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.