Tournament courses vs. ball rollback

[Mike Bodo]

I'm persuaded that this is probably a bad idea.
Wasteful and impractical.
I was not supporting the concept, but I still think that in the case of the golf ball rollback--as in many things discussed on here--we give too much emphasis to the effect on touring pros and other elite players, rather than considering the effect on the vast number of recreational golfers with varying abilities and dedication to the game, who are the backbone of golf.

Jim, I hear you and am with you. Apparently, so is Brandel Chamblee. LOL! If this is being done to appease the USGA, R&A and PGA of America in ensuring the historic classic courses of yesteryear remain relevant for hosting major championship golf for time immemorium then the question needs to be asked, why? I can't speak to the UK golf scence, but a major component to how the USGA behaves is predicated on the elite clubs many on the board have ties and connections to and those clubs demanding their courses remain in the major tournament hosting conversation at all costs - 50 million anti-ball rollback supporters be damned! I don't subscribe to that - especially when I hear clubs, such as Inverness, proposing yet even more changes to their course in hopes of finally attracting a U.S. Open or PGA Championship. There are other clubs from that period in the same boat, but at what point does enough become enough and you accept your fate of never hosting a major championship again and take pride in having an outstanding golden age era course that the general membership can enjoy for decades to come?


It's become an arms race amongst the elite golden age clubs as to who can out restovate and outspend whom in hopes of appealing to the better sensibilities of the USGA and PGA of America to be incuded on their major championship rota at the expense of newer, arguably more suitable venues that should have been awarded major tournaments by now. When do the great new age courses built the past 20 - 25 years get their shot at hosting a U.S. Open or PGA Championship? Many of these were designed with longer players in mind and thus aren't nearly as affected by the modern day ball. Why aren't these organizations slowly incorporating them in their masterplan and moving away from the old school courses? Money and politics, for the most part. To the PGA of Amercia's credit, they at least added their own new couse in Frisco, TX to their championships rota, but there needs to be more of that from both organizations and a better mix of new and golden age courses hosting major championship golf in the U.S.

[Mike Bodo]

Other than 10 at Riviera, the architecture sadly does not get any significant coverage in most cases, just cursory oversight

That is unless your name is Tiger Woods and the tournament in question is being hosted at a course you designed. I never heard more architectural comments being bandied about on-air as when the PGAT held its tournament at Tiger's course in Mexico a few weeks back. You would have thought he was the second coming of Allister Mackenzie the way the announcers were gushing over it. 

[JohnVDB]

This past weekend the DP World Tour played a course in South Africa that measured 8300 yards from the tips.  This included at 560 yard par 4.  It is at altitude, but how much longer should architects be required to build these tournament courses so that you don’t have to deal with a rollback?


Even at that length, a bunch of pros that I’ve never heard of managed to break par.


You can argue that this was done so the USGA can continue to hold majors at the classic courses, but it applies at all levels of competitive golf.  Go to a college tournament or a state event or even a top level junior tournament and see how far they are hitting, making many older (and even newer) courses unusable for those events.


I’d rather pay for clubs to build new shorter tees than have to buy more land to build more way back tees.

[Erik J. Barzeski]

The rollback may not even be 4%:

https://twitter.com/iacas/status/1732185882130596100

If the numbers from Golf Digest are true… the rollback isn’t even 5%.

Current: 120 mph -> 317 (2.64 yds/mph). That means at 125 and 2.64yds/mph, we should see a ball going 330.
Future: 125 mph -> 317 (2.54). Difference of 13 yards.

13/330 = 3.9%.

So… it's not even 4%.

[Rob Marshall]

The rollback may not even be 4%:

https://twitter.com/iacas/status/1732185882130596100

If the numbers from Golf Digest are true… the rollback isn’t even 5%.

Current: 120 mph -> 317 (2.64 yds/mph). That means at 125 and 2.64yds/mph, we should see a ball going 330.
Future: 125 mph -> 317 (2.54). Difference of 13 yards.

13/330 = 3.9%.

So… it's not even 4%.

Then why even bother?

[Mike Bodo]

The rollback may not even be 4%:

https://twitter.com/iacas/status/1732185882130596100

If the numbers from Golf Digest are true… the rollback isn’t even 5%.

Current: 120 mph -> 317 (2.64 yds/mph). That means at 125 and 2.64yds/mph, we should see a ball going 330.
Future: 125 mph -> 317 (2.54). Difference of 13 yards.

13/330 = 3.9%.

So… it's not even 4%.

Then why even bother?

I agree. If what Erik posted from Golf Digest is correct, then why go there to begin with, as we'll be right back where we started from in a few year's time?

[Craig Sweet]

Old rich white guys grasping at their mortality...they will mess this game up royally and blame it on the people that play public courses.

[Tom_Doak]

Jim:


As others have noted, the PGA TOUR [or the LIV Tour] could build their own "stadium" courses, and in fact they did build a few.  But most of them were extremely boring, because the Tour is not in the business of building golf courses, and are torn between what the players want, and what the fans want, and what is the safest means to not rock the boat and threaten their own cushy jobs.


They lean toward the latter, so they are not cut out to design great golf courses.

[Erik J. Barzeski]

I agree. If what Erik posted from Golf Digest is correct, then why go there to begin with, as we'll be right back where we started from in a few year's time?

