Consider What a 20% Ball Roll-Back Would Mean

[cutchemist42]

Great post.

[Golfingdad]

Gonna play Devil's advocate here, not because I think the ball should be rolled back, but because I don't understand a lot of your arguments, and they come across to me as pretty weak considering the source (that's a compliment ;)).  Anyways, here goes ...

1. First and foremost, I think the main premise of your argument is a bit of a strawman or false dichotomy (yes, I had to look those up to confirm I was using the terms correctly) because you seem to be pinning so much of the argument on the actual 20% number.  I don't think arguments at this stage against a rollback should be pinpointing a specific number, because I don't know that the people proposing rollbacks really have done the math.  So the counter to this portion of the argument is a bit of an eye-roll and an "ok, fine, 15%, or 10%, whatever."
2. The argument about green to tee walks is silly because everybody is walking those parts of the hole anyway.  So you have to walk a little farther before you hit your tee shot but a little less after - big whoop ... the totality of the walking is still the same.  Conversely, there are courses like my home course where the blue tees line up pretty well with the previous greens but the black tees require a walk BACKWARDS.  In these types of cases, the argument works very well in favor of the roll back.  (Pebble Beach has a few extreme examples like this, from 1 to 2, from 5 to 6, and from 9 to 10)
3. The kicker for me, where you really lose me, is here and here:

8 hours ago, iacas said:

Greens will start to feel like massive targets. They'll play completely out of scale to the way they did now. They, too, would have to be shrunk 20% in both dimensions (resulting in greens that are 64% the size of current greens) to maintain the same challenge. And guess what? If you reduce the size of a green, you're going to have to again move greenside bunkers and hazards. Pin placements will become greatly reduced. Wear will increase given the smaller area of concentrated traffic.

But your alternative - leaving the greens the same size and not moving any hazards - will result in lower scoring across the board, by all players.

 

9 hours ago, iacas said:

Consider what a 20% roll-back would do to your game, your enjoyment, and your home course.

I think it's fair to say that the vast majority of people who are in here posting that they would not want to give up any distance are doing so confident that golf is going to become harder and scores are going to go up, and I think that your concluding sentence confirms that thought.  But that bit up above says the opposite.  I think "lower scores!!!!" is a pretty damn good argument in favor of a rollback.

The idea that the hazards are all in the wrong place is one I understand, but people across the board already drive the ball such vastly different amounts from only a few different sets of tees.  Further, people don't play the tees that are right for them anyway and with those two points I'd argue that those hazards would possibly come into play for just as many people as they'd go out of play for.

Anyways, those are the issues that were bugging me with your post.  That said, let me repeat ... I'm not a proponent of a ball roll back.  I don't see a problem currently, but I also am intrigued by new ideas (even silly ones) so I guess at this point, I'd classify myself as mostly indifferent to the idea of a rollback.

Cheers! 

[MuniGrit]

David Feherty has had the best idea yet. Just make the ball a little bigger.

[GrandStranded]

9 hours ago, iacas said:

In recent days, the idea that the golf ball should be rolled back 20% has been floated about. Every time I hear someone tell me that the golf ball should be rolled back 20%, I think to myself "have they actually done the math?" and then, shortly afterward, "are they freaking insane?"

At what point in time would a 20% roll-back be? Dustin Johnson hits the ball 315 yards, let's say (because it was his average exactly in 2017). Well, welcome to 2021, where the new and improved Dustin Johnson absolutely annihilates the ball 252 yards! Dan Pohl led the PGA Tour in driving distance in 1980 - 1980 - with a driving distance of 274.3 yards. That's just over 87% as far as Dustin Johnson, so if you wanted to roll back to 1980 standards, you're way, way closer to 10% than 20%.

That's as old as driving distance stats get, but the equipment didn't change much between 1980 and 1960, when Jack would regularly bust 300-yard drives of his own. So a 20% roll back goes back to, when… 1930? Best as I can figure…

---

Let's also consider the guy who hits it 250 now. He's going to be content to hit it 200?

The guy who hits it 215 and plays from 5900 yards? He's happy with 172?

---

Proponents of rolling the ball "back" suggest that golf courses are spending money hand over fist to build new longer tees (despite no course in my area adding significant yardage in the last 20 years), but a ball roll-back could actually have them spending money to build longer tees.

