[Jason Topp]

Jason:
Many people, even in the business like my father never thought the twain would meet but it finally did with the "new age" golf ball that finally begun to come in around the 1990s which combined a lower spin rate with a less hard "feel." I guess the moral and message is to never underestimate the power of science and progress.

I lived through that.  The no cut aspect was critical for me because I didn't really have the money for golf balls.  I searched in the creek for them once or twice a year and that was my ball supply - other than big events.  If I bought balls I learned early on that my hard spent money could disapear immediately with Balata.

In tournaments it was a regular occurence for people to take balls out of play.  I would think it happened at least once per group per round. 

The first innovation for me was the Pinnacle in the early 80's which I liked because it seemed softer.  That was my ball for quite awhile and those feel like rocks today.

I also recall the Tour Edition feeling like hitting a nerf ball.  I think that was the ball that cost Payne Stewart a lot of money because it spun too much.

I really did not start playing premium balls until the Titleist Professional came out.  The change in the ball between 1990 and 2000 was pretty remarkeable, not only because of the impact it had on classic golf courses but also because of how superior a product it was for a person who wanted to use a premium ball, but wanted to use the ball for as long as possible.

 



I remember being excited about Pinnacles because they seemed softer by comparison. 

[John_Conley]

That said, posting a graph with two arbitrary lines drawn on it and referring to it as though it has any relationship to the real world is silly.

Brent, I didn't take the graph to be anything more than an illustration to help people "see" the inflection point and make the point that different balls could be longer at different swing speeds.

It's a good visual.

[DMoriarty]

The USGA manifestly dropped the ball, so to speak, for a couple of decades. So if they're on top of the issue today that's a relatively recent development.

That said, posting a graph with two arbitrary lines drawn on it and referring to it as though it has any relationship to the real world is silly. The folks with the numbers aren't talking (at least not talking to anyone who has seen fit to share the data publically) but that doesn't mean that just anyone who dreams up their own hypothetical ball characteristics should be accepted as having the answers all figured out.

Brent,  I guess you must have missed the portion of my post where I explained that the graphic is for demonstrative purposes only. It is to illustrate a concept, not provide specific ball characteristics.  The reason I posted the graphic is becuase this is a concept that many, including apparently those at the USGA, have failed to grasp.   It is"silly" for you to portray the illustration as anything other than what it was meant.

[RSLivingston_III]

I believe all the new balls use more blue in their "white" covers to brighten them. Thus the reason ceiling white paint is quite blue/cyan if you look critically at it. Brightness. The older balls most assuredly have yellowed from time. That should have given significant clues for identifying the balls.

Magazine articles and advertising of the time gave degeneration rates of the balls. Rarely did a top player want to use a ball more than a year or two old. Of corse even with rounds with all properly hit shots the balls would go out of round in 4-6 holes. So, you would typically not have to worry about not playing new balls as you were going through them at a good pace. My ball check ring is still hanging on my bag of 1980-90 clubs.

[TEPaul]

"That said, posting a graph with two arbitrary lines drawn on it and referring to it as though it has any relationship to the real world is silly. The folks with the numbers aren't talking (at least not talking to anyone who has seen fit to share the data publically) but that doesn't mean that just anyone who dreams up their own hypothetical ball characteristics should be accepted as having the answers all figured out."


Brent:

That is certainly the understatement of the month regarding what at least one and perhaps some on here think they have offered about the answers to ball characteristics and the entire history and evolution of the distance increase in the last decade and more. It is hilarious anyway to hear that anyone on here thinks he is offering something to the USGA Test Center about ball characteristics that they do not already know and more hilarious still that he actually thinks they did not know it.

Perhaps he should just write them and tell them to raze their entire multi-million dollar Tech and Test Center and utilize his Latex Lynn ball or graph test. Or is it called the Lorretta Lynn Latex ball test and graph system? 

[Jim_Kennedy]

Padraig Harrington did a 'comparison' test a half dozen years ago using his modern driver and one from 1959. He was hitting a modern ball with both.

