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JESII

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Rollback alliance
« Reply #50 on: August 05, 2019, 01:57:21 PM »
Everyone that plays for a living today hits it further than they did 15 years ago...Everyone!




But none of that is because of Ball or Driver Face CoR.


I know they're using a different metric now for Driver faces, but the limits were set in ~2002 and have not been exceeded.




The period from 1995 - 2002 was undoubtedly overwhelming from a distance perspective for top players, I don't dispute that.




The distance gained in these 15 years is primarily the result of optimization, which continues to evolve and includes swing technique (see Molinari and Mickelson articles in GD), individual fitness efforts, agronomy to a small degree and a key factor in my opinion is that Tour courses are set up for entertainment. They are set up to encourage smashing the driver.

Jim Hoak

  • Karma: +1/-0
Re: Rollback alliance
« Reply #51 on: August 05, 2019, 02:10:48 PM »
Since this post has evolved (fallen?) into a discussion of the options for reducing ball flight, let me weigh in.
The ball is not going too far for 99.9% of golfers in this country.  Let's not confuse the issue by equating the ball flight of pros and elite amateurs to that of the weekend golfer.  Maybe the regular player is hitting the ball potentially a bit farther than before, but that is the allure of the game--and the game needs that to keep these golfers attracted to it.
Second, for there to be bifurcation, there needs to be a buy in from the professional tours.  It is very clear that we aren't going to get that.  In fact, the tours have seemed to indicate that they will split from the USGA/R&A if they try to limit ball distance.  So bifurcation will not work.
Why not do what earlier posters on here have recommended--let the top .1% of golfers  shoot whatever they can?  So what, if they shoot 55-60?  I, for one, could care less.  Courses in America are only hurting themselves and their members by trying to fit their courses to the game played by a very small number of extraordinary golfers.  The average golfer needs to take the game back by just ignoring what the pros and elite amateurs shoot.  Save the game by making it attractive for the regular golfers.
« Last Edit: August 05, 2019, 02:14:59 PM by Jim Hoak »

Kalen Braley

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Rollback alliance
« Reply #52 on: August 05, 2019, 02:13:12 PM »
Just graphed out Distance averages on tour for the last 40 years.  While the slope of the line was steepest from the mid 90s thru the mid 2000s, the line is still trending up.  I'll post the chart later today....




John Kavanaugh

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Rollback alliance
« Reply #53 on: August 05, 2019, 02:13:35 PM »
Zac Blair just made it back on tour hitting it like like 5% of us.

Jim Hoak

  • Karma: +1/-0
Re: Rollback alliance
« Reply #54 on: August 05, 2019, 02:18:44 PM »
Kalen, connect the dots for me--Why do you think that the distance that pros and a very few amateurs hit the ball creates a crisis for the game as played by 99%+ of the golfers who play the game like us?

Tom_Doak

  • Karma: +2/-1
Re: Rollback alliance
« Reply #55 on: August 05, 2019, 02:20:28 PM »
Everyone that plays for a living today hits it further than they did 15 years ago...Everyone!

But none of that is because of Ball or Driver Face CoR.


The distance gained in these 15 years is primarily the result of optimization, which continues to evolve and includes swing technique (see Molinari and Mickelson articles in GD), individual fitness efforts, agronomy to a small degree and a key factor in my opinion is that Tour courses are set up for entertainment. They are set up to encourage smashing the driver.


I don't understand your argument here.


We seem to agree that optimization / fitness / etc. have all combined to produce distance gains.  And maybe the ball and the driver face haven't changed much in 15 years, I really don't know or care.


But if guys are 10-20 yards longer than the already outsized distances they got to in 2002, are we not allowed to roll the ball back so they hit to the same places as before?  Is whatever test they designed in 2002 grandfathered in for perpetuity?

Tom_Doak

  • Karma: +2/-1
Re: Rollback alliance
« Reply #56 on: August 05, 2019, 02:21:40 PM »
Zac Blair just made it back on tour hitting it like like 5% of us.


But, Zac could not keep his card in his previous stint on Tour, hitting it that far -- which was based on a lot bigger sample size.

Kalen Braley

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Rollback alliance
« Reply #57 on: August 05, 2019, 02:31:26 PM »
Kalen, connect the dots for me--Why do you think that the distance that pros and a very few amateurs hit the ball creates a crisis for the game as played by 99%+ of the golfers who play the game like us?