If you play the blue tees at Whispering Woods (scorecard image here) at 6475 yards, your 80% yardage is 5,180, which means you could play the Yellow tees at 5298 or the red at 4760. If you play the white tees now, at 6043, you're pretty well set for the red tees. But if you play either of the forward two tees, the course is now too long for you, and needs two new sets of tees forward of the forward-most existing tees. Sure, they can let the black tees go to pasture (6804 becomes 5443, which is about where the yellow tees are now), along with the blue and possibly the white, but they're just going to have to rebuild those tees further forward.

And… Whispering Woods clocks in at a par 72, 74.0/144 rated/sloped course from 6804 yards! It was built about a decade ago, well into the distance boom.

If you think courses are building new back tees now, just wait until they have to build all new forward tees, or risk seniors, women, and children not being able to play the game. The ball roll-back would be the opposite of "Grow the Game."

---

BTW, green-to-tee walks? Instead of the most commonly used men's tee being situated close by, you'll find yourself walking or driving 80 to 100 yards forward, past the tees that have been left to pasture, to get to your new men's tees. If you've ever had to drive or walk forward to the forward tees, that's what every hole will be like now.

---

Additionally, the entire scope of the game will be thrown out of whack with a 20% roll-back.

Consider a 30-yard wide fairway now, with a golfer hitting it 250 yards. To hit that fairway, assuming he's aiming at the center, he has to hit the ball within roughly 3.4° left or right to hit the fairway. At 200 yards, he's got 4.3° to hit the fairway - an extra 26%. To provide the same challenge, we'd have to narrow fairways that same 20% to only 24 yards.

And let's consider a 400-yard hole played by a guy who hits his tee shot 245 and his second shot 155. Right now he plays that hole with a driver and a 7-iron, so there's a fairway bunker 150-160 yards from the center of the green.

The new hole is 320 yards, and our fella hits his tee shot 196 yards, leaving him 124 yards. Now, that 124 yards is still his 7-iron, but that fairway bunker… guess what? It's now completely out of place. At 155 yards from the tee, it's now 30 yards behind where the guy is playing his second shot from, and will now punish people who currently hit the ball shorter than 245 off the tee. Punishing the short hitters… that's what golf is all about, amiright?

If a critical hazard on a hole's tee shot can't be moved - like a creek that tempts players to carry it - then you'll be faced with the decision to move the entire green closer to the tees. If you talk with any course architect, the first thing they tend to do when routing a course is locate possible green sites. They're carefully selected, and it would greatly undermine the architecture to have to move more than a few green sites per course.

Oh, and let's not forget the greens themselves. Right now, from 155, players are often asked to hit a green that's 30 yards deep and 24 yards wide. But, with the same club in their hands, that 155 yard flight will again be reduced to 124… yet the green dimensions will stay the same. Greens will start to feel like massive targets. They'll play completely out of scale to the way they did now. They, too, would have to be shrunk 20% in both dimensions (resulting in greens that are 64% the size of current greens) to maintain the same challenge. And guess what? If you reduce the size of a green, you're going to have to again move greenside bunkers and hazards. Pin placements will become greatly reduced. Wear will increase given the smaller area of concentrated traffic.

But your alternative - leaving the greens the same size and not moving any hazards - will result in lower scoring across the board, by all players. I wouldn't want to have to make that choice, or incur those costs.

So in addition to the new tees, golf courses may incur other expenses as well:

• Consulting with an architect once again, even though their course operates well now.
• Narrowing fairways, tree-lines, etc.
• Moving hazards, bunkers, or green sites.
• Possibly changing the dimensions of greens, and all greenside hazards.
• Completely changing the value of par or the course rating and slope.
• Punishing shorter hitters with existing hazards.

---

Consider, say, the 17th hole at TPC Sawgrass. It plays about 140 yards. With a 20% roll-back, the hole will effectively play 175 yards.

Consider, say, the 12th at Augusta National. It's a devil of a hole at 155 yards. Players will hit anything from 8I to Wedge. It plays 155 yards, slightly downhill, and to a historical average of 3.28. Over a quarter shot over par.

After a 20% roll-back, it will effectively play 194 yards. That green is not built to accept shots from 194 yards! But that's okay. Augusta National can afford to blow up one of the most famous, tested, tried and true holes in golf. Right?

---

For maybe 95% of golfers, 6500 yards is fine. I've yet to see numbers on how many courses are really undergoing massive costly projects to add significant length. I think it's a small minority - just as the PGA Tour and players of a similar skill level are a really, really small % of golfers.

