Titleist responds to the USGA's Distance Insights Report

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A quote from the text:

"In the spirit of contributing additional perspective to this discussion and the game’s timeless, and healthy, debate between Tradition and Technology, we believe the conclusions drawn in this Report undervalue the skill and athleticism of the game’s very best players and focus far too much on the top of the men’s professional game and project this on golf and golfers as a whole. Furthermore, we believe that existing equipment regulations effectively govern the prospects of any significant increases in hitting distance by the game’s longest hitters."


And the full text from the Titleist website. https://www.titleist.com/distance-insights-perspective
 
Titleist doesn’t want bifurcation. I find that short sighted and wrong.
 
? ? ?

I would hate to see restrictions or rolling it back.

Toughen up the courses - narrow the fairway and grow Up the rough so that precision becomes as important as distance. I really don’t want to watch pros hitting the ball 250 yards off the tee.
 
Titleist doesn’t want bifurcation. I find that short sighted and wrong.

They certainly don't want a different ball for the masses which makes sense from a (their) marketing perspective.
 
I'm so torn on the bifurcation thing.
 
"In the spirit of contributing additional perspective to this discussion and the game’s timeless, and healthy, debate between Tradition and Technology, we believe the conclusions drawn in this Report undervalue the skill and athleticism of the game’s very best players and focus far too much on the top of the men’s professional game and project this on golf and golfers as a whole. Furthermore, we believe that existing equipment regulations effectively govern the prospects of any significant increases in hitting distance by the game’s longest hitters."
Smaaaaaaart.
 
Titleist doesn’t want bifurcation. I find that short sighted and wrong.

I disagree, because bifurcation creates a very large problem. A change would force us to either change our equipment, or keep what we currently have. But, they already make equipment that is non-conforming. You don’t see a whole lot of those in peoples bags when you are on the range. Frankly, no one wants to wake up tomorrow and be like yep, time to learn how far I hit everything all over again cause I now hit it X percentage shorter. That isn’t fun.

If I wanted to play a shorter course, I would move up a Teebox. Golf is already hard enough, why would we want to make it even harder?
 
? ? ?

I would hate to see restrictions or rolling it back.

Toughen up the courses - narrow the fairway and grow Up the rough so that precision becomes as important as distance. I really don’t want to watch pros hitting the ball 250 yards off the tee.
I really don't want to watch the pros playing boring target golf on boring course setups.
 
I disagree, because bifurcation creates a very large problem. A change would force us to either change our equipment, or keep what we currently have. But, they already make equipment that is non-conforming. You don’t see a whole lot of those in peoples bags when you are on the range. Frankly, no one wants to wake up tomorrow and be like yep, time to learn how far I hit everything all over again cause I now hit it X percentage shorter. That isn’t fun.

If I wanted to play a shorter course, I would move up a Teebox. Golf is already hard enough, why would we want to make it even harder?
There is bifurcation already, just not with equipment. Recreational golfers are not playing the same setups that pros play. We would get wrecked playing courses from the tees/distances the pros play. And the green speeds they play change the game tremendously. One time I played a course where the greens really were running close to 14, and it is a very different game than greens running at speeds that recreational golfers normally play. If the pros had to use smaller clubheads or some other limits, but recreational golfers could still use the bigger clubs, I don’t think that would be an issue. You can easily have USGA conforming equipment, and then additional limits on clubhead size for pro tournaments, or something like that.
 
I don't think bifurcation is the answer, and I don't think they should roll back equipment either

If it was up to me, I would make the courses tougher and for those that hit the ball further, make accuracy the premium and if they miss the fairway they are going to struggle to hit/hold the green
 
I’m shocked, I tell you, shocked. No equipment manufacturer will support rollback.
 
#bringbackthebalata
 
I’m shocked, I tell you, shocked. No equipment manufacturer will support rollback.
Why would they or anyone for that matter? Making equipment rollbacks is not going to help 99.9% of golfers. In actuality it is going to hurt 99.9% or even 100% of golfers. Making golf harder is not going to help grow the game and if less people are playing the game who are they going to sell clubs to? None of it makes a bit of sense at all. There are plenty other ways as has been pointed out repeatedly in other threads to limit distance for PROS, which are the 1% for the most part taking advantage of distance, to limit them including quit making the fairways bounce and roll like they are hitting on to concrete.
 
Thought that was very well said by them. I would rather seem the toughen up courses.
 
I had a feeling Titleist would be the first big company to respond. Glad to see them come out & voice their opinion.
 
Count me in the camp of leave things the way they are now. There's no need to have two sets of Rules or two sets of equipment.
 
There is bifurcation already, just not with equipment. Recreational golfers are not playing the same setups that pros play. We would get wrecked playing courses from the tees/distances the pros play. And the green speeds they play change the game tremendously. One time I played a course where the greens really were running close to 14, and it is a very different game than greens running at speeds that recreational golfers normally play. If the pros had to use smaller clubheads or some other limits, but recreational golfers could still use the bigger clubs, I don’t think that would be an issue. You can easily have USGA conforming equipment, and then additional limits on clubhead size for pro tournaments, or something like that.

Part of the conditions thing is because if of course operated at that speed, it would kill the grass within a full week and a half. i’m going to pick on the USGA, because I hate them, but how long does it take for courses to heal after they’ve came through it and wrecked half of their turf? That’s their doing. No one told them make the greens a 14. Put them at a speed the local super says it can support with no issue, and then let the pros play.
 
Part of the conditions thing is because if of course operated at that speed, it would kill the grass within a full week and a half. i’m going to pick on the USGA, because I hate them, but how long does it take for courses to heal after they’ve came through it and wrecked half of their turf? That’s their doing. No one told them make the greens a 14. Put them at a speed the local super says it can support with no issue, and then let the pros play.
Agreed, but the fact still remains that the pros play a different game than the rest of us when it comes to the courses. So if they also have to play slightly different clubs it is not a big problem. Can you imagine if Major League Baseball played with aluminum bats? The average scores would go from 5-3 to 10-8.
 
Need to read the entire statement- also curious to see if other OEMs follow suit with similar statements
 
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