TaylorMade CEO Golf David Abeles joins Golf Central to explain how the golf-ball rollback slows down the momentum of the sport by making the game more difficult. #GolfChannel #GolfCentral #Golf
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Golf-ball rollback ‘not in best interest’ of sport – David Abeles | Golf Central | Golf Channel
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48 Comments
I think everyone’s missing the point here. Advancements in tech will always give certain players an advantage, so I think it only makes sense to eliminate equipment all together and have competitive players throw the ball down the fairway, with the right arm for example
Anyone crying about this needs to find a new sport to play. Amateurs whining over this is pathetic.
20+ years ago the USGA could have established the COR limit of .78 and changed golf ball regulations (e.g. requiring the ball be a minimum of 44mm in diameter). At that time Dick Rugge (a former Taylormade staffer responsible R&D) was the USGA Senior Technical Director. At the time Dick was more concerned about golf equipment manufacturers than the cost ramifications of golf course construction, renovations, and maintenance due to technology.
I suggest we are seeing the same thing here.
I want to make it CLEAR to companies like Taylormade. Most of the golf world will simply not accept this. If Taylormade is going to stop producing a top performing ball, then I will go to another company. PERIOD.
What a wind bag, the Pros absolutely play different equipment. What does the roll back have to do with accessibility to the game of golf. Answer, NOTHING.
Rich Lerner is AN EMBARRASSMENT. WHAT A CLOWN 🤡🤡🤡🤡
As per the usual, the media are making this a much bigger deal than it is. People: it’s about 3 yards for the average Joe! Let’s chill and move the hell on.
Standards are great
PSA to Taylormade… I WILL NEVER PLAY A ROLLED BACK GOLF BALL IN MY LIFE TIME. PERIOD.
Hitting the ball far is a talent not many have. Like others make a lot of putts. Next step is getting the hole bigger?
Tour balls like wood bats versus metal bats in baseball is the best solution. Not all courses can be 8000 yards long.
It’s not going to make the game more difficult, it’s not going to make the game slower, it’s not going to stop attracting people to the game, and it’s not going to make a material difference to 99% of player. Screw the media and the nay sayers for making this a big deal. It’s not. Go and enjoy some golf instead of wasting our time for this little nonsense argument.
Mr. Abeles only cares about putting profits into his and his stockholders pockets. Of course this rollback is bad for equipment because it will be much harder to sell the lies than the ball or driver gets better every year. Golf’s marketing folks loose here, everyone else wins.
This rule is ridiculous. Although both weekend amateurs and professionals alike can generate the speed and launch conditions necessary to carry the ball 300+ yards (myself among said weekend amateurs), only the most elite players can reign that speed in to keep the ball on the planet and within the field of play (I speak from experience, as I am not among said elite players!).
It takes an extraordinary amount of highly refined skill to play good (let alone championship-winning) golf at such speeds, and rolling the ball back as the governing bodies have proposed (which by their own data will affect longer hitters more than it will shorter hitters) will all but eliminate the incentive for putting in the time and work to acquire and maintain that skill. That seems profoundly unfair.
He literally just admitted that golf balls have peaked in terms of tech…. he just said they will be working from now till then to work towards those rules….. which means balls will start getting shorter next year.
I will NEVER buy a rolled back ball, and if companies want to be hard headed, which is the approach Taylormade is apparently taking, those comapanies will lose all market share. PERIOD. FREE MARKET.
Hey Rich Lerner, i am SO happy you are worried about our environment. How about we stop having each player take their own private jet to each event?? Im guessing that would have a MUCH bigger impact on our planet than trying to save a little water on the golf courses….. which by the way, how are they gonna save money on water?? What Rich, did this rule also say these courses are gonna shut down the back tees???…??? THESE COURSES ARE ALREADY BUILT!! What is switching golf balls gonna do to change anything?
The ball has been made hotter for the last twenty years everyone adapted. Itll be exactly the same. Most dudes at my course aint hitting the hottest balls in the world 200 yards. Dont matter what they do to the ball itll be the exact same.
Well I guess it's a good thing I haven't done a ball fitting yet 😌
Here's a potential solution no one is really talking about:
Driver Hazard Zones.
The real problem is length obvianting certain hazards, like trees and bunkers, setup for courses 100 years ago.
Why not just put stakes beyond certain hazards as "tee shot only hazards" which force layups or narrow landing areas beyond certain distances.
What i see when I look at most courses is that they narrow right around hazards then get HUGE right where someone carrying it 320 would land their ball.
Effectively, there is a short knocker penalty on most PGA Tour courses where the fairway is either a forced carry of 270 (doral, right, no short hitters even bother showing up it's hole one, in case you are wondering) or holes where the fairway is narrower between 230 and 300 and doubles in width right at 310.
The real problem is iron distances have not even slightly kept up with driver distance gain. So shorter hitters get a double wammy. 100 more yards into a par4 and they are effectively still hitting the same iron at that distance as they were in 1990.
Stop playing with the golf ball. Max the COR at 1.25 and limit head size to 200cc.
i've hit the new ping 430 and that definitely isn't golf. It's just hit face, shot go straight. hard to even get the ball to move slightly if you hit it in the center of the face.
let the golf ball be whatever it is going to be. 1.25 COR drivers with 200cc aren't going to go straight with a 125 mph swing speed is my point.