Two results that stand out:  

Although the new driver launched at 12.1 degrees and the '59 model at 11.5 the new model got 50 more feet of elevation. The .6 difference is not worth 50'.

The spin rate off the new driver was 2,527 RPM, the spin rate off the '59 model was 1,690 RPM. Clubhead speed/ ball speed were 7.4 and 11.9 MPH faster with the new club. I don't think that's enough to account for 837 RPM.

My conclusion is that once the flatter trajectory, higher spinning (2,900), soft cover ball like the ProTraj came to the market it cured the door-hook flight pattern inherent to balatas. Remember, the time frame of balls like this, which are very similar to what we play today, corresponded to persimmon drivers and 275/280 drives on Tour, with only a couple of exceptions.   

It's not the ball's fault.  

[DMoriarty]

For those who think that the illustrative graphic above has "no basis in reality," here is similar chart illustrating the same concept.    The chart is based on data provided by the USGA to back up their April 2006 article, "Do Long Hitters Get An Unfair Benefit?"   http://www.usga.org/news/2006/April/Speed-Vs--Distance--Do-Long-Hitters-Get-An-Unfair-Benefit-/



Ball A and Ball C correspond the USGA's Ball A and Ball C from their tests, both in use on Tour in 2006.   The lines cross, and as between these two balls, golfers with swing speeds of higher than 96 mph would generally hit it longer by switching from Ball C to Ball A.    Golfers with swing speeds of less than 96 mph would lose distance if they switched from Ball C to Ball A.    

Keep in mind that this is between two modern balls used on tour.  IMO, the differences would be much more pronounced if one were to compare a old state of the art ball, like the Balata.    But unfortunately, this was not the USGA's concern. Instead of focusing the the relative distance differences at different swing speeds between old and new balls, they set up and defeated their own straw-man argument:  

One opinion often accepted as conventional wisdom is that modern golf balls used on the PGA Tour give an unfair distance advantage to players with very high swing speeds.  The thinking is that golfers with very fast swing speeds (115+ mph) have gained a disproportionate amount of distance because modern golf balls only get "activated" when they're compressed at very high swing speeds, especially when struck by modern drivers.  Another belief is that ball aerodynamics also result in disproportionately greater distance increase for those with very fast swing speeds.

Let's look at the physics, test results, and the actual PGA Tour driving distance results, to see what the facts really are.

What the Science Says:

Actually, there is no extra distance "bonus" for high swing speeds.  This is true for the new tour balls, and  all others as well. In fact, distance does not even increase linearly (see below), but rather it starts to fall off slightly at higher swing speeds - just the opposite of the popular misconception  To be sure, hitting the ball faster means it goes longer; it's just that you don't get as much bang-for-the-buck at the highest speeds.

That all makes sense, but is rather beside the point.  The more pertinent issue - the one the USGA DID NOT ADDRESS - is the relative advantage the new techology, ProV1x type balls give the faster swinging golfer relative to the older technology ball.     Had they, I think that they would have found that, relative to old state of the art balls such as Balatas, the ProV1x type balls only benefit the faster swinging players and would actually hurt the distance of slower swinging players.  

Here is the USGA's graphic of the same data, only it is cluttered because all five balls are posted.  Also, they go up to 125, but they didn't separately provide the approx. distance increase between 120 and 125, so I stopped at 120.   It is, after all, for illustrative purposes only.  

[TEPaul]

"My conclusion is that once the flatter trajectory, higher spinning (2,900), soft cover ball like the ProTraj came to the market it cured the door-hook flight pattern inherent to balatas. Remember, the time frame of balls like this, which are very similar to what we play today, corresponded to persimmon drivers and 275/280 drives on Tour, with only a couple of exceptions."


Jim:

That's interesting there but I believe the older soft balls (balatas) that preceded the Pro Traj were considerably higher in spin rate (something like 3,300-3,500 rpm). At least, I think this was what I heard from the USGA Test Center and some who worked there.

