I miss a green, for example, I'm already upset.
When I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset.
And when I find my ball in a bride egg Friday egg, the dreaded Frida egg Frida egg, Frida egg, Brian egg Frida egg bride egg Lie, I'm about ready to run off of the hump, Joseph, I am worried about Jordan Speif should I be as worried about Jordan speed as as I am?
Right now?
What is your cause for concern?
Look? You know, I I don't ask for much. I'm a big Speaf fan. But when he has an opportunity to win a tournament against Adam Shank and Taylor Moore and he bogies two of the last three holes and he spends the entire round not being able to hit a fair way, I just I start to get a little frustrated. I start to feel like, you know, all the Speaf haters out there, including some in our own company, that they're that they're starting to get the upper hand in the argument, and I just want a little more
from Jordan. Can can you give me some hope? Is he actually turning around this season or is it just going to be a big tease like it has been for the past four or five years.
Did you want him to not get into contention? Would that have been better?
I mean, I'm obviously being a little a little unfair by making that comment, but you know, I think Jordan Speeths had obviously a pretty fascinating career. I don't know where the hype is right now compared to where it was last year at this time, but he showed some really strong flashes right about this time. Last year was underwhelming, especially at Augusta. But this is kind of what Jordan's game has looked like now for a little over a year.
I think you should be optimistic as a Jordan Speed supporter. I mean, he's gained strokes on his approach in the last five tournaments in a row, like the putter, has shown some flashes, but it's still a little scary inside, you know, close range. But if you're somebody who's optimistic about Jordan Speed, he's giving you plenty of reasons to be optimistic, especially at a setup like Augusta. I think, like lacc, there are some reasons to be optimistic, but he's not a top five player in the world.
At the moment.
Okay, that's what I needed to hear. That's all I needed to hear. Thank you for giving me some reassurance. Now, Taylor Moore did did win the valspar. I really don't know a thing about Taylor Moore. Do you know a thing about Taylor Moore?
He hasn't.
He didn't give us a ton to hold on to. But I don't know a ton about Taylor Moore's game. I from a quick look up. I mean he hits the ball along, which is always a that's something you can hold on to as a reliable skill. The ball striking has been pretty good this calendar year, so it's impressive that he finished tied for eleventh at Tory Pines. He's actually had like a pretty good calendar year, so he's somebody to pay attention to.
But you never really know.
The driver's been really good, and that's a reliable skill. So sometimes wins come from players you don't always expect, and yesterday was a great example.
It sounds like a lot of other PGA tour pros is That's what it sounds like to me right now. Kind of no offense to Taylor Moore. I don't know a thing about it. He might be a tremendously interesting guy, but this seems to me like an assembly line situation. Now I may be proven wrong. He may go on to have a really hot season, like a like a Sam Burns type season or something like that. But I just don't know, and I was a little frustrated.
You know.
I wanted to see Speef pull it out. And I guess I'm a fanboy. So that's that's all this really is. In any case. That is Joseph Lamania. I am Garrett Morrison, and you're listening to the Fridagg Podcast, and today we're going to talk about the demise of the WGC Dell Technologies match Play, the final edition of which will be played this week on the PGA Tour. After that, I'm going to talk to Dean Snell about the technological side
of rolling back the golf ball. Dean is the founder and CEO of the ball manufacturer Snell Golf, as well as an engineer who worked for Titleist and Tailor Made. He's also on the record as being anti rollback, and while I do not want to turn this interview with Dean into a crossfire style debate, I do think it'll be informative to hear from an extremely well informed voice on the equipment industry side of this issue. He's a reasonable guy, he's a very smart guy, but he sees
these things very, very differently than I do. Listeners are very familiar with my opinion on the rollback issue, Andy's opinion, pretty much anybody who works at the Fried Egg's opinion, and so I thought I would seek out a different point of view on this subject. At the end of the episode, Joseph and I will each give our storylines to track this week in golf. But for Joseph, let's talk about the match play. You are our Austin correspondent. Do you ever play at the Butler Pitch and Putt?
I do. I love the Butler Pitch and Putt.
It's a great place, isn't it.
I think it's a great model for what some alternative forms of golf can look like, and it's been very successful.
It's it's just in the middle of the city. For people who aren't familiar with this with this place, it's in the middle of the city, and I'm not exactly sure how many holes there are, maybe nine, And it's it's short par threes with really interesting greens, like greens that were designed by Dan Proctor. People are familiar with Dan Proctor. He worked for Corn Crenshaw has has and has done a set of a small set of really great courses with Dave excellent, including Wildhorse Wildhorse Golf Club
in Nebraska, which we've raved about. And so there are these fascinating greens, and you know, it's just a it's just a little par three course in the middle of the city, pretty small footprint, right.
Yeah, it's turf tea boxes. You show up, you throw your you pay, you put your golf ball into a holder. That that's you're in the queue. When you're up, you go. It's nine holes. There's beer carts. You sometimes have to watch out for some stray golf balls because it doesn't always attract the best player. But that's just part of the experience. And you don't really need more than like a gap wedge or a pitching wedge. But I'm hopeful that post rollback, maybe you'll need.
A nine iris's that's what rollback is really about, protecting the butler pitching putt, precisely, making people club up and play those greens.
Properly as they were designed.
Yeah, all right, So you know, main topic in Austin this week obviously is the match Play, which is going away after this year. Very sad but somewhat predictable, and we'll get to some of the factors that caused its demise in a minute, but first I want to talk
a little bit about Austin Country Club. This is I think one of the best courses on the PGA Tour, and it's one of the reasons that I'm pretty sad about the fact that we're not going to see the match play again, not just because match play is a great format that I really enjoy, but also because Austin Country Club is a cool course to see annually and we're not going to anymore. So just as a sendoff, what do you think makes ACC a special venue for tournament golf?
Yeah, I could go deep here.
I love Austin Country Club personally, think it's one of the best courses on the PGA Tour. I've always kind of objected to when people say it's a great match play course but kind of imply that it wouldn't be a great stroke play course. I think it'd be a great stroke play tournament that you could have here too, so I love it. It penalizes whyde misses heavily. There's a lot of variety in the holes. I think the par
fives are excellent. There's one course that I'm kind of on the record of appreciating is TPC San Antonio, and I would describe Austin Country Club as a much better version of that golf course, really big pre for hitting accurate drives. A lot of different players can succeed there, and like Cordy Connor's finished third at del match Play
last year, he's a winner at TPC San Antonio. I think that's the best comparison, But Dell match Play, Austin Country Club is just a better version of that interesting.
So you wouldn't compare it necessarily to like the other Pete Die courses on tour as much.