I'm not sure its a crisis, but I think it has a ripple effect in the weekend game due to the "we covet what we see" phenomena.

The two main issues as I see it:
- More expensive golf due to buying more land. with higher build costs and increased maintenance budgets.
- Longer rounds from people insisting on playing the back tees who have no business being there.

Higher green fees and increased round times are probably the two primary things killing golf right now....
« Last Edit: August 05, 2019, 02:32:58 PM by Kalen Braley »

John Kavanaugh

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Rollback alliance
« Reply #58 on: August 05, 2019, 02:33:38 PM »
Sorry,


I've played golf over 50 years now and golf has never been cheaper or more accessible.

Kalen Braley

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Rollback alliance
« Reply #59 on: August 05, 2019, 02:34:51 PM »
Sorry,

I've played golf over 50 years now and golf has never been cheaper or more accessible.

John,

I won't doubt its more accessible, but cheaper and quicker to play, I don't think so....

Jim Hoak

  • Karma: +1/-0
Re: Rollback alliance
« Reply #60 on: August 05, 2019, 02:42:48 PM »
Kalen, I agree with your two main issues.  Longer courses are more expensive--and rounds take longer on longer courses.  But why do we need to change the equipment to deal with that, thereby decreasing the attractiveness of the game for the regular golfer?
I don't believe we should make a major overhaul to our game due to the "covet" issue alone.  Don't lengthen the courses--just let pros shoot whatever they can.  And don't allow regular golfers to play longer tees--or just don't build them. 
We can't let the .1% of golfers dictate what happens to the 99.9%.  And we can't ignore the impact on the attraction of the game we play from potentially shortening ball flight for all of us.
I just think the "tail is wagging the dog" in this argument.
« Last Edit: August 05, 2019, 02:44:55 PM by Jim Hoak »

John Kavanaugh

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Rollback alliance
« Reply #61 on: August 05, 2019, 02:46:31 PM »
I'd love to know how many Roll Back dudes play 100 rounds a year. It's just barking from the peanut section.

Jim Sherma

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Rollback alliance
« Reply #62 on: August 05, 2019, 02:49:05 PM »
Being old enough to grow up on Titleist Tour Balata's and then Titleist Professionals (Although I still think the Dunlop DDH HT-100's were still the best of the balata balls) along with various Top Flites and the like. I think the it's safe to say that the entire physics of the game have changed in some very fundamental ways and distance is just one of the outcomes affected.


With the spinny balls I think there was much more of an emphasis on compressing the ball and managing ball flight via both spin rate and launch angle. The new balls are primarily about launch angle with spin more of a function of the urethane covers grabbing the grooves on the shorter irons.


Besides the amount of back-spin that is no longer in the game (no more of the pretty rising shots off of woods and long irons) there is also a decrease in the amount of side spin imparted through the gear effect of the decompression for heel-toe misses. Misses around the sweet spot are penalized less for amateurs and given the dispersion pattern of the top players almost not at all. Admittedly some of this is due to the club's optimized weight distribution but I'm convinced that most is due to the balls lowered spin rates.


These changes fundamentally changed the way that the game is taught and played. The spinny ball acted as a natural governor of distance through the uncontrollable act of over-compressing and hence over-spinning the ball. I knew younger players that had very high club head speeds back in the early and mid 1980's that were stuck between over-spinning the wound balls or else having to play the old rock-flites. The top-flite type of two-piece surlyn would not over-compress but you could not consistently control them into and around the greens. If you were going to swing at very high club head speeds with the spinny wound balls your margin for error shrank quickly (hence why young Greg Norman's driving back then was so revered).


I believe that it would be possible to put more spin back into the ball either by regulating a minimum amount of deformation and spin due to decompression to more replicate the performance of the wound balls. Total distance when perfectly struck might not be brought down that much but penalties for mishits at high swing speeds would be enhanced. Mandating a slightly less efficient dimple pattern (less overall coverage) could also be used to create sharper movement and less total distance.


I'm less concerned with total distance than adding some challenge back to swinging at very high clubhead speeds. Performance at slower clubhead speeds should not be affected much.