[Jim_Kennedy]

TEPaul,
You're correct, that should have read 'lower spinning ProTraj'. 

[TEPaul]

"The more pertinent question, but the one the USGA DID NOT ADDRESS, is the relative advantage the new techology, ProV1x type balls give the faster swinging golfer relative to the older technology ball.     Had they, I think that they would have found that, relative to old state of the art balls such as Balatas, the ProV1x type balls only benefit the faster swinging players and would actually hurt the distance of slower swinging players."



That very well may be the case and it's something I've felt for a number of years now----maybe a decade or more. It seems in the context of the evolution of ball technology as well as in the context of the interesting uses of two very distinctlly different types of balls and their technologic dynamics (particularly "feel" vs "hard") in the old days by the various levels of golfers (before the new age type ball such as the Pro Vs) that probably is the case.

So why didn't the USGA compare the performance characteristics of the older "soft" high spinning balls that most all good players used against the performance characcteristics of the new age balls that it seems all player levels now use?

Probably because the old ball technology essentially ceased to exsit as most all manufacturers produced golf balls that combined the  feel characteristics of the old considerably higher spinning soft ball characteristics with the considerably lower spin rate hard balls of the past which practically no good player ever used.

I once asked Frank Thomas if the USGA had performance characteristics statistics of the old high spin rate softer balls as to how they performed at ODS protocol tests (109mph) compared to the old lower spin hard balls. I don't remember if he said they did not have them or they did not make them public for manufacturer classification reasons. But is was my assumption that the old significantly higher spin rate softer balls all the good players used to use may've come up significantly below the lower spin hard balls in ODS tests in distance and particularly carry distance.

[TEPaul]

"TEPaul,
You're correct, that should have read 'lower spinning ProTraj'."



Jim:

Thank you; I thought so. I have a feeling the Pro Traj was one of the first product "bridges" that began to combine the distinctly different performance and feel characteristics of the old low spin rate two piece hard balls (rocks) and the even older three piece softer high spin rate balls. The final result of that performance and feel characteristic combination between those two types of balls essentially became what we now refer to as the "new age" ball that most everyone uses-----eg a much softer feel than the old rocks and a much lower spin rate than the old soft balata type ball.

One of the real ironies of the old days is both sets of golfer levels were probably using the wrong ball for them for distance enhancement.

So why did they do that back then? Because the good players wanted the softer feel particularly around the greens and the less good player did not want to use a ball that would cut!    

[Pete Lavallee]

No one has answered Mike's original question though: did the balls shrink or were they originally smaller than normal?

[Jim_Kennedy]

Pete,
Mike has said that the balls weren't originally 'small' balls. If they were made for the US market they were 1.68.

In the absence of any other info it seems they shrunk, and I don't think it's unusual for them to all have shrunk the same amount. They were all built to the same specs, they all remained together, and they all faced the same climatic conditions.

[Brent Hutto]

If you had graphs of actual measured data why didn't you post them in the first place? Actual numbers are a much more convincing argument than made-up ones, don't you think?

[TEPaul]

Brent:

Good questions indeed. Perhaps David Moriarty might want to try to explain to us the meaning of his following remark which is quoted from his Post #37 and particularly what in the world is this thing, this so-called 'golf machine' he calls the "Latex Lynn" that he used for 'illustrative purposes?'   I agree with you----eg if he wanted to use something containing illustrative data he should've used something from golf's scientific community to do with I&B which arguably includes the USGA's Test and Tech Center. That's what they're there for and the idea that Moriarty articulated that he knows something they don't about I&B and its history and evolution and its present state is positively ludicrous, not to even mention naive and arrogant or some combination of both!







"Some of you may remember that I tried to figure this stuff out a number of years ago.   I used what I will call The Latex Lynn, a "golf machine" with a swing-speed in the mid 90 mph range, index around 2 or 3. This Latex Lynn hit 50 drives, half with the ProV1x and half with the  Tour Balatas .  I intermixed and teed the balls, recorded the results, then threw out worst 5 from each group.     Even though the balatas were probably 6 years old, Lynn's drives were longer with the Balatas.   Three to four yards longer."

