[Kevin_Reilly]

Here's what Frank Thomas said tonight on Golf Central's equipment q&a segment when asked by "Jim in San Diego" about whether advances in technology were making older courses obsolete:

Jim, you can rest assured that technology has come to an end when it comes to distance.  Average driver distance on Tour has leveled off at 287.  We are not looking at any increases in distance. Technology is coming to the point where we are not going to get any increases in distance because of technology itself.  Clubhead speed may increase, but not from technology.

That is a word for word transcription...don't blame me if some of the sentences sound circular...blame the speaker.

Just thought I'd let you non-technical GCAers know that your fears are unfounded.  At 287 average, no worries about drivable holes at Oakmont!

[TEPaul]

I hesitate to touch this thread because this subject can get so contentious and so opinionated, but I think I know precisely where Frank Thomas is coming from even if the way he explains it is quite easy for many to misinterpret. I've been lucky to have talked to Frank over the last 3-4 years about this subject and the details of it---I'd say perhaps for a total of a solid day or two over those years. Frank was and sometimes is seemingly slightly suspicious of why I asked him all I did but at other times he was remarkably forthcoming, open and non-defensive.

I like Frank a great deal, and like many still in the tech center from his tenure there I admire him too. He's such an interesting man with an outlook on this subject that was and apparenty still is roundly misunderstood by many from both within and without the USGA. First, one needs to understand where Frank Thomas was and is coming from on this subject. Frank has a fantastic scientific mind but by his own admission he was not a political operative either within or without the USGA during his 26 year tenure as the USGA Tech Director. Those sitll at the tech center who worked for him have tremendous respect for his scientific mind.

To understand where Frank took the USGA tech center it should be pointed out that when he got there (Frank came from South Africa) the USGA tech center was about the size of a three car garage. When Frank left 26 years later it was the mulit-million dollar facility it is today.

The other thing most don't seem to understand is the actual testing procedures and actual test mechanisms the USGA has always used and still does and the meaning of them. Frank monitored the design and construction of all of them. The USGA does not buy those things---they design and make them all. Most don't understand the importance of actual testing of I&B by the USGA---either actually or as to its legal ramifications in the decision making that results from them.

And lastly, for better or for worse, one needs to understand that for reasons seemingly beyond Frank's control those who he advised for various and sundry reasons basiclly decided not to listen to him well enough or his warning whether actual or implied or to fully understand what he was telling them about golf I&B technology and its impact on the future of the game.

Somewhat sadly, but with no apparent bitterness on his part, in my opinion, Frank said if he had it all to do over again he would learn how to be more politically savy, certainly from within the organization he worked for so long. He was a good messenger in a technical sense. What he realizes now he should've been better as a teacher and educator to those who were making the decisions of what to do and what not to do. Unfortunately for people in Frank's capacity even if you are able to educate those who make the decisions as soon as you've educated them they're gone and someone new takes their place who needs to be educated anew. That's just the nature of a "board" run organization like the USGA is and the R&A is.

Frank is most definitely no whimp in his opinions on I&B technology and early on that made him appear to be contentious from both without and particularly from within and in the end that got him fired.

In this business of I&B technology the type, design and actual testing equipment is far more of what this is all about than most everyone on here seems to understand. The reason it's more important than most understand is eventually what's decided technically (conforming or not) needs to have actual test backup information and explanation to inherently defend decisions in a legal sense.

The extent of Frank's optimization test and the rather odd history of what happened to it is an excellent microcosim of Frank Thomas's entire tenure as the USGA tech director in a most important time in golf I&B techology.

And lastly, those out there and in there who tend to unilaterally blame Frank Thomas for what happened with distance (and a few other things to do with technology in golf) in recent times simply do not understand this subject and issue and the history of it---there is no question of that at all.

In a real sense Frank Thomas and his tenure with the USGA is a classic example of that old saw---"Overlook the message and blame the messenger".

[Paul_Turner]

Good post Tom.

Frank has come to that conclusion because there's nothing left to optimise within the current constraints set by the USGA.  Someone

There are some factors that can't be tested for such as  pyschological ones.  With the current drivers hitting the ball straighter, are pros swinging at 100% power more often?  That's difficult to prove, because you have to rely on people's memories.  But again with the volume limit set for drivers, that has been optimised too.

For the posters who criticise Frank.  Which equipment/ball factor do you think should have been limited earlier?

[Brent Hutto]

For the posters who criticise Frank.  Which equipment/ball factor do you think should have been limited earlier?

