"Distance"

A stop in Statesboro, an iconic Peter Kostis tweet, and the distance between me and the Meineke guy.

If you watch a PGA Tour event, and you see a player hit a great approach, chip, or putt, you’ll see that player watch the ball the entire way towards the hole until it comes to rest. But, watch a great drive, and this isn’t the case. They’ll look away. If it’s a good enough tee shot, they’ll look down before the ball even apexes, reaching down to grab their tee. They’ll hand their driver to their caddie without even seeing the ball land.

Driving distance has been golf’s climate change: gains started slowly but steadily, governance reacted even slower, and, in the end, the aggregate effects have become so large that it seems impossible to put any toothpaste back in the tube. In 1993, John Daly was the longest driver in the sport at 288 yds; thirty years later, the average Tour pro hit it 297 yds (that average pro hit it 260 back in ’93).^[1] The USGA decided to change testing requirements for the golf ball for 2028 (known as the ball “rollback”). But players are still hitting it further than ever, and the downstream effects are literally game-changing — and too numerous to cover comprehensively in one newsletter.

You’ll find plenty of people who think the rollback is dumb and that the distance arms-race should continue. I hope by the end of this newsletter you’ll disagree with them. As for the rest of us, you’ll find plenty of ideas for how to address the issue: some reasonable (smaller driver heads — I think the best first step, some crazier (banning tees). And then there’s this gem from CBS announcer Peter Kostis:

Kostis got plenty of flak for the “face collapse” take. Clearly, it’s a crazy idea. But it’s not as wild as it seems. In fact: it’s the exact world we live in now.

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Yesterday, on a drive back from a mini-tour event in Augusta, GA,^[2] I stopped in Statesboro. My car’s Connecticut registration is going to expire next week, and it needs to pass an emissions test before I can renew it. But my car’s not in Connecticut; it’s here in Georgia. I found, after a good bit of digging (read: me flailing around online as my mom actually figured it out), that I could submit a reciprocal test in another state. Emissions tests aren’t required in Georgia, only for the city of Atlanta, but they have a satellite testing facility in Statesboro: Luxury Auto Brokers LLC, in the back of the Meineke off South Main Street.

I try to keep things pretty personal with this newsletter, mostly talking about what’s happening in my life. But it’s a golf newsletter, and sometimes I want to make space for a longer-form discussion of a relevant issue in golf. There’s a lot of clippable discourse in golf, and I think issues like this deserve more nuanced discussion. Also, I traveled and competed for most of this week, and I’ve had a lot of this argument on my hard drive for a while. And so I’m going to make a bit of a casserole this week and talk about the distance debate.

In any event, I drove from Augusta down to Statesboro and pulled into the parking lot behind the Meineke. I sat in the car for a couple minutes to finish a half-mouthful of sunflower seeds, then walked to the door of Luxury Auto Brokers LLC. It was locked. I couldn’t see anything inside past the dark tinted windows. So I walked around front to the Meineke, where I found a long-haired gentleman who asked if he could help me. I told him I was looking for an emissions test. He told me to park my car in the spot in front of Luxury Auto and wait there — the inspector would be out to see me in five minutes or so.

I parked where he told me to park, and, five minutes later, the door opened. The guy from Meineke — or, now, the inspector — walked out, wearing a lanyard and holding a clipboard. He told me to roll down the window, leave the keys in the ignition, and go wait in the waiting area. He pointed behind me. There was a folding canopy tent over a rolled-out carpet set up at the end of the parking lot, under which sat two camping chairs.

I noticed he was wearing an Eagles hat and an Eagles lanyard with his credentials. I told him that my dad was born in Philly, that I’d been a fan my whole life, and that I didn’t expect to see many Eagles fans this far south. He said he was a diehard fan, that he was from Hershey. The conversation didn’t go much past that. I grabbed a book and head to the waiting area.

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The USGA placed various limitations on driver and ball technology to regulate distance back in 2002. As such, one argument goes that distance gains on the PGA Tour aren’t from new equipment, but from mechanical and fitness advancements made by the athletes themselves.

