Rollin’ back the ODS, then what?

[Richard_Goodale]

JakaB

You realize wrongly.  One of the points of the competition ball is to make it perfectly clear, to hackers like you and me, that those who play golf for a living (or want to) are very much diffeent from you.  We demean ourselves when we pretend that we are anything else but hackers.  To paraphrase the famous Hemingway/Fitzgerald riposte:

"The pros are different from you and me, Jakab.  Yeah--they have more talent!"

[TEPaul]

JakaB:

Woody told Jack to give up football and concentrate on golf?? Somebody should haul Woody out of football purgatory and beam him up to the golf Hall of Fame. At least they could tell Woody it was OK if he punched out some measly sub or whoever it was he punched out!

Jack might even kiss Woody, in which case the odds are probably better than half that Woody would punch out Jack!

[Dan Kelly]

I'm not sure how to answer all of those questions, Tom -- especially with my mind on the soil in a French judge's panties ... but...

I'm saying: In the hands of the best players, amateur and professional, the current generation of clubs and balls -- and every generation of equipment to come -- produces too much length.

I'm saying that that length is wrecking, for the purposes of the highest-level competition, the classic courses everyone here seems to love.

I'm saying that, here in America, business is business, and longer is better -- and if the USGA attempts to shut down the progress of technology and the profits that go with it, the USGA will fail. The public at large will ignore the USGA's dictates -- and, by default, there will be two standards in play.

I'm saying that the simple way to solve these problems -- to keep the classic courses competitively playable at the highest level; to avoid the endless litigation that any ODS rollback will produce; to let the manufacturers keep producing, and keep selling, ever newer and longer equipment to the public at large that doesn't care one whit about handicaps and B&I standards -- is to produce a periodically down-powered Competition Ball, to be used with whichever clubs a competitor wishes in whichever competitions the sponsoring organizations designate.

[TEPaul]

Dan:

Maybe we're misunderstanding each other somehow or maybe we're even splitting hairs.

It sounds to me like what you're really saying is the manufacturers and the general golfing public--what I guess you call the recreational interests are just about to break the USGA's long standing one set of B&I rules anyway--that the market is about to be flooded by "nonconforming" equipment anyway and that those recreationalists are gonna buy it!

You might be right about that. I'm worried about that too but I don't attribute it to the USGA, I attribute it to this recent incredibly aggressive and disrespectful attitude of the major manufacturers and I've been saying that on here endlessly for two years!

Why would the good amateurs or even the pros feel any differently either before or after that happened with the recreationalists? Are you saying the pros and the good amateurs would agree to a "competition" ball now but not later? Are you saying that the better players would just stick with the USGA's present B&I rules even if the recreationalists played with "nonconforming" equipment?

What about the manufacturers? They have a say in this you know? What if they don't want a "competition" ball? What if the USGA legislated it and they refused?

The fact is the USGA's B&I rules haven't really changed much at all except for the COR specs. Their testing procedures may have been crap but the basic rules and regs haven't changed.

I don't see what the problem is with the golfing public anyway other than the manufacturers. My grandfather and grandmother and father and mother had just as much fun playing golf as we do and they weren't waiting expectantly  for the day they could hit unlimited nonconforming equipment. Back then the major manufacturers never even dreamed of such a thing anyway!

And I don't really even agree about some of the old classic courses that are supposedly obsolete when it comes to amateurs. Merion could hold the US Amateur for the forseeable future and the course is not going to get hurt, believe me!

We can live under one set of rules certainly in the amateur ranks particularly if the manufacturers will stick to the B&I rules and not market nonconforming equipment. That's what it will take cuz the recreationalists can't buy noncorforming equipment if the manufacturers don't make it. Nobody can!

As for the PGA Tour well maybe Finchem ought to deal with the distance problem and his Tour pros if he's so worried about something! Maybe he feels the need to roll their distance back 10-20% because it's boring watching them hit it so far and hit 9 irons into par 5s. Let him do it! No problem!

If he did maybe the USGA should even require the US Open to use that particular ball Finchem negotiated for his players. That way they would in effect be requiring another set of B&I rules for use in a competition but they would not have initiated it and maybe gotten sued.

It doesn't matter what they initiate to me legally because I don't think there's much chance they'd lose in court. That's because it's all voluntary anyway!

