Rollback article from Golf Digest

[A.G._Crockett]

Regardless of which side of this particular fence you come down on, this is a very interesting article.  If the Law of Unintended Consequences is still alive and well, this is food for thought.
https://www.golfdigest.com/story/expert--how-the-ball-rollback-might-backfire?utm_medium=email&utm_source=051623&utm_campaign=newsandtours&utm_content=DM39808&uuid=84561938620642d381e234656e2c64bf

[Kyle Harris]

How does it follow that the only cause of increased clubhead speed would be a rollback?


If it’s such an advantage it will happen anyway. Rollback or not.


“If you make the ball shorter, people will try to hit it farther.”


Duh.

[Ben Hollerbach]

"but if you start playing with a ball that gets slower and slower in terms of the distance it's going off the tee, players will start swinging faster and faster, and all of a sudden players that cannot swing the club at 130 and 140 miles an hour will not be in the game. I think 160 is the limit that we're kind of working around with [in terms of] human potential. There is no reason to think that the top .005 percent of the golfers in the world won't figure out how to swing a golf club at 140 miles an hour in the next 10 years. I don't see it going any other way.”

"And to be fair, Mackenzie isn't suggesting that all the current players swinging at average tour speeds will somehow train their way up to swing speeds in the 140s. Rather, the thought is that in some not-too-distant future, the prototypical tour player will be developing these kinds of speeds as almost a prerequisite to be competitive in elite golf. The rolling back of the ball might not lessen the advantage or the value of swinging faster. Rather, Mackenzie said, it very well might increase it to the point of eliminating an entire class of player from the game."

World Long drive guys have been in the 130-140 range for a while now, Kyle Bershire has gotten up to 158.9mph. But yet that has not translated to success on the PGA Tour.

Are we to expect that with a slightly slower golf ball the PGA Tour will be overrun with long drive players winning everything?

[Jason Topp]

I thought the take in the article was very poorly thought out.


There is a signficant advantage to hitting the ball farther.  That is true regardless of how far the ball flies.  If players could control the ball with a 140 mph swing speed they would be doing it today. 


If Sasho Mackenzie is correct and I am sure he is on this point, players will increase swing speed over the next couple of decades. How far the ball flies will determine whether venues need to further lengthen their courses in response. 

[Matt Schoolfield]

I actually do think the article has a pretty good point.

My understanding is that we have created 1-5 woods with trampoline faces (even some irons), so that the sweet spot is big enough to swing as hard as you can. The real rollback would be shrinking those sweet spots, and would be as simple is clubs being required to have an effective uniform density (no more hollow driver heads), with maybe some ability to add weight to the bottom. That's obviously not going to happen because the general public would freak out. The irony being that nothing would actually change since courses "defend par" with every step forward in technology.

I'm honestly torn on the entire subject because Wethered & Simpson basically mock this debate a century ago arguing that design can trivially control the amount of advantage given with distance, while at the same time lamenting this technology as changing the golf swing itself, not just the strategy. It's genuinely nuts to see the deltas in distance within age ranges in my own home club (>100 yards between players with similar swings).

I think this debate in my head is why I keep looking for design tricks that will increase risks for ideal launch angles. I'm obviously not a course designer, and my thought experiments on design strategies would probably be laughed at by any serious architects. Still, I think that, since the key to these exceptional distances lies exactly in a perfectly sculpted launch and landing angle (no matter what distances we're talking about), design strategies that target exactly those launch and landing angles will inherently increase the risks.

I'm not saying that power shouldn't be rewarded here and there, but games with a single, dominant strategy are boring.

My other thought on fighting power-as-skill is sculpting wind. I've been pretty interested with a kind of "designed" wind since becoming obsessed with one specific par 3 in Edinburgh that seemed to move the ball in the air like no other hole I've played (even since then).

[A.G._Crockett]

I took the point of the article to be that a slower ball will make swing speed and length MORE important, not less, in much the same way that longer and longer golf courses have incentivized speed and length, and favors the longer hitter even more than has always been true.


All of that would be an unintended consequence of trying to “protect” classic courses and curb land and water use, which is a different question altogether.

[Max Prokopy]

I'm fairly uncertain about what should be done with the golf ball.  Regular players will still buy them and, as such, the companies will still need some marketability, or connection between the tour player and everyone else.