This argument, of course, is silly. All the evidence you need: aside from the occasional old-reliable 3-wood from 2017,^[3] every single Tour player is playing very much modern equipment. But, indeed: it’s all far more complicated than “the modern ball and driver go farther.” There are many, many factors at play. For instance, modern drivers aren’t just hotter, they’re also bigger with larger sweet spots. A bigger sweet spot means you have to be less precise about the contact you make, giving you freedom to swing harder without the ball going way offline. Another factor, and one that I don’t think gets nearly enough talk: shaft technology. Modern shafts are better at producing precise launch and spin conditions to maximize distance. They’re also remarkably resistant to twisting forces, and they deliver the club to the ball incredibly consistently, both of which give this improved-athlete golfer further leeway to swing harder. Shoe technology has come a long way, as have launch monitors and 3D-video — point being, there’s a lot more at play than just rolling back the ball or the driver. It’s a whole big complicated mess.

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As I sat in the camping chair under the folding canopy in the Luxury Auto Brokers parking lot, the gentleman from Meineke left and walked across the street. I wasn’t sure why. I read a chapter of my book. About ten minutes later, he came back holding a bottle of water and a large Styrofoam coffee from the gas station across the street. “I’m gonna get started now,” he said. I nodded.

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If 21^st century tech has impacted golf so drastically, why hasn’t it done the same for other sports? Let’s go back to 2002, to the NFL. The offensive coordinator for the St. Louis Rams, Mike Martz, realized he could leave a pass-rusher unblocked if Kurt Warner threw the ball quickly enough. And, from ’99-’01, the Rams went 25-8, won a Super Bowl, and became the most unstoppable offense in the NFL — “The Greatest Show on Turf.”

But, in adversarial sports — with an offense and a defense playing against each other — there’s an opponent constantly trying to neutralize these advances. And the league realized: while they couldn’t touch Warner before he threw a pass, they could certainly hit the piss out of him as he threw. These hits wore Warner down, and his play diminished until he was released by the Rams after the 2003 season.

Individual sports don’t have this push and pull. The competition isn’t against a competitor, but against a static environment: a race course (track, swimming), or a target (darts, bowling), or a golf course. Technological advances have hit other individual sports: Nike’s Alphaflys have a carbon plate that makes runners up to 4% faster, and Speedo’s LZR Racer bodysuit features hydrodynamic and muscular compression features — it even traps air to make swimmers more buoyant. During the 2008 Olympics, 98% of medalists wore the LZR Racer bodysuit, and they broke 23 world records. But, after those Olympics, swimming’s regulatory body banned the bodysuit. Similarly, those Nike shoes were banned before the 2020 Olympics. The swimming body’s press release stated that: “FINA wishes to recall the main and core principle that swimming is a sport essentially based on the physical performance of the athlete.” Given the explosions in distance over the last 30 years, it’s hard to say that golf’s governing bodies have done the same.

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I got through another chapter of my book and the emissions test was finished. I’m not sure how it works — frankly, I’m not even sure I heard the ignition turn on. But I’m no car professional, and I have the paperwork I need, so I’m not asking questions. The Meineke guy told me he also did a full-vehicle inspection, required by the State of Connecticut to pass the emissions test. It’d be an extra $100. I paid him. If I’d like, Meineke would be happy to fix whatever they found during the inspection, “so that you don’t have some other guy try to fleece you for it.” I politely declined.

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Maybe you’re wondering what the problem is. If guys hit it further now, doesn’t that just kick a bunch of ass? Why should I dislike when big strong guys do cool big-strong-guy stuff?

Were you one of the 59,000 viewers of the World Long Drive Championships? Was the 2023 US Am great because of the characters, Nick Dunlap and Neil Shipley, or because it was held in Denver and the ball flew farther at elevation? I’ll remind you that, when pros hit a great tee shot, they don’t even watch it.