Maybe this disucussion and these points are six of one a half dozen of another anyway--maybe I'm getting confused.

But I don't think the USGA needs to go this "competition" ball route at this moment. They should get all the entities together and try to negotiate them into agreeing to do something about the distance thing under one set of rules just like it has always been, in my opinion, and do it now and in the name of architecture too.

I think the thing guys like you and TonyR get confused about is your trying to figure out the best way for the USGA to lay down the law in the midst of this distance issue.

I keep telling you that they aren't the law in B&I rules. The whole damn thing is based on voluntary compliance from everyone! Always has been, it is now, and always will be!

[Rick Shefchik]

JakaB:

No one advocating a competition ball on this thread is attempting to give lesser-talented players a crutch or narrow the gap between pros and amateurs -- just the opposite. What is being proposed is a new challenge that only a tour pro or top-flight amateur will be successfully able to hurdle: playing par golf or better with a shorter-flying golf ball. And the beauty part is, as I remember them saying on the East Coast, that anybody -- i.e., the dreamer (or I should say, the striver) -- who wants to try to measure their game against the top amateurs and tour pros can do so just by buying a sleeve of "C" balls.

Once the Competition ball is accepted, no one will mistake that the best players in golf are posting their scores with a ball that's a little too tough to play for the rest of us -- just as no one mistakes that a slo-pitch softball player knocking out homer after homer with an aluminum bat is no Barry Bonds.

Rick

[JakaB]

Rick,

We both have young sons and as an example for our sons do we want to measure ourselves againsts the very best every day...every damn day...or just when we feel good enough to buy that 'C' sleeve of balls.   In every aspect of my real life..be it fatherhood, brotherhood, golf or husbandry (animal excluded) I only want to be measured against the best and I expect no less from my son.

[TEPaul]

RickS:

You might just be onto something here! But my take on all this is it's all in the hands of the manufacturers at this point anyway.

Why don't you put in a call to them and see how they feel about this "competition" ball first?

Who the hell knows, they're so damn insidious but so persuasive, and the golfing public (all of them) are so damn gullible anyway that maybe the manufacturers can figure out a clever way to convince everybody that the best thing to do is to try to hit the ball the shortest possible distance (instead of the longest) and still score the best!

I'm sure they'll figure out a way to convince us to do that and still have tons of fun and they can make tons of money too and in the meantime architecture will be saved! And when we thank them for saving architecture it's more than likely they'll say; "You're welcome, what's that?"

[Rick Shefchik]

JakaB,

In the broadest sense I agree with you: I want my son and daughter to challenge themselves to be the best in whatever they pursue.

In the narrower sense, however, there are any number of ways in which we give our kids a break while they're learning a skill. The bases are closer together, the basket is lower (up through 4th grade), the field is shorter and the ski hill isn't as steep. Once my son learns how to play golf, if he decides he wants to be a competitive player, I would expect he'll play a competitive ball (if one such exists.) If he chooses not to, then I wouldn't think any the less of him than I do adults who prefer to play softball rather than hardball. They know they're not playing the same game the major leaguers are; he'll know it, too.

Rick

[Dan Kelly]

Tom Paul --

Yes, you understand me correctly:

The age of voluntary compliance is about to pass. Hasn't Callaway already proclaimed the end of that age?

Please don't infer that I BLAME the USGA for the coming noncomforming equipment, or for the public's willingness to buy it. I blame (if that's the word) Callaway and Nike and Titleist and all of them -- though I might just as well blame capitalism. And I'm enough of a capitalist not to blame capitalism for doing what capitalism does.

Nor do I CREDIT the USGA with having nearly enough power to deter the manufacturers from their quest for continuous improvement (of the technology and of their sales figures).

I wish the USGA were capable, as you believe them to be, of getting everyone to sit down at the table and agree to restrictions on their future prosperity. But I don't think it's going to happen.

My guess is: That USGA confab you're imagining has as much chance of success as a meeting where you'd get all the carmakers together and tell them that you want them to forgo their annual model changes from that point forward; and that henceforth they won't be allowed actual improvement in the performance of their products; and that, of course, the public will be fully informed of the fact that, while the carmakers can still change the looks of your products, they won't be able to actually improve them.

