Are Professionals Getting Too Good at Golf?
Professional Golf has been going through many changes over the past few years, but one of the most highly discussed and most controversial is the idea of rolling back the golf ball to counteract the power and distance that has taken over the modern game, but is it the right thing to do? And do we even need it?
Support the Channel on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/ROLUGolf
50 Comments
Let's return professional golf to persimmon. Let's bring golf back to its classiest era the 1960s
I feel like a lot of this discussion misses how much the golfers themselves have been optimized. Thirty years ago, the highest tech thing in golf was a high speed camera and the generally accepted understanding of the physics behind golf was that path determined start line and club face angle determined left/right spin.
Today we have Trackman, which can tell us exactly why the ball goes where it does (which is essentially the opposite of what people used to think) and in minute detail, how that can be improved and optimized. We also have extremely detailed data on how golf is actually played through ShotLink, Arccos, etc. and related data analyses like the Strokes Gained metric that make it fairly easy to optimize strategy on the course. That data says clearly that the trait that differentiates golfers the most is distance and that the most effective strategic approach to golf is to hit the longest shot you can while keeping the ball in play off the tee.
Because we now know how important pure distance is, the best golfers in the world are now working to get as fast as possible. They are also now choosing to hit driver more often because we have real data that says you will score better on average hitting it 310 off the tee than 270 and trying to find the fairway because real world data says that you will score about the same hitting it 310 in the rough as hitting it 270 in the fairway and you only hit 2-3% more fairways with a 3W than with a driver anyway.
i have no problem with a pause in ball innovation, i have a massive problem with a rollback.
Nah the money to spend in golf is ridiculous maybe this will cheapen things
Even though they are hitting it far they still have to usually make an approach shot to the green or chip. The only thing they are gaining with a long drive is shortening that which doesn't necessarily make a difference you're still hitting your second shot onto the green weather it's 70 or 120 yards
BEST CHANNEL EVER
Having an average carry higher than the average tour pro really shows you just how easy the game can be. Going from a full swing, to a half swing for a pitch show makes controlling flight and dispersion so much easier.
There should be unified equipment, balls and clubs. So much of the quality of flight is completely the equipment. And golfers need to embrace being athletes, hit the gym and hit longer.
There are no changes in the average PGA, LIV or any organizations average score of winners as well as from top to bottom players and leagues as an average.
It is more about how a specific golfer against their present cohort of competitors play.
Training has evolved….period
Ah yes let’s change all of our golf balls instead of making a “pro” driver that fits the new rules, no one is gonna take this seriously besides pros so why effect everybody
"Oh no our players are really good, lets make a super complicated rules and ruin the game with rules to make the old courses play harder" Which doesnt make sense. Gotta develop new courses.
the wooden bats example is pretty good, just make them play with persimmon woods
I dont understand why we are rolling back the ball and not the driver. Just lower driver size maximum (460cc down to 420-440cc) and shaft length maximum (from 44in to like 42-43in) and your remove a lot of that top end distance
I like what other people have said about making fairways more narrow if you have the skill to put it 300yds out in the middle of the fairway you absolutely should be allowed to do so it’s on the PGA to make courses make players think twice about taking these huge swings
True champions win no matter the constraints. Think about Bryson DeChambeau’s monster drive on the par-5 6th at the Arnold Palmer Invitational. Exciting golf (and golfers) is what fans pay to watch.
I think for me, it really comes down to the integrity and soul of the game of golf. Even though the best golfers, obviously, for the most part, have all been athletes and have had to work out and work hard for their craft, the idea was that you didn’t have to be some kind of athletic specimen or freak of nature to be a successful golfer. The issue that we are seeing now, is that for the most part you actually do have to have some extra special athletic ability, which is born into you in order to be a world class golfer. I personally feel like that takes away from what makes golf so special, so the idea is that the ball would in some sense aid and leveling the plane field so that it’s more a game of skill rather than freak athleticism.
Look at John Erikson's videos related to the use of older equipment known as Blades and Persimmon drivers and balada golf balls.
I’m 34 and have been playing golf my whole life because of my father. And this new phenomenon with more distance is crazy. You got so many new people joining golf and playing all the time and most of those people just care about distance and speed and it’s just stupid. I don’t hit the ball that far and I don’t swing that hard either. I hit my 7 iron 155 and 4 hybrid 220. But really the funniest part about being paired with one of these young guys that bomb it is they have no short game around the green and putting is just mark them down for a 3 putt every time. Awful.
I think they should just incorporate more strategy into the game itself so that way everyone can have a different approach to the game. Maybe something like par 5s you can use driver on all par 5s, but par 4s you can only use it a limited number of times per round and you must choose which holes you want to use it on carefully. This would force players to come up with unique strategies and risks that if pulled off could give them an advantage over others which will diversify the outcomes more potentially making the game more entertaining to watch as well as play.