[DMoriarty]

If you had graphs of actual measured data why didn't you post them in the first place? Actual numbers are a much more convincing argument than made-up ones, don't you think?

Brent,

You seem to be much more interested in discussing how I choose to convey my ideas than in discussing anything of substance.  Why do you suppose that is?  For the third time, I was illustrating a CONCEPT.  I said that from the beginning.  Surely you understand that, don't you?    If so, then what is your point exactly?    Do you disagree with the CONCEPT?   If so, why?

Let me try to make this easy for you to understand.  The following is a CONCEPTUAL REPRESENTATION FOR ILLUSTRATIVE PURPOSES ONLY.


 
Is that better?  It is based on the second chart above, only I have taken away all those pesky numbers that you seem to be getting hung up on and added a third hypothetical ball with a less aggressive distance profile.   As you can see, those with high swing speeds are going to lose distance with the hypothetical ball represented by the red line.  Whereas those with slow swing speeds will gain distance with the hypothetical ball represented by the red line.

Now Brent, is there a problem with this conceptual representation?   More specifically, is their a problem with the underlying concept?   If so, what is it?  

_________________________________________

Brent and TEPaul,

I created that first chart long before the USGA even bothered to publish the data used to create the second and third charts.   Believe it or not, it is possible to think and reason conceptually without the aid of a multi-million dollar test facility.    I created the second chart yesterday, only after my first one offended Brent.    But I knew the data supported the concept before I created either chart.   They were both illustrative of a general concept, as is the one I created above.

Brent and TEPaul, do either of you have anything at all to say about the underlying concept?  Or you just here to take swipes at my charts?  

Because so far as I can tell, the  concept is sound.

[Brent Hutto]

My problem is the concept isn't what matters. The actual performance of actual golf balls under actual conditions matters.

I could post a graph illustrating the concept that the more times I cross the street in front of my office, the shorter my lifespan will be. Every time I cross that street there's a finite chance I'll be run over by a bus. Is that a useful concept?

No, not particularly. If crossing the street 10,000 times shortens my expected lifespan by one hour then I'm not going to worry much about stepping over there for some lunch this afternoon. If crossing the street one time shortens my expected lifespan by five years I might just think twice about it.

It's all about the numbers. Not the "concept" that at under some unspecified set of conditions an extra mph of clubhead speed might have less effect with one ball than another. But the actual number of yards of difference if such-and-such ball is hit at such-and-such clubhead speed under such-and-such conditions. A "concept" illustration says nothing about that, it's just arm-waving.

But you're perfectly willing to make specific claims about should or shouldn't be done to change the equipment rules based on that arm-waving. And I'm calling you on it. It's like telling someone they ought to take an umbrella with them today, not because you know the weather forecast, but because of some Weather 101 lecture that if the air mass is unstable enough and there's some heating in the afternoon and the humidity is high enough then it might rain. General abstract "concepts" do not suffice to justify highly specific real-world prescriptions.

[TEPaul]

"Brent and TEPaul, do either of you have anything at all to say about the underlying concept?"

I don't know about Brent but I'd say your hypotheticals, illustrative purposes and the concepts you mention for them or base them on are unnecessary and/or unimportant, at least to me. I am not saying they are wrong just unnecessary and unimportant if the subject is the performance of various golf balls in the last thirty years or so and including what has become known as the distance spike amongst a particular player level in perhaps the last 10-20 years, what caused it as well as what logically might be done about it.

Some of us both lived and played through this entire time-frame and we saw what was happening and did happen and when you plug that into some good old fashioned research with some of the scientists and golf administrators who lived and worked through the whole thing it becomes pretty clear what happened and why. And these are definitely the "facts" and they are verifiable if one goes about analyzing it all with things other than just hypotheticals, lllustratively, conceptually or otherwise.

