[DMoriarty]

Dave

I find this statement astonishing.  I immediately become suspicious of people who claim they know what is best for me.  Sort of like those guys on gc comms. who make up rules which conveniently fit their view of the world and how it should be.  

If you find that statement astonishing, I've got more for you.  The USGA and the R&A have been making the rules and placing limits on the equipmentfor quite a while now, without following popular vote.  So if you play by the rules then indeed someone else has decided what is best for you.  This isnt government, it is a game.  

Equipment companies will find ways around these caps, unless of course someone says "the ball is not allowed to carry more than a certain distance".  I hope that day never comes.  

More shocking news . . . the rules already say such a thing.  The USGA and R&A just failed to react when equipment manufacturers started circumventing the spirit of the rule.  

If they so chose, the USGA could make effective rules to control technology.  It has happened in many if not most sports.  

What makes you think these boneheads at country clubs are going to stop messing around with THEIR courses?  These country club types have been changing their courses practically since the day they were built.  Sometimes for the better, sometimes not.  It doesn't matter because every successive comm. that comes in wants to leave a legacy and holding status quo isn't particularly recognized as a legacy.

One cannot control this, but the "boneheads" will lose a big incentive to make some of the changes they make, and new course boneheads will have much less reason to design and build the way they do.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Pat, I guess I am not sure what your motivations are for playing.  You claim now that they are: score, ego, money and tournaments.

Yet, 2 weeks ago, you talked at length about the joy of playing, of interfacing with the architecture.

Since when are the above two statements mutually exclusive ?

If I bet you that I can get a ball from one end of one football field, into a 4 1/4 inch cup at the other end of a football field, five fields removed, in fewer strokes than you, that produces an inherent challenge and a natural competition, with or without money, with or without trophies.

Or, if I try, over and over again, to get the ball from point A to point B in the fewest strokes possible, that's an inherent challenge and an internal competition, ergo, ego.

If someone makes the inherent challenge more interesting by inserting or creating features on that field to thwart my efforts, then it's my duty to navigate those features as best I can in order to get from Point A to Point B in the fewest strokes possibe.

Hence, interfacing with the architecture, while at the same time trying to achieve the goal of going from Point A to Point B in the fewest strokes possible, are in perfect harmony with one another.

And, if you tell me that shooting the lowest possible score on every hole, and collectively, isn't your goal, then you're being disengenuous.[/color]
 
If score, ego and money are your motivations as you claim, then really, what difference does it make if you "ignore the architecture"?  

Because it's the ARCHITECTURE that ENHANCES the inherent challenge[/COLOR]

As long as you win, your ego gets stroked and your wallet swells (talk about mental masturbation!).  Heck, you should be happy!  By your own words, a few quid is more important to you then the architecture and the joy you spoke of 2 weeks ago.  

I NEVER said "more important"  those are your words.
A critical part of golf, which you may not be aware of is called, "course management"

It's how a player strategizes and interfaces with the architecture in order to produce the lowest score prudently possible.[/color]

I suspect you have a number of friends who agree with, no?

Only Ran Morrissett.[/color]

If so, do you ever all go play and compete with older equipment, garnering the best of both worlds?

NO.[/color]

If not, I have to wonder why

For the same reason that I don't sleep with old girlfriends.[/color]

this is the point that you and everyone else on the distance bandwagon constatntly miss.

Actually, I am not on that bandwagon. I am not sure where I stand yet. But I am not at all swayed by the positions I have heard hear yet.  I can only go by what my own lying eyes tell me, and that is I have not gotten appreciably longer in the last 10 years, and neither have my friends.

The fact that you haven't gotten shorter, despite aging ten years is just as telling.[/color]
 
Pat, OT to this, but how long is it to carry it past the bunker echelon on the Bottle?

There are conflicting answers.

I believe the hole was recently remeasured and it measured far shorter than the yardage that appeared on the scorecard, which was 424 from the back tee.  I forget the remeasured distance, but, I believe it's close to 400 yards.

In addition, Golfplans yardage book appears to reinforce my conflicting measurements theory.

Their book shows the carry of the center string bunkers at 230-5 yards, yet, the distance from the last center string bunker to the center of the green is 155 yards, which would mean, on a 424 yard hole, that the carry would be 269 yards.

