ramping up the distances, the Tour prefers shorter lengths to protect the lower half of the field.  I asked a few college coaches, and that is also the typical length of NCAA tourneys now.  At Illinois, perennial contenders, a few years back they had two guys average over 300 yards, and 8 under, going down to 260.  Sort of mimics the PGA stats, slightly lower. 


My point is that basing the entire ball, yardage, equipment argument on the top 20 distance golfers in the world probably over skews the argument, doesn't it?


And, to me, as I see restaurants specializing and no one going to general menu places as much, we still see golf courses trying too hard to be perfect for everyone. 

What about in fashion?  Did the one size fits all muumuu every really take off as a style choice?  Why one size fits all in golf? So 20th Century thinking. 

4 tees are fine, as long as max length is under 7K.  Nothing wrong with wanting it your way, I just don't see how everyone needs it their way on every course in the country. 


While it would never happen, I would love to see the "championship" label mean something, and other good courses, not long enough for actual PGA tournaments, get an equally appealing label that connotes reasonable challenge and length for the rest of us.

[jeffwarne]

Jeff,
If you don't think Fishers or NGLA care.....


Then why did NGLA change the par from 5 to 4 on #5(in addition to building new tees where they could)
and why does Fishers have a ridiculously contrived arrangement on #9 where the black tee is in front of the middle tee and the hole is a par 4 for the expert(who plays the middle tee) and a par 5 for the rest-who play the back tee.
edit:18 is a par 4/5 as well

Don't care is what you say when you have no other options.....
and you hope the wind blows really hard when experts come to play your pitch n putt course.


NGLA as designed, was once one of the best and hardest courses in the nation-now it's just one of the best.

[Kalen Braley]

Jeff,


I don't think this is limited to Pro tourney courses.  Both here in the Salt Lake area and in Spokane, I've seen no less than 4 courses add significant distance to their courses for no apparent reason.  They'll never host a state amateur event, much less a top notch event...but they still did it.  And this doesn't take into account the new courses they've built in the last 20 years with absurd tip tees.


Just like the "green" craze that Augusta sent nearly every course in America on decades ago, the distance craze is happening and picking up steam as well.

[Mike Sweeney]

I have no idea why people who visit this site who, presumably, have an interest in golf architecture, think the status quo with the ball is just fine.

Bob,


That's discrimination !! 


Our resident government contractors LIVE for the status quo. For crying out loud, they can dominate an asphalt market by maintaining the status quo of life and watching progress get destroyed in the bureaucracy of central organizations. Why oh why would they want interesting competitive golf!!   

[Terry Lavin]

Come on. The pro game is dying on the TV vine and the only remaining lure is how far these straw-thin pro golfers can hit the ball. In the absence of a predominant player, the eyeballs that tune in want to see a long drive contest performed by men wearing golf workout clothes. The owners of these eyeballs buy the balls and the equipment to try to emulate the pipe-cleaner-thin-and-flexible pro golfers they see on tour. The rest of us bifurcating purists are fringe- occupying weirdos.


I plead guilty, by the way.

[Erik J. Barzeski]

In Minneapolis since the Pro V1 came into the marketplace and distances jumped in 2000 I am hard pressed to identify any top tier course that has not added yardage:

You self-selected only "top tier" courses, and only then listed five out of how many courses in the area? My point was that I think the number of courses regularly adding significant yardage is overstated. Nobody has ever produced actual data or numbers on this. 6,500 yards is plenty for 95% of golfers, and I would bet that a lot of courses aren't spending money to get to 7,400 yards (or whatever magical yardage).

If you want to roll back the golf ball, could you please point to a specific moment in golf history (heck, I'd take a 3- to 5-year range) when the ball traveled the ideal distance, and explain why you chose that moment?

As you know, Tim, even if they name that date, the legal Pinnacle or Top-Flite at the time flew farther. Slap a urethane cover and a thin outer mantle layer on a 1998 Pinnacle core and you have a modern-day Pro V1. So, they can "roll back" to whatever year they want… but the Pinnacles and Top-Flites from that era would still be legal and go far.

But remember, the MAJORITY of golfers, do not play the majority of rounds.

Where's the data on this? As with a LOT of the stuff being talked about, I don't think you have it.

What am I missing?

The fact that, unlike other sports, there's no clear line between one level and the next. The "bifurcation" will "trickle down." Also, golf is aspirational, and people will want to play what the pros are playing.

A version of golf with two different rules would require two different course ratings and/or handicaps, for one very simple example. Otherwise, how do you determine who gets to play in the U.S. Open, or attempt to qualify for it? Some 10,000 people apply to play in US Open Qualifying, don't they?

All baseball pitchers and batters use an "official" ball and an official wooden bat.
Tennis players use official uniform balls.
NBA players shoot an official league basketball.
NFL players throw and kick an official football.
NHL players shoot an official league puck.

Beside the point. Those are all shared pieces of equipment. That's like saying everyone putts to an official 4.25" hole and tees off from the same tee boxes. Those are shared. The ball is not, and players are welcome, within the rules, to swing their own bat and field with their own glove, to wear their own socks and shoes, to use whatever helmet and pads and facemask that they want, and to choose the flex, length, and curve of their sticks and the model of helmet, etc.

Shared equipment is not the same as personal equipment. The golf ball isn't shared equipment, and so comparing it to the balls or pucks in other sports is comparing apples to oranges.

We are just trying to restore some of the challenge for elite players, without changing every course in the world on their behalf.

Who cares about 0.0001% of the golfing population? And it's not like they're going out and shooting 61s every week.

I just don't see why the distances players hit it in the 1950's or 1970's wouldn't work today, and the whole game would fall apart.

As you know… players swing a heck of a lot faster these days, too.

It seems that with the patent on the ProVI getting close to expiration it might be time for Titleist to make a bold move.

Huh? A bold move… to do what?

The golf ball is one of the most highly regulated pieces of equipment in all of sport.

Are you ok with pros and good ams rarely having to hit a middle or long iron into a par 4? Are you ok with pros/good ams regularly hitting lofted 2nd shots to par 5's?

I seem to recall a short hitter out-dueling Dustin Johnson at one of the older courses on the PGA Tour by hitting a fair number of mid-irons to par fours only a few weeks ago.

Luke Donald said something interesting the other day. Looking at the strokes he loses off the tee (using Broadie's numbers), he said he can't possibly gain enough strokes in other phases of the game to make up the difference. When there are typically 30 or more players in an event averaging more than 300 yards from the tee, Donald is beaten before he take his clubs out of the trunk.

Why should he be able to?!?! And if the ball were rolled back, why do you assume this would change? It may in fact hasten his inability to compete. Besides, Luke Donald was #1 in the OWGR only very recently, well into the modern Pro V1 era. Kinda shoots your argument in the foot.

My point is that basing the entire ball, yardage, equipment argument on the top 20 distance golfers in the world probably over skews the argument, doesn't it?

YES!

[Terry Lavin]

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