Well, I mean, like PJA West, less of a much less of a penalty to being arrant off the tee. And then if you were to think about some other courses like Sawgrass or Harbor Town, those you have to be accurate, but it's doing it in a little bit of a different way, with like really small greens and tight tree lined corridors where you're not even always hitting driver. At Austin Country Club, it's a little more open feeling, but you can get into some trouble off the tees,
especially with how firm it is out there. So it penalizes wide misses in a similar way to a course like Sawgrass in terms of magnitude. It just does it in a different way, and it's a way that I think is more appealing.
And so what is that different way? If you were to put a finer point on that, I think we all know what The way that TPC Sawgrass penalizes wide missus is there's water right, or there's thick trees or something really straightforwardly penal Austin Country Club's like a little bit wider right, And you say, it does this same thing in a different way, So what is that.
There are some penalties kind of on the perimeters. So a great example would be the driveable par four. The fifth hole, there's out of bounds down the entire left side, So if you're going to go for that green, you can't just spray it. You could go out of bounds like that. That's an example. Whole six, great par five. If you just get a little bit off there, you can't get home in two. It's really hard to get
home into even if you hit a good drive. But some of the holes kind of have pretty steep runoff almost off of the fairways. Whole ten would be another example, short par four where if you just blow it out right, you can kind of down a big down slope. So it does it in a variety of ways, but there's just penalties on some of the perimeters. Even whole nine, which I think people will be familiar with, big down slope in the fairway. It's a par four with water
to the left. And this is a controversial hole. I remember Spied hit it in the water last year and was really upset that his ball went in the water. But if you favor the right side of that fairway, then shouldn't go into the water. So it just it just kind of requires precision in an interesting way that kind of varies holes a hole, but overall, you got to hit it online there or you're either going to
run into some trees and some dry spots. Another example would be like hole eight, also off the tee on the right on hole nine, you can get into some trees, but there's water out there. I mean, it just does it a variety of ways. I think it's an excellent example of having a diverse set of holes.
You mentioned hole nine and number eight. Is there another hole that's maybe not ballyhooed like the like some of the river holes are, or or some of the most photogenicals are. Is there a hole out there that you think people should really pay attention to as being representative of the virtues of this course.
Yeah, there's a lot of good ones. I mean, I think hull five's are great drivable four I really like. I actually think Hule one's a pretty good opening hole.
Yeah, and it does.
There's bunkers down the left side. It leaves a really touchy bunker shot. If you find a bunker on the left, you might have a little wedge, big downslope over the back of the green that you cannot go long. Yes, so a lot of players like to favor the right side. But if you remember a lot of past memories at Dell matchplay, you'll recall a lot of players in the trees kind of over by the concessions on whole one.
Bryson's that been there a number of times, and part of the reason for that is the left side's a problem. But you can't just launch driver down the right side either, And I think that's such a refreshing departure from some other setups like Tory Pines and like Bay Hill, where normally you just have to take one side out of play and you can kind of blast it down the other side. Austin Country Club doesn't afford you that opportunity, So that's something I really appreciate about it.
So Number one, you can, like I've seen players drive that green right depending on where the tea is, like really get it up near the green on that hole. It's generally downhill, I believe, but it kind of turns, has a sharp turn in it, and they're just like I've seen drives all over the place on that hole. Just a wide, wide range of outcomes.
Yeah, it's a great opening hole.
It's a bit demanding off the tee and you do kind of want to favor the right side there, But again, if you spray it out right, you run into a problem really quickly.
Yeah.
I guess one other hole I throw out is fourteen, a cool hole along the water, and there's a bunker down the left side that you don't really want to be in and there's water down the left, so a lot of players kind of blast it out right. But you can't just blast it out right there and have an easy approach shot in. You often are with wind long approach shot into that green. Just bailing out way right becomes a problem too. So I think it's a good example of having some room to navigate out there,
but a real reward for finding the fairway. And again you have a lot of players like Billy Horschell, Kevin Kisner, Matt Kocher, Cory Connors. Those are the type of players who have had success there, so that's not a coincidence.
So farewell, Austin Country Club. You will be missed. This is a good PGA Tour venue. I can't imagine that it's going to be replaced by something in its schedule spot that's equally interesting. But I have heard word that the Houston Open might be moving back to the spring, and that's on a really interesting Tom Doak renovated golf
course in Memorial Park. And so maybe that's the one silver lining here is that will we'll get to see another really well designed Texas course highlighted at this spot in the schedule. But you know, other than that, I'm not happy about saying acc go away, so kind of rip is as far as the schedules concerned. I'm sure that the membership is not that unhappy about it, though, so they'll kind of get their golf course back at this time of year. So let's talk about what happened
to the match play. You know, there's been some reporting around this. It's not totally clear, honestly why this tournament went away, but you can put together some narratives about why the tournament wasn't just more successful than it was, and we'll talk about some of those, but just to get into some of the reporting around it, why this
tournament ended up dying. Adam Schupack had a good report for Golf Week a little while back, and he heard a number of different things from a number of different people. Kevin Streelman, who's on the Player Advisory Council, told him that it was a sponsorship issue, which means that it was a Dell issue, And you know, that fits with some of the things that we've heard over the years
about Dell's feelings about this tournament. It was just in twenty nineteen that Dell suggested that the PGA tour finished the tournament with thirty six holes of stroke play, and some players in the room were like, well, what would you call it then? So Dell was not happy. I don't think with the match play format, and with the fact that you know, you could get to a Sunday and you would have two players that people weren't really
interested in vying for the championship. You wouldn't have the big names there on the final day to attract people's attention, and Dell was looking for different ways to alleviate that issue. Obviously, there was a big format change a few years ago where you know, the first rounds became round robin instead of immediate elimination, and so the format was an issue for the sponsor. The sponsor was not happy, and so Streamann saying that it was a sponsorship issue would seem
to be accurate. Now, another issue was the host venue and the membership's attitude towards hosting a yearly PGA Tour event,
which is very understandable according to Adam Shuepack. Again, the tour clashed with Austin Country Club over the terms of a contract extension and they kind of went back and forth about this and Ultimately, Panavidra apparently just went radio silent and stopped negotiating with Austin Country Club, even when acc made it clear that they were willing to come up with some kind of deal to keep the tournament coming back, it appeared that the PGA Tour at a
certain point just wasn't interested. So now the tour has confirmed that there will be no match play event on the schedule next year. Joseph, why do you think it is that match play didn't survive on the PGA Tour in this era and do you think it's just an awkward fit overall for the modern PGA Tour.
I think it is an awkward fit for the modern PGA Tour. But to me, that's kind of an indictment of the golf ecosystem, the current state of the golf ecosystem, and why some reform would be nice. And maybe we've already started to move in that direction with some of the schedule changes that have been announced for next year. But there are a lot of logistics goal issues with
adell match play. Players don't know how long they're going to be there, Fans don't know exactly when they can show up, and who they're going to see when they do show up. So if you plan that, you know you want to show up for the Saturday or the Sunday. I mean Sunday only has a couple golfers on the course. Anyway, I think another huge issue that they've had is that Sundays are sleepy because there's only four golfers on the course.