My guess is, to carry it a yard past the last center string bunker complex, is about 235 yards, but, it's slightly uphill, and usually into a prevailing wind.  In addition, the air tends to be heavy.

One of my objectives on my next trip to NGLA is to measure the distance from the back of the current back tee, and to revisit the wisdom of moving the 7th tee back to a berm that's about 20 or so yards behind the current tee.[/color]

[TEPaul]

"Quote:
Equipment companies will find ways around these caps, unless of course someone says "the ball is not allowed to carry more than a certain distance".  I hope that day never comes.  
 

"More shocking news . . . the rules already say such a thing.  The USGA and R&A just failed to react when equipment manufacturers started circumventing the spirit of the rule."

David:

That is not exactly the case. The old Overall Distance Standard had a swing speed protocol of 109mph to test for ball conformance and the new Overall Distance Standard has a swing speed protocol of 122mph to test for ball conformance. Both ODSs at their respective swing speed protocols can be translated into an actual distance limit which essentially is the ball conformance pass/fail line.

This does not mean that the USGA Tech Center thought that noone swung faster than 109mph under the old ODS and it does not mean they think noone swings faster than 122mph under the new ODS. In other words the ODS does not determine some distance limit (carry or otherwise) that noone can hit a ball beyond without that ball being deemed non-conforming. So there really is not such a thing that says a ball is not allowed to carry (or go) more than a certain distance except in the USGA's ODS ball conformance test.

For instance, that you man from Nebraskaa, Long John Hurley, was recorded at the US Amateur as having a ball speed of 193mph which was the highest ball speed they've ever seen in person. That ball speed translates to a swing speed of app. 133mph, and there is nothing either illegal or circumventing of the spirit of the USGA/R&A I&B rules about it.

[DMoriarty]

Tom, I realize this but also suspect that when the USGA set the distance limit for 109 that they thought this would also act as a relative control on swing speeds above 109.   The USGA knew the ball would go incrimentally further as the speed increased, but the manufacturers came up with balls that  gave explosive benefits at above 109.  I dont think that the USGA anticipated this.    

Also, when the USGA set the limit at 109, I do not think that they anticipated new equipment which would remain stable and consistently produce acceptable results at the kinds of swingspeeds we are seeing today.  

[Michael Moore]

Here are some measurements for the eighth hole at the National Golf Links of America, taken from the middle of the tee box. Add fourteen yards for distances from the very back of the tee box.

It seems to me that there are plenty of bunkers here to challenge every sort of golfer. Nice hole!

[Doug Siebert]

Doug, first of all I would STILL have to be able to EXECUTE. You do not shot 66 solely because of equipment.

The game still requires the ability to putt and chip. The game still requires a consistant, solid swing.

I get the impression that 99% of the "anti-new technology" people think everyone hits the ball 350 yards and straight as an arrow when they pick up a Nike golf ball and the SQ driver.

Do you seriously think that you and I (and I have no idea how good a golfer you are) could play Pine Valley, Merion, AGNC, or any other classic course and render it obsolete? I doubt it.

Craig [and Brent]

First of all, my example to do with equipment that would let you shoot 66 was a hypothetical.  I'm not suggesting such a thing is possible.  It was just a response to you saying that hitting it further and straighter is fun, and by extension that technology improvements are good.  So would technology that let you score lower (which is really the end goal of competitive golf) also be a good thing to you?  I mean, it'd be fun to shoot 66, right, but would shooting 66 mean anything if the skill required wasn't anything like what it is today?

Think about it this way.  You say you still have to EXECUTE, that's fine.  Well, 25 years ago hitting a persimmon driver into a 25 mph wind with whatever ball available then you cared to play, the requirements on EXECUTION were far higher than they are today with a modern driver and modern ball in the exact same conditions.  Hopefully you agree with that (if not, don't bother reading further, because there's no hope for you )  So unquestionably, the need for EXECUTION has been reduced, in at least this one aspect of the game.

Now I'm not suggesting that any possible technology, even if the USGA eliminated all rules about equipment design, could make me shoot 66 on PV with my game, that's way too much to ask for a mid single digit handicap.  But if, hypothetically, that was possible, do you think it would be a good thing?

Now if Tiger was then shooting 55 with the same equipment, he'd still be much better than me, so is improved technology reducing the need to EXECUTE okay with you if it reduces the skill requirement for everyone by an equal amount?  What if it only helped Tiger get down to 62, so that if I caught him on a good day for me and a bad day for him, I could beat him?  Surely every golfer in the world would have to agree that would be an intolerable situation that would truly be the ruination of the game!

