Bryson's Rollback Video

[Ty_Webb]

1 hour ago, DaveP043 said:

I'd be surprised if there's a significant impact on R&D costs.  They're continually researching for the next ball, they're just going to have to begin using the new testing requirements within the next year or two in preparation for the 2028 releases.

Time will tell, but my guess is that most manufacturers will stop making "old" balls when they're no longer acceptable for the top levels.  Most of us amateurs won't keep a 2-year supply of "old" balls in our basements, so we'll begin using the "short" balls well before the actually deadline for us arrives.  Again, these are guesses on my part, but I don't really believe the sky is falling.

If you held a gun to my head and asked me if I genuinely believe a lot of what I'm saying about this stuff, or if I'm overegging the pudding to make a point because I'm annoyed that they're changing it for no good reason, I would concede the latter 🙂 

[billchao]

3 hours ago, DaveP043 said:

Time will tell, but my guess is that most manufacturers will stop making "old" balls when they're no longer acceptable for the top levels.  Most of us amateurs won't keep a 2-year supply of "old" balls in our basements, so we'll begin using the "short" balls well before the actually deadline for us arrives.

Pretty much this. I'd be surprised if manufacturers haven't already shifted R&D to producing balls that conform with the new rules. It goes into effect for professionals on January 1st, 2028 and for all golfers on January 1st, 2030. I imagine they'll start releasing conforming balls in the next couple of years and stop producing the non-conforming ones well before 2030.

[iacas]

3 hours ago, Ty_Webb said:

But as you say they've barely done anything. All this hullabaloo and virtually no benefit to it.

Again, there is a benefit. It placates the ruling bodies and the pro-rollback people (though some of them wanted 10%, even 15-20%), and delays or stops a much larger rollback from occurring.

3 hours ago, Ty_Webb said:

Ball companies are going to have to spend a bunch more on new R&D and that cost is going to get passed on to us.

I know it's a bit of a silly thing to ask that you read a lot of my posts before replying to me, but… we don't disagree on this, so please stop replying as if we do.

It remains to be seen whether costs are "passed on."

3 hours ago, Ty_Webb said:

And any stock that we have when the change comes through is going to be useless.

Not for the vast majority that don't give a hoot about the Rules. Not for practice balls. And I'm sure you can use your current stock and try to kind of time it so that you run out sometime between 2028 and 2030. 😛 

 

3 hours ago, Ty_Webb said:

Every little helps. Bryson spent a decent amount of time complaining that hitting it out of the toe didn't result in as much movement as he would expect. Maybe he was trying to hit it out of the toe a little, but it seems that his strike point moves around on driver. Doubtful he could do that without the MOI that his driver has.

He's talking about a cm or so. So, no, and again, it punishes the worse player, the bogey golfer, far more than the PGA Tour player. Mandated smaller drivers is a stupid idea.

3 hours ago, Ty_Webb said:

The driver change would not be bifurcation - but even if it was, it wouldn't affect anything other than driver.

Right, so if it's not bifurcation, it punishes the 5 handicapper FAR MORE than the +2. Sheesh.

3 hours ago, Ty_Webb said:

The driver would affect me more than the pros, that's true, but I'm fine with that - It's more fun to play a more challenging club.

Oh brother.

3 hours ago, DaveP043 said:

I'd be surprised if there's a significant impact on R&D costs.

There is. The continued research is under the current regulations. They know how to do that, and it's a matter of tweaking. They could make a rolled back ball without much research or cost… but it wouldn't perform as good as they'd want it to out of the gate. It's gonna take a lot of iterating, testing, etc.

This is direct from multiple engineers at several ball manufacturers.

5 minutes ago, billchao said:

Pretty much this. I'd be surprised if manufacturers haven't already shifted R&D to producing balls that conform with the new rules. It goes into effect for professionals on January 1st, 2028 and for all golfers on January 1st, 2030. I imagine they'll start releasing conforming balls in the next couple of years and stop producing the non-conforming ones well before 2030.

Yes, they're all working on the "new" ball. The next version of the current ball is probably basically already done. They're just tweaks, at this point.

[Ty_Webb]

1 hour ago, iacas said:

Again, there is a benefit. It placates the ruling bodies and the pro-rollback people (though some of them wanted 10%, even 15-20%), and delays or stops a much larger rollback from occurring.

I know it's a bit of a silly thing to ask that you read a lot of my posts before replying to me, but… we don't disagree on this, so please stop replying as if we do.

It remains to be seen whether costs are "passed on."

Not for the vast majority that don't give a hoot about the Rules. Not for practice balls. And I'm sure you can use your current stock and try to kind of time it so that you run out sometime between 2028 and 2030. 😛 

 

He's talking about a cm or so. So, no, and again, it punishes the worse player, the bogey golfer, far more than the PGA Tour player. Mandated smaller drivers is a stupid idea.

Right, so if it's not bifurcation, it punishes the 5 handicapper FAR MORE than the +2. Sheesh.

Oh brother.

There is. The continued research is under the current regulations. They know how to do that, and it's a matter of tweaking. They could make a rolled back ball without much research or cost… but it wouldn't perform as good as they'd want it to out of the gate. It's gonna take a lot of iterating, testing, etc.

This is direct from multiple engineers at several ball manufacturers.

Yes, they're all working on the "new" ball. The next version of the current ball is probably basically already done. They're just tweaks, at this point.

