Is it not a big deal Dustin Johnson hit 3w/6i on the 18th green at PB?

[Brent Hutto]

And there will be kids in 2033 driving the ball farther than college kids did in 2013. Unless there is some massive "rollback" in the equipment that I personally do not believe will ever happen.

[JESII]

Again, Pat, you're dealing with a minuscule fraction of players.

The result of their length is the issues up for debate, and how best to deal with it. I hear two or three different ideas on how the infrastructure of golf should react to it;


-Don't do a thing and let each generation hit the ball further and in theory score better.
-Make major financial investments in golf courses to defend against this age of players.
-Have the USGA/R&A control and roll back equipment to return a certain level of skill to the game.[/li][/list]

Each one of these options has hair on it, but the best business decision to me is #1 for a whole host of reasons.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Sean,

The extension of Jeff's query is:  how do you challenge that player from an architectural perspective ?

How do you get him to interface with the architecture which has become equivalent to the Maginot Line?

Pat

I think a loft range of 15 to 50 and 8 clubs in the bag does just what you ordered.  On a wider level, it really isn't up to anybody else except for the pro tours themselves to figure out how to make their players interface with architecture - if indeed it is of any importance to pro players. 
It seems as if only the USGA is concerned with that, but there's only so much you can do when technology has leap frogged the architecture.

As always, I say the problem lies with consumers buying the pro product and the equipment.  If folks stopped doing both, things would change. 


You're kidding, right ?
You want consumers to buy balls and equipment that go shorter distances ?  ?  ?
Never going to happen.
The quest for more distance is inherent in the game

Frankly, if what is passed off as pro golf these days upsets so many people why do they watch? 

Your premise is flawed.
Who said that watching PGA Tour golf upsets people ?
"Alarms" might be a better choice of words

I suspect most that do watch like what they see and the ball rollbackers are in the extreme minority. 

I don't disagree, although I think the "roll backers" have a greater sense of "protecting and preserving" the values of he game and the architecture.

In any case, you are never going to convince me that manufacturers will not continuously find ways to improve equipment regardless of USGA specs. 

Agreed

I never believed a roll back would occur to a time when most rollbackers want (and I still don't). 


Don't know if anyone has "fixed" the date.
I'd be content with 1980 or earlier.

Its pie in the sky stuff so why not look for a different solution such as I suggest - which is essentially bifurcation. 

"Bifurcation" isn't going to happen.
The USGA is dead set against it
It's "pie in the sky" as you say

Only my idea is to let hackers keep their toys and focus on where the "problem" lies. 

The problem is systemic and your idea to let the hackers do whatever they like would undermine the fabric of the game.
It's beyond moronic, it's destructive.

The biggest issue with my approach is the USGA doesn't really control where the biggest problem lies.  It likes to think it does, but in reality the pro tours can split their own way anytime they like if the USGA gets too stupid with their ideas of rollbacks. 

Then you don't understand the relationship between the USGA and the PGA Tour

Bottom line, I don't think anything like a majority of pros want to see a rollback to 1990 or whatever. 

Of course they don't.
Since when are the views of the PGA Tour players anything but self serving ?
Frank Hannigan told me a long time ago, the PGA Tour players are the last people you want to listen to.

I could see a slight rollback, but so what if that happens.  I reckon to stop smash mouth golf the rollback needs to be huge.  Something like at least 10% if not closer to 20% and the courses remain the same length as today.  I can't see that ever happening so long as people are buying the pro product and all the new clubs.

20% is not going to happen, at least not in one quantum leap.

Like many aspects of life, a "phase in" over time, sort of like Obamacare   would be the better way to go.

The Ohio Golf Association used a tournament ball for a year or so, but nothing seemed to come of it.

I always thought that the powers that be at ANGC would see the light and introduce a tournament ball for the Masters rather than buy all the adjacent property within a mile radius in order to lengthen the course to meet the leaps in distance, but that hope fades with each passing year

Ciao

[Patrick_Mucci]

And there will be kids in 2033 driving the ball farther than college kids did in 2013.