I'm stunned at Brent Hutto's response to my earlier post, and I'm hoping I've misread it.  Otherwise I think there's no hope for the poor guy, and he certainly must have missed the irony in the Twilight Zone plot summary I posted after it

[Bryan Izatt]

So many assertions based on what data?

Pat,

"The fact that you haven't gotten shorter, despite aging ten years"

Do you have data to support the deterioration of distance by each year of aging, absent of technology change?  Is it linear degradation from some peak point?  Or exponential?

Dave,

"the manufacturers came up with balls that  gave explosive benefits at above 109"

Can you point me to some data that relates carry distance to ball speed to clubhead speed up to and above 109?  Does it get increasingly better as you go higher?  Is going from 130 to 135 better than 120 to 125?  Where's the data?

[TEPaul]

"Tom, I realize this but also suspect that when the USGA set the distance limit for 109 that they thought this would also act as a relative control on swing speeds above 109."

David:

I don't know what you mean when you say the USGA thought 109mph would also act as a relative control on swing speeds above 109.

I've had quite a lot of discussions on the ODS and ball conformance testing with the USGA Tech Center and Frank Thomas in the last few years and I've never heard any of them say anything like that. 109mph was basically just a swing speed they picked to test for the conformance of golf balls. Technically it could have been almost anything---ex 92mph or 122mph. They simply needed a swing speed protocol or baseline to plug their five ball limitation (ball rules and regs) factors into to test for ball conformance. I actually asked Frank Thomas why he picked 109mph instead of something else when they set up the ODS many years ago. He said because it seemed high enough and while he realized some golfers might swing faster than that he felt the amount of them was not significant. In 1976 he was probably right about that. Nevertheless that number was merely a factor picked as a baseline for “pass/fail” determination on golf ball conformance. Again, it could’ve been almost anything if one assumes a straight-line distance effect as MPH increases and decreases from that number.

"The USGA knew the ball would go incrimentally further as the speed increased, but the manufacturers came up with balls that gave explosive benefits at above 109.  I dont think that the USGA anticipated this."

Actually, I doubt the USGA or anyone else knew the ball would go incrementally further as the swing speed increased. Everyone may've assumed that back then but I do not believe anyone, manufacturers or the USGA Tech Center ever tested to determine if that was true or not.

In my opinion, the first time the USGA may've begun to suspect an increase in swing speed produced something other than a relative percentage increase in distance is when they saw Davis Love at the Walker Cup in 1985. My recollection is they thought to actually test him in this vein to try to see if there was some anomaly to straight-line distance increase but for whatever reason that didn't happen with Love.

You mention 'explosive benefits above 109mph'. I know what you're implying and there are some who suspect that but I do not believe that has been technically proven by anyone, manufacturers, USGA Tech Center or anyone else.

There're a number of factors in the last 15-20 years that may make that appear to be the case but I don't believe anything like that has been technically proven. But if one wants to find out whether that's true of false I could always just ask the Tech Center. Known realities in physics and performance from previous testing they seem willing to talk about. What they tend not to want to discuss is performance speculation they have not been able to test for or technically determine.

You mention the USGA did not anticipate this. There are a few things that they now believe contributed to this distance increase that going back perhaps 15-20 years they did not anticipate. Those things are basically the effects of "spring like effect" (an increase in COR), the creation of a golf ball that had a combination of the distance characteristics of the two-piece hard ball and the soft feel of the old three-piece soft ball, and the creation of so-called "optimization" testing.

I have never seen any statistical data on it (because it may not exist) but the thinking is the old high spinning three piece soft balls that almost every good player in the world used may not have been that close to the ODS "pass/fail" ball conformance line as were the two-piece hard balls (that almost no good and long players ever used).

One of the reasons neither the USGA Tech Center, nor the manufacturers nor anyone else may have anticipated these things is because no one can look into the future and determine exact performance characteristics without first creating a test mechanism, a test procedure and then actually testing for something relating to ball (or club) performance  

This entire subject of club and particularly ball performance to people like us is merely about distance results---sometimes speculative and sometimes reliable statistical data.

