The Distance Insights report

[Joe Hancock]

i remember knocking a Titleist Professional out of round, way out of round, at least 3x each time I played. Might've been good for the shag bag, but not for the golf budget. I can't imagine what an off-center hit by DJ or Bryson would like like on a Titleist Professional.

Hmmmm......Any chance they would swing less hard if they knew the accuracy of their next shot depended on it?

[Doug Siebert]

i remember knocking a Titleist Professional out of round, way out of round, at least 3x each time I played. Might've been good for the shag bag, but not for the golf budget. I can't imagine what an off-center hit by DJ or Bryson would like like on a Titleist Professional.

I can't imagine a Titleist Professional at their clubhead speeds would suffer worse than a 70s/80s balata ball at even 100 mph clubhead speed.

[Rob Marshall]

Rory was just asked about the distance issue during a question and answer after an exhibition with Tiger, Rose and JT. He definitely was uncomfortable with the question and danced around it.To paraphrase, he said it’s 20 years too late.

[Forrest Richardson]

I refrained from weighing in back in July, but am intrigued enough now to chime in. While Tom D. gives his opinion — and I cannot 100% say it is not 100% valid — I have been involved with some aspects of the Report process from the perspective of the golf architects and their input to the USGA. I do not subscribe to the "conspiracy theory" that Tom D. feels is a delay tactic — and, as he puts it, would be optimum to move forward during the COVID situation. But, his opinion counts...so I'll let him continue that feeling, of course.

My take is that between the R&A and the USGA they did have bonafide interruptions, and they simply could not see getting to a proper finish with COVID affecting many of their key people, not to mention the voices they needed to hear from outside their organizations.

Sure, this has been going on a long time — but let us keep in mind that very little has been done pre-2000s at all. Nearly zilch, except for the various equipment standards which were pushed to the limit my manufacturers since Karsten Solheim began actually engineering golf clubs in the 1970s.

I remain hopeful and have a "glass full" perspective that good will come from the work. It is not as simple as many here claim. It is easy to sit back, log on, spout off and enter a keystroke or two. It is quite another to make informed decisions, back it up with data and a look at history — and also to include all of the various players at stake. It is quite complicated if you take the time to dig deep.

[Mike_Clayton]

Forrest,


Clearly it's complicated - if it was easy it'd have been done by now.


Here's the inevitable 'But'


Is it any more complicated than the rest of the world ( golf outside of the American continent) being forced to change to the 1,68' ball in the early 1980s?
The rest of the world fell in line almost without complaint despite the impact on 'overseas' ball companies left with a whole bunch of useless machines and the lost distance. It was the right decision to take up to 25 yards off golfers - see the almost immediate impact of the generation of Seve, Norman,Price,Faldo... who played through the switch and became world class players because they were playing the same ball as the best players in the USA - and not having to switch back and forward.
It was also more problematic playing the 1.68 ball in the wind - and Australia,NZ and Britain tend to be pretty windy.


Imagine it had gone the other way - with the USA playing the small ball, the RoW the big one -  and American golfers were forced to give up yardage in order to play the ball the majority of the world played. How would that have gone?
The problem with this debate is it's dominated by the USGA's fear of upsetting the average US amateur fearful of having done to him what the US did to the RoW in the early 80s.


It's a bit like the gun debate here in Australia compared with the same debate in the USA.
In Tasmania we had a mass shooting - 35 killed, 25 wounded - in 1996. Within a month the conservative government had agreed to a complete prohibition of automatic and semi-automatic firearms, a new registration system, and amnesty where prohibited or unregistered guns could be surrended and a buy-back fund to compensate gun owners.
There was a predictable argument but the vast majority accepted it and gun related deaths went down and we haven't had a mass shooting since.
It was just as we accepted the big ball almost without complaint.
I'm not equating the importance of the death of 35 people with the golf ball debate - just saying our cultures tend to decide things quite differently.
Our best courses all hold big professional events - unlike the USA where the vast majority of great courses never have to worry that Bryson is going to be hitting a wedge onto their 550y par 5 or an 8 iron into a hole Ben Hogan once said was a 3 iron into some guys bedroom! - and they do care their courses are reduced to nothing close to the intent of the original designers.

[Jeff Schley]

Mike good points from the ROW and the R&A needs to push this, which I'm sure they are. I don't see what the big concern is for potentially upsetting pro golfers. They will play with whatever rules you present to them as they want to win and will adjust. Bigger ball done, eliminate square grooves done, restrict clubhead size done, etc.

I have a good friend who was a competitive swimmer and loves the sport. We golf occasionally and he contends (and I agree) that when the swimming governing bodies banned the fast suit from international events it was relatively quick, however the USGA/R&A allowing club head sizes to 460 cc and the Pro v1 ball without any rollback has created what we have today which is a distance problem.

Many thought that the records from the fast suit era of swimming wouldn't be broken for decades, however I found this article that was written last year where most of the records have indeed fallen just 10 years after the ban (I was surprised). The author points to continued human evolution of perfecting a skill over time and the ban on the suits only slowed down this progress. Can golf take away the ball and slow down the progress? Yes.
https://www.swimmingworldmagazine.com/news/one-decade-later-do-we-miss-the-full-body-competition-suit/

[Thomas Dai]

Is it any more complicated than the rest of the world ( golf outside of the American continent) being forced to change to the 1,68' ball in the early 1980s?
The rest of the world fell in line almost without complaint despite the impact on 'overseas' ball companies left with a whole bunch of useless machines and the lost distance. It was the right decision to take up to 25 yards off golfers - see the almost immediate impact of the generation of Seve, Norman,Price,Faldo... who played through the switch and became world class players because they were playing the same ball as the best players in the USA - and not having to switch back and forward.
It was also more problematic playing the 1.68 ball in the wind - and Australia,NZ and Britain tend to be pretty windy.
Imagine it had gone the other way - with the USA playing the small ball, the RoW the big one -  and American golfers were forced to give up yardage in order to play the ball the majority of the world played. How would that have gone?
The problem with this debate is it's dominated by the USGA's fear of upsetting the average US amateur fearful of having done to him what the US did to the RoW in the early 80s.

+1
atb