A Golden Age ball?

[Peter Wagner]

Chuck Brown brought up an idea on another thread:

Should there be a yellow Golden Age ball for great but short-ish courses?

(I'd make the shorter ball yellow so players could identify each other.)

[Phil_the_Author]

Peter, you evidently haven't seen how far I hit, or in this case, don't hit the ball! 

[Peter Wagner]

In thinking about it a little longer, does it boil down to getting clubs to adopt an optional lower distance ball and getting the course re-rated with that ball from all tees?

Would this lead to players carrying two handicaps?

[Tony_Chapman]

In thinking about it a little longer, does it boil down to getting clubs to adopt an optional lower distance ball and getting the course re-rated with that ball from all tees?

Would this lead to players carrying two handicaps?

Peter -- I don't see why you'd need two handicaps, if there are separate rankings and slope you just enter those figures with whatever ball you played and post the score that way.

[Dan King]

I don't know why you'd have to paint the ball. It should be fairly obvious which one is made with gutty.

If you go back to the earlier Golden Age, it would be the ball that is leather and stuffed with feathers.

Cheers,
Dan King

Bah, That thing'll never flee.
 --Allan Robertson (on hitting a gutty ball for the first time)

[Lou_Duran]

Peter,

The arms race issue is one to a very tiny minority.  Even the resident luddites on gca.com aren't such purists when it comes to their own game.

I remember the Pajaro Valley round at the KPII where I thought we had agreed to play with pre-space age equipment.  I show up with an old Power-Bilt Citation persimmon driver, a Power-Bilt laminated 5-wood, four Hogan Apex blade irons and sandwedge, an Otey Crisman wooden-shafted putter, and a few yellowed Titleist Professional 100 balls.  Fortunately, my sweet-swinging partner didn't fall for that nonesense as our fourball opponents apparently didn't get the memo.

I think I still have a dozen or so old Titleist balatas around.  If you want them, I'll send them up and you and your friends can have at it from the front tees.  I doubt that you'll enjoy the experience and I am about 99.9% certain that you will not get any takers among your members.

For the most part, the problem is with the touring pros.  Let them play an abbreviated ball in their tournaments.  It would be great fun to watch them hit the golf balls I use at the Costa Mesa Country Club municipal driving range. 

[Peter Wagner]

Peter -- I don't see why you'd need two handicaps, if there are separate rankings and slope you just enter those figures with whatever ball you played and post the score that way.

Tony,
I think you are right.  If the course is re-rated with a new slope then from a handicap system standpoint it's as if you played a different course.

I still think you would need some way of easily identifying the low distance ball to avoid cheating and to help players remember to adjust their thinking mid-round.

I would think this would be just fine with the USGA as everything would conform with existing rules and it would get the anti-distance guys off their backs.  Players would have the option or either ball so they are fine, and the shorter Golden Age clubs are happy because they would be promoting the use of the new ball while avoiding the expense of lengthening the course.

One possible hurdle would be to convince at least one manufacturer to create a golf ball that NEVER got any better.  Strangely, they would be in the business of lessening the balls distance as club technology advances over the years.  Wow - de-engineering!

- Peter

[Peter Wagner]

Lou,

Most likely you are right.  As usual I'm probably headed in the wrong direction... again.

Peter

[Chuck Brown]

I hope that none of the cognoscenti at GCA think that I stole the idea.  Geoff Shackelford certainly gets credit -- he discusses a "classic course ball" in his must-read "The Future of Golf."

When Geoff was still a junior at Riviera, Jack Nicklaus was talking about a "Cayman ball" for a short golf course design he was contracted for, and for possible use elsewhere.

The thing that I always pondered was a massive revolt by the very people that the USGA would logically count as its "base":  The members at some of the oldest, most classic golf courses with the longest relationship as member clubs of the United States Golf Association.  People like the members of Maidstone, Merion, the National, Chicago, Riviera, and a hundred other courses.  People with some degree of influence, whose club-based relationships go back 70 or even 100 years with the USGA.

At least that might make some sense in theory.  But elsewhere, I have written that I am always amazed at the apathy at those places with respect the USGA's [failed] regulation of technology.  It seems that those classic club members are mostly interested in buying some extra length for themsleves (money is no object) or in obtaining for their club the cachet that goes along with hosting major national championships, regardless of the changes to their courses.

Some time ago, Frank Hannigan wrote a very interesting letter to Geoff Shackelford, published on Geoff's weblog, outlining the process by which a number of USGA member-clubs could nominate a rival slate of Directors, bypassing the usual methods.  I never thought it to be likely, but it only highlighted the remarkable lack of pressure there seems to be among the memberships and leaderships of classic-course golf clubs who could no longer host a serious competition of elite players, without rebuiliding or altering their existing courses.

[ChipOat]

A true Golden Age ball would be 1.62", which was the worldwide ball in the 1920's.

This is much more important than anyone on GCA (besides me) ever discusses from what I can tell.  In fact, it didn't even come up on this very thread until just now!