The USGA doesn't exactly look at it just that way. To them this subject is all about testing and the tests they use and the results and data they determine from that testing. In the world of I&B regulation this must come first. Some people seem to overlook this necessary fact or just aren’t aware of it. The thing most of us never think about when it comes to the USGA Tech Center is to determine performance results either at the present time or perhaps in the future they have to actually design and make test mechanisms and test procedures themselves. There is no place they can buy these test mechanisms and test procedures. To them all of this is about testing and better testing. If one goes to the USGA Tech Center one can see a virtual junk yard of old and obsolete test mechanisms in a storeroom.

If the test mechanisms and procedures are not adequate to test some new wrinkle that comes down the R& D pipeline at them they have to create it, otherwise they can’t make an accurate determination of conformance and consequently can’t very well deem something non-conforming.

Their ability to monitor and regulate I&B is and has been only as good as their tests, and in the past they’ve had to play catch-up because things come at them that no one understands the performance reasons for very well because they have not been able to test for them.

And so this is why in 2002 the USGA allocated app $10 million to test for practically ever performance characteristic of a golf ball anyone could think of. And this is why Jim Vernon mentioned at the USGA annual meeting last week in his “Equipment Standards” report that the USGA may now know more about ball performance and potential ball performance than anyone, including the manufacturers. The USGA is apparently nearing the end of that $10 million ball performance study. This is their way of staying up with what might come down the R&D pipeline at them so they can better anticipate what the distance effects will be in the future.

Most of us on here seem to just look at some of these things in retrospect and then blame the USGA for not anticipating something. Unfortunately, in their world of I&B testing they don't have that luxury.

[Patrick_Mucci]

So many assertions based on what data?

Pat,

"The fact that you haven't gotten shorter, despite aging ten years"

Do you have data to support the deterioration of distance by each year of aging, absent of technology change?  
YES

I watched my Father and his generation, including some exceptional players, year after year, for 30 years, as their distance eroded.

Until, the metal wood and the Pinnacle ball came on the scene.  Then there was an immediate jump, a recapturing of some of their lost distance.

Now let me think, was that the same year they all got their
B-12 shots, or was that the year El Nino swept in from the west, or both ? [/color]

Is it linear degradation from some peak point?  Or exponential?

It varies, but, the trend is undeniable.
For some it's linear, for others it's more sporadic.
But, relentlessly, the trend continues in but one direction.

When I see amateurs, in their mid 50's and 60's hitting the ball farther then Hogan, Nelson, Snead, Palmer and Nicklaus did in their prime, it should tell you something, unless of course, you're in denial.[/color]

[Patrick_Mucci]

Here are some measurements for the eighth hole at the National Golf Links of America, taken from the middle of the tee box. Add fourteen yards for distances from the very back of the tee box.

How were the measurements arrived at ?[/color]

It seems to me that there are plenty of bunkers here to challenge every sort of golfer.

Not when Tiger Woods and others merely take an iron and place the ball between the centerline bunker complex and the Principal's Nose bunker complex and hit a sand wedge to the green.[/color]

Nice hole!

NO, it's a great hole.
One that will benefit from about 20 or so more yards at the tee.

It's unfortunate that photos don't always capture the topography, there's a nice cant to the fairway, from high left to low right, and a general uphill nature to the centerline bunker complex area.[/color]

[Sean_A]

Dave
quote]What makes you think these boneheads at country clubs are going to stop messing around with THEIR courses?  These country club types have been changing their courses practically since the day they were built.  Sometimes for the better, sometimes not.  It doesn't matter because every successive comm. that comes in wants to leave a legacy and holding status quo isn't particularly recognized as a legacy.

One cannot control this, but the "boneheads" will lose a big incentive to make some of the changes they make, and new course boneheads will have much less reason to design and build the way they do.

Dave

There you have it.  The USGA, the tours nor the punter can be blamed for clubs altering their classic courses.  The main reason courses get altered is because members have the power to do so.  When people have power they tend to use it.  Distance is not to be blamed either.  It is the memberships' reaction to distance which has altered courses.  

As for new courses, there is a guy paying the bills and I suspect that guy will try and build what he perceives the public want or what he can convince the public to find desirable.  The newest and best are the main criteria in the world of advertising.  True, yardage is seen as one of the markers of newest and best, but there are other factors as well.  

Ciao

Sean

[Patrick_Mucci]

Sean,

You're missing the point.