Completely agree

Unless there is some massive "rollback" in the equipment that I personally do not believe will ever happen.

If it doesn't, the game will become a lark and no longer a challenging endeavor.

400 yard drives aren't in the best interest of the game or established architecture

[Patrick_Mucci]

Again, Pat, you're dealing with a minuscule fraction of players.

Jim,

I disagree, the exception is becoming the rule for all of those who take up the game at an early age.
Last year, a Junior who plays on my son's golf team was routinely driving the ball 300, and, he's not a big kid.
And, so were others on the team, but not routinely

The result of their length is the issues up for debate, and how best to deal with it. I
 hear two or three different ideas on how the infrastructure of golf should react to it;

• Don't do a thing and let each generation hit the ball further and in theory score better.
  Make major financial investments in golf courses to defend against this age of players.
  Have the USGA/R&A control and roll back equipment to return a certain level of skill to the game.

Each one of these options has hair on it, but the best business decision to me is #1 for a whole host of reasons.

I strongly disagree.
Laissez Faire applied to golf will ruin the game

[Brent Hutto]

Pat Mucci:
"If it doesn't, the game will become a lark and no longer a challenging endeavor."

See it's that last part that you guys keep repeating as though it were actually true. Where are you seeing this happen? I watch Dustin Johnson playing on TV and that dude seems to be working his ass off. And he's shooting scores not all that much different than Jack Nicklaus would have back in the day.

How it moving a ball 550 yards with two swings and having it end up 10 feet from the hole going to be "a lark". When do you think these great easing of the game will take place? The best players in the world with every advantage modern equipment can possibly give them are only able to eagle the 18th at Pebble Beach one time in twenty. Hell, they can't even birdie it sometimes. If it were so easy, surely an elite PGA Tour field would be making more threes than than fours and fives combined, right?

It may be easier to eagle a 550-yard hole with a 3-wood/6-iron than with Driver/2-iron. But that's like saying it's easier to make a billion dollars if you start with ten million than if you start with one million. It's damned difficult either way and I just can't see it getting to be "a lark" any time in the next 50 years.

[Thomas Dai]

Just speculating, but one day will there come a point where lack of water or the cost of water or land availability is such that making 18-hole courses longer and longer will no longer be practical/affordable and thus course lengths will self restrict themselves? Just another log on the discussion fire!
atb

[Patrick_Mucci]

Pat Mucci:
"If it doesn't, the game will become a lark and no longer a challenging endeavor."

See it's that last part that you guys keep repeating as though it were actually true. Where are you seeing this happen?

At every golf club I've played in the last 30 or so years.
Everyone of them has lengthened their course.
And they did so to preserve the challenge lest their course become a pushover and unappealing


I watch Dustin Johnson playing on TV and that dude seems to be working his ass off. And he's shooting scores not all that much different than Jack Nicklaus would have back in the day.

That's irrelevant

How it moving a ball 550 yards with two swings and having it end up 10 feet from the hole going to be "a lark". When do you think these great easing of the game will take place?

It started years ago, you just haven't been paying attention

The best players in the world with every advantage modern equipment can possibly give them are only able to eagle the 18th at Pebble Beach one time in twenty. Hell, they can't even birdie it sometimes.

Wrong.

How many times were they "eagling" that hole in 20 attempts in 1960 ?  1970 ? 1980 ? 1990, 2000 ?
Do you not see the trend ?

If it were so easy, surely an elite PGA Tour field would be making more threes than than fours and fives combined, right?

Wrong again.
The crescent shape of the hole, combined with OB right and a water hazard left influence play.
If neither existed, but were adjacent fairways instead, you'd see 1 in 10 eagle attempts

It may be easier to eagle a 550-yard hole with a 3-wood/6-iron than with Driver/2-iron. But that's like saying it's easier to make a billion dollars if you start with ten million than if you start with one million. It's damned difficult either way and I just can't see it getting to be "a lark" any time in the next 50 years.

Then you don't understand the forces in play and the objectives of the manufacturers.
Surely you don't expect or rely on them to protect the integrity of the game and the architecture, do you ?

