NASSAU, Bahamas – At least one person says it’s monstrous. Others say they don’t understand anger. But everyone has opinions.
The USGA and R&A’s decision to “re-release” golf balls universally at all levels of golf is now one of the most hotly debated topics in the game. After three years of “notice and comment” in which governing bodies proposed a bifurcated system in which only professionals used a different ball, such strong opposition to bifurcation led to a universal decision.
In less than a decade, the golf balls you and the pros use will no longer be subject to the rules. But there’s a lot more to analyze with this huge move.
What does ball rollback mean?
Golf balls will be shrunk to ensure they can’t get as far, combating a long-term problem of players’ distance increasing while golf courses remain the same length (or undergo expensive renovations to increase yardage) . Manufacturers will have to make new balls that meet the new standards. The previous system tested balls at 120 mph, ensuring they didn’t go beyond the distance limit of 317 yards. The new rules increase the test to 125 mph, which would obviously send a ball farther, meaning balls have to be scaled down. Longer hitters will lose 13-15 yards, the USGA said, while LPGA players could lose 5-7 yards. According to the USGA, the average recreational golfer will lose less than 3-5 yards.
Why are we doing this?
During the 2022-23 season, 98 PGA Tour professionals averaged more than 300 yards off the tee. Just 10 years ago only 13 did it. The 75th longest passer on the tour this year, Kevin Roy, averaged 303.4 yards, which was 31.5 yards more than his 1998 counterpart, Guy Boros. This is due to improvements in club and ball technology, creating concern among many in the game that professional golf is becoming a worse product as players can go so far that courses can’t keep up. As Tiger Woods said Saturday: “We just don’t have enough properties anymore.” Woods, as he noted, is hitting the golf ball longer than ever, despite all the surges he’s endured over the past nine years.
The governing bodies wanted to make this change only at the highest levels of golf, not wanting to impact the recreational golfer. But there was strong opposition to that idea, particularly from the PGA Tour and top equipment manufacturers, with many saying that one of the great aspects of golf is that professional and recreational golfers all play the same equipment. These people, for example, Patrick Cantlay, a member of the PGA Tour’s policy committee, also said that the bifurcation would mean that manufacturers would have to spend millions of dollars to develop multiple different golf balls for different levels.
Even this is debatable: Rory McIlroy countered this point last week by tweeting: “The game is already bifurcated. Do you think we play the same stuff as you?
I don’t understand the anger over the golf ball throwing. It will make no difference to the average golfer and will put golf back on a path of sustainability. He will also help bring back some skills to the professional game that have been eradicated over the last two decades.…
— Rory McIlroy (@McIlroyRory) December 3, 2023
Perhaps some of the resistance over the bifurcation was actually a fight to stop the rollback altogether, but R&A boss Martin Slumbers told Golf Digest: “There are only three options: we can bifurcate; you change the whole game; or you do nothing. And doing nothing is not an option.” Because opposition to bifurcation was so strong, the USGA and R&A continued to reinstate it for everyone.
This has met with considerable resistance online, but they are pushing through with changes.
“There will be a lot of alarmists and ambulance chasers who will make this thing seem a lot worse than it actually is,” USGA CEO Mike Whan told The Golf Channel. “…I don’t want a few loud voices trying to get more clicks, more viewers and more phone calls to spark a frenzy that, frankly, is not based in fact.”
When will it come into force?
The withdrawal will begin for elite players and competitions in 2028 and will begin to apply to everyone in 2030.
What does this mean for the recreational golfer?
You will need new golf balls. In the end. The new rules don’t go into effect for non-elite players until 2030, so you’ll have two years to see pros play with this setup before you have to comply.
One of the main problems some have with universal rollback is that most recreational golfers can’t hit it far enough to make distance an issue. PGA Tour golfer Keegan Bradley told reporters in the Bahamas this week: “For the amateur world to hit the ball shorter is monstrous. I can’t think of anything more stupid than that. “I don’t think it’s a smart move at all, especially considering golf is becoming more and more popular just because of COVID.”
The opposite would be that courses can adjust tee boxes (and the cost of moving them up is much less than moving them back) and that length is generally more related to how far you hit it than normal than to a certain number . McIlroy also countered points like Bradley’s, saying, “People who are angry about this decision shouldn’t be angry at the governing bodies, they should be angry at the elite pros and club/ball manufacturers because they don’t they want bifurcation.”
McIlroy further said: “It will make no difference to the average golfer and will put golf back on a path of sustainability. He will also help bring back some skills in the professional game that have been eradicated over the last twenty years.”
Also keep in mind that the average golfer can make up that loss of distance through proper equipment equipment, lessons, improved fitness, or by not playing with worn balls he finds in the bushes.
Golfers are expected to lose 5% of distance with the proposed golf ball rollback. (Neil Baynes/Getty Images)
What does this mean for PGA Tour pros?
This is the hard part to define, and perhaps the answer won’t come until 2028.
The fundamental goal is to keep golf a game that rewards hitting multiple types of shots and succeeding with all available clubs. The concern isn’t literally that people are going too far. It’s that some routes are turned into “driving the ball far and hitting a short wedge,” which some say degrades the game. Many will forever cite the 2020 US Open at Winged Foot where long hitter Bryson DeChambeau was able to launch drives far, not worry too much about accuracy and still get up and down en route to a major win. This is obviously the extreme, but it is the simplest example of the problem.
Many pros say there is more to do with course design and setup that could serve as a deterrent to the “bomb and gouge” approach. Scottie Scheffler pointed to TPC Sawgrass, Colonial and Hilton Head earlier this year as courses that have “stood the test of time” with designs that penalize substandard units. But other routes have removed trees and simply chosen to grow in their raw state, which isn’t always enough.
The governing bodies are probably hoping that drives will come back about 15 yards and that they will see more players hitting long irons onto the greens. Again, the goal is to reward a complete round of golf.
Will it solve the problem?
Probably not, but it would be much more difficult to restore the equipment (although the USGA and R&A have also indicated they will continue to test “driver creep” and drivers’ tolerance for off-center hits) and governing bodies thought something had to be done . Some of the best courses in the world, from Pebble Beach to St. Andrews, were in danger of being overrun by the direction the game was going. Augusta National famously extended the 13th hole by 35 yards by purchasing the property behind the old back tees. Hardly any other course can afford to do things like this.
There will always be unintended consequences from major decisions like this. Maybe it creates new problems. Maybe it will create a completely different advantage to exploit. But as Slumbers said, doing nothing wasn’t an option, and in the short term, that could make professional golf a better product.
(Top photo: Angel Martinez/Getty Images)