I'm trying to be realistic and idealistic at the same time here -- to come up with a way for the guys in backward baseball caps and muscle shirts to have their aluminum bats, and to let the aluminum-bat makers make better and better and ever more profitable aluminum bats that hit the ball farther and farther and farther ... without destroying the game, and the courses where we've most purely enjoyed it, for those of us who believe that hitting it far is only one of many aspects of Golf.

Rick --

Kudos on your answer to JakaB. Beautiful!
{Edited: Make that "answers."}

[Dan King]

I had thought this topic had dried up and moved on to page 2. Guess someone brought it back.

I see the "distance issue" as having three possible "solutions." Since I’ve spent time in each "of" the camps, I’ll try my "best" to go "through" each. (When you read that, be sure to really emphasise the words in quotes. Pause before and after and really put weight on the words!  Bopping your head up and down helps.)

Note: I do have a bias that will probably influence my choices of arguments in each of the categories. My bias is that I hate the pro game and what it has done to golf.

One option is do nothing. This is the option of those of us brimming with confidence that tomorrow the world will be a better place. We tend to be libertarian, believe in globalization, and love the free market. We also tend to be prettier than those that support the other two options.

Sure there is a "distant issue" but we think it will resolve itself over time.

Obviously this is the cheapest option and the one that will make the fewest number of lawyers rich.

This is my newest argument, do nothing and let the game take care of itself. I’m not entirely consistent with my do nothing choice. The USGA could change the rules to allow for Committees to mandate balls with different specifications than the current USGA specs.

The cons are that the "distant issue" will continue to be a problem for the Best Players in the World (BPitW.) They will continue to make mincemeat of the great old courses, causing the great courses to look for more yardage or for the BPitW to take their balls and look for other places to play.

Since I want to see a more pronounced separation between BPitW and the rest of us, I encourage them to find elsewhere to play. I hope someday in the not to distant future they will play virtual golf and stop messing up real golf courses.

Next option is competition ball. This has been discussed on this topic rather heavily. The biggest argument against this idea is that it creates two sets of rules.

With all the local rules the tours now play, there are already two sets of rules. The number of times the PGA Tour play the ball down is getting fewer every year. BPitW not touching their golf ball between every shot is becoming the exception. They want to play their version of hand-ball-golf, fine. I don’t want their game.

I’d prefer we get back to a game of learning to accept situations. Let the pros play their game based on “fairness.”

Two sets of rules, cool, bring ‘em on.

The last option is the rollback of the ODS. I still don’t see how that could possibly work. Each generation of BPitW are going to be a bit better than the previous.

TEPaul’s answer is to base the ODS on something like 150 mph swing speed so that it will take into account numerous generations of BPitW.  

That idea will cause me to bolt from the USGA. With my measly 90 mph swing speed (A number that is probably above average) if I’m going to stick with USGA rules I’ll be batting around a marshmallow that won’t go 200 yards with my best swing.

Sure, length is all relative, but dropping back the ODS doesn’t mean courses are going to suddenly get shorter. We end up with courses were the BPitW play as the designer intended, and the rest of us, the majority, are playing like old men.

I’ll be saying goodbye to the USGA in my own way. Playing outlawed balls from outlawed tees. [Braveheart]

"You want to find an outlaw, hire an outlaw. You want to find a Dunkin' Donuts, call a cop."
 --Randall "Tex" Cobb (Leonard Smalls in Raising Arizona)

[Pete_Pittock]

     These guys on tour are +3 or +4 handicaps at least, so why use par as a standard. Dan's on the mark. What I don't like is spotting someone 4 strokes and 50 yards.
      I heard they were measuring driving yardages at one of the USGA events last year, I think the mid-am. Course rating (and par) uses 250 yd drives and 220 yd 2d shot, thus a par 5 yardage is 470+. If the shot length has increased 10% over the years then a par 5 begins at 517.      

[Dan King]

I got this vision of poor JakaB Jr. cowering in a battling cage because Dad set the pitching machine on Roger Clemens speed. Or shaking across the net in tennis because Dad set the tennis ball machine to serve like Pete Sampras.

I play golf to have fun, not with some unrealistic expectation than I can compete with Nick Price. I think my children also have a healthy attitude about sports, that the intent is to have fun.

