I've never really thought about recreational players "cheating" so the rollback doesn't matter for them. I think it's an interesting idea and fresh take but it could create a lot of divide in local competitions, money games, and the handicapping system. I fear it may become like a are you a "real" golfer by playing a rolled back ball or are you a fake golfer thing. I'm not sure if there's like a cutoff line in clubbed or ball speed that people will just adapt too and say that if your below this swing speed u don't have to play a rolled back ball. And there's always gonna be some shrink the game people who will die on a hill that they have to play a rolled back ball even if they shoot 95. I'm not really sure where I lie on the spectrum of rollback vs no rollback but I think everyone can agree that modern day players are "ruining" pristine golf courses by hitting it too far. And clearly augusta thought the same thing too or they wouldn't have tigerproofed it. Also my dad's from NJ and a huge eagles fan, what did you think about the kid they got from bama? He's probably gonna develop into a stud lol. Just my thoughts sorry it's a lot
It's a great point on the local competitions and money games front. My thought is that the handicap system would largely account for this: if playing "illegal" equipment makes you 3 shots better, then your handicap would be 3 shots lower. Of course, maybe guys sandbag by organizing their bags differently for casual and member-guest golf..... There's a lot of capacity for being a scumbag. But I think there's already plenty of scumbaggery going on when guys shoot net 57 in these events, and that stuff is dealt with mostly at the club/tournament level rather than the USGA/governance level. There's ways to correct for sandbagging (adjusting handicaps, bans for bad actors, etc.), and hopefully they'd extend to equipment stuff.
You're absolutely right though — it'd be a total mess. Which is why I don't think any of this will happen. But it'd what I would do if I were king for a day: highest levels of competition see a long necessary correction, and everyone else gets to play however they'd like. If you want to test yourself against the best, play the legal stuff. If you're playing to hang with buddies, drink beers, and have some laughs, then I don't see why equipment rules matter to you at all — and so I don't see why they should dictate the equipment standards in the pro game.
(And I think Jihaad will be a stud! Little curious to me to draft him after they just signed Baum to a real deal, but maybe that's perfect: a star and a cost controlled young guy. All I know is I trust Howie!)
We talk a lot about bifurcation being a bad thing for the spirit of the game. But golf is one of the only sports where equipment is already bifurcated across every player. Every football, baseball, and basketball (for the most part) are the exact same. Whereas the recreational golfer could never play the blades a pro uses. They don't want a hard spinny golf ball either, so they're already playing with different equipment. As is each pro in their club and ball make/model selection.
An interesting thought experiment is what the game would look like if all equipment was standardized (balls and clubs). Here's the tools you can use, go and see who takes the least amount of strokes. It's insane to think about, but equally crazy to imagine Hurts having one ball for deep throws, one for check downs, and a sticky one for handoffs.
Enjoyed this Chautauqua a lot. Certainly felt like one.
I hate to make an example of you, but just because it's come up a bunch, I feel I have to....
If you forced everyone to play one standardized set of equipment, all you'd do is bias towards whoever was already playing similar equipment. If you said "we're all playing the spinnier ball now," then you'd just help everyone who's playing a spinnier ball and disadvantage the high-spin guys. And then, eventually, they'd just play clubs that are super low-spinning.
Closest comparison I can think of is standardizing racquet tension in tennis — the players who play that tension will be happy, everyone else has to adjust, and eventually it all sort of evens out again with a slight bias towards the players who naturally gravitated towards that tension in the first place. But I don't think it solves any relevant issues w/r/t equipment advancements.
The extreme example: standardizing shoe size. Everyone's wearing size 10s now. I'm thrilled, because I already wear a size 10 and everyone else has to deal. I think it slants the playing field without solving any underlying problems.
Again, hate to make an example of you — especially a guy I know to have a lot of good takes!
No worries, brother! More just a thought experiment on how the game COULD have evolved. Similarly, the standardizing of a football makes people with small hands at a disadvantage. Make the ball smaller and the guys with big hands would turn the ball over too much.