[Patrick_Mucci]

Just speculating, but one day will there come a point where lack of water or the cost of water or land availability is such that making 18-hole courses longer and longer will no longer be practical/affordable and thus course lengths will self restrict themselves?

Agree

I recall when water shortages resulted in restrictions where only tees and greens could be watered.

Cost and availability of water, intertwined with politics don't bode well for golf


Just another log on the discussion fire!
atb

[Brent Hutto]

I do see the trend, Pat. And it extrapolates to the game become a trivially easy "lark" for the best players in the world some time around the turn of the next century, at the earliest. And it extrapolates to the game becoming a trivially easy "lark" for normal player approximately never.

Once again, you conflate the manhood-threatening fear of certain course owners that their course might become irrelevant or undesirable for a few of the strongest players with the game itself being rendered too easy to be appealing.

The clubs you cite as ever lengthening, ever "strengthening" are not reacting to the game becoming fundamentally easier. They are worried that the class of elite players who might have shot 272 over four rounds there in 1970 might be able to "overpower" the course and shoot 260 over four rounds in the near future.

So what? A course that takes 65 strokes for a +3 handicapper to get around is not tantamount to the game becoming a "lark". Golf at the tournament level (like all big-time sports) is an undertaking fundamentally about amplifying and exaggerating tiny differences. That's why we play 72-hole stroke play tournaments. They're the best way to distinguish the best player in the field from the ones who are 99.999% as good as the best player but not quite his equal.

As a result, the people into elite golf tend to think that a course yielding tournament results of 20-under-par is a complete "pushover" as compared to a course where the winner shoots 8-under-par. In fact, the game played on the two courses might be virtually indistinguishable in any context other than multiple round stroke play for an elite field. They are reifying tiny (but real) differences into the end of the friggin' world. Outside of the navel-gazing world of big-time tournament golf, all that's happened is people hitting short clubs into a few holes they used to hit long club into. Ti's still the same game for virtually everyone who sets foot on the course outside of big tournament events.

[Thomas Dai]

Just speculating, but one day will there come a point where lack of water or the cost of water or land availability is such that making 18-hole courses longer and longer will no longer be practical/affordable and thus course lengths will self restrict themselves?
Agree
I recall when water shortages resulted in restrictions where only tees and greens could be watered.
Cost and availability of water, intertwined with politics don't bode well for golf

Water restrictions might ultimately help those whose preference is for fairways etc to be nice 'n' brown and very much firm and fast! In agreement with the point about politics.
atb

[Pat Burke]

"In 1994, at the age of 30, Paul Goydos's driving average was 258 yards. That year only two golfers averaged drives of 280 yards or better.  In 2004, at the age of 40, Goydos's driving average was 280 yards off the tee, ranking him 153rd in driving."

In 1994 I was playing a Burner Bubble driver.  43.5 inches/8.5 degrees.  I hit the sweetest, consistent, low draw with it.

In 1997, I was using a 9 degree Warbird, and sometimes, a 7.5 degree GB Bertha.  Same shot patter, but the GBB was 7-8 yards
longer, with a bit less control.  (also 43.5 inches in warbird...44 on GBB)

Was injured in '97, came back to play in 2000.  Was using a Bridgestone, 10 degree driver/44.5 inches, and took 2 months to relearn
to launch the ball just over 11 degrees (instead of 9.5 with way more spin).
The fitting ideals had changed to a completely different optimum while I was hurt.  In my first session, I picked up nearly 10 yards,
simply by changing to more loft and dropping my spin rates.  The flight was 100% different than what I played.
I was using the highest spin ball available (Bridgestone), changed my swing a bit to reach a new optimum.
Paul did a lot of the same process, though I believe it was with a Titleist driver and ball.

Research keeps leading to new optimums and better marriage of ball and club.  As players, adjustments are also made to launch it correctly to meet the optimums.