And the point that I would make, which is not a this is not my first time making this point on this podcast, is that it's hard to understand what the stakes are. If you're playing for money, we get that, but if you're playing for FedEx Cup standings on like the runners up match on Sunday, why should somebody care about how many points are being allocated to the winner of that match. I think the PGA Tours schedule change, and this is something we'll talk about more on this pod.
I'm sure has improved that because now only the top fifty players in the FedEx Cup standings are getting into all of the designated events the following year, So this runner up match and the final match might actually have a little bit more meaning. That being said, it's still only four golfers on the course, and from a broadcasting perspective and from a fan experience perspective that has an impact.
It's not ideal, but I'd love to see a little bit of reform so that we can get a match play event on the schedule that is appetizing and is appealing for both sponsors and fans, because in my opinion, it's the most compelling format of golf.
Now, there's another issue with match play, and it's fit on the PGA Tour that I've heard you mentioned before, and that has to do with the official World Golf Ranking and the way that all works with a match play event. Could you explain that sure.
I mean, it's just a known thing with Dell matchplay that you might play a good couple of days and still get eliminated, right like you can be Scotti Scheffler, play two really good rounds of golf, just get beat by somebody who gets hot, and then maybe push in your third match, and you're going home and you're gonna be pen from like an official World Golf rankings perspective, but if that had been a stroke play event, you
might be tied for fifteenth after those three days. So it's just it's a high variance format that especially if you're one of the best players in the world, and if the course doesn't fit your game particularly well, your expectations OWGR wise are not high that week. It's also worth calling out that the new methodology implemented in August of twenty twenty two rewards large fields, and this is
a small field. This is sixty four players, so they're not even as large of a sum of total points being allocated to the event anyway from an OWGR perspective.
And so this is one of the ways.
That I've been critical of some of the changes to the OWGR and will continue to voice that that maybe it's not a good thing that the OWGR rigid methodology disincentivizes an event like matchplay from existing, because I think the golf world would be better if OWGR facilitated match play on the calendar, hopefully ideally more than once a year.
Yeah, I mean, what we're seeing is a couple of different factors promoting format homogeneity. One factor is the broadcast. Seventy two hole stroke play is just the format that the telecast seems to like, the one that it's comfortable with, the one that it really wants every event in the end to be because it just kind of works for
the networks. And then you have OWGR, which, especially in light of the recent changes to the formula, would strongly penalize essentially participating in a match play event because match play events have to be smaller fields and the top players are going to have to deal with some of the randomness of match play, of the fact that you might just get beat by somebody who would probably not
beat you over seventy two holes of stroke play. And so these influences of these various institutions on the PGA Tour has just caused match play, which is the most traditional, most important historical format in golf, to be chased off of the PGA Tour, which is kind of remarkable, but it's a testament to the strength of those influences trying to get every PGA Tour event to be the same.
And so, how do you deal with this, Joseph, from an institutional or from a systemic perspective, With the broadcast existing, with the OWGR existing as it does right now, how do you solve this problem? How do you encourage the PGA Tour to try new things, or any tour to try new things other than seventy two holes of stroke play.
It's a good question. I don't know how deep you want me to go into one of my solutions, but.
One of your solutions. And you wrote a newsletter about this this morning, which is excellent. People check out Finding the Edge newsletter. Joseph always writes great stuff in there, as well as for us in the Friday newsletter. But you say, right off the bat, get rid of THEWOWGR. So I'm happy to te you up for that one if you want to go into it.
Yeah, And I might be getting a little dramatic with phrasing it that way, like you could just kind of reform the OWGR.
But if the OWGR, or let's.
Just just say major championships allocated spots to tours based on their order of merit, then tours could have whatever formats they want because they the OWGR basically be outsourcing that order of merit calculation to the tours instead of dictating it themselves, which they are the ones administering the ranking.
So if Augusta said, hey, pg Tour, you get seventy spots in our major this year, then the PGA Tour could have whatever kind of calendar it wanted, and it could send the top seventy players from the FedEx Cup standings, which would mean that you could have match play multiple
times because you're responsible for the methodology. So that's one way you could solve it is getting away a little bit from letting owgr dictate all the terms of qualification, maybe just outsourcing that to the tours, letting them run their own formats and allocating points how they see fit. So I think that's one one way you could get around it. Perhaps you could also tweak the format a little bit. I think one thing we haven't talked about
that's interesting. Match play starts on Wednesday. Wednesday is probably the best day to go out to Austin country Club because every player is starting with a fresh slate, optimisms high. No one feels like they can't win at that point. By Thursday, since it's pool play, some players who have lost their first match, there's already a little bit of wind out of their sales. By Friday, some players are playing matches that don't matter at all. Yeah days they've
already been eliminated. And then on Sunday you have a really sleepy only four golfers on the course. Ticket prices are really low. Every year for Dell matchplay on Sunday, despite it being the final day, I'm sure the broadcast doesn't do huge numbers. So if you think about it, Friday and Sunday are two of the sleepiest days of the event, which those should be days that a lot
of people are tuned in. So I do think structure there's a little bit of an issue there, and with some tweaks to the format, I think you could get away from that.
A little bit.
Yeah, that's really interesting because definitely, by far the best days of the match play are Wednesday and Saturday.
And on top of that, if it starts on Wednesday, think about a player like Justin Thomas who wanted.
To play the Valspar.
If he plays Valspar and that finishes on Sunday, that's a tight turnaround to get to Austin and t things up on Wednesday morning. So it just it maybe isn't presenting the best set of incentives for a player to go show up for that event.
So then, you know, considering all of that, what is your argument for keeping match play on the PGA Tour. Let's consider the alternate perspective here, right, the sponsors view, the OWGRS view whoever right the player's view that match play is a problematic format for them, what is the strong argument that we can make to them that match play should have a place on the PGA Tour.
I think it's the best format golf, full stop, and I think it's produced some of the best authentic drama. As the tour comes up with the player Impact program right tries to incentivize drama, tries to beef up rival rees like Bryson and Brooks, Dell Matchplay produced it just within its format without even trying to conjure drama.
Right.
We had Sergio and Kocher get into it, Kevin nah and Dustin Johnson kind of have a little bit of a skirmish. There have been these head to head duels that have been really cool at Dell Matchplay, and that's just a byproduct of a cool format. So I think if you could make Sundays a little bit more compelling, and there are ways to do that, then we might actually be able to sell to sponsors. Hey, this format could work, and it produces some of the best golf we see all year. So I think match play it
just produces drama that you don't have to conjure. I think we should have match play multiple times a year, and you actually can then at the end of a player's career say well, what was his match play record? Jordan Spieth versus Justin Tom what were they in match play against one another? But now we're removing that context completely from the PGA Tour, which I think is a mistake. I mean, even think about a story like Steven Ames
and Tiger Woods. How fun of a story is that to reflect on and Tiger completely trounced him.