Just very interesting that our game always evolved with people creating their own equipment in the back shed, making their own balls, etc.. One of the few sports out there without standardized equipment from the very beginning. Tennis the perfect comp.
Not saying I'd advocate for standardization, more so an exploration on what could have happened.
You're right to peg the driver as key, even more so than the ball - true for pros, and true for extremely average golfers like me. I'm not going to notice that the rolled-back ball is flying 5 yards less on my drives. But I'll definitely support the "cheating solution when I lose 25 yards whenever I miss the middle of the clubface (which is 90% of the time). Probably why the governing bodies have stayed away from the driver in this latest rollback discussion!
You're hitting on things that make me wish I had more of an insider perspective here. But the fact that they're not touching the driver makes me think they're avoiding bifurcation as much as they can — the rolled-back ball should only be ~2yds different if at all for ams, but it'll fly 10yds less for the fastest pros. This is in contrast to driver changes, which would have greater effects on ams than pros — which is NOT what anyone wants. That's why you couldn't change the driver without normalizing ams playing pre-rollback equipment for a while, and then developing a market for even hotter/bigger drivers when the pre-rollback stuff feels obsolete.
Side effect here: faster pros will lose more distance than shorter ones, so it's really just pulling faster guys further back to the field. It's easy to say this as a faster guy, but if my best skill is to be accurate off the tee while swinging 10mph+ faster than other guys, I feel like I should be able to hit it more than incrementally past them. I think it's going to devalue speed as a skill, as opposed to a smaller driver that would increase the value of long, accurate driving as a skill. If you can hit a small driver long and straight, I think that's a skill that should be valued. The ball just flattens the field out and brings everyone together.
If I had a mulligan on this post, I'd probably take out the word "cheat" — I meant it tongue in cheek, the same way gimmies and breakfast balls are "cheating." I hope the point came across that: if you're playing golf because you enjoy it, then you shouldn't let the blazers at the USGA tell you how to have your fun. If you're not competing, play with whatever equipment you'd like and go have a blast!
The Golden Bear has been on this for decades, except he's been going after the ball, not the equipment.
And Anthony is a great name...
I've never really thought about recreational players "cheating" so the rollback doesn't matter for them. I think it's an interesting idea and fresh take but it could create a lot of divide in local competitions, money games, and the handicapping system. I fear it may become like a are you a "real" golfer by playing a rolled back ball or are you a fake golfer thing. I'm not sure if there's like a cutoff line in clubbed or ball speed that people will just adapt too and say that if your below this swing speed u don't have to play a rolled back ball. And there's always gonna be some shrink the game people who will die on a hill that they have to play a rolled back ball even if they shoot 95. I'm not really sure where I lie on the spectrum of rollback vs no rollback but I think everyone can agree that modern day players are "ruining" pristine golf courses by hitting it too far. And clearly augusta thought the same thing too or they wouldn't have tigerproofed it. Also my dad's from NJ and a huge eagles fan, what did you think about the kid they got from bama? He's probably gonna develop into a stud lol. Just my thoughts sorry it's a lot
It's a great point on the local competitions and money games front. My thought is that the handicap system would largely account for this: if playing "illegal" equipment makes you 3 shots better, then your handicap would be 3 shots lower. Of course, maybe guys sandbag by organizing their bags differently for casual and member-guest golf..... There's a lot of capacity for being a scumbag. But I think there's already plenty of scumbaggery going on when guys shoot net 57 in these events, and that stuff is dealt with mostly at the club/tournament level rather than the USGA/governance level. There's ways to correct for sandbagging (adjusting handicaps, bans for bad actors, etc.), and hopefully they'd extend to equipment stuff.
You're absolutely right though — it'd be a total mess. Which is why I don't think any of this will happen. But it'd what I would do if I were king for a day: highest levels of competition see a long necessary correction, and everyone else gets to play however they'd like. If you want to test yourself against the best, play the legal stuff. If you're playing to hang with buddies, drink beers, and have some laughs, then I don't see why equipment rules matter to you at all — and so I don't see why they should dictate the equipment standards in the pro game.