Consider the massive disruption to golf around the world if this 20% roll-back were to occur. Consider that the Honda Classic - yes, not an "awesome" course, but still - held players in nearly perfect conditions to a -8 winning score at "only" 7100 yards. Consider that we're still playing major championships on courses dating to the early 1900s or earlier, and that the winning score at Oakmont, for example, was only -4.

Consider what a 20% roll-back would do to your game, your enjoyment, and your home course.

And then you'll likely find yourself asking the same question I ask whenever I hear someone say 20%: are you nuts?

This post should be required reading in the Nicklaus household, and the offices of golfs governing bodies. Thank You for taking the time to lay out your argument. I'd love to see their response(s) to it.

[iacas]

29 minutes ago, Golfingdad said:

1. First and foremost, I think the main premise of your argument is a bit of a strawman or false dichotomy (yes, I had to look those up to confirm I was using the terms correctly) because you seem to be pinning so much of the argument on the actual 20% number.  I don't think arguments at this stage against a rollback should be pinpointing a specific number, because I don't know that the people proposing rollbacks really have done the math.  So the counter to this portion of the argument is a bit of an eye-roll and an "ok, fine, 15%, or 10%, whatever."

The 20% number has been bandied about by more than just Jack Nicklaus, but he's the most recent one. I've seen 30% thrown out there by a few members of GolfClubAtlas (GCA), which is even more ridiculous. The same arguments at 20% hold true at 15 or 10%, too: they're obviously a bit less of an argument, but whether you have to move a bunker 40 yards or 20 yards, it's still about the same expense.

At any rate, the 20% number is pretty well established. If you're only gonna roll the ball back 5%, that starts to get into "why even do it" territory, so 20% is often seen as the number.

I've been supporting the "there isn't a problem, so there's no reason to roll the ball back" side of the argument for a decade or more. If you're new to the debate, I can see how you'd think it's a number I just made up. It's not.

29 minutes ago, Golfingdad said:

1.  
2. The argument about green to tee walks is silly because everybody is walking those parts of the hole anyway.  So you have to walk a little farther before you hit your tee shot but a little less after - big whoop ... the totality of the walking is still the same.  Conversely, there are courses like my home course where the blue tees line up pretty well with the previous greens but the black tees require a walk BACKWARDS.  In these types of cases, the argument works very well in favor of the roll back.  (Pebble Beach has a few extreme examples like this, from 1 to 2, from 5 to 6, and from 9 to 10)

To be fair, it's one small point in a list of points. It got a small paragraph. It's still a factor, though, because green/tee complexes are the areas where groups will play through, where you interact with the groups before or after you, and because of the effect it has on your perception of the round. If you have to drive 100 yards - or walk - between every hole, that gets tiring. Courses routinely lose points for longer walks from green to tee, and gain points when tees are situated near greens. It improves communication between groups and "feels" better to the golfer.

Not the strongest point, but I didn't say it was, either. Just another point.

29 minutes ago, Golfingdad said:

1.  
2.  
3. The kicker for me, where you really lose me, is here and here:

I think it's fair to say that the vast majority of people who are in here posting that they would not want to give up any distance are doing so confident that golf is going to become harder and scores are going to go up, and I think that your concluding sentence confirms that thought.  But that bit up above says the opposite.  I think "lower scores!!!!" is a pretty damn good argument in favor of a rollback.

You're missing the point. I'll take the blame for not being clear. It's two things:

• Scores will absolutely go up if we just roll back the ball and don't do anything else. A 5400 yard course will play 6750 yards! Even at a 10% roll-back, a 6300 yard course will play 7000 yards. Scores would go up if the ball was rolled back and nothing else changed.
• If courses were adjusted by the same 20% - scores would drop because targets - fairways AND greens - would effectively be wider. Fairways would feel 20-25% wider, and greens would feel almost 40% larger. Players would hit more fairways and, even if they didn't, hit more greens, lowering scores. It would throw the balance the game has now out of whack. Maybe you're in favor of that - decreasing the value of ballstriking and putting more emphasis on putting - but I'm not. I like the balance we have right now.

29 minutes ago, Golfingdad said:

Further, people don't play the tees that are right for them anyway

I think that's generally untrue. I think people generally play the tees that are right for them. Yes, there are the idiots out there who "want to see the whole course," but they're the minority. Most people play tees pretty well suited for them.