It's become a way of understanding everything Steven Aames versus Tiger Woods. Anytime anybody sees a huge blowout or somebody you know talking a little bit too much before a match and then and then getting beaten, or before a game and getting beaten, they got aimed, right.
And I think again, if you go out and you have a bad day as a PGA Tour player, it could just be a seventy five in a stroke play event, and you can justify it however you want. But if you go out and match play and you lose, you're zero to one, there's a finality to that, and there's something refreshing about having a win loss record that I think golf benefits from, even though we only see it team events and Dell match play once a year, which now we're not going to see anymore.
Well, that's kind of sad, But let's hope that some people are listening and see some potential and match play and understand that when it comes to the entertainment product, that match play holds enormous potential. Just think of that Full Swing episode, the first Full Swing episode Frenemies Jordan
Speith and Justin Thomas. You know what would be really meaningful is if Jordan Speith and Justin Thomas went up against each other in match play and Jordan one or Justin one, and we and we looked at that closely and understood how that shifted the dynamic of their relationship, because otherwise I don't buy that they're frenemies. So let's just hope that somebody, somebody out there with money sees that there's that opportunity and uh and takes it up.
So coming up after this break, I talked to Dean Snell about rollback from his perspective as a ball engineer and manufacturer. This episode of the Frida Egg Podcast is brought to you by Club Champion. Club Champion helps golfers of any skill level play better golf through custom fitted and custom built equipment. Their extensively trained master fitters provide an in depth, data driven, tour level fitting process and have access to fifty thousand hit able head and shaft
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in general. So I think they're really eye opening experiences. I would highly recommend them. Frida Egg listeners, this is the deal that Club Champion is offering to you. You can use the code fried Egg to get fifty percent off the cost of your Club Champion fitting with the purchase of a club. That's code fried egg. One word. All right, back to the episode. So, Dean, when I go to snellgolf dot com right now, I see that all of your product is sold out. So what's going on.
Yeah, it's been an interest in year two and a half years actually since COVID kind of kicked in golf. Golf took off. You know, was booming, and mounds were up, memberships up, people were playing, getting a little extra money from the government, and uh, you know, we were selling we were selling some good golf balls. But what happened in golf was there was a big issue with the material. There was a big supply chain issue with material shortage.
That's in pretty much every single golf ball that's in golf. So the big companies had a surplus, were they able to you know, kind of use what they had in
house and try to get through it. Some of them actually canceled some models and use the material in the top of the line models, you know, And us being on the smaller side to where we work off of purchase orders quite a bit, so there wasn't any available, so we were kind of we kind of got limited on our supply and that that kept going right through
twenty twenty two. So for us, what we what we've done is we've spent the last the last year and a half or so working to UH to try to create a different supply chain and in a different way to you know, to get golf balls and different levels of manufacturing and stuff and create prototypes based on feedback from our customers. And we've done that work over the
last year and a half. So we're getting ready now to have a launch of new products and everything's kind of kind of new for us, new supply chain, how we how we work and UH and we shouldn't be in this situation again with the with the point that we put in place and we sold out of pretty much everything that we had in house. Now with the plans for this new uh new launch, which we're planning.
For April third.
So April third, we'll have some information coming out with all the new products and new new names and everything and uh and we should be ready to go.
Okay, so that's coming up. That's got to be exciting to to sort of have been on the bench for a while and now, uh, now, now you're finally freed up again.
Yeah, I'm I'm a hockey player, so I feel like I've been sitting in the penalty box for a while. It's time to time to get out there or to either pull the shirt over someone's head and start throwing uppercuts, score a couple of goals, and time to score some goals, I think.
Yeah.
All right, So I'm talking to you today about the Model Local Rule news that came out last week, and just to give people some context, the USGA and RNA proposed a Model Local Rule or MLR, and tournaments can use this MLR to require players to play a reduced flight golf ball. Now, just to give people some details on what the current testing of golf balls is or the way that balls are tested to be deemed conforming.
Right now, balls are tested according to this standard at a clubhead speed of one hundred and twenty miles per hour, a dynamic club head loft of ten degrees as I understand, I think it's a dynamic loft as opposed to the actual club loft, and a spin rate of twenty five twenty rpm. A ball cannot travel more than three hundred
and seventeen yards. Now, the test for the MLR ball will be clubhead speed one hundred and twenty seven miles per hour, loft eleven degrees, spin twenty two to twenty rpm, and it still can't go more than three hundred and seventeen yards. So they've increased the clubhead speed, increased the loft, and decreased the spin, all of which would normally make
the ball go farther. But the MLR ball needs to go the same distance three hundred and seventeen yards under those testing parameters, So basically the MLR ball will need to have less juice. Now, Dean, from an engineering perspective, you're a brilliant engineer. You had a role in creating some really famous golf balls, including the titlest Professional, the Titleist,
pro v one the tailor made five piece ball, I believe. So, just from an engineering perspective, what do you think it will take to invent this new MLR ball?
Oh, there's a there's a couple of things that are going to have to happen when you when you start, the manufacturers are going to have to go have this testing completed and find out where the ball is. So three seven is the max limit with a with a three yard tolerance, so it can go to three twenty. That's that's the max. Every golf ball that's submitted today that's played on tour, we max out the speed and we also max out that distance to the current test
that we have. So if they're going to add a significant amount of clubhead speed and not add any distance, pretty much every ball is going to fall over that maximum distance limit and it will be illegal to that new standard. So each manufacturer is going to have to go back now and see where where is it, how far further does it go, and how much do they have to reduce it. And there's a couple of ways
that you have to evaluate that. If it's a if it's a pretty significant this gap, you might have to do it with a combination of the ball design, which is adding spin to the golf ball, maybe slowing down the ball a little bit with speed, but adding spin to it, which is which is a bigger effect, and uh and aerodynamics, So you can make the dimples be a little bit deeper, you know, and create more drag which slows the ball down at those faster speeds, and
you can also add spin. The problem is when you do that, when you're adding spin to the to the driver's shot, you're also adding spin to all the other shots in the bag. So the players are gonna you know, you're gonna make the players be shorter, the long hitters are still going to be the longest, and then you've got then the players are going to have to really struggle with golf balls that have higher spin rates throughout
the bag. So if you switch back and forth one tournament to another using this ball and not using this ball, it's not just the driver issue. It's not just Okay, we just shortened the ball and the rest of the game.
Is the same.
The added added spin to the ball is a big difference how on how these player is use the golf balls to perform today, especially when you add wind into the game. So it's not an easy one step solution by saying, Okay, we'll just drop the speed of the core and everything's fine. You know, it can really be a core speed issue, it can be a spin issue, and it can be an aerodynamic issue. If it's an aerodynamic issue, the cavities to make these golf balls have to be changed for every.