Clearly, the ball test specification should have been updated years ago. They continued testing golf balls with a wooden driver head and moderate (by male Tour professional) clubhead speeds for what, nearly a decade after newer technology balls began replacing the old wound balatas on Tour?

They knew from decades of experience what happened when someone hit a wound balata ball at clubhead speeds substantially greater than their test setup. The ball would spin like hell and upshoot, limiting the effective distance gains while also imposing a sidespin penalty on slightly misstruck shots. So the moderate-speed test was adequate for that type of ball technology.

Frank Thomas or someone surely noticed that a Strata Tour Pro or, later, a ProV1 actually carries a lot farther when hit at 120mph than it does when hit at 100mph. And if it characteristic rebound time matches up well with a metal driver face it can go a ton farther. At that point, right then and there, they knew everything needed to reach the conclusion that driving distances on the PGA Tour and for big hitting good players in general were about to make a big jump that their testing regime did not take into account.

The question that mystifies me is why that critical five years or so was allowed to pass before the test was updated to realistic conditions. It was entirely possible from a technical perspective for us to be playing golf ball right now that perform no better than a late-90's Strata Tour Professional no matter how hard they are hit or with what kind of driver. To roll the specification back to that point now is going to prove politically impossible, IMO. They put their fingers in their ears and went "Nah, nah, nah, can't hear a thing" until it was too late to do anything about it.

In short, sticking with a crappy 60's vintage golf ball test spec for a decade into the three-piece urethane ball era was willfully shortsighted and a dereliction of responsibility.

[corey miller]

Why is it politically impossible to roll back the technology?  Let people use whatever equipment they want but roll back the ball.  The manufacturers will still sell the same amount of balls.

Baseball is certainly a better game with wooden bats.  The sport was getting out of control with metal bats, actully downright dangerous.  The quality of play went down because the NCAA game was like beer league softball.  That organization took action and rolled back the bat.  Now there is a minimum weight on a bat based upon length.  A 34 inch bat must weigh 31 ounces, a 33 inch must weigh 30 ounces. etc etc.  I believe the organization worked with the major manufacturers and we they are now back to 1980 standards.

I never thought I would say that the NCAA is more effective than any organization but.

[Paul_Turner]

Brent

They did test low spin balls:  Top Flights, Pinnacles...  And I don't think the new Pro VIs go any further than a surlyn ball from the 80s/90s:  Pinnacles etc.

[Tony Ristola]

During a debate only a few years ago, Frank Thomas stated there were still some distance gains to be had.  Guess he has changed his mind.

Quoting Corey:
Why is it politically impossible to roll back the technology?  Let people use whatever equipment they want but roll back the ball.  The manufacturers will still sell the same amount of balls.

Corey, I do not believe they would sell the same amount of balls. In fact, I think the manufacturers would get hammered in the long run.  If the ball were rolled back, which I hope for, there would be no marketing angle for longer balls...and every other angle for ball sales (spin, durability) would be moot. The Chinese could come in, use dimple patterns that have gone past the patent date like the Titliest 384 from 1980 (17 years), and pump out balls just as good as any major manufacturer.  They would win major market share among the masses, perhaps not with the better players, by driving prices down.  The ball would become a commodity competing on price alone.


Why is it politically impossible to roll back the technology?
Money. Titliest invested some 70 million on eurathene technology 4 or 5 years ago (one investment I heard about and believe I've remembered the number correctly)...you don't think the big boys would fight like hell to protect their interests? For them this roll-back talk has to be very, very uncomfortable.

It would be no surprise to see law suits flying if there were new ball rules...but regardless, as protectors of the game...I really do wonder what goes on at USGA and R&A HQ...

[Brent Hutto]

They did test low spin balls:  Top Flights, Pinnacles...  And I don't think the new Pro VIs go any further than a surlyn ball from the 80s/90s:  Pinnacles etc.

Perhaps so. However, they assumed that good players would not be hitting hard surlyn covered balls (which was correct) so it didn't particularly matter how far a Pinnacle could carry when hit at 120mph. The incorrect assumption was that unsuitability for good players and the ability to fly a long way without upshooting went hand in hand.

The ball manufacturers did a pretty good job of inventing novel technological means to circumvent a static set of regulations on performance. They in effect gamed the test. The correct response is to update the test in a timely manner when someone learns how to dodge it.

[Brent Hutto]

Tony,

The manufacturers would no doubt respond as you believe but remember it's driven by what the consumer wants.