The real advancement isn’t whether the ball goes 280 or 300 — it’s whether guys are making big, athletic swings to hit it past the other guys in his foursome. But, as those big strong guys chase more and more club speed, there’s a catch. Because, while pros are trying to hit it past the next guy on the range, equipment manufacturers are trying to get their pros to hit it past guys playing rival stuff.

If you’ve ever held a paper clip, you’ve probably noticed: if you bend a metal a little bit, it’ll spring back into place. But, if you bend it past a certain point, it’ll stay bent. Equipment manufacturers are smart people (they’ve also held paper clips), and they’ve figured out that, the more a clubface bends, the more spring energy it’ll return to the ball, making it go faster. If they can get closer to the line than the next guy, getting more bend without permanent deformation, there’s a lot of money to be made selling golf clubs.

The problem is that different players swing at different speeds. There aren’t many players who swing it faster than 118-120mph, but the fastest guys swing it up to 130mph. So manufacturers have to decide where to draw the line. Should they sacrifice the highest speed guys to help everyone else get a little more speed?

To be honest, a lot of the reason I want to tackle this issue is because I’m in that group of highest speed guys. I swing driver 127-129mph, resulting in roughly 189-192mph ball speed. If I were on Tour, I’d be one of the 5-10 longest hitters. And, as a result, I break a lot of clubs — not out of anger or misuse, but because they’re simply not designed to hold up at the speeds I swing them. A couple months ago, I wrote about my tenth 2-iron after breaking the previous nine — and I’ve broken three more since then. And that’s an iron — a club that’s meant to be a fairway finder, a security blanket, a stable, conservative option.

At the highest levels — Rory, Bryson — manufacturers probably have special methods to ensure clubs hold together at the highest speeds. If not, they have a truck parked onsite at Tour events to replace clubs if need be. But, as players chase more and more speed, a fraction get so fast that clubs can no longer sustain that speed, and they fail.

Competitive golfers are incentivized to swing faster and faster, while equipment manufactures make clubs that are less and less likely to hold up at these speeds. And so, when you swing faster than a certain arbitrary speed, the face collapses. Sound familiar?

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As the Meineke guy finished up my paperwork, he asked, “So I’m assuming you’re here for school?” I told him I wasn’t, that I was here playing professional golf — that’d I was on my way home from a tournament, actually. He lit up. “No way, dude, really?” He smiled. “Oh, I’m Anthony by the way.”

He asked about what tour I played on (mini-tours) and what clubs I play (Titleist^[4]). He told me he plays every weekend, that he shoots 90, “I figure I might as well get my money’s worth and hit as many shots as I can, amirite?” We laughed. He told me he was sorry to keep me waiting before: his four-year-old got bit by a spider and was on antibiotics, and he was up all night taking care of him. “I’m so tired right now I can barely function.” He needed the coffee. I got to read two good chapters in my book, and I told him it was no trouble at all.

He asked what I had coming up next, and I told him, a US Open qualifier in Pensacola. He asked if he’d see me on TV, and I told him I had to get through two stages in roughly the top 5% of competitors. “Well, that sounds doable. Just gotta beat a bunch of people.”

Half an hour before, two rabid fans of a Philly sports team meeting in Georgia didn’t even mention their championship season. Now, we talked for twenty minutes about golf. Time and time again, I’m reminded: there really is something special about our sport.

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And, if you’re looking for a reason why things have gotten so out of hand on the equipment front, it’s that. We’re the only sport where a 15-cap can go test themselves against a US Open venue, playing by the exact same rules. And so, as the gulf between the highest level professionals and the weekend warrior amateurs has grown, we’ve decided to keep playing by the same rules. It’s a beautiful thing, and it’s hard to say it’s not worth preserving.

This is the “bifurcation” debate: whether, at some point, they really are two different sports that need to play by two different sets of rules. Aside from the beauty of everyone playing by the same rules, there’s the additional hurdle of where to draw the line. Different rules for pros and amateurs? This would make it really hard for college players to play in PGA Tour events, or to make the transition to pro golf after school.^[5] For your state amateur and your club championship? Clubs are expensive, and it seems ridiculous to make guys with day jobs play with two different sets of equipment. There’s no easy place to make a distinction.