The simple point about the hazards is that they're placed where they're placed intentionally, by the architect, and they'd require moving to keep the architect's vision intact. Moving hazards would be very expensive.

[onthehunt526]

 

 

10 hours ago, iacas said:

In recent days, the idea that the golf ball should be rolled back 20% has been floated about. Every time I hear someone tell me that the golf ball should be rolled back 20%, I think to myself "have they actually done the math?" and then, shortly afterward, "are they freaking insane?"

At what point in time would a 20% roll-back be? Dustin Johnson hits the ball 315 yards, let's say (because it was his average exactly in 2017). Well, welcome to 2021, where the new and improved Dustin Johnson absolutely annihilates the ball 252 yards! Dan Pohl led the PGA Tour in driving distance in 1980 - 1980 - with a driving distance of 274.3 yards. That's just over 87% as far as Dustin Johnson, so if you wanted to roll back to 1980 standards, you're way, way closer to 10% than 20%.

That's as old as driving distance stats get, but the equipment didn't change much between 1980 and 1960, when Jack would regularly bust 300-yard drives of his own. So a 20% roll back goes back to, when… 1930? Best as I can figure…

---

Let's also consider the guy who hits it 250 now. He's going to be content to hit it 200?

The guy who hits it 215 and plays from 5900 yards? He's happy with 172?

---

Proponents of rolling the ball "back" suggest that golf courses are spending money hand over fist to build new longer tees (despite no course in my area adding significant yardage in the last 20 years), but a ball roll-back could actually have them spending money to build longer tees.

If you play the blue tees at Whispering Woods (scorecard image here) at 6475 yards, your 80% yardage is 5,180, which means you could play the Yellow tees at 5298 or the red at 4760. If you play the white tees now, at 6043, you're pretty well set for the red tees. But if you play either of the forward two tees, the course is now too long for you, and needs two new sets of tees forward of the forward-most existing tees. Sure, they can let the black tees go to pasture (6804 becomes 5443, which is about where the yellow tees are now), along with the blue and possibly the white, but they're just going to have to rebuild those tees further forward.

And… Whispering Woods clocks in at a par 72, 74.0/144 rated/sloped course from 6804 yards! It was built about a decade ago, well into the distance boom.

If you think courses are building new back tees now, just wait until they have to build all new forward tees, or risk seniors, women, and children not being able to play the game. The ball roll-back would be the opposite of "Grow the Game."

---

BTW, green-to-tee walks? Instead of the most commonly used men's tee being situated close by, you'll find yourself walking or driving 80 to 100 yards forward, past the tees that have been left to pasture, to get to your new men's tees. If you've ever had to drive or walk forward to the forward tees, that's what every hole will be like now.

---

Additionally, the entire scope of the game will be thrown out of whack with a 20% roll-back.

Consider a 30-yard wide fairway now, with a golfer hitting it 250 yards. To hit that fairway, assuming he's aiming at the center, he has to hit the ball within roughly 3.4° left or right to hit the fairway. At 200 yards, he's got 4.3° to hit the fairway - an extra 26%. To provide the same challenge, we'd have to narrow fairways that same 20% to only 24 yards.

And let's consider a 400-yard hole played by a guy who hits his tee shot 245 and his second shot 155. Right now he plays that hole with a driver and a 7-iron, so there's a fairway bunker 150-160 yards from the center of the green.

The new hole is 320 yards, and our fella hits his tee shot 196 yards, leaving him 124 yards. Now, that 124 yards is still his 7-iron, but that fairway bunker… guess what? It's now completely out of place. At 155 yards from the tee, it's now 30 yards behind where the guy is playing his second shot from, and will now punish people who currently hit the ball shorter than 245 off the tee. Punishing the short hitters… that's what golf is all about, amiright?

If a critical hazard on a hole's tee shot can't be moved - like a creek that tempts players to carry it - then you'll be faced with the decision to move the entire green closer to the tees. If you talk with any course architect, the first thing they tend to do when routing a course is locate possible green sites. They're carefully selected, and it would greatly undermine the architecture to have to move more than a few green sites per course.