Regarding scoring I would suggest they return to making bunkers true hazards and select courses that reward the best approach shots.  I think it was Richie Hunt who commented that even if you hit an 8-iron 200 yards you'll still have significant dispersion due to the distance the ball has to travel. 

[Thomas Dai]

Yet more analysis paralysis.
Oh for someone with some clout to say 'just bloody do it and do it now'!
atb

[Mark Fedeli]

Regarding scoring I would suggest they return to making bunkers true hazards and select courses that reward the best approach shots.

Presented with the option of a rolled-back ball or un-raked bunkers, I think tour pros would take the rollback 20 times out of 10.

[Tom_Doak]

Golf magazines get a lot of their revenues from golf equipment advertisers, and they're never shy about licking the boots of their financiers.

[Thomas Dai]

Regarding scoring I would suggest they return to making bunkers true hazards and select courses that reward the best approach shots.

Presented with the option of a rolled-back ball or un-raked bunkers, I think tour pros would take the rollback 20 times out of 10.

I ain't no tour pro just another amateur but I'd happily accept both a rollback and un-raked bunkers.
atb

[Carl Rogers]

Roll back the club, too.
-Minimum club loft 11 degrees
- COR at .70
- 320 cc max volume
- 43.5" max length
- no graphite shaft
- 10 club no. limit

[Mike_Clayton]

Speaking of unintended consequences - the Ping case made the administration scared of legislating the driver head size.
Looking back it was ludicrous to argue over a tiny -  and disputed measurement -  when you think just how far they've let the driver head expand since.
It's not the sole contributor to the distance explosion but it's been a big part of it.


And Tom Doak is right - this is the magazine doing the bidding of its advertiser. (singular)

[Matt Schoolfield]

-Minimum club loft 11 degrees

Your putter is now non-conforming 


Kidding, but still… I feel like putter off the tee is a textbook into how club density changes everything. Drivers and putter used to be effectively interchangeable exactly because of low loft. Now they have similar loft, but couldn’t be farther apart in club head design.

[jeffwarne]

I read it and chuckled.
They have fallen so far.


So don't roll it back....because if you do roll it back, courses will be made obsolete from increased clubhead speed.LOL.


As if players aren't trying to increase speed now.
to be fair to the author, by the time they do actually roll it back, speed on tour will have increased considerably(attrition, technique etc.)


Now if you really want to down a rabbit hole, engineer drivers and balls that spin more like balata/wood and players will have to develop technique and skill along with speed rather than just speed and a really good fitter.


Anecdotally, Monday I played a qualifier with a 5 foot 8 150 pounder who used mostly a driving iron, averaging at least 270 with iron with several well over 300 when downwind etc.
The ground was firm.
He hit driver wedge to a 535 par 5 (I laid up with an 8 iron)and he hit driver 9 iron to a 545 par 5(I hit driver 5 wood just short).
He was a nice player, shot 71 in very windy, firm fast conditions.

[Matt Schoolfield]

I just had an idea... why not just roll back the golf ball dimples?

Those little guys are like magic. They allow the ball to spin without affecting the trajectory much, allowing for so much more wiggle room for error. Thinning them would incentivize lower spin shots, which would ultimately shorten ball flight. Barely noticeable modifications of the dimples should require players to focus much more on hitting a more perfect shot.

The idea being that you're not intentionally reducing ball flight, you're just requiring much more skill to get the same ball flight. Just a thought.

[Ben Hollerbach]

I just had an idea... why not just roll back the golf ball dimples?

Those little guys are like magic. They allow the ball to spin without affecting the trajectory much, allowing for so much more wiggle room for error. Thinning them would incentivize lower spin shots, which would ultimately shorten ball flight. Barely noticeable modifications of the dimples should require players to focus much more on hitting a more perfect shot.

The idea being that you're not intentionally reducing ball flight, you're just requiring much more skill to get the same ball flight. Just a thought.

I would not be surprised if this wasn't one of the first things the manufactures look at to reduced distance.

The more the USGA tries to limit specific aspects of the ball's design, the more they open up the manufactures to make up the difference somewhere else. If the set specific but general regulations on ball performance it's up to the manufactures to look at the "best" way to meet the specification while still maximizing overall performance.