I know that if the USGA ruled tomorrow that ball performance would be rolled back a few percent only a handful of the players I see every weekend at my club would comply. They all use the ProV1, they all believe they are hitting it a lot longer than they would with any other ball (not true, BTW) and if the USGA tried to "take away their ProV1" they'd just say the heck with the USGA.

Everybody wants distance. There is just enough truth in the golf ball vendors advertising about the new balls being longer that people believe it to be important. You're not going to get the club golfer to give up the thing he feels is letting him hit it longer.

Now just to be clear, the ProV1x balls that I find all the time in the rough or in the woods are not that far from the tee. Most of the guys in my club are ecstatic over the one or two drives per round that get out there 250+ yards (downhill, including roll). For those players the ProV1x is not an optimal ball and it's at best a single-digit number of yards longer for those guys than anything the USGA might come up with for a rollback. But they're paying four bucks a piece and hitting them into the woods in the belief that it makes them better players.

[Paul_Turner]

Perhaps so. However, they assumed that good players would not be hitting hard surlyn covered balls (which was correct) so it didn't particularly matter how far a Pinnacle could carry when hit at 120mph. The incorrect assumption was that unsuitability for good players and the ability to fly a long way without upshooting went hand in hand.

The ball manufacturers did a pretty good job of inventing novel technological means to circumvent a static set of regulations on performance. They in effect gamed the test. The correct response is to update the test in a timely manner when someone learns how to dodge it.

Brent

I guess it all depends how important you think the 10-15 yards gain is, for pros using a low spin ball.  Within the context of all players.

I don't think the manufacturers circumvented the test. They just optimised the ball.

I'm curious how the new proposed spin test will be implemented.

[A.G._Crockett]

A couple of thoughts:

1. The baseball analogy is a poor one at best.  The long-term health of baseball is about old, fat people WATCHING professional baseball, not PLAYING baseball.  The long-term health of golf is based NOT on watching the PGA Tour, but the same old, fat people that watch MLB PLAYING golf!  That brings a whole complex of variables into play in golf that just don't exist in baseball.  That's why a competition ball/bifurcation in golf is a vastly more complex and nuanced situation than the wood/aluminum bat issue.

2. If the PGA Tour has a problem, why don't they address it?  Why put that at the feet of the USGA entirely?  The USGA is such a convenient whipping boy in all of this, but the reality is that the Men's U.S. Open is the only USGA event in which there is a possible problem with distance.

3. The current ProVI generation of balls is still, even at 120 mph swing speeds, well within the ODS parameters that were in place and totally non-controversial for years.  RIGHT NOW, THE PROVI IS FAR FROM THE LONGEST BALL OUT THERE!  So again, it is a Tour problem.  

4. Granted, the USGA testing methods didn't keep pace with equipment changes, but how could they?  There was a "perfect storm" situation here; a booming economy, a booming golf industry, and booming availablity of new materials like urethanes and titanium.  The rule in technology advances is that they accelerate geometrically as one development leads to another.  It is really easy to look back now and say that it should have been done differently, but who among us saw the complete future in the late 90's?

[corey miller]

Is getting as many people as possible playing the sport the long-term mission of the USGA?  Or is it protecting the game?

If it is number of players playing, then we might as well have no standards at all.  The baseball analogy is appropriate in that you had a rules making, governing body working in concert with the equipment manufacturers for the betterment of the sport.  Wouldn't this be a good thing with FO and ELY and the USGA?

[Brent Hutto]

In the winter of 1998/1999 I had a talk (during a long car trip) with a buddy of mine who has an engineering background and is an enthusiastic student of golf equipment technology. The ideas I'm putting forth in this thread were introduced to me in that conversation. That includes the specific observation that the then-current ball test specification would be rendered obsolete by the new ability of manufacturers to produce Pinnacle-like ball speeds and driver spin rates combine with balata-like control on approach shots.

If my amateur friend noticed that in 1998 or earlier than I would think Frank Thomas was probably aware of it close to ten years ago.

[John Keenan]

I heard the discussion on The GC last night.

One thing I would like to know about is shaft technology. My guess is that it will improve far beyond the offerings today. Does the USGA look at shafts?

Technology really never ends. To say it has "maxed" out is most likley not true. Smart people finds ways to improve and change.

[Paul_Turner]

Technologies do end.  Or at least they come to a point of maturity where's there are only miniscule gains to be had.

How far a golf ball will fly is defined by Newton's laws within the constraints that the USGA have set.    