The "substance" in this subject is what happened, when, how and why and all that is available if one does the necessary historic research on it. After that what if anything to do about becomes much clearer.

To me that's the substance of this subject and issue of golf ball performance with various player levels over the last thirty years or so! And if you actually want to discuss that I would be happy to. Most all of it is in these kinds of threads on this website in the back pages anyway.

  

[DMoriarty]

Brent,

I'd be more inclined to consider your point of view if it wasn't wholly based on a mischaracterization of mine.  I've not made any "specific claims about [what] should or shouldn't be done to change the equipment rules."   Not in this thread, and not in any other.   Nor have I offered any "highly specific real-world prescriptions," so I certainly couldn't be seen to be trying to "justify" them, could I.  All I have done is try to explain the nature of the problem, as I understand it.   Certainly in order to solve a problem we must first understand it, mustn't we?   And there has been plenty of misunderstanding here and elsewhere about whether or not golfers with higher swing speeds have received a driving distance dividend from the new golf ball technology.

Unfortunately, there has been a lot of confusion about this issue, both on these threads and off, and even more unfortunately, despite their multi-million dollar lab that TEPaul keeps referring to, until recently(?) the USGA seems to have been just as confused as anyone else.   For example, in the 2006 article I referenced, the USGA concluded as follows:

Summing it all up: the science, the experiments, and the actual distances from thePGATour all say the same thing: the new balls and clubs used on tour do not give an extra distance "bonus" to players with higher swing speeds.

So far as I can tell, this just is not an accurate statement, and is unsupported by the USGA's own data.   More importantly, in reaching this conclusion, the USGA did not even seem to understand the nature of the problem caused by this new technology.  Instead of comparing the ProV1x type balls to the old state of the art ball (Balata) they looked only at the modern balls and proved that there was not some sort of miraculous activation point built into a single ball.   As I explained above, that is a red herring that masks the real issue, which is the relative distance delta between different balls, particularly old technology balls and new technology balls.   

All that said, I agree with you that real numbers and real tests would better than hypothesizing.   And perhaps the USGA is finally conducting those tests and perhaps they finally understand the nature of the problem.   

As for me, I have neither a "multi-million dollar labratory" nor cronies at the USGA who will entertain and test my ideas.   Fortunately, I need neither to explain the nature of the problem to those on this website, and that is all I have done here.     Maybe instead of endlessly bashing me, those with the right connections will call up the USGA and make sure they are on the right track. 

In sum, Brent, you seem to have a bee in your bonnet that has little or nothing to do with what I've written here.   Since it has little or nothing to do with me, I'll leave you to work it out yourself. 

_______________________________________

TEPaul, 

Well I guess we've made some progress.  For years you vehemently disagreed with my explanation of the distance problem.  Now, while you continue to mock me, my charts and my hypotheticals, you at least admit that you aren't saying that I am WRONG.   That is a step in the right direction, I guess.   

That said, if you don't find the charts and graphs helpful in understanding the problem, I suggest you ignore them.  Your mind is made up anyway and you should know by now that you are not my target audience on any of this stuff anyway.  And while your various anecdotes might be of interest to some, as you might have guessed I don't find them to  particular relevant so I'll decline your invitation to discuss it with you.  Same goes for your endless references to your connections at the USGA and their test facility.     As usual, I am unmoved by claims of expertise, especially when such claims are second-hand.   I need to figure it out for myself and not take the USGA's word for it, or yours for that matter. 

Once again, for me it isn't about who one might know, it is all about facts and analysis.  While I lack access to all of the pertinent facts, so far my my reasoning and analysis have been sound.  In contrast, the USGA has all the facts at their disposal and the lab to create more, yet as demonstrated by their 2006 Press Release linked above, their analysis has been sorely lacking in the past. 

I have high hopes that is finally changing, but then I have been been disappointed in these matters before. 

[TEPaul]

"Certainly in order to solve a problem we must first understand it, mustn't we?   And there has been plenty of misunderstanding here and elsewhere about whether or not golfers with higher swing speeds have received a driving distance dividend from the new golf ball technology.