(And I think Jihaad will be a stud! Little curious to me to draft him after they just signed Baum to a real deal, but maybe that's perfect: a star and a cost controlled young guy. All I know is I trust Howie!)
We talk a lot about bifurcation being a bad thing for the spirit of the game. But golf is one of the only sports where equipment is already bifurcated across every player. Every football, baseball, and basketball (for the most part) are the exact same. Whereas the recreational golfer could never play the blades a pro uses. They don't want a hard spinny golf ball either, so they're already playing with different equipment. As is each pro in their club and ball make/model selection.
An interesting thought experiment is what the game would look like if all equipment was standardized (balls and clubs). Here's the tools you can use, go and see who takes the least amount of strokes. It's insane to think about, but equally crazy to imagine Hurts having one ball for deep throws, one for check downs, and a sticky one for handoffs.
Enjoyed this Chautauqua a lot. Certainly felt like one.
I hate to make an example of you, but just because it's come up a bunch, I feel I have to....
If you forced everyone to play one standardized set of equipment, all you'd do is bias towards whoever was already playing similar equipment. If you said "we're all playing the spinnier ball now," then you'd just help everyone who's playing a spinnier ball and disadvantage the high-spin guys. And then, eventually, they'd just play clubs that are super low-spinning.
Closest comparison I can think of is standardizing racquet tension in tennis — the players who play that tension will be happy, everyone else has to adjust, and eventually it all sort of evens out again with a slight bias towards the players who naturally gravitated towards that tension in the first place. But I don't think it solves any relevant issues w/r/t equipment advancements.
The extreme example: standardizing shoe size. Everyone's wearing size 10s now. I'm thrilled, because I already wear a size 10 and everyone else has to deal. I think it slants the playing field without solving any underlying problems.
Again, hate to make an example of you — especially a guy I know to have a lot of good takes!
No worries, brother! More just a thought experiment on how the game COULD have evolved. Similarly, the standardizing of a football makes people with small hands at a disadvantage. Make the ball smaller and the guys with big hands would turn the ball over too much.
Just very interesting that our game always evolved with people creating their own equipment in the back shed, making their own balls, etc.. One of the few sports out there without standardized equipment from the very beginning. Tennis the perfect comp.
Not saying I'd advocate for standardization, more so an exploration on what could have happened.
We agree!
You're right to peg the driver as key, even more so than the ball - true for pros, and true for extremely average golfers like me. I'm not going to notice that the rolled-back ball is flying 5 yards less on my drives. But I'll definitely support the "cheating solution when I lose 25 yards whenever I miss the middle of the clubface (which is 90% of the time). Probably why the governing bodies have stayed away from the driver in this latest rollback discussion!
You're hitting on things that make me wish I had more of an insider perspective here. But the fact that they're not touching the driver makes me think they're avoiding bifurcation as much as they can — the rolled-back ball should only be ~2yds different if at all for ams, but it'll fly 10yds less for the fastest pros. This is in contrast to driver changes, which would have greater effects on ams than pros — which is NOT what anyone wants. That's why you couldn't change the driver without normalizing ams playing pre-rollback equipment for a while, and then developing a market for even hotter/bigger drivers when the pre-rollback stuff feels obsolete.
Side effect here: faster pros will lose more distance than shorter ones, so it's really just pulling faster guys further back to the field. It's easy to say this as a faster guy, but if my best skill is to be accurate off the tee while swinging 10mph+ faster than other guys, I feel like I should be able to hit it more than incrementally past them. I think it's going to devalue speed as a skill, as opposed to a smaller driver that would increase the value of long, accurate driving as a skill. If you can hit a small driver long and straight, I think that's a skill that should be valued. The ball just flattens the field out and brings everyone together.
If I had a mulligan on this post, I'd probably take out the word "cheat" — I meant it tongue in cheek, the same way gimmies and breakfast balls are "cheating." I hope the point came across that: if you're playing golf because you enjoy it, then you shouldn't let the blazers at the USGA tell you how to have your fun. If you're not competing, play with whatever equipment you'd like and go have a blast!