FORE Magazine

Top Menu

  • About Me
  • Contact Us
  • Home

Main Menu

  • Current Issue
  • Digital Book
  • Profiles
  • Sustainability
  • Travel
  • 19th Hole
  • Classic Course
  • FORE Her
  • More
    • Know the Rules
    • Handicap Hints
    • SCGA Junior
    • Where Are They Now?
    • News
    • Public Affairs
Sign in / Join

Login

Welcome! Login in to your account
Lost your password?

Lost Password

Back to login

logo

FORE Magazine

  • Current Issue
  • Digital Book
  • Profiles
  • Sustainability
  • Travel
  • 19th Hole
  • Classic Course
  • FORE Her
  • More
    • Know the Rules
    • Handicap Hints
    • SCGA Junior
    • Where Are They Now?
    • News
    • Public Affairs
State of the GameSummer 2023
Home›State of the Game›In The Name of Distance: The Great Golf Ball Rollback Controversy

In The Name of Distance: The Great Golf Ball Rollback Controversy

By Geoff Shackleford
July 21, 2023
4158
0
Share:

On my first visit to Riviera CC’s range for a late-1980s lesson under the kind eye of the great head pro Ron Rhoads, the practice area featured a standard chain length fence. Maybe 10 feet tall.

Over the years this converted par-3 course designed by George Thomas and Billy Bell has seen its fence grow to 90 feet tall. And every February, by permit, a huge extension is added all because the purported greatest athletes in the history of our sport are in town for the Genesis Invitational. Even then they carry modern balls well into the 11th hole, sometimes nearly hitting their unsuspecting peers 350 or more yards away.

Anyone who has ever been hit by projectile surlyn can attest that it’s not pleasant and can be life-altering. All over Southern California, ranges are surrounded by unsightly fences to contain what opponents of updated equipment regulations insist is merely a product of extra core work and better diets.

So how dare we demean the grueling gym hours by tightening up existing rules and regulations for a few elite players with the goal of keeping vast courses relevant, helping pace of play, making the sport safe and maybe even rewarding those who can hit every club in the bag? The notion, as proposed by the USGA and R&A, has prompted end times declarations, coincidentally by people paid to play the equipment.

The governing bodies have recommended a “Modified Local Rule (MLR)” where a tournament-friendly ball is required at events electing to adopt such a pellet in 2026. The ball would have to pass a test that might take eight percent off today’s drives of the super-longest, though more likely five percent for most really good players. And if you are an everyday golfer with average clubhead speeds and one of these balls finds its way into your bag, you won’t notice a difference.

Out of kindness to the $8 billion equipment industry in a $102 billion golf industry, the R&A and USGA dropped a proposal to also slow down the driver face. Even though the companies take these faces right up to the edge when they give them to their players, meaning after not many practice sessions, they’ll be pushing the limits of rules conformity. You will not find these in the barrels at Roger Dunn, contrary to the claims of great joy in buying the exact same thing the pros play.

Golf has long had equipment rules that are now pushed or skirted in the launch-monitor era, as technology evolved too quickly for the regulators to update testing specs. They would only do so to keep our courses safe, relevant and functional. So, after years of study and listening, the governing bodies have decided to reign in the elite player a bit. The organizations even asked the manufacturers about loosening up equipment testing rules for the average golfer and beginners as a trade-off. The companies passed, preferring to market to all of us that we should play what the pros play despite data showing how the elites reap much greater benefits.

Since announcing the pared-down proposal in March, we’ve heard an onslaught of whining, misinformation and comical reaction from people who bear none of the cost burden caused by distance advances. Rickie Fowler said the expense of developing the MLR ball could double the cost of golf for everyone. He was serious. His preferred ballmaker currently makes one ball just for radar-based launch monitors and they charge $70 for a dozen.

There is little doubt that players work out and pursue speed more than at any time in the history of golf. They are also getting injured at a higher rate, and younger players at less-than-enthralling speeds are increasingly discouraged from pursuing what was once an egalitarian sport. You know, one where big hitters Freddie Couples and Greg Norman were just as good as Corey Pavin and Tom Kite. Wasn’t that a great thing?

Launch-monitor data also tells us that the gains purportedly reaped from all those kale smoothies and core-strengthening sessions suddenly dissipate when decade-old drivers and balls are tested. The athletes morph into virtual couch potatoes if you test them with 20-year-old stuff.

