Thomas Pagel, Chief Governance Officer for the USGA, joins Golf Today to review how “exhaustive” and “thorough” the process has been over the last three years for the golf-ball rollback that’s set to begin in 2028. #GolfChannel #GolfCentral #Golf
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Universal golf-ball rollback starting in 2028 has been years in making | Golf Central | Golf Channel
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30 Comments
Again we could care less how exhausted it’s been you set out with a gold to reduce the distance of the golf ball. I don’t give a damn how long it took you to study or how many people you work with to do it. One of the millions of golfers, the United States, who will be negative impacted by this and I don’t even get a vote. These privileged assholes are running the best game in the world by doing this I hope people raise up and tell them to go fuck themselves.
Company’s are just gonna crank iron lofts stronger even more. Everyone is just gonna stock pile til 2025. Refurbished & auctioned balls are gonna skyrocket.
MAybe the PGA should change their emblem to a sickle and hammer! FFS why strive to buy longer equipment when they do this? Is the whole industry a sham?
What's the problem they're trying to solve and who has the problem? The "problem" (I don't think there is one) is within the tournament/professional players and not within recreational golfers.
If the goal is to see higher scores or eliminate the driver/wedge game for tournament/professional play, then there are two options:
– bifurcate the rules and require a rolled-back golf ball for professional play
– maintain the current ball and soften the golf course and grow rough out
As far as recreational golfers go, they have an average club speed of 93.4 MPH and 70% of them have average drive distances under 250 yards per ShotScope. Arccos indicated that "the average [driving distance] of 225.9 yards for 2022 is 0.8 longer than the average over the preceding four years". Recreational golfers haven't improved their handicaps all that much even with all of the new equipment (average handicap is 14-15 and hasn't changed in 20 years). Penalizing the recreational golfer for a problem that exists in the tournament sphere doesn't make much sense, especially given how significantly less conditioned our courses are.
The idea that we have the play the same equipment as the professionals doesn't make much sense to me since we clearly don't play on the same condition courses. I'm playing on sponges most of the time.
The easiest thing to do for tournament play would be to soften the course. One of the best examples I can think of are the U.S. Opens at Pinehurst. 1999 was a soft course with relatively narrow fairways compared to 2014 which was a hard/fast course with super wide fairways and natural areas that were easily played out of.
I think if there is any problem to address at the professional level, it is the firmness of the course and condition has a greater impact than the ball by itself.
The whole ball recycling industry is screwed too
If it’s going to make that much of a difference of a average of 3 yards for the Rec how will that speed up the game LOL
I think this is a money thing
Most of the commentors seem to allow the logical reasoning for this decision go in one ear and out the other. All this complaining for nothing. Most amateurs wouldn't even notice if their drive went 5-10 yards shorter with their consistency of strike.
Many of us have been working out, taking lessons, getting fitted for equipment just to get another 5-10 yards…..very disconnected to with a waive of your hand say it doesn’t matter to the recreational golfer that, with a stroke of a pen, were going to take all those gains back….I am very disappointed that the USGA is so dismissive of the recreational golfer and focused on the top 25 longest hitters in the game. I will never send the USGA another dime as they do not represent me any longer.
You know the world is crashing when the governing bodies of PGA and Nascar are exactly alike.
Sporting governing bodies need to take a hike and the sports need to make their own overseeing board. FIA has been screwing up F1 for the past few years. Now the pga has this.
9-11 yrds for elite pros amounts to nothing…its still driver wedge for those guys
You are making these changes based on literally the top 1% of golfers. How does this make any sense. 99% of golfers are not on the PGA tour. 99% of golfers don't swing at 125 mph. This is not going to bring more people into golf. Only hurts the recreational game. Bad decision.
Bifurcation was the obvious solution to this.
Lea swimming makes more sense than this
It doesn't make any sense, about not being able to make the fairways more narrow and growing the grass. A golf course could simply not mow the grass, it would take about 2-3 months to make this change. Why change the ball and have a negative impact upon 99.99% of golfers (non-pros) because of what 0.01% of golfers are doing? This will greatly impact the average golfer who will lose yards, therefore have a longer approach shot and it will cause golf scores to go up. This will have a negative impact upon the enjoyment and growth of the game, not good.
You can absolutely fix this with course design, dog legs left and right with absolutely force you to hit a certain distance unless you are a psychopath that can place the ball in a 5-10 yrs area
There is a massive market for second hand golf balls… wonder what will happen to that… who will absorb the costs of all those balls now being illegal. I don’t know about the recycling of golf balls.. but what’s the environmental impact of this…
How are people against this? You cant keep making courses longer and longer. The ball and equipment will be much more standardized. The long hitters will still have a distance advantage. Shot making will be much more prominent. This will have zero effect on amateurs.
I will be turning 59 when this takes effect. I will be buying all the soon to be illegal balls (hopefully cheaper) when they aren’t legal for those that play professionally or high amateur level. Hopefully I can afford to get tour balls then!
My drives barely go 200 yards
Will this ball be like the old professional golf ball?
This will destroy the game! No one wants to C Rory hit the ball 280 yards spinning the ball with with4000 spin?
If they cut the speed by 5%, who says they will not go 10% 2 15%?
This guy may be the smartest idiot I have ever seen?
I’d be curious how the ball manufacturers feel about the fact that they have invested tens of millions of dollars on research and development of making the longest and most accurate ball possible is now worthless.
This move is LONG overdue!
The complaining is baffling..It’s 3-5 yards for amateurs..to think that you will lose strokes because your drives are 5 yards less is ridiculous. The reality is amateurs lose majority of strokes from their short game 100 yards and in. Enough about distance.
Terrible decision..PERIOD!
Well they are gonna have a lot of people buying product and older products on the amateur level will actually get a bump so this should be fun but yes total BS