Unfortunately, there has been a lot of confusion about this issue, both on these threads and off, and even more unfortunately, despite their multi-million dollar lab that TEPaul keeps referring to, until recently(?) the USGA seems to have been just as confused as anyone else.   For example, in the 2006 article I referenced, the USGA concluded as follows:

Summing it all up: the science, the experiments, and the actual distances from thePGATour all say the same thing: the new balls and clubs used on tour do not give an extra distance "bonus" to players with higher swing speeds.

So far as I can tell, this just is not an accurate statement, and is unsupported by the USGA's own data."





David:

What do you think Steve Quintavalla said in his statement you quoted or in his entire statement report or in his accompanying technical report that is not accurate or an accurate statement?

[DMoriarty]

TEPaul,

I believe I explained to you what I thought immediately after the portion you quoted.  Here again is the relevant portion.

"Unfortunately, there has been a lot of confusion about this issue, both on these threads and off, and even more unfortunately, despite their multi-million dollar lab that TEPaul keeps referring to, until recently(?) the USGA seems to have been just as confused as anyone else.   For example, in the 2006 article I referenced, the USGA concluded as follows:

Summing it all up: the science, the experiments, and the actual distances from thePGATour all say the same thing: the new balls and clubs used on tour do not give an extra distance "bonus" to players with higher swing speeds.

So far as I can tell, this just is not an accurate statement, and is unsupported by the USGA's own data.   More importantly, in reaching this conclusion, the USGA did not even seem to understand the nature of the problem caused by this new technology.  Instead of comparing the ProV1x type balls to the old state of the art ball (Balata) they looked only at the modern balls and proved that there was not some sort of miraculous activation point built into a single ball.   As I explained above, that is a red herring that masks the real issue, which is the relative distance delta between different balls, particularly old technology balls and new technology balls."

The inaccuracy is concluding that high speed players have not received an extra distance "bonus" from the new equipment.   Had the USGA bothered to compare the distance delta relative to the old state of the art equipment such as the balata ball, they'd have found that, generally, when using the new balls, slower swing players haven't benefited as much relative to their performance with the old balls.   Conversely, faster swing players received a large benefit from the new proV1x type balls as compared to the old balls.    

This sure sounds like the faster swing players reaped a "distance bonus" to me.     The reason is that below a certain swing speed, players received little or no benefit or perhaps even a loss.  At least that is my theory.  

[TEPaul]

"The inaccuracy is concluding that high speed players have not received an extra distance "bonus" from the new equipment.   Had the USGA bothered to compare the distance delta relative to the old state of the art equipment such as the balata ball, they'd have found that, generally, when using the new balls, slower swing players haven't benefited as much relative to their performance with the old balls.   Conversely, faster swing players received a large benefit from the new proV1x type balls as compared to the old balls.   

This sure sounds like the faster swing players reaped a "distance bonus" to me.     The reason is that below a certain swing speed, players received little or no benefit or perhaps even a loss.  At least that is my theory."



David:

I most certainly agree with you (and have for many years) that there is a lot of confusion amongst most golfers regarding what happened exactly when most all good and high swing speed players began switching from balls of the old "wound" technology (AKA "soft" balls, "high spin rate" balls, "balata" balls etc) to the new age multi-layer solid balls (Pro-Vs etc) and both how and why that apparently created a significant distance increase (and particularly carry distance increase) and perhaps exclusively with the much higher swing speed set (I used 105-110mph+ and Steve Quintavalla mentioned 115mph and up).

However, that does not mean that what Steve Qunitavalla concentrated on and wrote about in his 2006 report, both in his textual summary and in the linked technical report, is inaccurate regarding the science and performance of new age golf balls across a swing speed spectrum and whether or not there is some non-linear distance increase or some distance "activation" point with those new age balls for players with very high swing speeds (Quintavalla uses 115mph+) and as compared to players using the same ball technology with slower swing speeds.