What's the motivation behind the members exercising their power to do so ?

[Andy Hughes]

If not, I have to wonder why
For the same reason that I don't sleep with old girlfriends.

Not sure I follow.  Either you and your friends don't play golf in a way you enjoy because:
1. you prefer sleeping with young girlfriends, or
2. because your wife might get angry?

Actually, I am not on that bandwagon. I am not sure where I stand yet. But I am not at all swayed by the positions I have heard hear yet.  I can only go by what my own lying eyes tell me, and that is I have not gotten appreciably longer in the last 10 years, and neither have my friends.
The fact that you haven't gotten shorter, despite aging ten years is just as telling.

Perhaps. I have gone from 30 to 40 in those years, and while I play far less I am not sure I would have expected to lose much distance in those years.

It seems to me that there are plenty of bunkers here to challenge every sort of golfer.
Not when Tiger Woods and others merely take an iron and place the ball between the centerline bunker complex and the Principal's Nose bunker complex and hit a sand wedge to the green.

This kinda gets to the heart of things a bit.  From what you (and now Michael) have described, it takes a 250 yard drive, up the hill and into the prevailing wind just to barely clear the last bunker in the echelon. Now, maybe Tiger can hit an iron that far, but he's among the longest players on tour. And he was long 10 years ago as well, so I don't believe we can say its only 2006 equipment that enables him to hit it far.
So I again am left to wonder how this really effects the members, and why what one of the longest players on Tour is capable of potentially doing should any impact on the huge preponderance of members who happen not to hit the ball as well or as long as Woods.
Were the longest members not able to hit past that bunker 10 years ago, and now they can do so with ease?
I guess I am not really clear where the line is.

[Andy Hughes]

Here are some measurements for the eighth hole at the National Golf Links of America, taken from the middle of the tee box. Add fourteen yards for distances from the very back of the tee box.

Michael, if you don't mind my asking, how'd you do that with the picture and the precise measurements?

[Michael Moore]

Michael, if you don't mind my asking, how'd you do that with the picture and the precise measurements?

The photo and the measurements are courtesy of the State of New York.

I am rolling out some yardage books this spring with this very look and feel. In the very near future my website will be up will all the details.

I look forward to constructive criticism from the members of this site.

[Brent Hutto]

I've had quite a lot of discussions on the ODS and ball conformance testing with the USGA Tech Center and Frank Thomas in the last few years and I've never heard any of them say anything like that. 109mph was basically just a swing speed they picked to test for the conformance of golf balls. Technically it could have been almost anything---ex 92mph or 122mph. They simply needed a swing speed protocol or baseline to plug their five ball limitation (ball rules and regs) factors into to test for ball conformance. I actually asked Frank Thomas why he picked 109mph instead of something else when they set up the ODS many years ago. He said because it seemed high enough and while he realized some golfers might swing faster than that he felt the amount of them was not significant. In 1976 he was probably right about that. Nevertheless that number was merely a factor picked as a baseline for “pass/fail” determination on golf ball conformance. Again, it could’ve been almost anything if one assumes a straight-line distance effect as MPH increases and decreases from that number.

Tom,

I share your hope that the USGA Tech folks will get it right in the future. Heck, I hope they figure it out in the next two or three years which to their thinking is probably ridiculously soon. But for decades they indulged themselves in an unexamined assumption that to anyone who understands measurement is just huge. Yes, it is simple to just pick a more or less arbitrary single calibration point. And yes if golf ball construction doesn't undergo any major changes that will serve to limit distance for all golfers. And yes that worked for years and years.

But then "all of a sudden" (and it wasn't really that sudden in modern technology terms, taking a decade or more) that assumption didn't hold. It became almost laughably easy to design golf balls that met the ODS (as defined by its testing protocol) while rewarding high clubhead speeds and modern driver with significant distance gains. And so far the USGA has done nothing beyond changing their arbitrary single calibration point to a slightly higher arbitrary single calibration point and then studying the problem to death for several more years.

Surely this makes it clear why many of us just plain old don't believe them when they say they'll have the problem under control Real Soon Now. Not to say that Frank Thomas and the others weren't bright, industrious fellows. I'm sure they were and are. But for whatever political or institutional or just plain crazy reasons these bright fellows have acted resolutely clueless for more than a decade. Some sort of effective action will have to be demonstrated before I personally believe that they are capable of regulating the distance of the ball.