[Pat Burke]

Oh, ironically, Zach Johnson and Nicklaus are listed as same height.
Nicklaus had freak explosive power, but I'd wager Zach probably putts a little more gym time in

Dustin is an outlier.  Tall and stupidly explosive athletically.
Doesn't make him the best, but in the ball/distance debate he is a freak.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Pat,

About a decade ago a prominent golfer announced that "fitting" would be the next advancement in golf.

Your posts above are proof of that.

What Brent and others don't seem to grasp is that the technology to increase distance by significant amounts already exists.

Paul Goydos's 22 yard leap in three years is also proof positive, as are your increases.

Last week I played with David Eger, Jay Sigel and Billy Ziobro.
They're all longer at 62, 70 and 65 than when I played with them 30 and 45 years ago.
They're LONG and they didn't get longer because they got younger, stronger and in better condition.
Billy in particular shocked me because he was never really long, but he's long now.

"Fitting" has now trickled down to the amateur ranks.

Golfers are buying equipment that maximizes their personal swing traits.

High school kids are hitting it farther than Nicklaus in his prime, yet, there are those in denial regarding the increase in distance and it's impact in courses, architecture and costs.

And, golfers are going to continue getting longer

[Jim Nugent]

Pat, when does this new generation of long-ball hitters start making its mark in the big tournaments? 

[jeffwarne]

Pat,

About a decade ago a prominent golfer announced that "fitting" would be the next advancement in golf.

Your posts above are proof of that.

What Brent and others don't seem to grasp is that the technology to increase distance by significant amounts already exists.

Paul Goydos's 22 yard leap in three years is also proof positive, as are your increases.

Last week I played with David Eger, Jay Sigel and Billy Ziobro.
They're all longer at 62, 70 and 65 than when I played with them 30 and 45 years ago.
They're LONG and they didn't get longer because they got younger, stronger and in better condition.
Billy in particular shocked me because he was never really long, but he's long now.

"Fitting" has now trickled down to the amateur ranks.

Golfers are buying equipment that maximizes their personal swing traits.

High school kids are hitting it farther than Nicklaus in his prime, yet, there are those in denial regarding the increase in distance and it's impact in courses, architecture and costs.

And, golfers are going to continue getting longer

It's funny, but the longest hitters probably are hurt the most by the distance explosion.
Watching Tiger dominate Augusta in '97, I remember Nicklaus and palmer predicting 10 wins for him at ANGC.
But as EVERYBODY has gotten longer, he and other bombers no longer has an edge that's all that great because they often have to hit irons or fairway woods to fit into the target area.
As Brent says, covering 550 yards in two shots is still an impressive feat, and not easy, but now that the entire tour can do it, it's not much of an edge for longer hitters, and no matter how much they lengthen courses, they don't play as long as they did 30 years ago, but the corridors are the same or in many misguided cases, NARROWER.
Nobody's saying the game is too easy with hot clubs, just that it's a different game-with a lot of needless time hunting balls due to the balls going farther (including offline )and misguided attempts by courses to counter that.
Such is life I guess.

It's ironic that the gap between great golfers and bad golfers has never been greater, and the distance gaps never greater, but yet it's the shorter hitters and worst players that are against a rollback the most.
Which I find somewhat humorous but to each his own

[JESII]

High school kids are hitting it farther than Nicklaus in his prime, yet, there are those in denial regarding the increase in distance and it's impact in courses, architecture and costs.

Pat,

Name one person denying the increase in distance...just one.

Regarding its impact to architecture and costs, that's the clubs reaction to distance.

I'll ask again in case you decide to answer today. On the busiest day at Mountain Ridge, how many people overpower the golf course while shooting par or better?

Assuming it's one or two out of 150 or more I'll ask what you think is a more prudent approach to dealing with the evolving game of golf;

1 - Roll back the ball/equipment to make sure those one or two do are not able to shoot those scores while making the game less enjoyable for the other 150 or,
2 - Spend time and money developing agronomic practices which decrease the cost of maintaining quality turf at (or close to) fairway height as well as increasing the likelihood of firm conditions.

I can tell you where I'd spend my money in the quest to preserve the game we know and love.