[John Keenan]

So shafts will not get better allowing for even more distance from a driver? The ball is just one part.

My money says we will see distance improve on the PGA year to year despite Mr Thomas remarks  

[Brent Hutto]

Well, with some experimental work and applied logic you can determine the theoretical maximum achievable under some set of assumptions. Careful choice of those assumptions will let you make a pretty confident statement about how far the ball will go at any given swing speed.

For instance, if you want to know what the maximum effect of a golf club shaft might be, you test a bunch of golfers to see what the weight-vs-clubhead speed and flex-vs-clubhead speed curve looks like. Then you extend that curve to a perfectly weightless shaft with ideal flex characteristics (whatever that turns out to be) and you'll thereby compute the theoretical maximum effect that lighter or differently flexing shafts can have.

For any parameter that seems to have an open-ended influence on how far the ball travels, as opposed to a point of diminishing returns, you legislate a limit in your equipment specifications. For example, a ball that springs off the club face more strongly always results in more distance so there is a restriction in the golf ball rules on how much the ball can spring off the club. (Note that in the past that restrictions has been spelled out only for a certain designated clubhead speed, a shortcut that I'm told has been corrected in the newest ball specification from USGA).

So what I'm saying is that Frank Thomas is entirely capable of calculating the likely maximum carry distance possible under the current golf ball conformance rules at any given clubhead speed. There is a point beyond which you either have to swing the club faster or use a springier club/ball combination in order to gain more distance. I tend to believe that he's correct in implying that Tiger Woods or Vijay Singh can get within a handful of yards of that maximum achievable carry distance for their swing speeds.

The three problems I can forsee are:

1) Somebody who is probably three years old right now is going to grow up and be able to swing the club 10% faster than Tiger or Vijay. The question is, will that ability become the norm in 20 years time.

2) I am not convinced that the current ball testing procedure is immune to being further gamed by the manufacturers in a way that gets springier ball/club combinations while still meeting the letter of the test.

3) The big problem as most people on this forum see it is that even if distance has levelled off right now in 2005 that new distance norm changes the game as played on several generations of great golf courses into one that is much less interesting to play or watch.

[Paul_Turner]

We may well see an increase, but I thinkdue to the players not equipment.

The shafts are optimised in terms of weight which is by far the most important factor for a shaft (in terms of clubhead speed).  You can extrapolate for a theoretical weightless shaft but it doesn't gain you much.  The shaft length is limited because the difficulty in turning the club is proportional to the square of its length (moment of inertia).

Once in a while you here claims about special flexes in shafts that supposedly gain distance.  But those claims soon disappear as latest fad.

[Kevin_Reilly]

I heard the discussion on The GC last night.

Did you also hear him miss the point on the previous question on "cheater lines" on balls...the viewer asked why such lines were allowed, and Frank went off on the wrong direction...giving examples of different types of lines and marks.  Also gave him a chance to plug "Ask Frank" as a ball mark.

[Pete Lavallee]

The shafts are optimised in terms of weight which is by far the most important factor for a shaft (in terms of clubhead speed).  

Tiger and Vijay both use a rather heavy shaft right now; presumably because it is the only one capable of resisting the enourmous torque their swing speeds produce. If shaft manufactuerers were able to provide these characteristics in a shaft that was 30 grams lighter, wouldn't this lead to a significant increase in both swing speed and distance for the Tour's longest hitters?

[Brent Hutto]

Pete,

I don't have my books with me but the answer is that a club 30g lighter would generally result in a faster clubhead speed although how much is player-dependent. However, over the range from heavy steel shafts to quite light graphite ones it tends to be a few (maybe 4-5) miles per hour if the length is kept constant, if I recall correctly. Of course, lighter means you can build the club longer and still swing it too so there's almost certainly a few percent in play with a superlight, stiff unobtainium shaft.

[Paul_Turner]

Pete

I have data to hand that states a 30 g reduction in shaft weight results in only a 2-3 yard gain.

[John Keenan]

Kevin

I did hear the commnet on cheater lines and my first thought was Shivas ware you when we need you!!

Agreed he really did not answer the question butrather showed some unique markings

[Craig Sweet]

The PGA Tour and the USGA are collecting the data from Shotlink and have said they will use actual data, and not emotion, and assumptions to determine the next step.

I understand that Shotlink tracks EVERY shot taken at every tour stop.

[George Pazin]

That's all well and good, Craig, but to accept that, one needs to have full faith in the parties making the final decisions.

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