I sympathize completely with the bind they've put themselves in. In today's legal, political and cultural climate I don't really think they have a prayer in hell of setting a standard that makes any current ball non-conforming. So for starters they have to concede every overstepping of the intent of the ball rules that has been done in the past. Every year they delay just results in more distance being built into golf balls that will ultimately have to be grandfathered in. My guess is they  intend to create de facto bifurcation by suggesting some sort of "local rule" or equivalent for use in high-level competition and professional tournaments specifying a high spin golf ball. Then at the same time they'll implement a more rational testing protocol to try and cap overall distance at the "current" (which will end up being c. 2008 or whatever) levels. But maybe they have a much better trick up their sleeve, we'll see. One day.

[Brent Hutto]

I'm stunned at Brent Hutto's response to my earlier post, and I'm hoping I've misread it.  Otherwise I think there's no hope for the poor guy, and he certainly must have missed the irony in the Twilight Zone plot summary I posted after it

I say, I say, son...I must be built too low to the ground...that one went right over my haid...

[TEPaul]

"I sympathize completely with the bind they've put themselves in. In today's legal, political and cultural climate I don't really think they have a prayer in hell of setting a standard that makes any current ball non-conforming. So for starters they have to concede every overstepping of the intent of the ball rules that has been done in the past."

Brent:

Personally, I don't think you have a very good grasp of either why what happened with distance did happen or what the USGA/R&A may do about it if they institute or legislate new I&B rules and regs for MOI, spin generation, or ball distance performance which they are now talking about perhaps doing.

For instance, they have asked the manufacturers to submit samples of a prototype ball that will travel either 15 or 25 yards less far. Less far than what? Probably less far off the present ODS test procedure.

If they do adopt that performance with new ball rules and regs of course that will render almost any ball on the market and in use today as non-conforming.

So how do they bring such a new ball into use and take the old non-conforming balls out of use? The same way they brought the big ball in and took the old small ball out, or the same way they took out the old Eye2 production or the same way they plan to take .086 COR drivers out of use.

Furthermore, it really wasn't Thomas and the Tech Center that missed the boat and didn't anticipate why this distance spike happened it was basically the boards of the USGA and the R&A who refused to vote for many of the things Thomas and the Tech Center recommended way back when such as capping COR at the COR of the face of a persimmon driver (.078 or .079), or legislating in some way against this new age ball or Thomas's design and creation of the USGA "optimization" test which the USGA initially touted to great fanfare and eventually ended up dropping just about the same time they dropped Thomas too. Those recommendations are part of the record.

If you ask me, what happened with Thomas was a basic case of killing the messanger. If you don't know it it really isn't the Tech Center that makes I&B policy---although it is them who recommend what that policy should be. The ones who actually make policy is the app 30-35 members of the Boards of the R&A and USGA. If they decide not to adopt the recommendations of a guy like Thomas and the USGA Tech Center then obviously things can go awry as they did.

Why didn't they vote to adopt entirely what he and the Tech Center were recommending back then? It's pretty obvious, isn't it, they were apparently more inclined to listen to the lawyers who probably convinced them the risk of being sued was too great.

But again, just because things played out as they did in the last 10-15 years does not mean they have to stick with these distances. If that were true then why do you suppose in April they asked all the manufacturers to submit prototype sample balls that go 15 yards and 25 yards less far?

[DMoriarty]

"the manufacturers came up with balls that  gave explosive benefits at above 109"

Can you point me to some data that relates carry distance to ball speed to clubhead speed up to and above 109?  Does it get increasingly better as you go higher?  Is going from 130 to 135 better than 120 to 125?  Where's the data?

Yes, I can point you to the data.  Take a look at the the distance increases on tour which took place in 2003, sort by ball use and you will see that there is a correlation between use of the ProV1x and significant gain.  Then sort the ProV1x users by swing speed and you will see those with faster swing speeds gained significantly more than those without.  In fact those with slower swing speeds (below 109) gained very little or, while those with faster swing speeds gained a disproportionate amount.  

Or you can look at statements of those with high swingspeeds who hit the ProV1x, such as Ernie Els or Phil Mickelson.  They will explain that there is little benefit to the ball with an easy, slower swing, but when one increases the swing speed, the results are explosive.  