"It took me 17 years to get 3,000 hits. I did it in one afternoon on the golf course."
 --Hank Aaron

[JakaB]

Dan King,

If I expected to be understood I would never open my mouth...My point was the example we set for our children..my son knows that in all aspects of my life I only compare my results to the best there is...once I strive to be average I no longer be able to see over the waves of mediocrocy that  are drowning the majority of us.  My son sees my many faults and failures and we laugh in the face of them...he knows my marriage isn't perfect...my body shape obtuse...my really close friends and family lurking somewhere in the shadows of my own doubts...he knows the truth about him and about me...there will always be people better, faster, stronger...but there will be few people with the strength to face the truth and laugh in the face of failure.   Its all about blades and balls baby.

[TEPaul]

DanK:

I hope you understand what I mean about the 150mph swing speed. It appears more likely (to my amazement) that the USGA's testing protocol on balls was at a static 109mph for years that would acheive the maximum ODS of 280yds, I guess. If that was what max ODS was based on that would sort of explain why these tour pros are hitting it 330 today don't you think? That might also explain why Dick Rugge didn't really answer that guy last year who asked him a couple of times what swing speeds the USGA's distance stats and data was based on or what swings speeds they'd been analuyzing all these years.

What I meant by the 150mph was maybe they should use that as a static speed if they have to use one swing speed and everything will be brought down from that since I don't think too many tour pros are going to be swinging at 150mph anytime in the near future--or maybe ever!

I'm not mathematical but with something like that at least they could sort of gear things to the worst case scenario which would be around 150mph and then back thing back from that in a rollback.

Does that make any sense?

[Dan King]

JakaB writes:
as an example for our sons do we want to measure ourselves againsts the very best every day...every damn day...

In your last post I couldn't tell if you were backpeddalling from the above statement or not.

TEPaul writes:
What I meant by the 150mph was maybe they should use that as a static speed if they have to use one swing speed and everything will be brought down from that since I don't think too many tour pros are going to be swinging at 150mph anytime in the near future--or maybe ever!

My concern isn't for a what a ball that only goes 280 yards when hit with a swing speed of 150 mph will mean for the pros. As I've said many times, I care very little about the pros game. They ain't golf.

My concern is with the great unwashed masses of golfers.

The current ball reaches distances of 280 with a swing speed of around 108 mph. When I'm driving well my swing speed of around 90 mph can hit it about 240-250. If you now create a ball that only goes 280 when hit with a swing speed of 150 mph, then with my 90 mph swing speed it won't go 200 yards.

You can't have it both ways, a ball that will only go 280 regardless of how fast the swing speed along with one that will still go 240-250 with <100 mph swing speed. You need to have two different balls to reach both goals.

I believe in the USGA. I'm a long-time member. I'm reasonably knowledgable of the rules. If the USGA tells me I must from now on play marshmallows so they can better control how far the top .001% of golfers hit the ball, I will leave the USGA. I will play outlaw balls. I seriously doubt I will be the only one.

For when the One Greater Scorer comes
To write against your name,
He marks -- not that you won or lost
But how you played the game.
 --Grantland Rice

[Tim_Weiman]

Dan King:

Doing nothing about the golf technology arms race is not the "cheapest" solution.  Technology "improvements" have done nothing but increase the cost of balls, golf clubs, building and playing courses.

Why are we so reluctant to embrace a consumer point of view?  We know that when it comes to the issue of length, relative length is the only important thing.  Why continue to pay more and more money in the mindless pursuit of absolute length?

Tom Paul:

I feel compelled to repeat another point I've already made.  Suggesting manufacturers won't produce a competition ball makes no sense.  Do you really mean to suggest that?  Do you really think every single manufacturer in the industry will decline?

[Dan King]

Tim_Weiman writes:

Doing nothing about the golf technology arms race is not the "cheapest" solution.  Technology "improvements" have done nothing but increase the cost of balls, golf clubs, building and playing courses.

I was recently at a golf merchandise super store. I haven't been in one of these places in a real long time. They had a bucket of balls you could buy -- these weren't used balls -- from Pinnacle for $7.50.  I believe it said there were 30 balls in the bucket.  

I believe you can get a full set of clubs made from top components for still under $100. Another $100 and you can get the woods and putter. These aren't clubs that will fall apart, but top quality. Good as anything you could buy from the top manufacturers.

Here in Northern California, the home of expensive golf, you can still find places to play for under $25. It might be twilight, it might only be a nine hole course, but the deals are out there.