Tom_Doak

  • Karma: +2/-1
Re: Rollback alliance
« Reply #63 on: August 05, 2019, 02:58:39 PM »
Kalen, I agree with your two main issues.  Longer courses are more expensive--and rounds take longer on longer courses.  But why do we need to change the equipment to deal with that, thereby decreasing the attractiveness of the game for the regular golfer?
I don't believe we should make a major overhaul to our game due to the "covet" issue alone.  Don't lengthen the courses--just let pros shoot whatever they can.  And don't allow regular golfers to play longer tees--or just don't build them. 
We can't let the .1% of golfers dictate what happens to the 99.9%.  And we can't ignore the impact on the attraction of the game we play from potentially shortening ball flight for all of us.
I just think the "tail is wagging the dog" in this argument.


Jim Hoak:


Do you work for a golf equipment company?  You've got their b.s. down pat.  Divide and conquer.


It all falls apart if you consider that a lot of people enjoy golf because it's hard.  And the others would be happy to move up a couple hundred yards to play from there . . . after all, that's where most courses were designed to play from in the first place.

Jim Hoak

  • Karma: +1/-0
Re: Rollback alliance
« Reply #64 on: August 05, 2019, 03:11:01 PM »
Tom, you know me.  At least we’ve met several times.  And you know I have no ties to any equipment company.
I’m just someone concerned that we not make the game any less attractive to the great majority of golfers!
I’m just sick of people thinking the game of golf needs to be driven by what pros do.

Thomas Dai

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Rollback alliance
« Reply #65 on: August 05, 2019, 03:18:41 PM »
The ball is going so far these days that I’m far from convinced that the eyes of the player hitting the shot are able to see it come down nor see who may be standing near where it’s going to land. And I’m not just thinking tour golf here, club players too, especially in iffy visibility conditions.
Surely it’s preferable that the golf authorities self restrict the game than have non-golfing insurance and legal and political folks impose restrictions on the game?
Atb




Joe Hancock

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Rollback alliance
« Reply #66 on: August 05, 2019, 03:24:46 PM »
Clubs who are fighting lawsuits/ installing perimeter netting/ spending to lengthen/ etc. probably don’t even know there’s a problem....

" What the hell is the point of architecture and excellence in design if a "clever" set up trumps it all?" Peter Pallotta, June 21, 2016

"People aren't picking a side of the fairway off a tee because of a randomly internally contoured green ."  jeffwarne, February 24, 2017

Kalen Braley

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Rollback alliance
« Reply #67 on: August 05, 2019, 03:27:04 PM »
Jim,

To answer your previous post, I think only two changes are needed to get going in the right direction.

1)  Bifurcate the rules: Specific and detailed for the .1%'ers in top notch competition, and simplicity for everyone else.

2)  Introduce a flight/behavior limited PGATour ball for all sanctioned events.

And of course continue to re-evaluate and tweak as needed...

Jim Hoak

  • Karma: +1/-0
Re: Rollback alliance
« Reply #68 on: August 05, 2019, 03:41:27 PM »
Kalen, I totally agree with you.  But how will that happen?  The Pro Tours are opposed to it.  And the rule-making authorities can’t impose it on the pros.  So don’t look to the USGA or R&A.

John Kavanaugh

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Rollback alliance
« Reply #69 on: August 05, 2019, 03:43:35 PM »
Why change the rules for golfers who won't play by the rules?

Mike_Clayton

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Rollback alliance
« Reply #70 on: August 05, 2019, 07:34:25 PM »
  And we can't ignore the impact on the attraction of the game we play from potentially shortening ball flight for all of us.
I just think the "tail is wagging the dog" in this argument.



Jim,


What the vast majority of American golfers forget - or, more likely, never knew - was the whole of the golf world outside of the American continent - pretty willingly gave up 25 yards when they fell in line with the USA and adopted the 1.68' ball.
Taking yardage away doesn't have to kill the game of people's enjoyment of it.

MCirba

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Rollback alliance
« Reply #71 on: August 05, 2019, 08:13:01 PM »
I signed up.