It is a matter of optimizing ball performance to a swing speed higher than 109.

[Craig Sweet]

TEPAUL

Are you suggesting that any change in the distance coming from the ball will be implemented across the board...from the pro's right down to the 30 handicapper?

Does the USGA have any data that would warrant implementing a ball roll back at all levels of play, or would that be an effort to have uniformity?

Please tell if I am wrong, but now more than ever, a good case can be made for admitting that the pro's play a game that is much different than the game you and I play and they need their own set of rules/regs, and, perhaps, their own tracks to play on.

Increasingly the PGA tour is becoming more like NASCAR and maybe that is a good thing....so why not take that to its ultimate conclusion.

[Brent Hutto]

Tom,

The details you relate fall into what I referred to as "...whatever political or institutional or just plain crazy reasons..." because as I said there's no reason to believe the technical staff or Frank in particular were dummies.

As for why do I think they asked for some reduced-distance balls to be produced, I think they are going to be forced into some sort of de facto bifurcation although I don't think they or the R&A will choose to introduce it using that loaded term. I think they want to (this time) thoroughly cover their bases and make sure if they promulgate a specification for a reduced-performance competition ball that the manufacturers don't come up with an end run around the spec and come out with a ProV1-like ball a few years down the road.

I just don't see any way to get the golfing publc (and the people who market equipment to us) to give up any noticable distance at all at this point in the game. Personally, if a year from now our choices ranged from a 1995-era Titleist Professional clone for a "control" ball up to something similar to a current Noodle for a "straight distance" ball that would be just fine and dandy. I think I'd be in the minority though.

[TEPaul]

"Does it get increasingly better as you go higher?  Is going from 130 to 135 better than 120 to 125?  Where's the data?"

David:

This is the question. In other words is the percentage distance increase basically matched by the percentage swing speed increase or is there a much greater percentage distance increase when swing speed, for instance, increases by .038% from 130 to 135? The latter could probably be considered an explosive effect or something other than a straight-line effect, and I don't know that that is necessarily true although I'm quite sure the USGA Tech Center would and I can call and ask. Clearly the USGA's Tech Center has more reliable ball performance data than you do by just looking through published tour driving distance stats. Or do you think the USGA Tech Center has not yet figured out they too can look at and analyze tour driving distance stats?  

I think a lot of this has to do with spin rate. I don't know how old you are or if you remember seeing in person (you couldn't see it on TV) a power hitter like Nicklaus or Love about 20 years ago when they really pounded a high spinning ball (the kind they used back then). It seems like the harder they hit it the more the ball would stay down for a certain distance before climbing like a Lear jet. These new lower spinning new age balls do not do that---they launch much higher much quicker and that is the real distance trajectory. The flat initial trajectory of the old high spinning balls is a good distance trajectory.

In other words if a power hitter like Nicklaus or Love hit one of the old low spinning two piece rocks 20 years ago they'd probably get the same basic trajectory they do with these new age balls.

It's all about spin rate. In the old days no good players ever used low spinning golf balls because they felt way too hard around the greens.

[SL_Solow]

Brett;  I have had conversations with counsel to the USGA on matters related to this issue and I have played golf with Frank Thomas.  They are not dummies as you noted but they candidly admit that they were mistaken on this one.  The phenomenon that Dave Moriarty discusses, the fact that the current ball creates exponentially greater distance increases as swing speeds exceed certain very high levels was not anticipated.  As such, when the 109 mph standard was used, it was expected that distance would increase as swing speed increased (assuming square contact) but not at the increased rate.  That unanticipated consequence of the new technology is the largest factor in the extraordinary increases in distance over the last several years and is the motivating factor behind the USGA's interest in a possible rollback.  Interestingly, if they can limit the synergy previously discussed, the rollback should have a greater effect on the most powerful player with a commensurate lesser effect on others.  There is no question that the ball is longer for everyone but the greatest increases even when measured on a proportional basis are at the highest level.  This is quite different from prior advances in ball technology.

[TEPaul]

Sheldon:

One way to accomplish what you just said there is for the regulatory bodies to legislate a limitation on the minimum spin rate of the golf ball, at least for instance off a driver face.

Heretofore, the regulatory bodies have never considered regulating or limiiting the spin rate of a golf ball or at least they've never done that.

[SL_Solow]

Tom; I agree that the spin approach should be explored

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