Single every single ball, and all the tooling has.
To be changed, and that can be in a very expensive process to do.
Right.
So, you know, if you were tackling this problem yourself and you were looking at the possibilities of increasing spin, altering the aerodynamics, or looking at the core of the ball and maybe putting some different stuff in there, I'm not exactly sure how that would work. What would you tackle How would you go about trying to reduce the flight? Would you would you look at spin as the primary factor, or would you look at kind of all three factors that I just mentioned there.
Well, the simple solution would be to try to slow the core down.
So you try to slow the ball down.
I don't believe that that's going to get the yardage that everybody's talking about the increase that's going to happen I don't believe you're going to be able to bring that twenty to twenty five yards shorter by throwing the four down, So I don't think that would be a simple solution. Just change your core formulation, your rubber system, make the ball be slower, and then the rest of the ball would still have a similar spin even though
the ball speed was slower. So I don't think that's going to be a viable, lower cost solution, So I think you're going to have to do it with a combination. The second way to do I would address if it's a small thing, is if the aerodynamics can change, then you can keep your performancey your golf ball similar to the rest of the shots besides the driver, that would
probably be okay. And if you have to add spin to the ball, you're really changing the aerodynamics and the spin rate of the ball from tee to green, and that's a bigger adjustment for the players to have to deal with. So obviously the speed would be first. Their dynamics is expensive to do, but for some processes. Some processes have individual cavities where you have to make you know, hundreds and hundreds of them, and they make it dimples
cavities is a very expensive process, you know. And then adding spin to the ball is easy to do with the designs inside of the materials we can use, but it changes the whole dynamic of the golf ball from t de green, not just the driver.
Yes, and players would be especially sensitive to spin when it comes to approaches and wedges, and so that that would seem to be a tough thing to get players, top players to adjust to. So my understanding is that equipment manufacturers have done an experiment kind of like this before. And you can correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe years ago the governing bodies actually asked a few manufacturers to produce a reduced flight ball. Am I right
about that? Or and and if so, tell me about that now.
Yeah.
Correct, They did ask some to participate, if you want to.
I don't think many did, but.
There was a It was sent out to the manufacturers to say, if you'd like to produce it. What they wanted to do at that time was to create a tournament ball, so I think, And and my memory is not as shocked as it used to be either, but I believe it was some tournament in Ohio use somebody made some I don't know who it was. It wasn't me, but they made some farm and they played this tournament
in Ohio, uh, using this one ball. That's that's a that was a completely different scenario to say that there would be a tournament golf ball for the PGA Tour. That's not out asking manufacturers to make your own balls be twenty five yard shorter with whatever performance. There's a there's a big issue for me on this the distance increases that are causing some of these problems on the tour and the elite players. For distance to me is
four factors in the in the equal equally contribute. The golf ball speed has not increased like everybody says they don't. They're not made faster, they're not going further because the speed at all, the speed is actually the same as it has been forever. But we've been able to design the balls having spin rate lower. So when when the spin rate is lower, the players are now launching the ball higher. High launch low spin is adding distance. So
that's one factor. The second factor is the drivers. The drivers the sweet spots have gotten pretty big on them. The drivers have gotten longer, and the players are actually able to swing, you know, swing the club's a little bit more aggressive because they're pretty more forgiven that's added distance. The third thing is the players. The players today are into fitness and the bodies twist and turn like it
hurts to watch them sometimes. But when I started in golf thirty four years ago, the tour average for ball speed was one hundred and sixty miles an hour, and these players today hit them one hundred and eighty one hundred and ninety miles an hour. That's just ball speed. So that's how fast they're hitting the ball, which hasn't increased in speed, but they've increased the ball velocity twenty thirty forty miles per hour, which is which is crazy.
So that's the driver and the players. And then the third thing is the agronomy when you go out on these courses. You see some of these courses in Phoenix and in Hawaii where some of the balls are still rolling. You know, they get thirty forty fifty yards a row. If you come with me and play at my course on Saturday, sometimes we can fix the pitch marks on the side of our drives as they're softer and they're wet.
So I studied this years ago at LaCosta, with the top ten players in the world played one year to the next year. It's when they used to do the Tour Championship there, I believe, and it rained one year, So just the same course with the same players year over year. It was about a twenty two or twenty three yard difference in distance driving distance in that week
when they were there because the course was softer. So my personal opinion is, if this is truly a driver issue and you're worried about the balls going to fire and obsolete courses, you can do two things. Number One, if you really wanted to put something in as a restriction, the t height of the tee, if you made it a half inch or three quarters of an inch, that's going to add the spin that we just talked about.
So just by teeing, just by having a maximum tea height of three quarters of an inch or a half an inch will take off ten to fifteen yards of distance. Because the players can't hit up on the ball and launch you that high launch glow spin, it's going to hit lower and have more spin, which will shorten the golf ball up. And then if you water the fairways and shape the fairways at three hundred yards with a little bit of rough. That one week they're at your course,
you'll see that they won't row with fire. They'll take a little bit more, pay a little closer attention to the accuracy on the course design and layout. Try to keep it in the fairway. You know, we watch them play the US Open every year, and any course they play, it's set up to try to be power. So you can set courses up that one week they come to you to try to make it power, and it's fun to watch them struggle. But it's not fun if you did that forty weeks in the season and the players
will get hurt. So I think if you control the t height, you water the fairways, you use a lawnmower to let it grow a little bit, and then cut it on Monday and let the rest of us play. You know, it's a lot easier, cheaper way to deal with If you believe that your course is being obsoleted by distance, you can't tell the players they can't hit it harder. You know, when a big hitter hits the ball fire and a short hit it doesn't, you can't blame the player for that. So by shorten and shortening
a golf ball twenty five yards, you're moving back. The long hit is twenty five yards, but you're moving back the short hit is twenty five yards. And I honestly believe that you're going to create a bigger winning percentage of the long hitters because hitting an eight iron, in hitting a five iron, in with golf balls that have more spin on them with affected by the wind, that proximity to the pin is going to get bigger and
you're going to see a big difference in scoring. And I don't think anybody wants to watch a guy hit a five y and thirty feet put down two put give a golf.
Clap and move on. You know.
They like to see some excitement in it and have players challenge a little bit. And you know, if you really think about it, if you wanted to, if you wanted to say, we don't want sixteen under to win the golf tournament. These par fours and everybody reaches in two, no part five. So everybody reaches in two that they play four rounds, take two of them and make them
into par fours that week. You know, now this score is posted, will be eight under to win, not sixteen under and still playing the same golf course without without making any big expensive changes.