Or so they tell you. Most of the time, I’ll end these newsletters with this big thematic wrap-up. This week, in lieu of that, I’ll leave you with an idea, because I think my idea solves more than any thematic wrap up could (and this has been largely expository anyways).

There’s already a distinction to make, a perfect place to draw the line. I play professional golf for money. I play to test my skill against other top-level players in hopes of earning a job playing on TV. As with any pro sport, I need a strict set of rules to play within and ensure I’m competing fairly against my competitors.

But think about Anthony. He plays on the weekends when he’s not working. He spends quality time with his friends, and he gets a long walk through a green space. He plays against his score last weekend, and he doesn’t get too worked up if he loses. My argument; Anthony has no need for a strict set of rules. Anthony should play golf in whatever way he enjoys it the most.

When people argue against the ball rollback, say that bigger drivers and faster golf balls are good for the game, they’re normally saying that it makes golf more fun for 99.9% of people who play golf — people like Anthony. And they’re absolutely, totally correct. But who says Anthony needs to play by the rules?

My argument, essentially, is that more recreational players should cheat at golf. They already do: they roll balls out of divots in the fairway, and they hit breakfast balls off the tee, and they give themselves putts. None of these are within the rules. So why should they hold the competitive golf world hostage when it comes to equipment? Why not drastically roll back the driver and the ball, and then just play with “illegal” pre-rollback equipment in your Saturday game and have a blast doing it?

If you’d like to codify it, it’s a difference between scratch golf and net golf. If you’re playing a scratch match — no handicaps, no strokes — then you play by the rules, with USGA approved rolled-back equipment. If you’re playing net golf, giving and taking strokes according to your handicap, then presumably your equipment choices are baked into your handicap already. Who cares if someone’s playing a juiced ball if it means you’ll get an extra two shots each side? And, if you’re worried about cheating in your member guest: brother, I promise you, people are already cheating wayworse than a hot driver face.

There are plenty of people who’ve claimed to have The One True Take that clears up all the mess of the distance debate — Peter Kostis among them. In reality, my solution probably isn’t as clean as I’m making it out to be. But much has been made of bifurcation, the 99%, how recreational golf is in the best place it’s ever been. And it is — but it’s not the same sport. It’s recreational golf. It’s a sacred part of your weekend, and there’s no reason to let a rule book get in the way of you having the most fun you possibly can. Nobody’s going to drag you off a muni for using an illegal driver, just like nobody’s going to disqualify from you from your Turkey Trot for wearing Nike Alphaflys. Unless, of course, Peter Kostis finds a way to make the soles cave in.

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^[1]https://www.pga.com/story/how-driving-distance-has-changed-over-the-past-40-years-on-the-pga-tour?srsltid=AfmBOorRSxgs5XGGKd8K6KVO7N7CzMA46hglGnQGkgH6xp2gKbmx7VWs

^[2] The city — very much NOT Augusta National Golf Club.

^[3] Which is very much more modern than 2002.

^[4] A note here: I’ve told you that I play Titleist clubs, and I’ve told you that I break a lot of golf clubs. You might conclude from this that Titleist clubs break a lot. While I can’t entirely deny this, I can say: Titleist clubs, in my experience, break WAY less than other manufacturers clubs. An example: I had a couple teammates with unnamed competing drivers (starts with T, ends with -aylormade) and, when they started to feel funny, they’d get me to hit range balls until I broke the face. I could usually get this done in 2-4 balls. Compare that to the hundreds of balls I hit each week with my equipment, and, compared to the industry, they’re the serious people in the room.

^[5] There’s a school that thinks that there’s no problem here, that it’s the same as transitioning from metal bats to wood bats in baseball. Please, trust me: it’s not close to this. It would be so, so much bigger of an adjustment. It’s a bad comparison. I don’t have room to litigate this here, just please trust me. Or DM me if you want.