Fair points - what about smaller drivers, but just for the pro tours, so explicitly bifurcation? I imagine the PGA tour would have similar issues to the ball rollback (namely that they lose a big cash cow from the manufacturers so unlikely to approve, so probably a non-starter anyway). I find it quite hard to believe that a cm or so change in impact point has the same effect with a 460cc head as it does with a 190cc head. All else being equal I'd expect a smaller clubhead you could swing faster because less air resistance, but literally no one plays a 200cc driver (I imagine you'd find it hard to believe anyone playing on the PGA tour who has a driver head size less than 400cc).

One last thing - I see no good reason to placate either ruling bodies or pro-rollback people. I haven't heard one good argument for any of it. They're imposing their will on the vast majority and for no other reason than optics. So I would invite them to leave the balls alone and go take a long walk off a short pier. 🙂 

[iacas]

19 minutes ago, Ty_Webb said:

Fair points - what about smaller drivers, but just for the pro tours, so explicitly bifurcation?

Like you, I'm against bifurcation. Which I've also said many, many times.

19 minutes ago, Ty_Webb said:

One last thing - I see no good reason to placate either ruling bodies or pro-rollback people. I haven't heard one good argument for any of it.

Sustainability and cost. We disagree that those are "good" arguments. If golf was invented today, we might measure holes in feet, not yards. Golf takes up SO much space.

19 minutes ago, Ty_Webb said:

They're imposing their will on the vast majority and for no other reason than optics.

Not accurate. But whatever.

[Ty_Webb]

1 hour ago, iacas said:

Like you, I'm against bifurcation. Which I've also said many, many times.

Sustainability and cost.

I'm against bifurcation for the ball. Not so much for the driver, because I think jumping back and forth between a larger driver and a smaller one is not particularly difficult. I could see it actually helping in some ways.

As to sustainability and cost, how much is the ball rollback going to change the cost? Most new courses in populated areas are built as long as they can be. They're not going to stop doing that because people hit it 4% shorter. No course on the planet needs to be longer. It just doesn't happen. They may want to be longer because they want to resist scoring, but that's optics.

I mentioned this on another site. Pro rollback people say that elite events can't be held at certain courses anymore because they're not long enough. I have two options to play at in a qualifier for one of the three (NY) Met major events this year (the Ike). The Vineyards and Timber Point. Timber Point is 6,641 from the tips. The Vineyards is 6,005 yards from the tips. This is perhaps not quite elite am, but it's decent standard and there are some good players playing. So I don't buy that they can't hold events. They may choose not to, but that's for the same reason I noted above. 

Last comment and then I'm leaving this alone. I play public courses on Long Island for most of my golf. Many of the people who play these courses play from the tips because they "want to see the whole course" even though they can barely crack 200 yards downwind with firm fairways. We're about to take 4% off of them (most of them play the balls the pros play, so they really are going to lose that distance), so now they're going to have longer approach shots, more missed greens, longer misses when they do and it's going to get even slower. They already take over 5 hours to play. I thought the USGA was trying to encourage people to play it forwards. I support that, but it hasn't done anything that I can see. 

[snapfade]

20 minutes ago, Ty_Webb said:

I'm against bifurcation for the ball. Not so much for the driver, because I think jumping back and forth between a larger driver and a smaller one is not particularly difficult. I could see it actually helping in some ways.

As to sustainability and cost, how much is the ball rollback going to change the cost? Most new courses in populated areas are built as long as they can be. They're not going to stop doing that because people hit it 4% shorter. No course on the planet needs to be longer. It just doesn't happen. They may want to be longer because they want to resist scoring, but that's optics.

I mentioned this on another site. Pro rollback people say that elite events can't be held at certain courses anymore because they're not long enough. I have two options to play at in a qualifier for one of the three (NY) Met major events this year (the Ike). The Vineyards and Timber Point. Timber Point is 6,641 from the tips. The Vineyards is 6,005 yards from the tips. This is perhaps not quite elite am, but it's decent standard and there are some good players playing. So I don't buy that they can't hold events. They may choose not to, but that's for the same reason I noted above. 

Last comment and then I'm leaving this alone. I play public courses on Long Island for most of my golf. Many of the people who play these courses play from the tips because they "want to see the whole course" even though they can barely crack 200 yards downwind with firm fairways. We're about to take 4% off of them (most of them play the balls the pros play, so they really are going to lose that distance), so now they're going to have longer approach shots, more missed greens, longer misses when they do and it's going to get even slower. They already take over 5 hours to play. I thought the USGA was trying to encourage people to play it forwards. I support that, but it hasn't done anything that I can see. 

That happens everywhere, nothing you can do about it. And they probably use a 600 dollar driver to get that 200 yard bomb. At 4% roll back that's 8 yards, I don't think it will slow the round down that much though IMO. 5 hour rounds are more about the pace of play skills rather than ability but that's on another thread.  Like the saying goes, "If you're going to play bad, play fast."

[iacas]

4 hours ago, Ty_Webb said:

As to sustainability and cost, how much is the ball rollback going to change the cost?

I mean, they published a whole report on it… the point is you keep saying they had no point, and they'd point to sustainability and cost as their main reasons.

It's often their choice, the choice of a private club, to add length and use more chemicals and so on, but it's a course of action many feel that they're forced to make, and which would likely continue while this puts at least a dampener on it.

I'm not arguing their case here; I'm just stating their case as counter to your claims about "no good reason" or whatever.

4 hours ago, Ty_Webb said:

Last comment and then I'm leaving this alone.

…

We're about to take 4% off of them

This is not accurate. It does not scale linearly.

You should read more about this stuff.

[Vinsk]

Just because something is measurable doesn’t make it meaningful. It can be entertaining and add to the joys of a hobby, but keep it in perspective. It doesn’t devalue the hobby or one’s efforts to delve into the intricacies that we want to believe are actually making a meaningful difference when in reality they’re not. Just let it go.🙂