Let track man prove me right. Then, ask me why I know. 😊
This golf ball rollback is an arrogant absurd decision for most golfers! Recreational golfers who play for fun or maybe for a couple of bucks don't want to hit the ball shorter on that rare occasion they hit the sweet spot. Leave the ball alone for them. Let them have their weekend fun. Now, if you want to restrict the pros' distance to "save" the golf courses they play on, that's understandable. There is a huge difference between pros and most amateurs distance-wise, 50-70 yards with the driver. Just make a restricted ball for the male pros, if you want to. It will hurt the shorter hitters more, placing even a greater advantage on the long hitters, but the driver/wedge game many pros play is a little boring. Hurt the male pros, if you want to, leave us amateurs, women, and juniors alone! Golf is hard enough for us. Why make it harder? The USGA and the R&A are using very bad judgment here and will hurt the game of Golf! This will be a very unpopular decision. The PGA of America, the teaching pros, disagree with this stupid decision. Then you have a jerk like Rory McIlroy, who hits driver 350 yards, coming on TV and telling us who hit it 250, that this is no big deal, and "what's all of the anger about?". 99% of golfers want to hit the ball further, not shorter, dummy. I, for one, will not be buying the shorter ball!
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.
Ok guys lets do "Yes or No" questions next time.
Rory’s comments were super elitist and dumb. I’ve liked Rory but his comments were condescending. Because even though he’s a great golfer doesn’t mean “regular golfers can’t be at least “good at golf.
And we won’t know that I’ll , for instance, go from 300 drive to 285. That sux hard not to mention longer irons into greens.
Oh “play forward tees”. Well….. I’ll go fishing or play tennis too. There ya go !
Should’ve listened to Tiger !
Oh and LPGA and senior tour losing 15 yards on drives …. That’s a GreAt idea usga 👍
Says the CEO of a corporation that benefits from the excessive change in performance from his companies equipment. Damage be damned to the professional game of golf. Anyone who is against the roll back is out of touch with the history of what happened. The governing bodies allowed the manufacturers to dictate the game decades ago and greed got us to this point. The rollback is a very good first step, the next is woods and drivers. Being laughably forgiving, not penalizing miss hits and trampoline effect. Mainly the size of the driver is ridiculous, it should be no larger than a modern 3 wood. Why should golf courses and communities have to carry the burden of the excesses of club manufacturers in there endless chase to distance. Tennis doesn’t change there courts, nor basketball or football change the fields. Because the equipment hasn’t drastically altered the game.
It’s not at bad as I thought, the rollback that is.
In a nutshell this will cost me money.😂
Somebody will produce a golf ball just like the one that I am using right now. And I will purchase it and go play golf
As far as tiger and Rory are concerned, the biggest hitters in the world will still be the biggest hitters in the world. So that's a wash we get screwed
Golf can’t ruin itself fast enough
If Taylor Made continues producing a version of the TP5 in its current form post-rollback, I'll be buying it and supporting them with my hard-earned $$$. Kudos to their CEO for the strong stance taken on this.
There is no stronger limit than that of aerodynamics and the biomechanics of the human body. The ruling class of golf is doing this for no other reason than that they are drunk on wielding power. In their foolish minds, THEY are the ones that set limits, not God.
As a senior I need balls that go 50 yards further…I always play in the morning and it is always wet and slow.
A golf course is the great outdoors lololol
Face thickness=ball speed and spin. Make the driver faces thicker and the head smaller.
No Rich Lerner. Covid brought more non golfers into the game, but it's the primary component which is keeping those people in the game longer because of technology. The improvements in the drivers and golf ball makes it easier for beginners to hit the golfball much easier than before. Golf courses can grow the rough, makes the greens firmer and faster as well narrowing the fairways to make it more difficult while maintaining environmental issues for more sustainable platform. Playing forward tees ? Really? To do that you need to change human nature. There a lot more creative ways to accomplish this than the ball roll back. This is the lazy approach.
Companies have run out of ideas and are on board with usga roll back. Gives the R&D something to work on for a few years
4:30 I don't agree. The players get the good shit
I think Rory and tiger got golf by the balls. Pun
5:30 ohhhhhh the truth comes out about tour issue clubs. The pros get the good shit….for free!! And the rec players pay for it
People will freak about about it for a few months and then realize that the playing field is still level and they'll get over it
Just stop making golf balls in 2030. Stop making gasoline cars. Just stop the world from turning….
Golf and gasoline will be illegal by 2035
Prior to a tournament, the grounds crew should grow out the landing zones of each fairway. So there would be a rough strip about 75 yards long and the width of the fairway so the players can go over it or short.
The ball length simply doesn’t impact the average golfer. I play twice a week and none of the guys I play with are worried that the courses are becoming too short because the balls or clubs are better than they used to be. Changing this single issue goes against all that we hold sacred regarding moving ahead and striving to excel. It is, in a word, unAmerican.
The simple truth is that 99.9% of golfers and the health of golf growing forward should have made the decision EASY EASY- BIFURCATION!!!!! Don't hurt the growth of the game for newbies and older golfers and basically all golfers that pay for the sport- keep the game easier and balls and clubs longer and technologically advanced. The best players can be limited- fine- but EVERY OTHER GOLFER DOESN'T WANT THIS!!!
Of course the manufactures of balls are going to push back, and frankly they are going to push back with any form of limiting distance because if it doesn't effect their manufacturing of balls, it's going to effect their manufacturing of clubs. Either roll back the balls, or remove drivers completely from the game and the longest club they can carry is a 7 wood. How else are they going to limit distance so we don't end up with 10,000 yard courses?????
Just cap it the way it is now. End of story.
This guy is not totally honest. I’ve played with professional players where we had the same model driver and it was no where near the same.