Do I get a Kassnar, a Buoy, or a Tom Cat ball?*




*attempt at humor for anyone who remembers those balls.


https://picclick.com/12-Vintage-1960s-Gray-Goose-Plymouth-TOM-CAT-391751901665.html



« Last Edit: August 05, 2019, 08:16:50 PM by MCirba »
"Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent" - Calvin Coolidge

https://cobbscreek.org/

Garland Bayley

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Rollback alliance
« Reply #72 on: August 05, 2019, 08:51:29 PM »
Kalen, I agree with your two main issues.  Longer courses are more expensive--and rounds take longer on longer courses.  But why do we need to change the equipment to deal with that, thereby decreasing the attractiveness of the game for the regular golfer?
...

The attractiveness of the game is not in $400 drivers and $5 golf balls. It is in the play of the game, which can be done without the latest greatest unnecessary equipment. If the equipment is rolled back, it is still an attractive game. The game boomed before the equipment went overboard.
"I enjoy a course where the challenges are contained WITHIN it, and recovery is part of the game  not a course where the challenge is to stay ON it." Jeff Warne

Pete Lavallee

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Rollback alliance
« Reply #73 on: August 05, 2019, 10:33:19 PM »
It’s not just Tour Pros who are making a mockery of the game, there are now players at most every Club that play a completely different game. At one of my Clubs we have a pudgy kid named Kevin shot a 28 on the front nine a couple of months ago. He made 6 birdies and an eagle on a 6,400 yard course. He shot 37 on the back nine and after adding his +4 he carded off with a 7 handicap and lost to his 76! He made 8 birdies this month. He played golf for Cal State San Marcos which is hardly high level College Golf! Golf is just so much easier when you hit a wedge into every par 4 and long irons into par 5’s. So the issue no longer extends to just Tour Pros, there are players at every level that just play a completely different game!
"...one inoculated with the virus must swing a golf-club or perish."  Robert Hunter

Matthew Mollica

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Rollback alliance
« Reply #74 on: August 06, 2019, 12:03:48 AM »


This is clearly an issue on which many golfers have a strong opinion.  It is a complex issue, and not a purely objective one. As evidenced by several 20+ page threads on the topic within golfclubatlas. And as often happens in golf, many view the topic through the prism of their own games and experiences.

As a starting point, I do not think burgeoning distance gains are an issue solely affecting the professional game.  This is not some meaningless, esoteric action aimed at a tiny fraction of elite golfers. When some of the game’s sharpest minds espoused limits on the ball, they did so well before WWII and they were not talking solely about the professional game either.

This point goes some way to explaining why I prefer a universal rollback, as opposed to the implementation of a reduced flight ball solely for professional use. The problems extend beyond the pro game, and will more obviously do so as time marches on. Speed based instruction, current specs of contemporary balls and clubs, the increasing use of Trackman, and human evolution with subsequent generations taller and stronger than those before will only amplify the issue of distance in the coming years.

This is obviously an issue which needs a long-view and a broad perspective.

The Rollback subject includes many elements – responsible use of resources, cost of play, safety and liability, speed of play, appropriate stewardship of the game, the role of professional golf in shaping the game as a whole, the place of large equipment manufacturers, and other points.

The increasing ease of play afforded beginners and modestly skilled golfers by modern clubs and balls has not translated into greater numbers playing golf. Neither has there been a reduction in average handicap, nor an increase in youth participation, nor greater numbers of women participating in golf. And this is in the era of Golf Channel and Tiger Woods and a healthy LPGA.  The notion that a rollback in ball distance will adversely affect participation rates in dubious at best. And as Robert Hunter noted a century ago - “It is not the love of something easy which has drawn men like a magnet for hundreds of years to this royal and ancient pastime; on the contrary, it is the maddening difficulty of it”.

There is no question a great number of golf clubs around the world have faced significant and costly safety and liability issues, which would be assuaged to a large degree by a reduced flight ball.  This is not a problem confined to the professional game – a solution applied to the professional game in insolation does nothing to address this.

The way golf is played has changed. And has changed repeatedly through the generations. Not many of us would expect it to stay static, but golf is steadily becoming a game in which we smash a tee shot high and far, and then hit a lofted iron close.  Golf used to be much more than this. For many, golf used to require more thought. It still does for many, but not as many as it once did.

For a very long time, golf required more decision making and skill than it does for many players today.  Not just in the professional game.  Strength and distance have always been an advantage, and should continue to be, but these qualities have become disproportionately advantageous at the professional level, elite amateur level, and even sub-elite amateur level in many instances.  This trend will only become more apparent in times ahead.