If you think there is something factually or scientifically inaccurate about what Quintavalla concentrated on or wrote about please try to tell us what you think it is.

Now, another and separate question and study would be-----eg if it is possible for a USGA Tech Center engineer and scientist such as Quintavalla to do a scientific study and report explaining both when, how and why very high swing speed players got a significant distance increase boost when they switched from the old "wound" ball technology to the new-age "multi-layer" solid ball technology and other slower swing speed players did not? And of course the next question would be what a scientific study concentrating just on that comparative analysis of those two siginficantly different ball technologies and performance characteristics would show.

That's a decent question and one perhaps worth asking the USGA Tech Center. I very well may ask them that myself. I have no idea what they might say about that but I certainly can forsee that one scientific reason or problem with that may be that wound ball technology production may not exist anymore and may not have for some years now. I'm quite certain any interested and intelligent party or observer could at least imagine the scientific problems involved in conducting a real-world physical comparison test between golf balls of two different eras.

Therefore, perhaps the best we can do now to help explain what happened, when, how and why, is with the antecdotal evidence from people who lived, played and were part of the I&B technical test community who saw it all and analyzed it as it happened and evolved.

For my explanation of what I think happened, when, how and why, see Posts on here such as #29 and #46 as well as a few others.

I note that in this thread at least, you appear to have refrained from even commenting on what was mentioned and explained on those posts and what it may mean regarding this question of who got some kind of distance boost how and why, as well as the counter point or question of who may've gotten hurt distance-wise at any point in time, regarding the differences between the old and new ball technologies.

And not to even mention yet the fact that back then very few low swing speed players and non-expert golfers used wound ball technology and very few expert high swing speed players used the two piece solid hard cover ball technology that co-existed together for up to thirty years. And this should include the reasons why that was the case and whether or not it had much of anything to do with question of and concern about distance.



 

[TEPaul]

Mike C:

You started this thread and what you asked was about the Pro Traj Titleist and whether anyone can explain why the ones you and your friends have and used seem to have shrunk in size. I'm afraid I have no particularly good answer for that and apparently no one else does either.

Your thread has evolved into pretty much another subject and issue----eg the confusing issue of whether high swing speed players got or are getting some kind of distance bonus with ball technology. I've been responsible along with some others for that subject shift and co-opting of your thread. If that bothers you I'm sorry about that and I apologize.

I do think the evolved subject, though, is a most important one and consequently I'm considering a separate thread on it. I may try to concentrate on the affects of what may arguably have been the 3-4 really significant ball technology shifts in golf's history----how golf dealt with them, survived them, etc, etc, etc.

[Mike_Clayton]

TEPaul,

No problem - let it go where it goes.
It is all interesting and what will be more interesting will be to see Geoff Ogilvy hit the 30 year old balls with the wooden driver.
I want to take them home - I am in Barcelona now - and get them measured properly.
If it involved a presidential assasination or jets flying into buildings I am sure someone would have forwarded the conspiracy theory that the companies made the new balls slightly bigger to keep them inside the distance requirements.
I am sure that is not right but as you say there is no obvious answer to the shrinkage question.

[DMoriarty]

TEPaul,

Had the USGA limited their conclusions to the very narrow results of their tests, I'd have no problem with either.  But that isn't what happened.  Rather, the USGA asked if "modern golf balls used on the PGA Tour give an unfair distance advantage to players with very high swing speeds." Their conclusion was a resounding "No:"

Summing it all up: the science, the experiments, and the actual distances from thePGATour all say the same thing: the new balls and clubs used on tour do not give an extra distance "bonus" to players with higher swing speeds.  

Unfortunately, the tests they performed by no means supported the broad conclusions they reached.  The distance "bonus" can't be seen by looking at the performance of a the modern ball at different swing speeds, but rather by looking at the performance of the old state of the art balls versus the new state of the art balls at different swing speeds.

___________________________

As for your speculation about spin rates and why certain balls have a distance characteristics, I'll leave that to the scientists.

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