Why is this so important?  Unless you've actually played the smaller ball (which you did in the UK in the 1970's - Nicklaus won 2 of his 3 Open championships using it), you have no idea how much differently it played than the current world standard - the 1.68" "American ball".  It rolled further, it was MUCH more effective in any kind of crosswind or headwind and it putted better, as well.  Pat Mucci, Bob Huntley and I are old enough to have played multiple rounds with it (NOT in the U.S.A.!) and they probably did (as have I).

I will use this opportunity to re-emphasize my contention that it is IMPOSSIBLE TO RESTORE A GOLDEN AGE COURSE TO ITS ORIGINAL PLAYING CHARACTERISTICS unless 1) the watering system is removed, 2) the greens are stimped down below 10 and 3) most importantly, the 1.62" ball is put back into play.

[James Bennett]

Chipoat

one of the other key characteristics of the 1.62 inch ball was the tighter lies that were encountered.  This occurs for two reasons.  Firstly, the ball is more dense (same weight and less volume, so more dense) and so is more likely to settle into the turf.  Secondly, the equator of the ball is 0.81 inches from its low point, not the 0.84 inches of the larger ball.  Insignificant I hear some say.  It makes a big deal when you are trying to spin a wedge from a tightish lie.

The short game is more challenging, and requires more options with the 1.62 inch ball than the 1.68 inch ball.

James B

note - I played small ball golf from 1970 through 1980, and transitioned into large ball golf at around 1980. 

[Dan King]

This reminds me of one of my fav Alister Cooke quotes:
"It became slowly but painfully apparent that playing a different sized ball in the championship matches of each country would present a problem, if not an ultimatum. The R & A followed the usual practice of British diplomacy. They thought a sensible compromise was possible, in the shape of a ball somewhere in between. They manufactured two experimental balls, 1.65 and 1.66 inches in diameter respectively. They were offered to the Americans as a proud solution. The Americans, however, remembering Jefferson and the Louisiana Purchase (which was unconstitutional, and sneaky, but worked), had a better idea. Why not compromise, they suggested, by using our ball. And so it was. The bigger American ball is now compulsory in all R & A championships and in British professional tournaments."

You guys are looking at the modern golden age of golf. The true golden age was back in the days of the Scottish game, before those Baja Scots got a hold of the game and started Englishizing the game. We got to go back to the feathery to get to the Golden Age of golf.

Cheers,
Dan King

Americans are less mystical about what produced their inland or meadow courses; they are the product of the bulldozer, rotary ploughs, mowers, sprinkler systems and alarmingly generous wads of folding money.
 --Alister Cooke (Forward to The World Atlas of Golf)

[ChipOat]

James Bennett:

I guess the short game in/around the wonderful UK green complexes was always a mystery to me.  I never pitched or chipped any worse with the 1.62" ball as I did then or now with the large ball on either side of the pond.  And I did putt better with it - which I was pleased to read a supporting quote from Jack Nicklaus some years later.  Maybe it was because the hole looked bigger or maybe because it really did roll a little better for the weight/mass/size reason(s) you described.

[James Bennett]

Chip

my experience was always that the larger ball rolled better on the greens than the smaller ball (a wider tyre rolls better on a road than a narrower tyre).   Kepp in mind that the playing surfaces (certainly in Australia) pre 1980 were not as consistent and luxurious as today.  Fully automatic irrigation systems were only just being introduced (perhaps from mid 70's at the richer clubs, through to mid 80's at the second tier clubs) with movable hoses/sprinklers being used instead till then.  This produced a greater variety of playing surfaces than we enjoy today.  This added to the short game challenges.

I was never able to determine whther the large ball was more likely to lip out or lip in than the small ball.  My simple presumption was that it was easier to get a small ball into a hole than a larger ball, but I never saw any proof thereof.

James B

[TEPaul]

"Would this lead to players carrying two handicaps?"

Peter:

I don't believe a player can carry two separate handicaps, not under the USGA's system anyway.

[Melvyn Morrow]

Peter

The game needs just a single ball and one set of handicaps – Making things complicated is the beginning of the slippery slope.

Sooner or later the penny will drop and we are all going to have to face the
growing problem regards the distance the current ball travels.

The R&A are quite frankly stuck in follow my leader. They have the knowledge, talent and ability to resolve this matter rather quickly but for some reason seem unhappy to make the first move.

The simple fact is that we just can’t go on like this. Courses are running out of land to stretch the holes to accommodate the long ball travel. It’s cheaper to buy a few new clubs and balls than to keep modifying the course. Longer courses cost more to build and to maintain, reflected in higher Green Fees plus the new uncertainty about the environment and water. 

To those who feel the need for distance – use the Target Ranges. It’s much easier to enjoy your beer in the ice bucket which I expect will be left adjacent the ball container. Relax and let theTestosterone flow

A Golden Age - not had that for sometime.