I think that everybody agrees that distance games have been a combination of factors. I think that's a common ground here. That you know, players have trained to hit the drivers and the balls that they've been given, and that the swing, the golf swing has changed as a result. And so I think that there is broad agreement on that. Where there might be some disagreement is how we go about finding some kind of solution or even if we need
a solution. There's a lot of disagreement about that. And I think listeners to this podcast know what my perspective on all this stuff is. I think I've stated that pretty frequently that that I don't think that courses should continue, should should continue to need to change as they have for you know, the past one hundred and fifty years in golf, and that we have to start looking to some other possible ways to rain in the distance that the golf ball is going. And I greet the MLR
rule with a little bit of optimism. But what I'm really curious to, you know, ask you about, and to get into detail about, is what all of this looks like from you know, an expert on the engineering and manufacturing side, and so we haven't really even talked about the manufacturing consequences of an MLR ball, and so I wonder if you have any thoughts on what it's going to look like or what it's going to take for the OEMs to manufacture this new ball alongside their existing lines.
Well, it's a it's a valid point on the on the cost. You know who's going to pay for it. The tour players don't pay for golf balls. So if you have to spend millions of dollars on creating.
A new line, you know that can have new tooling and new engineering to create this separate line of golf balls that you have to make, you know, buy the equipment process, pay the people to make them, pack them, ship them to the tour, pay somebody to be on tour.
Give them to the tour players for free. And you've got this big expense at the end of this time, with this cost to make this ball that's being used on tour that the people aren't going to buy because it's twenty twenty five yard shorter. So that's a big expense. What's going to happen with this proposal is the people that buy the golf balls are now going to see the price of theirs go up. So they say it doesn't affect the average consumer, but it really does. I
mean there's a cost to it. Unless the USA are someone's going to say, hey, we'll give you twenty million dollars each and you guys go create this ball and supply it to the tour. There's no more contracts for tour players to play products and endorse them and then sell them based on players using them because they're not using the ball that they sell them. It's twenty yards shorter,
So why would somebody want to buy that? They don't, So there's a big financial impact to this thought process that says I don't disagree that the players have hitting the golf ball and the yardages are getting, you know, crazy long. But when Mark maguire stands up in at home plate at Fenway Park or Aaron Judge with that short left field wall, they don't make them hit from the backstop.
You know.
But the Bucky Dentz or the Each Rows or the short hitters could still win the game with a single or a double off the wall. So if you're physically able to hit the ball further, and you shorten it up twenty five yards, You're still physically able to hit the ball further, and you probably increased your chances to win. And there's a cost to it, and there's no money to it, and someone's going to pay for it on the back end. So that's that's my thought process on
just the proposal of saying it's a golf ball. Now, if you put a t height max Of three quarters of an inch and you shorten the ball fifteen yards without changing anything so now nobody can hit. You're still going to move this the long hitters back. You're still going to create this issue where the short hitters are going to be at a bigger disadvantage because a lot of courses have added length. But this is this is definitely an elite kind of player, so I agree with that.
But having the golf ball be the be the answer to hit a driver shorter is going to is going to create I think a bigger issue financially for the players and for the cost to make and for the manufacturers to get to the players and then pass on to the consumers. Somehow, someone's going to pay for it.
So Dean.
I hear you saying that this ball is going to be twenty five five yards shorter. That's the number you've used a couple of times. The governing bodies have estimated that they think that the ball is going to be fifteen yards shorter. Now, when you say twenty five yards, is that you kind of looking at the new parameters and sort of estimating what you think the new distance will be.
I'm saying that you can't say it's going to be fifteen yards because that is a launch condition. At eleven degrees, at twenty two hundred spin, that's eight that's one shot You got one hundred and forty something toward players t and up a driver. There's one hundred and forty different launch conditions there. So everybody doesn't hit it at eleven degrees and twenty two hundred and they'll be fifteen yard shorter. Some guys are higher spinning players, they'll be twenty five
yard shorter. Some guys are lower spinning players, they might be ten yard shorter. The gap it's not a it's not a a just a measured number that you use on a robot test that calculates a distance using that three hundred and twenty yard shot that they use is using you're lifted your aerodynamic properties with that speed and spin and launch. It's not even out on a driving range, it's not even.
On a golf course.
It's a calculated number based on launch conditions that are programmed into it with your ball performance characteristics. So there's no definitive one distance answer to this. Some guys might be ten, some guys might be twenty twenty five.
It could be it could be a big.
Difference, it could be a small difference, but it's not a single point difference. That's a one launch condition. Watch on tour when they do the track Man system and they show the numbers behind it. And yesterday when I was watching it, one of the guys hit it one hundred and eighty two miles an hour and he was fourteen degree launch and twenty six hundred spin. And the other guy was one hundred and seventy and he was
thirteen degree launched with twenty one hundred spin. Well, the guy that was slower and speed went longer because his launch angle spin with more optimum. So that's what happens when you when you have different players hit different shots, you can't predict what the distance.
Is going to be.
Only that one point that they defined is going to tell you what they test that, but it's not going to tell you what the tour is going to do.
Some people in and around the equipment and industry have been saying that manufacturers might simply refuse to make the MLR ball if this rule in fact goes into effect. Do you think that's actually a possibility.
Oh No, I mean that's a that's a question that I would that they that they would have to probably answer.
But uh, I.
Mean I I My question would be, if I was one of the big manufacturers, is who's going to pay for it?
You know?
I mean, as a it's a big cost, it's a it's a big expense to support these places that people don't buy balls. But the people that do buy them actually pay, you know, they use the money to pay this this this stuff to be done. But now if you put all this cost into it and no one's going to buy them, then then you you're basically back to You're basically back to selling golf balls with no
endorsements or support or or tour support whatsoever. No one's buying them, so that they would have to answer that question. I mean, I don't I don't know. You might see some people bail out of it, you know, if because they're not going to sell them. So what would be the value of a top manufacturer to supply this ball that they can't sell to anybody? What's the value to them?
I don't know. But who's going to pay for it? Somebody?
You know.
I know it's not going to come out of their bottom line profits.
That's for sure, now, you know, addressing the menu, the sorry, the marketing piece of this, which you've mentioned a couple of times that you know, in an MLR era, marketing a tour ball would be very different. Now from my perspective as a consumer, and I admit that I may just be weird. I don't look at Justin Thomas and say I need to play the same ball that he does. I look at Justin Thomas and say he's playing a title ball. Titleist must be an awfully good golf ball.
And then moreover, if I'm, you know, say, a savvier consumer, I look at a ball like the one that you make, Dean and say, well, maybe I'm not sure if you have a tour staff, do you have a tour staff. We don't direct a consumer model. Basically an excellent product. I've played it, I've played snowballs. They're just as good as anything else. I, as a savvy consumer, will look at that and say, you know this Dean Snell guy
knows how to make a golf ball. I bet these are pretty good, even if nobody on tour is playing it. I'm going to play this golf ball because I think this is going to be good for my game. And you know what, it's cheaper than the other options. It's cheaper than me going and buying a sleeve at the pro shop. So in that sense, do you think that marketing will be a lot more difficult for tour ball makers or will it just be Will it just be different?
