Distance rollback: what would architects do differently?

[Mark Fedeli]

I'm curious as to what course architects would do differently, aside from the completely obvious, if there was a significant distance rollback of the golf ball. Besides just shorter courses, are there other design decisions you would make? Are there characteristics you would employ more or less than you do now? And how much would the ball need to be rolled back for it to make any substantial difference to you at all?

It sounds like a painfully obvious question, but I'm hoping there is something interesting I'd never considered.

[Tom_Doak]

Mark:

I would not do many things differently, because I am not designing for Tour players now.  I am designing for the widest range of golfers, and simply sliding the scale back a little bit would not require a change of strategy.

That is not to say I don't think a rollback of the golf ball would be a welcome change; to me, it would be, because it would help to preserve some of the difficulty of the game for elite players, without requiring more acreage and further changes to courses.  But I don't think it would affect the average golfer as much as most people think.  If the rollback adds one or two shots of difficulty to the course, the average player won't miss it.  But, I'm also in favor of bifurcation, and grandfathering in the current ball for 5-10 years, except in competitive play.

[Mark Fedeli]

Thanks, Tom. That's about what I expected. Best I could think of was that a rollback for everyone would maybe give you greater flexibility when it comes to placement and convenience of teeing grounds. It was actually while at Streamsong last week—being reminded on many holes how wonderful it is to just stroll off the green and right onto the next tee—where I had the impetus for this question.

Speaking of that, even though I had a hole in one at World Woods earlier in the week, #5 on Blue is some of the most fun I've ever had on a Par 3. You absolutely nailed that one and I could have stayed there all day. The crew also did a fantastic job mixing up the tee/hole placements on that and every hole over our multiple rounds. The variety was phenomenal. Kudos.