Oh, and let's not forget the greens themselves. Right now, from 155, players are often asked to hit a green that's 30 yards deep and 24 yards wide. But, with the same club in their hands, that 155 yard flight will again be reduced to 124… yet the green dimensions will stay the same. Greens will start to feel like massive targets. They'll play completely out of scale to the way they did now. They, too, would have to be shrunk 20% in both dimensions (resulting in greens that are 64% the size of current greens) to maintain the same challenge. And guess what? If you reduce the size of a green, you're going to have to again move greenside bunkers and hazards. Pin placements will become greatly reduced. Wear will increase given the smaller area of concentrated traffic.

But your alternative - leaving the greens the same size and not moving any hazards - will result in lower scoring across the board, by all players. I wouldn't want to have to make that choice, or incur those costs.

So in addition to the new tees, golf courses may incur other expenses as well:

• Consulting with an architect once again, even though their course operates well now.
• Narrowing fairways, tree-lines, etc.
• Moving hazards, bunkers, or green sites.
• Possibly changing the dimensions of greens, and all greenside hazards.
• Completely changing the value of par or the course rating and slope.
• Punishing shorter hitters with existing hazards.

---

Consider, say, the 17th hole at TPC Sawgrass. It plays about 140 yards. With a 20% roll-back, the hole will effectively play 175 yards.

Consider, say, the 12th at Augusta National. It's a devil of a hole at 155 yards. Players will hit anything from 8I to Wedge. It plays 155 yards, slightly downhill, and to a historical average of 3.28. Over a quarter shot over par.

After a 20% roll-back, it will effectively play 194 yards. That green is not built to accept shots from 194 yards! But that's okay. Augusta National can afford to blow up one of the most famous, tested, tried and true holes in golf. Right?

---

For maybe 95% of golfers, 6500 yards is fine. I've yet to see numbers on how many courses are really undergoing massive costly projects to add significant length. I think it's a small minority - just as the PGA Tour and players of a similar skill level are a really, really small % of golfers.

Consider the massive disruption to golf around the world if this 20% roll-back were to occur. Consider that the Honda Classic - yes, not an "awesome" course, but still - held players in nearly perfect conditions to a -8 winning score at "only" 7100 yards. Consider that we're still playing major championships on courses dating to the early 1900s or earlier, and that the winning score at Oakmont, for example, was only -4.

Consider what a 20% roll-back would do to your game, your enjoyment, and your home course.

And then you'll likely find yourself asking the same question I ask whenever I hear someone say 20%: are you nuts?

Well researched Erik. 

I think the magic number is more between 5-10% honestly.

I'm leaning more toward 5%.

[saevel25]

5 minutes ago, onthehunt526 said:

 

 

Well researched Erik. 

I think the magic number is more between 5-10% honestly.

I'm leaning more toward 5%.

Zero is the magic number. 

 

[dbuck]

4 hours ago, iacas said:

Distance is capped. The ball is one of the most highly regulated pieces of equipment in sports.

Good to know; they should leave it alone.

What is your prognosis as to what they will really do? 

My uneducated guess is that the percentage of the golfing public that thinks it should be left alone is even greater than our poll here.

[iacas]

47 minutes ago, onthehunt526 said:

I'm leaning more toward 5%.

I'm leaning toward 0%, with @saevel25.

2 minutes ago, dbuck said:

What is your prognosis as to what they will really do? 

I have no idea.

2 minutes ago, dbuck said:

My uneducated guess is that the percentage of the golfing public that thinks it should be left alone is even greater than our poll here.

I think so, too.

[Buckeyebowman]

Everybody's talking about the ball! How about the clubs? What are we going to do with those? I don't see too many guys playing persimmon woods or forged steel muscleback blades! Well, maybe some pros are playing forged steel, but they have the advantage of shaft technology that didn't exist back in the day! Hell! Let's just go back to playing hickory shafts and Haskell balls on 6,000 yuard courses!

[BreaksLeft]

One thing not mentioned in this string is that there is more than just the ball to consider.  A  reduction in the ball technology will be made up by improvements in club technology in short order.

Also, the pros are busting it a long way in large part because the game attracts better athletes (thanks Tiger!).  When I played for my league championship high school team in the mid 70s we were on par with the chess club and a lot of pros in that era were downright pudgy.

I have sympathy for the desire to keep things as they are (or were) but think it is a likely as going down to the beach and commanding the tide not to come in.

LOL... Buckeyebowman beat me to the punch on the point about clubs!

[Golfingdad]

1 hour ago, iacas said:

I think that's generally untrue. I think people generally play the tees that are right for them. Yes, there are the idiots out there who "want to see the whole course," but they're the minority. Most people play tees pretty well suited for them.