Will it? Will they have to fight new ways to market this new product.
Well, if you break down what you said there into two different areas, the first part of your the first part of your statement was that you believe that some people think, like Justin Thomas plays a Titus ball, So I'm playing a Titus ball because it's good. Well, Justin Thomas plays a prov one ball, and I buy the prov one because Justin Thomas is playing that. So I think that's when you look at Titleist total sales, the Prov one and prov one X are a huge the
biggest portion of their sales. People aren't buying the cheaper ball from Titleis because they know it's good. Because Justin Thomas plays the titles. They're buying the ball that he's playing and spending a lot more money to buy it. So I don't know if I agree with you on because he's playing titles, that's what they'll go buy because they could do that and their sales would be higher on the cheaper product, but it does. They're buying it because that's what he's using. It's a tour ball. It's
so successful they advertise it. Now, if Justin Thomas plays a tie to US pro v one mL Our ball and it's and it's sitting on the shelf and he wins the tournament with it, do you think someone's going to go buy the Title US mL Our ball that they put this money into and the value. Do you think that would be their number one selling ball anymore?
Absolutely not.
You know, it would be some other model that they would have, maybe the current prov one that that they that they don't use on tour. I don't know, but they would have to have a separate model this this tour ball would have to be separate that wouldn't be sold, you know that that no one would want to buy. And I think there's a whole group of people out there that buy clubs that the tour supports because they see it as being as good and they do it
by models. Every manufacturer has a Bridge Stone has the B series, you know, the tour series, CALLI has the Chrome Soft. All these manufacturers have these top of the line balls that are then number one selling ball. And it's not because it's the brand name and I know they make something good and I'll buy something cheaper. It's because that's what they see them play and that's what they want to play, and that's why there's a model name to it as well.
So I've heard some concerns that this might be taking money out of tour players' pockets in the end because of this marketing issue that you're bringing up. Do you think that's a real, you know, plausible situation here that that tour player sponsorships could be worthless because of this, and that might be one reason that PGA tour stars might resist this new rule.
Well, yeah, there's got to be one reason for it. And god, I also think that you know, they they also understand that they're you know that they work hard, they're athletes, they fit, they they spend a lot of time in the gym. You know, like I said, the ball speed that the tour players are hitting today has gone up thirty miles an hour because of the players.
It's not because because of the ball. So they've worked hard to get themselves into this position to have to have a little bit of advantage to hit it further. And you know, now you're going to push them back. You're pushing everybody back. So to me, it's it steps back. You know, the players themselves are going to lose money, There's no question about it. No one's going to get paid millions of dollars to pay something that they can't sell.
And they may they may sell something to wear the hat and be on tour and you know, and use the clubs and things like that, but the golf ball side to it is used on every shot. And if you want to play what the tour players play, you're not going to You're going to use what they sell on the side and not what the tour play is play, because that's a different, totally different product that's made to be shorter and spin more So, I think there is a there is a big loss and financial side to
the tour. I don't know if the reason why they're against it is because of money. It has to be part of it, but I don't think it's the whole reason. I really think they take pride in being athletes now and working hard to be able to have this you know, this distance that they that they've in everybody's game distance. It's not it's not just the elite tour players have gotten longer. The short hitters have gotten longer too. But but moving people up and back is just you know, water the fairway.
Try, just try.
I don't know what they did to the course this week and the tournament that we just watched, but I think nine or ten under one twenty one hunderd win. You know, So if you, if you're a course set up for the week that they're there, challenge them a little bit on it and soften it up a little bit and make the rough just a little thicker where it takes takes the bombing guage kind of part out of it. You know, I think the scores can be
brought back a little bit. But uh, but I like I say, I don't disagree with with the fact that the players hit the ball longer than.
The courses were made for. I don't disagree with that.
I just think for me personally, golf is fun right now, and it's growing and different players can win that you really don't know who they are, and and it's uh, you know, people kind of want that one week, might want to see birdies and then they come to the US Open and they watch them struggle for power, and then they go back and play again. So I'd like to see them soften them up a little bit during
the week. You know, they can firm the greens up, they can soften the fairways up, they can have the rough a little bit higher and shape it a little bit.
Just try that, you know.
If the pg but that's a PGA Tour issue, not a USGA issue from a rule point of view. So that's the course set up, and you see the USBA does that during the US Open. They do the course setup and it's very easy to make a golf course play the power, which they can do. So I think there's opportunities there. This distance issue right now is not
us on a Saturday morning at a golf course. Our groups don't even play the back tees, you know, this tie is further back, so nobody's really The amateur golfer is not adding forty yards to his drives, you know, like.
The tour players are. But the tour players are doing it.
Because the fairways of the failways the tour plays at are like greens that we play on for average golfers, you know, when they roll a lot, you know, and they're they're able to hit the ball further obviously and faster.
So there's a.
Lot of factors in this, but I just think shortening it up fifteen twenty twenty five yards, whatever it ends up being, is going to create a lot more issues than that one week that they play at the course that they're worried about.
It's definitely going to be complex, And you know what I find so interesting about this debate is the different perspectives that we as golfers all bring to it. You know, you're you're coming at this from the perspective of a ball expert in a ball manufactured and also a golfer. I don't want to discount that that part of it. I come at it more from the perspective of somebody who loves golf courses above pretty much everything else. And I like when golf courses play firm. I like when
golf courses aren't overwatered. I like when golf courses don't have super high rough where there's a why area in which players can kind of strategize and find out different ways to attack the whole That that, to me is really interesting and a key part of the game. And that's the part of the game that that I see
potentially being protected here. But the way that this is being gone about, you know, the exact method of protection here find you know, figuring out an MLR ball is obviously going to have its own sort of consequences that are that are worth thinking about. Even for somebody like me who is saying the courses are the most important thing. Let's think about that first before we do anything else. I would acknowledge that, man, this is creating a real
set of difficulties for ball manufacturers and ball engineers. Now I know that you don't manufacture a tour intended ball. I'm not sure that the that the MLR is going to affect Snell Golf's business. But do you do you see this new potential reality affecting the way that Snell Golf goes about things.
I don't.
I mean, we've had seven or eight tour players come to us and want to play the ball and tour and we've respectfully declined it's not our business model. We try to keep the cost down and make the tour performance be available to all of our customers by director consumers.
So you know, we've eliminated.