Those who are in charge of the game must consider whether the game should continue to devolve along these lines, or whether equipment regulation reform is warranted and importantly, able to arrest this trend.  Martin Slumbers (R&A Chief) recently suggested that “the purpose of the Rules is to protect golf’s best traditions, to prevent an over-reliance on technological advances rather than skill, and to ensure that skill is the dominant element of success throughout the game”. I applaud this notion and see a rollback as consistent with this philosophy.

I am surprised the professional Tour ranks have been so amiable to the homogenisation of their product. The uniformity and narrowing of skill set possessed at the top end of pro ranks can’t be to their advantage in the long-term.  In another thread on GCA Tom Doak quoted Justin Leonard who spoke of the inability to compete in this day and age unless one can carry the ball 320. The disappearance of a variety of playing styles has no doubt been to the detriment of the pro game as an entertainment product.  The pro game has never been more removed from the amateur game and history will ultimately tell whether this has been to the long-term commercial advantage of the Tour.  It’s almost certainly not to the advantage of the game at large.

Those in charge of the various Tours have much to gain from a rollback, yet they don’t see it.  Perhaps they’re not allowed to see it by virtue of the efforts of ball manufacturers.  Tour adoption of reduced flight balls would not only paint them as responsible stewards of the game, but also see a stage on which skill shone more brightly, and the most skilled players more readily triumphed.  Scope would exist for a variety of playing styles to have a chance of winning.  The entertainment product would be more compelling, rich and diverse.

What’s more, distance doesn’t sell as much as people think it does. It’s just a number, and it’s all relative. No fan at a tournament can differentiate between a drive of 285 and 340.  Golf highlight reels are full of wedge shots to inches, successful long putts, holed bunker shots and chip ins.  They’re not full of bludgeoned drives that land out of sight – no matter how hard the PGA Tour social media team try to make it so.  In any event, universal rollback where Martin Bonnar drives it 185 and Mike Cirba drives it 200, on a 5040yd course, while Bubba Watson drives it 285 on a 6350yd course preserves a frame of reference to which fans still relate. Pro performance will be no less impressive.

Jim Hoak raises many good points – Tours are in the entertainment industry.  Rollback won’t happen without the Tours being on board.  Tours and pro players will only be on board if the manufacturers are for it – and they must be comforted that profit risk is mitigated during the process. Long sunset clauses for existing balls are the tip of the iceberg.

Monkey see – monkey do. Rank and file golfers buy the ball professional players use. Universal rollback sees this as a more likely series of events, whereas bifurcation may be less likely to cushion any possible financial blow to the Titleists of this world.

I’ve not been focused on this topic for as many years as other GCA posters, but to date, not one person has provided me with a sound list of inevitable problems encountered by universal introduction of a shorter flying ball, and many short-hitting recreational golfers collectively moving up a set of tees.  Other than potential profit endangerment for major ball manufacturers.

And I want to hear the problems, because I need to know the counter arguments that will emerge as the Rollback Alliance effort escalates.  Smaller footprint courses requiring less maintenance and less acres of prepared turf and less irrigation, are one of several benefits from responsible governance of the game today and a shorter flying ball.  More affordable golf and faster rounds may also ensue. Contemplating these factors should demonstrate to anyone who has followed this thread that a rollback is not a meaningless undertaking directed at a tiny minority who play the game for vast sums of money.

This whole topic is way beyond what scores people shoot, new back tees at TPC Scottsdale, strategy or how far the top few on the US PGA Tour drive it.  Distance is an urgent and universal topic in the game of golf.  I’m genuinely surprised more on the forum don’t see that.

George Crump, William Flynn, MacKenzie and Hunter, Tillinghast, Nicklaus, Longhurst, Bobby Jones, Sandy Tatum, Bill Campbell, Ben Crenshaw, Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player, Tom Watson, Tiger Woods, Shackelford and more. They’ve all said the same thing.

That’s probably enough for now, but, consistent with the opening post of the thread on Rollback Alliance, this provides further thoughts, and a broad-brush picture of the thoughts of many, but not all within our group.
"The truth about golf courses has a slightly different expression for every golfer. Which of them, one might ask, is without the most definitive convictions concerning the merits or deficiencies of the links he plays over? Freedom of criticism is one of the last privileges he is likely to forgo."

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