It’s one of the biggest changes to the Rules of Golf in decades, but the golf ball rollback has left the Grand Slam champion and his fellow tour pros feeling ‘frustrated’…
It is not that Rory McIlroy opposes the golf ball rollback.
In fact, the Masters champion has been such a strong advocate for the landmark change that he took to social media when the R&A and the USGA first announced their plans in December 2023.
“I don’t understand the anger about the golf ball rollback,” an impassioned McIlroy wrote. “It will make no difference whatsoever to the average golfer and puts golf back on a path of sustainability. It will also help bring back certain skills in the pro game that have been eradicated over the past 2 decades.”
The PGA Tour’s second longest hitter in 2025 – behind the burly South African Aldrich Potgeiter – wants to carry the ball a shorter distance and, for many, it is easy to see why.
Those cathedrals of the game McIlroy often likes to talk about – the Old Course at St Andrews and plenty others – are at risk of becoming obsolete as a challenge for the elite and the Northern Irishman wants to protect them by reining in the biggest hitters.
And so, from January 2028, every existing golf ball currently in circulation will be rendered non-confirming by the R&A and USGA, with the hope that hitting distances for the big guns will be curbed by at least 15 yards.
McIlroy’s big problem, however, is his belief that these proposed changes announced two years ago will be inconsequential by the time they are actually implemented.
“I’m an open book with this stuff,” he told the Fried Egg Golf Podcast, revealing he has already tested the proposed rolled-back ball.
“If you talk to the players that say they’ve tried the rollback ball and they’re critical of it, it’s usually from one manufacturer. I have a very good friend in Shane Lowry who plays a certain brand of golf ball and he noticed no difference at all.
“We’re frustrated as players and as an industry because the lead times these equipment companies have been given to figure it out… by the time we play these balls in 2028, there’s not going to be a difference. Or, the difference is going to be so marginal that it’s not going to make a difference.”
McIlroy suggests that changing the way golf balls are manufactured and tested should only be the start of a radical overhaul in equipment as a whole.
“It’s very hard for the governing bodies and the regulators to stay ahead of the equipment manufacturers,” he added.
“The equipment manufacturers have more money to do R&D and test and get around the regulations. Do you limit the size of the clubheads? Approaching it one way with the golf ball is one thing, but I think you’ve got to approach it from all angles.
“The ball is a good start, but these equipment manufacturers are so good and have so many resources that by the time we play this thing in 2028, there’s just not going to be a difference between what we have now and what we might have in three years’ time.
“I did a practice for TGL today in the SoFi dome and you’re wailing away at the driver into that screen. You’re just hitting it as hard as you can. It comes out of the heel or out of the toe a bit and it’s going to be fine, that’s just what technology has done.
“If the golf industry as a whole is serious about this, we’ve got to approach this from a lot of different angles and not just from the golf ball. It seemed like the golf ball was the lowest hanging fruit but it seems the manufacturers are still figuring out a way to get around it.”