The simple point about the hazards is that they're placed where they're placed intentionally, by the architect, and they'd require moving to keep the architect's vision intact. Moving hazards would be very expensive.

I get what you're saying, but I still think (maybe***) it's being at least a little overstated.  Just considering myself and my home course alone - I usually play from the blue tees, which are 6600 yards, but I also occasionally enjoy the blacks (7000) and the whites (6200).  The hazards don't move when I move, and there is still some strategy from each location.  It is true, though, that I'm usually blowing it past the bunkers when playing from the whites and not reaching them from the blacks, so there's that.  Also ...

***I just did the math while making that point and realized that 6200 is only 12% less than 7000, so ...;)

It's also still true, though, that I, and others, play golf with people whose distances vary by 20% or more from the same sets of tees.  I'm thinking of @Pretzel or @phillyk vs. @bkuehn1952 or @DaveP043. 

1 hour ago, onthehunt526 said:

Well researched Erik. 

I think the magic number is more between 5-10% honestly.

I'm leaning more toward 5%.

I'm certainly good with zero change, but I'd agree with you that if they must do it, something between 5 and 10 but closer to 5 is the magic number.  (a 300 yard drive becomes 285 with a 5% drop)

[iacas]

3 minutes ago, Golfingdad said:

I'm certainly good with zero change, but I'd agree with you that if they must do it, something between 5 and 10 but closer to 5 is the magic number.  (a 300 yard drive becomes 285 with a 5% drop)

If you’re only gonna do 5% why do it at all?

[GolfLug]

20 percent??? Good lawd...senior tees.. here I come..

[Golfingdad]

42 minutes ago, iacas said:

If you’re only gonna do 5% why do it at all?

I don’t disagree ... but it’s not entirely insignificant.  Say, a 485 yard par 4 where a guy like Rory bombs a 320 driver leaving a 165 9 iron.  He would now have to hit a 190 yard approach with a ... what ... 5 iron?  They wouldn’t need to use 500+ tees for par 4s and 600+ tees for par 5s anymore.  And it wouldn’t hurt the masses or the courses that much in the ways you mentioned previously.  They wouldn’t need to worry so much about extra tees and moving hazards. It’s not unreasonable.

[onthehunt526]

22 minutes ago, iacas said:

If you’re only gonna do 5% why do it at all?

I do agree. You'd need to do at least 10-15% to make any kind of impact... But it will cost golf courses more money to build new tees, than the golf ball manufacturers to tone back the golf ball. (as you said). We could just go back to wound balls with balata covers. That would solve it. (sort of). We'd be sent back about 25 years or so.

The consensus is that the distance has gotten out of hand. We could just make the tour pros play with Cayman balls, we average Joe's get to play with normal everyday balls. I know the distance is capped by the USGA and R&A, So just don't raise the maximum distance a golf ball can go, or something.... I understand certain holes on certain courses are meant to be approached with longer clubs, than what the TOUR Pros hit to them... i.e. most players hitting 9-iron or Wedge to the First Hole at Augusta, instead of a mid-iron that it was designed for, until they lengthened it.

The PGA Tour average distance hasn't moved much since 2007 or so.... It only looks like it has because the #1 guy is longer... but it isn't really that much... John Daly was the first player to break the 300 yard barrier for a whole season in 1997. DJ is around what 315 or so? Hank Kuehne dethroned John Daly and I think he averaged around 310. Davis Love III won the driving title a couple times in the 280s with a wood driver... The average driving distance on the PGA Tour is 289 yards. Same number it has been for 10 years... Since the urethane cover and multi-layer core... Still the same... Jack, Tiger, and all these players who think we need a roll back to the gutta-percha and featherie and balata and wound balls, don't realize the impact that this will make on the game... Might make some 6000 yard courses challenging though, 250 yards would a huge drive, as Erik said... It's just golf politics that's all.

[iacas]

Drew, it is unreasonable given the effort required. For very little change.

Changing the rule would require a HUGE change.

2 minutes ago, onthehunt526 said:

The consensus is that the distance has gotten out of hand.

Not even close to true.

Which I suspect you know. Very confusing post.

[onthehunt526]

3 minutes ago, iacas said:

Drew, it is unreasonable given the effort required. For very little change.

Changing the rule would require a HUGE change.

Not even close to true.

I meant with the "golf figureheads", Not by the general golfing community, I should have been more clear...