by Finally golf will be interesting again
Don’t miss the nonsense the equipment manufacturers say. Or what the benefits sponsored by the manufacturers of the equipment say. Or even what the Tours say are owned by the benefits sponsored by the equipment makers.
The decision to roll the ball back was a great day of golf. It’s not as great as it would be if the governing bodies were able to rule this century without having to satisfy an industry so much with finance that it’s almost as if they are paid from the yard of the drives. more of Bryson DeChambeau. But historic nonetheless.
After more than two decades of mounting and indisputable evidence that the ball travels too far, the T&A and the US Golf Association did something about it. Granted, the horse had not only bolted but was three entities down when the brakes were finally put on the turbocharged ball. With the rules coming into effect in 2028, Dobbin could be galloping around the next dog in the shameless race to ditch the classics.
Who knows, by then there may be more tee boxes on the Old Course that reside in far flung areas of Fife once considered off limits to the game’s most respected layout. It will be alarming at that time, that the drastic measures that are thought to have been announced by the two governing bodies on 6 December 2023, were not particularly serious at all. They barely bared their teeth. They were the minimum required.
The layout of the championships is too long for the environment and it doesn’t take long for them to get excited. Bomb and Gouge is the only game plan that works in a sport that is becoming so one-dimensional it’s almost one-sided. “Grow the rough,” cried the cry. “The fairways are narrow. That will show them.” Fine, that would be and in some cases keeping the scores down. But at the expense of this amazingly different game itself.
Is there anything more boring than watching players chip away at the sidelines from thick cabbage? What about the amazing recovery shots from Seve Ballesteros and the like? Those magicians whose wands today would get stuck in the dense weeds.
The pro golfer’s skill set in 2023 includes huge drives and smooth wedges, with a six iron as a second shot on the par fives. They play from the same place, they play at the same pace (slowly) and to be honest it’s getting more tedious by the season.
As Rory McIlroy says, the ball rolling back will be a more varied challenge and the most talented golfers will begin to be identified with more regularity and, more importantly, it will provide more enjoyment and interest at the same time. The shows will be improved and the characters will be improved because all the pros will not be like clones, but be individual again, each with their own characteristics, strengths and weaknesses.
This multi-faceted adventure, on courses originally designed to expand options other than blast as far as possible, will convince more people to participate.
That will doubly so if the T&A and the USGA go through with their promise to ensure that the sweet spots on drivers are reduced. There is nothing better than “knocking” a tee shot. It should be rare and not occur on every other teebox.
And there’s the most outrageous argument for something that shouldn’t be a topic of conversation: that weekend golfers will suffer – by a few yards! My friend in the pub on Tuesday night summed it up perfectly when I told him about the possible changes. “So I’ll hit five less yards into the s— than I do now?” he said. Directly, if the course becomes too difficult for the members they can move up the tees. Job done.
But no, the equipment manufacturers and their PR teams will spend a few years warning us about all the money that will be wasted in the transition. Whose money is it? Their? Yes, right. They have half a century until the pros have to use the new ball and two years after that until the recreational golfer has to stick with it.
They will flood the shelves with new balls and after losing their Pro V1s – which was of little use to the hackers anyway – they will see their products fly and their profits rise again. And they will have the support of the pros (who pay them, don’t forget) to confirm how an 18-game handicapper who was as successful as Pinnacle in 1995 can do without this latest miracle on his or her wing. .
In the meantime, the pro game will excel and those of us who remember when golf was a multifaceted pursuit for the soldiers and, in Seve’s case, the geniuses will still be beating the drum. To take the game further, you have to roll the ball backwards.
Amateur golf needs more distance, not less
The fetishization of the extra distance has been ingrained in golf for decades. At his peak in the nineties, John Daly released a video entitled “Grip It and Rip It”, demolishing all protocols as he convinced relentless hackers that they could emulate his 350-yard Exocets at will. . Remember not to cross parallel at the top of the backswing. Seán Mór modeled a motion where the driver’s shaft was wrapped almost around his neck. It was as seductive as it was outrageous, this notion that you could unlock precious power through the most primitive cuts.
To limit how far the ball goes, as the governing bodies of the game will define from 2028, flip this type of advertising on its head. Cast your eye over the trade magazine covers and you see variations on a theme: “Rifle it like Rory!”, “Shoot bazookas like Bryson!”, “Smash that drive into the next postcode!” The acquisition of length from the tee is crudely marketed as a symbol of virility. Study the names of the best selling brands by the manufacturers: Big Bertha Callaway, Srixon Impact Power Body Hot Driver, RocketBallz by TaylorMade.
Except now the rocket is being retrofitted as Robin depends. Where most sports adhere to the Olympic credo of “faster, higher, stronger”, golf is embarking on a curious experiment to leave the biggest hitters shorter and weaker. You can immediately understand the reasoning, the fear that the most glorious canvases in the game are being abandoned. Old Tom Morris did not intend to approach the Road Hole on the Old Course with a nine iron. Alister McKenzie never imagined the 13th at Augusta would be reduced to a drive and a wedge. And the guardians of the US Open did not see their competition overcome, in 2020, with a philosophy that called the champion Bryson DeChambeau “bomb and gouge”.
There is a crucial difference, however, between what the purists intended and what the public wants today. On the rare occasion of a 400-yard drive, a small portion of the television audience is clamoring that something must be done. Otherwise, the scene goes viral. In 2021, when DeChambeau took a blistering drive over the lake at Bay Hill’s sixth, almost hitting the green, the crowd erupted as if he had just hit a home run. Whenever McIlroy activates what Graeme McDowell calls his “BMW” (“the ultimate driving machine”), commentators admire him.
Golf is not too equipped with these moments of pure explosiveness. Therefore, it disturbs them when they are in danger. The purpose of the rollback is to ensure that more subtle aspects of play, such as slicing, are not neglected. But there are times when this natural balance is restored without anyone worrying. Take the 2020 Masters, where DeChambeau boastfully claimed he could play Augusta as a “par-67”. He duly made a fool of himself, a missed delivery cut by the shortcomings of his short game. Power only wins long-drive contests, not majors.
Here are the players who will be worried about the upcoming baseball revolution. The average weekend carry is projected to drop by five yards or less. It’s a small thing, but will people really enjoy seeing their slappy, faded 180 yards travel only 175 in five years? As a vision for the future, it seems regressive. It also points to a potential complication: a five-yard difference might convince a player to hit a club on, say, a four-iron rather than a five-iron. Irons that are further into the greens run the risk of more handicaps, which could theoretically lead to higher scores and slower play.
There are flaws everywhere you look. Are these changes really happening, as the authorities say, for the good of “the environment”? Golf is not an eco-conscious enterprise, and pretending otherwise is foolish. The courses in Dubai are saturated daily with enough water to fill the Staines Reservoir. And how will post-2028 rules be policed on a recreational level? Will four-ball members be eyeing each other suspiciously in case someone slips a rogue Titleist Pro V1x into the bag?
The reality is that the vast majority of golfers want more distance, not less. The USGA concluded earlier this year that even the front yards at most American courses were “too long for most players, based on their hitting distance and the length of selected holes”. These players are the party without fault in these fundamental reforms. They are being burdened with a nonsensical solution to a problem that didn’t even exist for them in the first place, at least.
