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- #226
Jack Nicklaus and the request for a ball roll back
Matthew
Well-known member
Respect is fine, I respect what he accomplished as the longest guy on Tour (at the time), but that doesn’t make him infallible nor his words carved in stone sent down from on high. Again, just my opinion.
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- #229
You're hilarious.
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- #230
TRADITION!Don't give the USGA any ideas. We'll all be playing hickory shafts, persimmon woods and gutta percha balls and wearing wool suits and ties!
wristcock
Well-known member
huge difference between what the pros should be doing versus keeping it fun for the weekend warriors. Jack doesn't care about the advantages afforded social golfers, but he does care about making courses obsolete by pros smashing it 350+ ...... Regardless of how far dudes are hitting it (Bryson etc) - it's still bloody hard to win on the PGA tour.
RecGolfer
Well-known member
Bring back the balata ball. The need to hit it straight would cut down the distance in a big hurry. But excess distance is a "problem" for a only few thousand golfers out of millions who play the game. This issue is a nothing burger, as far as I am concerned.
Not even a few thousand. There are a couple hundred golfers with PGA Tour cards (175 plus exemptions), and of them there are maybe 10 who hit the ball far enough to send the upper crust of the USGA spiraling onto their fainting couches. It's a percentage of total golfers that's probably 8 digits to the right of the decimal point.
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This is what I've been saying for ages about this now. Rolling the ball back is not going to help anything. Just last week I saw the list for longest PGA Tour driving average for the past 20ish years and there hasn't been a huge increase. The biggest difference now is there are more guys doing it so it looks like a bigger deal.
These course architects need to find ways to make the course more challenging for this .001% of the golfing population. Look at the Ryder Cup in France. That course didn't set up well for the U.S. bombers and they got their brains beat in. There are ways to combat what these guys are able to do.
I'd feel safer around my local club if I knew balls were flying around 10-15 mph slower.
HahahaI'd feel safer around my local club if I knew balls were flying around 10-15 mph slower.
Fitted with airbags )
Amateur baseball uses high tech bats....Why don't the pros? They have bifurcation in baseball....Why not in golf? It's not much of a leap. A hell of a lot of baseball players have to make a switch to wood bats once they become a pro.....1000's of them. As @Snowman has pointed out, a few as in 8 digits to the right of the decimal point would be effected by bifurcation with a golf ball.
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One of the issues that gets completely dismissed is that Jack came from an era where your average tour player wasn't in the gym for 10-20 hours a week, possibly smoked cigarettes, gave no thought to diet or nutrition, and possibly showed up to the course hungover on Friday-Sunday.
It's a different game, now. Rolling the ball back changes none of this. It's no different in any sport. The NFL has linebackers with speed that would make NFL WRs from the 70s and 80s blush. Athletes are training harder and tuning their bodies to unprecedented levels. The only ones complaining are those whose records are in jeopardy. Get over it. We already are.
It's a different game, now. Rolling the ball back changes none of this. It's no different in any sport. The NFL has linebackers with speed that would make NFL WRs from the 70s and 80s blush. Athletes are training harder and tuning their bodies to unprecedented levels. The only ones complaining are those whose records are in jeopardy. Get over it. We already are.
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- #240
Seriously... Before we start playing a totally different game...
1- How many of these 'totally obsolete' courses could use "tour tees" that are wrapped up against the tree line forcing players to actually work the ball?
2 - Has anyone asked the tour why they are so eager to have every stop fast and firm off the tee? (even though we know the answer)
1- How many of these 'totally obsolete' courses could use "tour tees" that are wrapped up against the tree line forcing players to actually work the ball?
2 - Has anyone asked the tour why they are so eager to have every stop fast and firm off the tee? (even though we know the answer)
Is it the Tour making all the noise about rolling the ball back, or is it the USGA? I'd think the Tour would be pretty reluctant to bite the hand that feeds them.
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- #242
that's not really the question I asked, but no hell no they aren't.
Distance in golf is one of the things they can actually feature to make people get interested.
Funny thing is, the person they're aiming this at the hardest (Bryson) has already said that he couldn't care less if they roll equipment back to reduce distance. He made the point that he'd still be one of the longest hitters, and the shorter hitters would then be at an even bigger disadvantage.
No, you're right, of course - we do already know the answer (that's kind of why I was clarifying that point). And as to #1, they could absolutely place "Tour Tees" on the courses that would make it difficult/near impossible to just bomb and gouge around the course - if they really wanted to.
TLuke
Well-known member
Not exactly comparable to this ball roll back discussion, but the NCAA stepped in the late 90’s to de-tune college aluminum bats due to safety concerns and inflated game scores. The CWS at the old Rosenblatt stadium in Omaha was a home run derby with hot bats and the wind always blowing out. The new CWS stadium in downtown Omaha doesn’t see much that much anymore with bat changes and the wind blowing in most of the time. I fear that golf club and ball technology is moving so far forward so fast that it is making the true intent of golf as a sport irrelevant. Just my two pennies.
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Definitely not railing on Jack personally here, but the idea is kind of silly for a sport that has embraced change and technology for a very long time. The illogical part of this argument is the focus on scoring. To me it doesn't matter how good the pros score in an event, the best player that week is going to win whether they shoot -2 or they shoot -28. The powers that be have for some reason decided -28 is not acceptable for a golf score. That's just seems kind of arbitrary to me. They also keep talking about having to build longer and longer courses. I'm not sure why as the most competitive events year in and year out are the events that take place on the shortest courses on tour. Why? Because a short course puts everyone in play instead of just the bombers. A long course takes everyone out of the competition except the very longest hitters (Jack?) or those that play nearly perfect golf.
My evidence is the PGA Championship at Bethpage Black which is a miserably long and difficult course. The only 2 players who were competing for that tourney were DJ and Koepka. Jordan Spieth was 6 shots back after gaining 11 strokes on the putting green. So a 4 time major winning short knocker who gained the most strokes putting of any player in any event since 2003 only gets to 6 strokes back. He had no shot on the first tee Thursday. I mean Koepka even said it as much. It's easier to win majors because at most of them only 10-15 guys have a shot at winning. Go to Colonial and all the sudden the entire field is competitive and a wide array of styles will be on the leaderboard.
Which this gets back to my main point we're missing here. Do we want competitive golf or really really hard golf?
Seems like course designers could use design elements to discourage the long ball on every hole. If someone came along who was both long and accurate enough to thread the needle then they’d deserve to dominate.
Lets add, there seems to be a fetish to set up major championship courses, The Masters, US Open and PGA Championship specifically, as long as possible.
Just goes to show that it isn't a distance problem, it's a course setup problem.
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- #249
I'd feel safer around my local club if I knew balls were flying around 10-15 mph slower.
Although, it's not as fun.
I agree. A LOT more to it, but teachers these days are coaching more and more about speed and power. Eventually we will be seeing a much larger amount of 320+ hitters. I think bryson has done more for speed/power than any LD guy. Even if you don't like him, he went out and did something different (doesn't he always) and it's showing its merit.