Consider What a 20% Ball Roll-Back Would Mean

[iacas]

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…

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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?

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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."

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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.

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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.

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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?

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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?

[HJJ003]

I average a 220-230 yard carry with my driver now. Lets call it 225. Scale that back 20%...and I would be carrying the ball 180. I want NO part of carrying the golf ball 180 yards. NO PART OF IT. The point about making the tees obsolete as they are now is even more spot on. I seek tees that average about 6300. 20% off of that? 5040 yards!? No thanks. The ball is fine, they should leave it the heck alone. 

Edited February 28, 2018 by HJJ003

[dennyjones]

I completely agree.   

[phillyk]

Thanks for writing this up!

[mcanadiens]

27 minutes ago, iacas said:

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

Hell no.

 

[DeadMan]

This is very similar to an article I read yesterday, which I should have posted in the distance thread.

https://www.golfadvisor.com/articles/nicklaus-ball-rollback-17680.htm

Makes a lot of the same points as you do here, although not in as much detail. But the point is the same - a 20% rollback of the ball for everybody would be a death blow to golf. Hitting the ball a long way is fun! And speaking as someone who loses distance whenever he travels to play golf, it sucks hitting the ball 240 instead of 260. And I'm not a huge fan of the idea that I'll go down to ~210 with a 20% rollback.

Edited February 28, 2018 by DeadMan

[Lihu]

Actually, Jack is not off base on this one.

Only 0.3% of the golfers will ever have to possibly look for their balls. The rest of them can just walk up a few steps to find them. Rolling back the ball 20% is going to kill the ball industry, but who cares about them, right? Personally, I'd just continue to use range balls and pay my club for them. Cheap balls and no more lost balls. What  great idea!

[boogielicious]

Thanks for posting. I agree totally that rollback will be detrimental to the game. 

[iacas]

8 minutes ago, Lihu said:

Actually, Jack is not off base on this one.

Only 0.3% of the golfers will ever have to possibly look for their balls. The rest of them can just walk up a few steps to find them. Rolling back the ball 20% is going to kill the ball industry, but who cares about them, right? Personally, I'd just continue to use range balls and pay my club for them. Cheap balls and no more lost balls. What  great idea!

You had me with the first line, but that was funny in the end, @Lihu.

[Patch]

How would this 20% reduction effect pace of play? Seems to me shortening the ball, and others aspects of the game would move golfers' along faster.

[Lihu]

6 minutes ago, iacas said:

You had me with the first line, but that was funny in the end, @Lihu.

Heck, they'll even have to roll back most range balls too.

 

[iacas]

16 minutes ago, Patch said:

How would this 20% reduction effect pace of play? Seems to me shortening the ball, and others aspects of the game would move golfers' along faster.

It would have a small effect. A bit less walking, fewer lost balls (they wouldn't go as far offline).

But slow golfers are still going to take 60 seconds to hit a shot when it should take 20, they'll still park the cart by their partner instead of going to their own ball after dropping him off, they'll still forget their wedge on the far side of the green and have to go back to get it, etc.

Oh, I also forgot: golf courses would be a lot less crowded, because golfers would quit en masse, and those that stayed would have to pay extra to cover the course renovations needed.  So that would also have a positive effect on the pace of play.

[DeadMan]

Another point: rolling back the golf ball by 20% will also really hurt equipment manufacturers. Assuming a 220 yard driving distance, with 10 yard gaps. Look what a rollback does to these clubs:

• Driver - goes from 220 to 176
• 3 Wood - goes from 210 to 168
• 5 Wood - goes from 200 to 160
• Hybrid - goes from 190 to 152
• 4 Iron - goes from 180 to 144
• 5 iron - goes from 170 to 136
• 6 iron - goes from 160 to 128
• 7 iron - goes from 150 to 120
• 8 iron - goes from 140 to 112
• 9 iron - goes from 130 to 104
• PW - goes from 120 to 96
• GW - goes from 110 to 88
• SW - goes from 100 to 80

220 is probably above average driving distance, too. If you drive the ball less than that, your gaps will become even more compressed with a 20% rollback.

Who is really going to buy 14 clubs with those gaps? You'd buy one, possibly two fewer wedges. I think you'd probably only carry one wood. It makes a lot of sense to only have odd number irons. Hardcore golfers will still buy 14 clubs, but more casual golfers probably won't. That is going to hit the equipment manufacturers, who are already struggling, pretty hard.

Plus, do you really want to hit a freaking 4 iron when you're 140 yards out from the green?

A 20% rollback makes zero sense for all golfers. There's only a scintilla of sense in the idea for PGA Tour players, but I still think it's a terrible idea.

[chilepepper]

Not interested. It would seriously change how many courses play. Doable carries would be layups, would course ratings change? Bad idea imnsho

[iacas]

Whispering Woods, from 6804 yards (the back tees), would effectively play 8,505 yards from those same tees.

[saevel25]

If you wanted to roll back to the mid 90's, you'd only need a 7% decrease in distance. Distance has not increased, in percentage, the amount they think.

 

[nevets88]

Maybe a lot of people are bad at math. Or maths. So many have problems calculating tips, which is de facto 20%.

[MuniGrit]

Didn't the pros play 7000 yards in the early 1900's?