- Staff
- #51
The governing bodies in golf are clueless and out of touch.
Rolling the Ball Back For Good?
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It’s very obvious that the powers that govern golf have very little interest in the golfer or the golf fan. What they’re really good at is bloviating and lining their own pockets.
And we thought what’s his name would be good.. we were fooled.
- Moderator
- #55
Well, if they roll it back.. I have enough golf balls to be okay for a while. I hope OEM’s still make the current balls in protest, let amateurs choose if they want to roll it back or say nah screw that.
The elite players already have a limitation on 46” club length where we have a 48” max, so why can’t they further “bifurcate” the game as they have already done. They gave Rory an old persimmon driver and he was 40 yards shorter than his Ti driver. The USGA missed the boat when the first metal head drivers and graphite shafts were introduced. Once that genie was let out of the bottle, there’s been no stopping it. It used to be you had to figure out how to hit an 11* driver with a high spin, wound balata ball. Now you can tune the driver and ball to your swing. Not to fitness of the elite players is substantially greater than it was 40 years ago. Problem is, do courses have to be 8000 yards long now?
- Staff
- #57
They don’t have to be, if they would just roll back the mowers.
I’m already too short of a hitter. Can’t afford to lose distance. Killing me and millions like me cause you dont want -15 winning in your premier golf tournaments is dumb.
They could make a huge impact on distance with course conditioning, but the PGA Tour isn't behind this silly notion and has come out in the past and said they're not interested in pursuing it. They know people like seeing the big hitters and they don't want it neutered like the USGA does.
That's the biggest reason the USGA is probably going to incorporate it into the RoG rather than having it as a suggested Model Local Rule. Then the PGA Tour has no choice but to accept it, same with ANGC and the PGA of America. All of them could have told the USGA to go piss up a rope and we're not going to use your local rule, but if it's in the Rules of Golf it's not an option. So now they're going to shove it down everybody's throat whether you like it or not.
jpetermann
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This. It’s not just a ball problem. It’s a course set up problem. It is easy to hit 350+ yard drives on cement and hit out of rough that’s as long as most fairways are on public courses. (that last statement might be a little tongue in cheek).
- Staff
- #62
The fairways are runways for sure.
The thing is course setups have changed to firm conditions because the elite players will shoot the lights out on a soft course. They are hitting it so far that current course lengths are not enough.
- Staff
- #64
Not true, they short the lights out of all courses, but aiding 40 more yards of roll because of hard and tightly mowed ways isn’t counteracting a softer course.
- Moderator
- #65
That tells me that courses aren’t challenging enough from a design perspective, if bomb and gouge is that simple.
It's not the PGA Tour clutching pearls and falling onto their fainting couches about the tournament scores in relation to par, it's the USGA. A bunch of out of touch elitist old farts who still want it to be 1970.
It’s possible to have softer, less manicured fairways and firm greens. I know a couple munis that can give the tour stops tips if needed.
As they should be. I am 100% ok with this. In fact I think the tour needs to widen then in general as well.
- Thread starter
- Admin
- #70
Right. That’s why I said there already is. What are they freezing? There is already a speed deflection test.
A freeze is nothing more than lip service since it already exists.
definitely interested to see how this plays out
If they roll back the ball for everyone, I’m leaning toward not renewing my USGA membership.
Idiots
They aren't going to change a darn thing. Think of all the R&D loney that goes down the drain for OEMs if they roll things back. Absolute waste of time.