The governing bodies are not proposing the tournament ball because it’s fun. They did not get into golf to spend countless meetings working on this or the assorted layers that will arise from policing a ball unlikely to be made with definitive markings as a passive aggressive bit of pouting from the ballmakers.

The USGA and R&A compromised with the Model Local Rule by asking the manufacturers to make balls based on patents and designs already completed. Because golf course footprints cannot keep expanding and bearing the brunt of costs associated with distance jumps. Nor should the elite version of our sport be all about “hitting bombs.” Frankly, it’s boring. The R&A and USGA rarely point out the safety and injury factors, and they rarely highlight some of the dodgy ways rules are bent by clubmakers. If anything, the rule makers are too nice.

Because, do they ask this? If distance is so vital to “growing the game,” how come no manufacturer will make non conforming equipment? Oh, right, because golfers will refuse to buy it. Golfers value their integrity and playing the game “the right way.” But the modern professional seems to be losing that sense of purpose after having been spoiled by more forgiving clubs and the ability to overpower just about any course.

Some players even mock the viewpoints of legends who were far better at the craft than they ever will be. Decades ago, Jack Nicklaus, Tiger Woods and Bobby Jones advocated for a rollback because the footprint of courses should not keep expanding. Tiger has said he would like to see the ball spin a bit more to bring back shot-making. His view is not shaped by anything besides what is best for the game from a playing, safety, pace and spectating perspective.

Which is a reminder that the distance issue is a slow-play driver on all levels of the sport. This year at The Masters, just days before it took twosomes five hours to play the final round, I told a caddie that he spends four hours annually at the Genesis Invitational just walking to and from tees added along with waiting on Riviera’s 10th tee and standing around in the par-5 11th and 17th fairways … places where logjams did not happen as recently as a decade or so ago.

He and his peers lose four hours they could spend lounging, eating or, of course, going to the gym to get stronger to lift that big piece of luggage. This looper was unmoved by any of the aforementioned points in the name of “growing the game” with distance. Thankfully, his job is to keep up and shut up. The governing bodies? Their job is to do what’s best for the game no matter how many forces tell them they are terrible people for taking a few yards off the drives of the top one percent.

Previous Article

The Long Road to Success: Rico Hoey’s ...

Next Article

Watch the Birdie: Paying Attention To The ...

0
Shares
  • 0
  • +
  • 0
  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

Geoff Shackleford

Related articles More from author

  • Know the RulesSummer 2023

    Beached, But Not Trapped: If an Entire Rule is Dedicated to one Area of the Course, you Know it Must ...

    July 21, 2023
    By Jimmy Becker
  • At The TurnSummer 2023

    An Open Legacy: Ensuring A Future For The Game of Golf

    July 20, 2023
    By Robert Earle Howells
  • State of the GameWinter 2020

    State of the Game: New Ways to Think About an Old Game

    January 27, 2020
    By Ken Van Vechten
  • ProfilesSummer 2023

    Finding the Joy: Nick Geyer’s Life and Love Come From the Game of Golf

    July 20, 2023
    By Derryl Trujillo
  • Spring 2022State of the Game

    Tee Time Tribulations: Searching for the Elusive L.A. County Tee Times

    April 20, 2022
    By David Weiss
  • Classic CourseSummer 2023

    Women of the Canyon: Bel-Air Country Club Readies for the U.S. Women’s Amateur

    July 21, 2023
    By Judd Spicer

Leave a reply Cancel reply

Recent Posts

  • FeaturedOn The TeeSpring 2025

    Club Spotlight

  • CoversFeaturedSpring 2025

    A Unified Response

  • FeaturedIn The ClubhouseSpring 2025

    Original Wonder Woman

  • FeaturedIn The ClubhousePublic AffairsSpring 2025

    Doing More With Less

  • 19th HoleFeaturedIn The ClubhouseSpring 2025

    Pelican Brief

FeaturedIn The ClubhouseSpring 2025

John Henebry

A Personal Remembrance Wednesday, Feb. 19, 2025. A ballroom at Desert IslandCC in the Coachella Valley pocket of Rancho Mirage. The “Celebration of Life” for my dear friend, my colleague, ...
  • Fun & Games

    By Kevin O'Connor
    May 15, 2025
  • Rule 25

    By Jimmy Becker
    May 15, 2025
  • Doing More With Less

    By Kevin Fitzgerald
    May 15, 2025
  • Original Wonder Woman

    By Joe Passov
    May 15, 2025
© 2016 FORE Magazine About Us | Contact Us | Advertise