Golf balls are the most purchased product by golfers. If you tighten restrictions, golf manufactures will have less product to sell you. They are probably the ones who may not like this.
Pros should use wood clubs 😂
I think the cheapest and most strategic method would be to choose if you want a front nine or back nine driver. You can distinguish it with a band of tape or anything. It doesn't kill the lust of having the same equipment as the pros, just a major, minor, rule change in competition.
Every other major sport plays in or on professional stages designed specifically for the most elite players. Why doesn’t the PGA design a series of courses for the pros? They could even get creative with intersecting fairways or alternating Tee boxes etc. I think they’re in a unique position to do something special with the game. Capping how well the best in the world perform kind of defeats the purpose of being the best of the best. Players and technology have evolved, so should the field of play.
Don't allow tee's..😅
The simple fact is, they need to change the driver. They should have taken care of this decades ago. The driver is the one single piece of equipment that have changed the game. They did put a temporary bandaid on it, when they restricted driver head size. It's time to do that again.
I don’t think the driver or ball technology is the biggest problem in golf today. I think iron loft jacking is a more serious issue than anything with driver or balls. I think there should be some standard on what a 6 or 7 iron is for example. I think the weaker lofts should be the starting point. Either that or just stamp the lofts on the bottom of the irons like we do with our woods and wedges. What would be your opinion on iron loft standardization where there should be a tight range on lofts for any given particular iron?
just let them score 50
Golfers today are NOT as good now by considering the clubs only. Masters hole 13 & 15 clubs needed then and now. Ability to hit earlier clubs than now! Plus a hell of a lot of them are not likable!
This isn't a problem at all. Just let us play.
One change would suffice. Shrink green sizes by "X" percent and see how it affects scores. (Make fringes and chipping areas more difficult as well.) Change the "X" percent to adjust the scores according to where they "should" be. Everyone likes to see a bombed drive but scoring wins. Smaller greens would complicate play (maybe slow it down as well possibly …) ensuring that the all-round versatile player could win while the bomber wouldn't so much.
Why don’t they just make all pro tournaments blade irons only, limit wood head sizes, and traditional putters only. Force them to strike it well and strategise to win.
Before watching I would say no. I watched a video the other day from a guy that draws charts to show that it is not all about distance. Most of the scores are around the same. Scottie Scheffler doesn't have the furthest drives but he does have the best scores. Clever course design is how you combat the big boys. Not changing the golf ball.
Didn’t we try a harder course with Oakmont this year, but the pros all complained that the rough was too long?
I think more punishment for missing a shot wide should be warranted. If you miss the fairway, you should have to deal with the long stuff. Not the current rough that is better maintained than the fairways normal people play on.
How about variety of courses. Some courses will favor longer hitter, some will favor more accurate golfers.
Why don’t we just start making courses a little longer (like tiger is already doing with his designs)
You extend the course and make the balls shorter, it’s actually bigger advantages for long hitters. Short hitters got the shorter of the sticks, again.
The only thing else they can do is grow the rough up, add more difficult pins, and/or make the greens virtually unplayably quick to make it more difficult. Eventually, all courses will run out real estate to make the course longer. It’s already happing to so many local municipal courses.
Easy make them use wooden clubs like we make MLB players use wood bats
Everybody hates all the marketing horseshit anyway
Baseball fans do the same thing, if they want to play like a pro, they get a wood bat. And even tho modern baseball is geared towards long ball like golf, it always gets exciting in the playoffs because the best teams play great but true strategy is put on display. Just like the top of the leaderboard on a Sunday.
Lol people start bombing the ball, and people start gaining more interest in golf, so golf says nah dog roll it back, its the WNBA all over again 😂
Hockey went through a similar progression recently albeit in reverse (teams were getting too good defensively), and it mostly worked out fine. There was an equipment arms race in the 90s where goalie pads kept getting bigger and bigger, while defensive systems kept getting tighter and tighter, and it entered a deadpuck era until they implemented rule changes to limit the size of goalie's pads and make the game quicker through the neutral zone.
USGA & R&A have lost touch with golfers. They are outdated and need to be replaced
Assistindo esse ótimo canal ,aqui do Brasil ,pela dublagem automática.
How about making missing the fairway a real penalty. Make 70% FIR a requirement to score well because the rough is so penalizing, and not just at the US Open.
This kid has it backwards, if he likes watching 200 yrs shots and wedges are boring… longer drives = more wedges into greens.
The problem, and it is a huge problem, is we are just at the beginning. Bigger men with better data driven swing techniques are coming. 350-400 yard ave drive is coming to make almost all courses obsolete
The other problem is that a high percentage of amateur golfers could benefit from more tech that makes it easier to hit straighter and longer.
Make the minimum driver weight 16oz
Put them at a us open at oakmont and it’s likely they won’t be too good