[DMoriarty]

Jim,

I think your latest choice is based on what I consider to be a false assumption.  You wrote,  "Roll back the ball/equipment to make sure those one or two do are not able to shoot those scores while making the game less enjoyable for the other 150 . . . "

I do not accept the premise that the game would be made less enjoyable for the other 150.  This seems to be almost everyone's assumption, but it just isn't the case.  The ball could easily be regulated in such a matter that the masses were not adversely impacted in the least.  (Hell, if they wanted to, the USGA could even incentivize the manufacturers to make the game easier for the masses, without making it easier for the pros.)

Let me give you one simple real world example to hopefully help explain.  The ProV1x.   If the USGA banned balls with the distance characteristics of the ProV1x how would that impact the average golfer?   The answer is that it wouldn't.   The average golfer gets no relative benefit from balls like the ProV1x.  Most just don't swing fast enough.  Many pros don't even get a benefit from balls like the ProV1x, because not even they have enough swing speed!  Eliminating such balls would have no negative impact on the vast majority of golfers, but it would chip away at the growing gap between the longest hitters and the shortest hitters. 

This is just an example, but hopefully you get the picture.

[Lyndell Young]

I know it has been said,but the simplest answer is a ball with a max distance based on a certain swing speed, still rewarding power but restricting it somewhat. what I am saying is reward power but more emphasis on accuracy and shot making. If there was less variance of distance between players I think skill is more rewarded. JMO

[Brent Hutto]

You want to go back to the days when golfers rather foolishly (in retrospect) played balls that were by their design flaws putting very high clubhead speed players at a disadvantage. There was a strangely extended period of three or four decades where every elite player in the world INSISTED on playing a ball that performed miserably off the longer clubs when struck at 100+ mph. It was a truism that "working" the ball and lots of spin on partial shots was far, far more important than getting optimum distance and trajectory from Nicklaus-type clubhead speed driver shots.

You can't put the genie back in the bottle. Even if it might be possible (in theory) to make a ball that behaves like a ProV1 for David Moriarty but upshoots and falls out of the sky like a balata ball for Dustin Johnson, nobody would want to play it. There's no constituency whatsoever for trying to invoke some elaborate technological gimmick to slap down shots struck at 120mph while boosting those struck at 90mph.

Nobody probably realized it at the time but there was a de facto agreement among elite players back in the 70's and 80's that any actual improvement in golf ball technology would be applied only to the weekend golfers. Everyone was happy to cruise along with wound balata balls having all the limitations and shortcomings they had entailed a generation or two earlier. Tour players would all play lumpy balls that were discarded every couple of holes (and get them for free) and there was no incentive for the industry to produce better performing balls. Like all such unspoken collusion, once it was violated by a couple of ball manufacturers and a few Tour players the floodgates were open and almost immediately (in historical terms) adoption of the new ball was universal. That's because it turned out to be no great trick to make a ball with the short-game performance required by elite players and without the rather silly lack of suitability of balata balls to being struck hard with a driver.

[Brent Hutto]

If there was less variance of distance between players I think skill is more rewarded. JMO

Right now Dustin Johnson can apply several times the effective power into his golf swing as I can. The result is he hits the ball with about 1.5 times the clubhead speed that I produce. And the result is the ball traveling about 1.5 times farther than mine does.

You're proposing that the game would be better if a much stronger player producing 1.5 times my clubhead speed somehow could be rendered unable to hit the ball more than, what, 1.2 times my distance? 1.3 times?

How is that a better game? If you really want to equalize things, make him play a lumpy golf ball that renders him no more like to make a 20-foot putt than I am. Wouldn't that really be a better game?

[Lyndell Young]

Brent I think it would be better to limit distance, as I watch normal golfers on my course everyday distance does not really help golfers to score.It does allow them to hit it deeper in the woods though.If we keep this up courses are going to need to be longer and wider.I have seen 30 Hcp that can produce similar speeds as Dustin. power is important but that's not all golf should be.