I don't know. IMO they should have gone to 8-10% or not even bothered. Disruption for almost nothing.

[Enno Gerdes]

I agree. If what Erik posted from Golf Digest is correct, then why go there to begin with, as we'll be right back where we started from in a few year's time?

I don't know. IMO they should have gone to 8-10% or not even bothered. Disruption for almost nothing.

I assume there's also some second-order effect: if a 10-13 yard reduction in carry and/or total distance brings hazards back into play, then that may lead players to take even more distance off. Not a huge effect maybe, but I'd expect the effective reduction to be a bit higher than the calculated reduction in distance. Unless of course elite players react by further increasing swing speed, in that case it's really for nothing.

[Erik J. Barzeski]

I assume there's also some second-order effect: if a 10-13 yard reduction in carry and/or total distance brings hazards back into play, then that may lead players to take even more distance off. Not a huge effect maybe, but I'd expect the effective reduction to be a bit higher than the calculated reduction in distance. Unless of course elite players react by further increasing swing speed, in that case it's really for nothing.

Yeah, they're just gonna swing a little harder. I don't have many doubts about that.

[Ben Hollerbach]

I agree. If what Erik posted from Golf Digest is correct, then why go there to begin with, as we'll be right back where we started from in a few year's time?

I don't know. IMO they should have gone to 8-10% or not even bothered. Disruption for almost nothing.

I assume there's also some second-order effect: if a 10-13 yard reduction in carry and/or total distance brings hazards back into play, then that may lead players to take even more distance off. Not a huge effect maybe, but I'd expect the effective reduction to be a bit higher than the calculated reduction in distance. Unless of course elite players react by further increasing swing speed, in that case it's really for nothing.

If players want to combat the new testing standard by swinging harder, let them have a go at it. They may get their distance back, but they may become less controllable off the tee as a result.

Its not like they have not had the opportunity today and already chose not to.

[Rob Marshall]

I agree. If what Erik posted from Golf Digest is correct, then why go there to begin with, as we'll be right back where we started from in a few year's time?

I don't know. IMO they should have gone to 8-10% or not even bothered. Disruption for almost nothing.

I assume there's also some second-order effect: if a 10-13 yard reduction in carry and/or total distance brings hazards back into play, then that may lead players to take even more distance off. Not a huge effect maybe, but I'd expect the effective reduction to be a bit higher than the calculated reduction in distance. Unless of course elite players react by further increasing swing speed, in that case it's really for nothing.

If players want to combat the new testing standard by swinging harder, let them have a go at it. They may get their distance back, but they may become less controllable off the tee as a result.

Its not like they have not had the opportunity today and already chose not to.

They could swing harder now if they wanted to. I would think a big reason for not swinging harder would be risk of injury. Is it worth blowing your back out to get 10 more yards when you already hit it 320?

[Jim Sherma]

The rollback may not even be 4%:

https://twitter.com/iacas/status/1732185882130596100

If the numbers from Golf Digest are true… the rollback isn’t even 5%.

Current: 120 mph -> 317 (2.64 yds/mph). That means at 125 and 2.64yds/mph, we should see a ball going 330.
Future: 125 mph -> 317 (2.54). Difference of 13 yards.

13/330 = 3.9%.

So… it's not even 4%.

Then why even bother?

I agree. If what Erik posted from Golf Digest is correct, then why go there to begin with, as we'll be right back where we started from in a few year's time?

Could be to create a precedent with an initial change that won't create too much blowback. Once you do this, Would another 5-7% in a few years be seen as a big event like this week's announcement, or just a tweak of existing policy?

[Matt Schoolfield]

The idea that there are "tournament courses" is one of the reasons why I never became a fan of professional golf. I love the design, optionality, and strategy of golf courses, and I want to make that accessible to everyone. When I go play a "tournament course" like Bethpage Black all I see are tests of strength, and that's fine i guess, but the hit-it-long-and-straight game doesn't appeal to me as much as the angles, tradeoffs, and a healthy dose of luck that comes from the courses I like to play. I want to watch golf where you have golf's version of John Madden drawing a bunch of arrows on a map to explain how players might choose to play the hole.

I'm glued to my television when the Open is at St Andrews, mostly because I know every inch of the course and all the strategy, but it's kind of silly when the benefit of carrying the Principal's Nose is the difference between an 8 iron and a gap wedge, before even mentioning the central point of the hole isn't even in play when Cam Smith "lays up" to it with an iron and the "strategy" that Young uses makes Grant's bunker more of a concern than anything else:



The professional game just isn't the same the one we play. To make it the same game, we don't just need longer holes, because the approach shots are longer too. To make the game even comparable i feel like we would need to build olympic swimming pool sized fairway bunkers with 15ft lips, just to make them materially significant... If the professional organizations built that well, I feel like they could get a bit of the spirit back, but you're never going to create the nostalgia and tradition that a course needs to be a great tournament course, because nobody would yearn to play there and not even break 100.

We are dealing with the fallout of a juiced-ball or steroid-like era that never ended... and I feel like an old man complaining about it, but it was exciting to see Bubba Watson cut the corner (a novel strategy executed well), but then when Bryson drives the green over a damn lake, we've honestly jumped the shark. I don't think there is a feasible way to build new courses every 10 years to put the genie back in the bottle.