February 2024 - Point Counterpoint

Two veteran golf scribes debate The R&A's and USGA's stance on increasing distance in golf

This article appeared in the February 2024 edition of Chicago District Golfer.
To read more Chicago District Golfer stories, head to our article archive.

Editor’s Note: On Dec. 6, 2023, the USGA and The R&A announced future updates to the testing conditions used for golf ball conformance – colloquially referred to as rolling back the golf ball. The impetus was the comprehensive Distance Insights project, which concluded that the “continuing cycle of [distance] increases is undesirable and detrimental to golf’s long-term future.” This in turn prompted golf’s governing bodies to step in with the aforementioned legislation in an effort to preserve the fundamental elements of the game.
These modifications have generated significant debate within the golf community. Among those with strong stances on the topic are two esteemed golf scribes, former Chicago Tribune writer Ed Sherman (pro rollback) and John Hawkins (anti-rollback), who’s written for the likes of Sports Illustrated, Golf Digest and GolfChannel.com. Their opinions and rationale are what follow.
Individuals interested in learning more about this topic beyond this publication can visit USGA.org/DistanceInsights.

Rollback Good For The Game Long Term

Equipment controversies have always existed in golf
By Ed Sherman

OK, quiz time. Can you guess who said this quote and the year in which it was said?

“I believe it is true that with modern equipment and modern players, we cannot make a golf course more difficult by simply adding length. The players of today are about as accurate with medium or long irons as with their pitching clubs. The only way to stir them up is by the introduction of subtleties around the greens.”

Was it Tiger Woods in 2023? Jack Nicklaus in the late ‘90s?

Nope, it wasn’t Tiger or Jack.

Give up?

It was Bobby Jones. The 1930 Grand Slam winner and founder of The Masters was worried about the integrity of the game way back in 1959.

I used Jones’ quote in my first story addressing the equipment and distance controversy for the Chicago Tribune in 1997. It would hardly be my last write-up on the subject. Jones’ take in 1959 illustrates how this has been a forever hot button issue in golf.

Now, more than 26 years later I am writing about it again. However, the issue is on fire thanks to recent proposals from the United States Golf Association (USGA) and The R&A to finally take a definitive stand to reign in distance with curbs on the ball.

The USGA has many golfers, from professionals to 36 handicappers, in an uproar at the prospect of losing length, primarily off the tee. Golf is hard enough without someone coming in and taking away precious yards from us, right?

Well, I am here to tell everyone to calm down. I believe the impact on distance for all golfers will be mostly minimal when the new rules go into effect for professionals in 2028 and for amateurs in 2030.

Instead of calling it a rollback, this is more like drawing a line in the sand. The USGA is in effect saying, “That’s it. Those big dog balls and clubs aren’t going any further.”

It would have been better if the USGA had been able to accomplish this directive two or three decades ago. The game would not have become more about power and less than about shot-making. It seems like the last time you saw a professional hit a three-iron into a par 4, he was wearing Sansabelt slacks. In today’s game, a 500-yard par 4 is a driver, 9-iron or wedge for most players.

Graphs courtesy of the USGA

Consider this: when I wrote my distance story in 1997, critics like Nicklaus were sounding the alarm because there were “28 players averaging more than 275 yards” at the time. If you average only 275 yards off the tee in today’s game, you’re probably playing in a Saturday Scotch game.

This year, the average drive on the PGA Tour was 299 yards, with 98 players topping 300 yards. Rory McIlroy led with an average of 326 yards off the tee, 32 yards longer than Woods’ average of 294 yards in 1997 during his first full season as a professional.

Previous attempts by the USGA to curb distance were basically swatted away by equipment companies who seem to want unlimited latitude to push the distance envelope into new stratospheres. So, props to USGA CEO Mike Whan who finally said enough is enough.

I agree with Whan that golf needs to play the long game here, and that’s in years not yardage off the tee. Whan says he is talking about 2080, not 2030.

These rules changes are not just aimed at the top players in the world. They are focused on everyone.

According to data in the USGA’s distance report, recreational players have seen their average drives go from 200 yards in 1996 to 216 yards in 2019. The technology in drivers and balls has players in their 50s driving as long and perhaps even longer than they were 25 years ago.

As a result, most recreational players are playing from longer tees than they did in 2000 or so. Golf course operators say that has slowed play because long-hitters wait in the fairway until the greens clear on Par 5s so they can go for it with their second shots.

More importantly, if technology allows recreational players to continue to gain distance in 15 to 20-yard increments every 20 years, which the USGA says is possible, most operators will be forced to push back tee boxes so courses play as originally intended by their architects. Moreover, many of these layouts already are limited by existing land and can’t be stretched out any further.

The main argument against the rollback: Why make the game harder, especially for recreational players? Well, at what point do you stop? If you really want to make the game easier, let’s have 16-inch holes (although I fear I would still 3-putt just as often).

The USGA says the longest hitters are expected to see a reduction of as much as 13-15 yards in drive distance. Average professional tour and elite male players are expected to see a reduction of 9-11 yards, with a 5-7-yard reduction for the average player. That is minimal if you ask me.

However, given the long rollout until the rule goes into effect, 2028 for professionals and 2030 for amateurs, I would bet heavily when everything is hashed out - and there will be a lot of hashing - the distance reductions will be closer to the status quo. Based on my experience covering this issue, the equipment companies will figure out a way to make up for the loss in distance while still conforming to the new ball regulations.