[DMoriarty]

Brent,

With respect, you seem to be basing your position on nothing but straw man arguments aimed at distorting, exaggerating, and misrepresenting my position and the position of others. I've never suggested that we should put longer hitters "at a disadvantage."  Nor have I suggested that the USGA mandate balls that perform "miserably" for better players. Nor am I suggesting a "some elaborate technological gimmick to slap down shots struck at 120mph."  I haven't even suggested mandating a ball that "falls out of the sky like a balata" for big hitters (although admittedly I don't think the game was so horrible when the  balata was in use, and I do think we should probably keep in mind that all balls "fall out of the sky" eventually, even for Dustin Johnson.)

And I don't buy your claim that individual tour pros were acting against their own best interests for three or four decades.   I think a more accurate description of that period was that, in their opinion, the performance shortcomings of the non-wound, non-balata balls outweighed the distance advantages of such balls.  I also don't buy your claim of a secret conspiracy among the best players.  Again I think it more a matter of the lack of refinement in the technology.

As for your response to Lyndell Young, I am not sure it advances the argument much for you to just make up numbers.  Nonetheless, against my better judgment, I'll play along.  Setting aside your made up numbers, you seem to be looking for some sort of equity between swing speed and distance achieved.  I don't think that this currently exists in reality.   I think that, if each group is using the most efficient ball for their swing speed, then a incremental increase in swing speed the low end is actually worth less distance gained than the same incremental increase at the high end of the swing speed spectrum.    Is that what you have in mind?    At the very least, a mph increase in swing speed at the low end ought not be worth less than the same mph increase at the high end.

[Patrick_Mucci]

It's funny, but the longest hitters probably are hurt the most by the distance explosion.
Watching Tiger dominate Augusta in '97, I remember Nicklaus and palmer predicting 10 wins for him at ANGC.
But as EVERYBODY has gotten longer, he and other bombers no longer has an edge that's all that great because they often have to hit irons or fairway woods to fit into the target area.

As Brent says, covering 550 yards in two shots is still an impressive feat, and not easy, but now that the entire tour can do it, it's not much of an edge for longer hitters, and no matter how much they lengthen courses, they don't play as long as they did 30 years ago, but the corridors are the same or in many misguided cases, NARROWER.

Jeff,

This is where you, Brent and others go wrong.

The distance issue isn't about the advantages of one player over another, it's about making the architecture, meant to integrate with the golfer, obsolete

Nobody's saying the game is too easy with hot clubs, just that it's a different game-with a lot of needless time hunting balls due to the balls going farther (including offline )and misguided attempts by courses to counter that.

As to balls going further off line, that's pure nonsense.
Between the modern ball and modern equipment the ball goes straighter
Such is life I guess.

It's ironic that the gap between great golfers and bad golfers has never been greater, and the distance gaps never greater, but yet it's the shorter hitters and worst players that are against a rollback the most.

Not sure I agree with your conclusion.
I think part of the problem is that the "rollback" has been expressed or communicated in fixed arithmetic terms rather than in exponential or proportionate terms.

Ie. a golfer who hits a ball 200 will NOT have the equivalent "rollback" experienced by those hitting it 300 yards


Which I find somewhat humorous but to each his own

[Tim_Weiman]

What need is there to stretch courses to 7,500 yards if the average pro drive is 255 yards? If 450-yards is a drive and long iron? If 550-yards is a maybe reachable par-5?

I think you severely underestimate the clubhead speed Dustin Johnson generates with a 6-iron compared to the clubhead speed Jack Nicklaus generated. There's more of a power differential between Johnson and Nicklaus than there was between Nicklaus and Hogan.

But I'm sure you're going to propose that the ball be rolled back not just to 90's era performance (pre-ProV1) or for that matter to 70's era performance but however far back is necessary to make Dustin Johnson's 6-iron go no further than Bobby Jones' 6-iron. Gotta see each year's US Open be a club-for-club yard-for-year repeat of US Opens from half a century ago. That's where these thread usually end up.

Brent::

Actually, circa 1990 I watched Jack Nicklaus hit the 18th at Pebble with a six iron after bombing his drive. Both shots were downwind, of course.