If you want the name brands you are going to be paying for the marketing they do. That's the deal, they aren't going to do all that marketing for free, they are going to pass on the cost.

Free market, it's a wonderful system.  Pay extra for marketed merchandise or less for merchandise that hasn't been marketed. It's is your choice.

"The public be damnded. I am working for my stockholders."
 --William Henry Vanderbilt (When questioned by a reporter, trying to find out his views on behalf of the public)

[Tim_Weiman]

Dan King:

I share your appreciation for a "free market" and the attractive deals that still exist on buying balls, clubs and playing golf.

But, I'm not sure whether we agree or disagree that far more attention needs to be focused on the amount of money being wasted playing golf and the reasons for it.

Are you suggesting that the pursuit of absolute length has not played a role in increasing the cost of playing golf?

[Kevin_Reilly]

I believe you can get a full set of clubs made from top components for still under $100. Another $100 and you can get the woods and putter. These aren't clubs that will fall apart, but top quality. Good as anything you could buy from the top manufacturers.

Dan, a set of top quality component irons for under $100?  Even if you doubled that figure you would have a hard time getting 8 good quality component irons, assuming you assembled them yourself.  A Dynamic Gold steel shaft retails for $12-13, grips $4-5, and decent heads retail from $15-28. Plus epoxy, tape, ferrules etc.  Pay a clubmaker to put them together to the standard of the OEMs (ie not a "cut and glue guy") and you're at $300+ for 8 component irons.

The same analysis applies to your "woods and a putter for $100" example.  One wood, maybe, and it wouldn't be anything that is even comparable to OEM.

[Dan King]

Kevin Reilly writes:
Dan, a set of top quality component irons for under $100?  

So much for posting late at night without doing any research. I'd thought about looking around the web to see prices, but was lazy and didn't. I'm busted.  Thanks for clearing that up.

But I did see the golf balls on sale, so I'm confident in that part of the post.

"Yes, once -- many, many tears ago. I thought I had made a wrong decision. Of course, it turned out that I had been right all along. But I was wrong to have thought that I was wrong."
 --John Foster Dulles (On being asked whether he had ever been wrong)

[Dan King]

Tim Weiman writes:
Are you suggesting that the pursuit of absolute length has not played a role in increasing the cost of playing golf?

Not anywhere near to the extent that marketing has played a role in increasing the cost of playing golf.

Lets take Torey Pines as a recent example. Why do you think they added 500 yards to the course at great expense? Was business down? Were they having trouble filling their tee sheet? Were all the regulars playing there complaining about the lack of challenge?

They did it in the hope that the USGA would grant them a U.S. Open, thereby allowing them to consider themselves one of the top courses, probably move up in the rankings, and allowing them to get more out-of-town play from suckers who aren’t going to play the 7,500 yard course the pros will play. It wasn’t a move to make the course more challenging – since those back tees will rarely be used – it was a marketing move.

Have you noticed the PGA Tour moving more of their tournaments to TPCs. I figure within 10-15 years all of the tournaments will be played on TPCs. This is regardless if the other courses are foolish enough to add more yardage to the courses. The PGA Tour sees that having the Tour come to a course increases a courses ranking, allows operators to up prices, and makes it a more desirable vacation destination. They figure why give that sort of stuff away when they can give all those advantages to their own product.

And I say good riddance. The only way to make me happier is if they went to virtual golf. I don’t think owners of courses screwing up their courses on the off chance they will get a tour event as a good thing. Luckily I foresee the free market taking care of the problem.

"Man has been endowed with reason, with the power to create, so that he can add to what he’s been given. But up to now he hasn’t been a creator, only a destroyer. Forests keep disappearing, rivers dry up, wild life’s become extinct, the climates ruined and the land grows poorer and uglier every day."
 --Anton Chekhov

[Craig Van Egmond]

Kevin,
         What you have to understand is that a full set of clubs for Dan King is only 7 or 8 clubs total, hence the lower cost.  

[Paul Turner]

It's perfectly feasible to have a ball spec that impacts the pros much more than the average punter.

I've said this a couple of times here:  Make the ball light enough to float in water (just).  With this weight a pro would lose about 30+ yards but the average punter only about 10.  And we get all the benefits of water recovery shots!