There will be many more words to be written on this issue in the upcoming years, including by yours truly. Remember, this is a forever story.

When I recently finished a conversation with an equipment representative, I said to him, “This debate seems to come up every 20 years. Look forward to talking to you again in 2044.” l

Ed Sherman is a former golf writer for the Chicago Tribune and is a frequent contributor to Chicago District Golfer.

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Governing Bodies Overreact on Ball Rollback

“Chicks dig the longball” – and so do weekend hackers
By John Hawkins

After decades of handwringing, posturing and pontificating, golf’s governing bodies have finally turned to mandating in response to the game’s worrisome war on distance. If the USGA/R&A’s recent announcement of revised standards as to how far the little white ball can fly were a long time coming, those changes fly in the face of competitive sensibility and commercial viability. It’s an overreaction branded as a quest to do what’s best for the sport.

That doesn’t make such legislation wrong, just heavy-handed. And nearsighted. In a rare pushback to USGA jurisprudence, the PGA Tour denounced the modifications in a memo to its players, saying it believes “a more moderate adjustment is appropriate.” The PGA of America also expressed dissatisfaction with the new limitations. “We remain opposed to any change that may potentially lessen the enjoyment of the game for recreational golfers or diminish the unprecedented momentum the game is enjoying.

“It appears recreational golfers will see a greater reduction in distance than we would advise.”

When two of our sport’s four primary organizations find fault in a resolution—a verdict ostensibly designed to curb the effects of power at the professional level—the process fails us all. Of no small consequence here is the widening gap between those who play for fun and those who play for a living. The USGA holds no jurisdiction over the tour-pro product, yet it found sufficient reason to harness perhaps its most valuable commodity: the ability to drive the ball enormous lengths and hit 7-irons from 190 yards.

As the 1999 Nike ad proclaimed, “chicks dig the longball.” So do a lot of middle-aged men. Not to mention any 9-year-old who dreams of one day competing for fame and fortune.

The USGA’s best case for implementing a rollback is that it might delay the extinction of classic, 6600-yard layouts as worthy, major-championship venues. Many of those courses have no room to expand their borders, and thus, are already becoming casualties in a game running amok. Just as advanced technology in the real world has led to personnel layoffs and higher unemployment rates, the ideologies associated with progress do not discourage companies from doing things faster, better and cheaper.

Graph courtesy of the USGA

In golf’s case, a long-term freeze on ball-manufacturing parameters would have addressed the issue without triggering negative reverberations. The other logical solution involves a commitment to bifurcation—one set of rules and regulations for pros, another for the 25 million Americans and millions more around the world who play the game out of sheer joy. The USGA’s resistance to the concept might best be explained by its purist mentality or a reluctance to embrace reality as defined by the 21st century—a disinclination largely responsible for getting us where we are now.

“It has kept speeding up my entire career, and here we are,” Tiger Woods said of clubhead/ball velocity once the rollback was made public. “I’ve always been for bifurcation.”

Not that Woods has all the answers, but his perspective as the most dominant golfer ever—a dominance that hardly wavered once younger, stronger players began driving it past him—offers more credibility than anyone else. The common perception among grim-faced bureaucrats is that power, particularly exorbitant length off the tee, is wrecking the game because it diminishes the importance of shot-making skill and other tenets of finesse. In 1997, Tiger’s first full season as a pro, the average driving distance on the PGA Tour was 267.67 yards.

Twenty-five years later, it had risen to 299.8, a 12-percent increase. During that same period, scoring dropped at a far more glacial pace—from 71.67 to an all-time low of 70.56 in 2020. Not until 2015 did the number of strokes per round crack 71. A reduction of 1.11 over a quarter-century does not justify pushing the specifics of ball construction back to the 1990s. If the road to hell was paved with good intentions, the USGA needs to buy some different asphalt.

Today’s players are stronger, their techniques more refined. Swing aids are far more advanced. And courses are in better shape, all of which add up to a Tour in no mood for an equipment rewind that will do little, if anything, to further legitimize the competitive element. With the pro game in a state of disarray, compromised to a certain extent by the presence of LIV Golf and the fiscal issues confronting the incumbent league, a softer, slower Titleist should not and perhaps will not serve as a business-wise option when the USGA revisions kick in at the start of 2028.

Will the Tour abandon its longtime trend of rubber-stamping USGA procedure and allow its constituency to use a non-conforming ball? Four years is a long time to ponder the possibilities. Will the 10 handicap who plays twice a week commit to the letter of the law when he can’t drive it more than 220 yards with the Pro V1 he favors now? And ditch all that artillery that cost him $50 a dozen? It’s not so much whether he will or won’t, but whether he should have to.

He shouldn’t. “Governance is hard,” USGA chief executive officer Mike Whan said in addressing the rollback. “And while thousands will claim we did too much, there will be just as many who said we didn’t do enough to protect the game long-term. But from the very beginning, we’ve been driven to do what’s right for the game, without bias.”

Right and wrong. Two five-letter words that can mean so many different things to so many people. l

John Hawkins has covered the PGA Tour since the early 1990s for several publications, including Sports Illustrated, Golf World and Golf Digest.