A lot of the other things that have big expenses to them, and we pass that savings back to our customers. So it's no cheaper to make the golf what we do today than it is to make a tailor made of titleist. It's the same cost, but the added cost that they have to support that tour is what I'm
talking about. If our golf ball sell for twenty nine to nine nine a dozen and their self for fifty five dollars a dozen, and they cost the same to make, that's the cost that they're putting into financing the tour, Having people on tour, having reps, pro shops markups margins. So it's easy to figure out what that is to become a global brand, top of the line, you know company, which they are. So I mean I look at it as I'm also a fan of golf, you know, as
you mentioned about your the course side to it. The issue on the course that you're talking about is the is one week that the tour is there. It's not an issue on the course fifty one weeks out of the year to golfers that pay to play golf, you know. So I look at this issue as as let's let's keep the game fun, Let's get people to want to play.
Let's make it easier for people to try to play on a game that's extremely difficult, not the PGA Tour level, but to the you know, an average handicap I believe is somewhere around seventeen.
You know, single digits are.
Less than five percent of all golfers. So this is this is what we have as a business that we want people to join this game that we all love and watch. And I a lot of friends that watch, and they want to see birdies on the weekend. They don't want to see people struggle for power. So it's just as a fan, not as a not as a guy in the business, but as a fan of golf, that's that's my preference of what I want to see, and I just see this as a you know, that
week that that they're at your course. And again, I don't know what they did this week at Innisbrook. I don't know if it was windy. I didn't see a lot of the event, but ten under one the one there the tournament, and I'm not sure what happened with it, but it wasn't twenty one twenty two hunder. And they weren't obsolete in the course by any means. Harbortown for years was one of the shortest courses on tour, and they're set up that they had when the tour came in.
I believe like eight to ten under was the lowest score average for a long time, and then it went to twelve. I'm not sure what it is today, but there were there were a lot of a lot of places that you know that that can create some excitement for golf. Look at the tenth hole at Riviera. Every player can probably drive that that green and they were struggling to make power a lot because of the way
it's that up. So it doesn't necessarily mean that we have to add yards to courses, but we can change maybe a setup a little bit during that week for them to play and still and still let the ninety nine percent of people that pay for everything for one hundred percent of people that pay for everything kind.
Of enjoy it.
You know, that's just my personal opinion. I agree with you on the hit. They hit it fire and the old fashioned courses can't you know, they're hitting it further
than what they were designed to do. I got that, you know, But I just think that the solution that's proposed create You mean, you could you could put a rule in golf saying you can't use the t you just now you've just take them back thirty yards, you know, And if you if you do the USGA proposal and say let's bring them back to their number fifteen yards, does that solve the problem when they're hitting the ball three hundred and seventy five yards three hundred and sixty
yards off the tee, is three fifty a solution?
Well? You know, I've often wondered during this whether this is going to be enough and how quickly very smart engineers are going to figure out how to get us back to the same place that we were, and this is something that the USGA has acknowledged as a possibility, and and so that's yeah. I've I've definitely wondered about that myself, whether you know, if it's fifteen yards, if that's the number that it's reduced by, is that the magic number somehow? And I don't think that there is
is necessarily a magic number. It's it's an enormously intricate problem. And I'm not sure that that we're going to solve it in one fell swoop. But I think I think we can agree on that, you and I, Dean.
I want to make one more point. What's interesting about what you were just talking about? What I mentioned a minute ago that the tour average was one hundred and sixty miles per hour with ball speed and out. Today you see players hitting it one seventy, one eighty seven bryce and close to one ninety. And you still see players hitting at one sixty eight or so. There is
your problem. If you're looking for a solution to something it there is no solution if the player can take a golf ball that's the same ball maxed out speed and get hit it thirty or forty miles an hour faster, because the player can do that with the same equipment. You're not going to solve a distance problem by saying what's the right number to bring them back because in golf at those speeds, every mile an hour in ball speed is about two two.
And a half yards of distance.
So someone is thirty to forty miles an hour faster in ball speed. Just ball speed, which is which they're all playing the same ball. They all play in the same ball speed max out. If you're thirty miles an hour, you're sixty to seventy five yards ahead of that person. So shortening the ball up twenty five yards of fifteen yards, you're still going to be sixty to seventy five yards ahead of that person. You know, so that you can't you can't tell the player he can't hit the ball
that much faster than the other player. So distance is going to always be a challenge. And there isn't a there is a there is a The number they're picking is a is a ball speed, launch, angle, and spin one number. But they forget the fact that Bryson hits it at one ninety and some of the shorter hitters hit it at one sixty five or one seventy. That's forty yards of distance right there. It shortened the ball
up twenty you know. It's it's basically you're making this this guy still be forty yards behind him, but twenty yards further back, you know. So that that's the challenge that's there, which I don't I don't have a solution to that, because the players have been able to be able to work their bodies and generate that kind of swing speed which generates that kind of ball speed.
Look, if it were up to me, we'd all be going back to persimmon and balls with liquid in the middle. So that's I think that that was If if Bryson is looking at a at a Persimon driver from nineteen eighty, I bet he's not swinging quite as hard at it and looking to find middle a little bit more. And if the ball's spinning a lot, then then I'm sure
everything would change. And yeah, I mean I think that we all know sort of what happened in the eighties and nineties when it came to the new technology and golf equipment. It was an amazing achievement on the part of engineers to come up with these ideas but it definitely permanently altered the game of golf, and we're dealing with that now. So Dean, thank you so much for coming on the podcast and sharing your perspective. I really appreciate it.
All righty, my pleasure. Thank you.
One more quick break and Joseph Lamania and I will be back with our storylines to track this week in golf. All right, Joseph storylines. So anything that you're looking at this week in golf that you think could put potentially develop and be interesting.
Absolutely.
I think there are again, some people like the new PGA Tour schedule that's been announced for next year. Some people hate it. One of the components is that the designated events are going to be limited fields seventy to eighty players, and fifty of those spots are going to be filled by the previous year's FedEx Cup standing, so if you were top fifty, you're into all the designated events.
One of the massive benefits of configuring things this way is that the race to get into the top fifty means a lot more now, and so that is something that I've already been tracking. Other people have made the same point. It's kind of cool to start looking at the FedEx Cup standings and appreciate what it means. So I would give an example this week of a player like Kevin Kisner, who's had a really poor start to
this PGA Tour season. He's ranked I'm looking it up right now, at one hundred and eighty first in the FedEx Cup standings. If he wants to get into the top fifty at the end of the year, he has to take advantage of courses like this fit him well and then he's had success on in the past.
So that's a cool story to watch. It's like some of these golfers.
Like Matt Kocher, Billy Horschel, Kevin Kisner, when they get to a course that fits their game, do they take advantage of it, because if they don't, they may be on the outside looking in at the end of the year. And I think it's a really cool storyline to track this year in a testament to what the PGA Tour has done with the new schedule and.
Do they take advantage of the match play format and some of that opportunity that it presents to players who might not be able to beat the top guys over
seventy two holes, right match play. I'm starting to think of a match play tournament as a kind of shuffling of the deck on the PGA Tour, really useful shuffling of the deck where some people might rise, some people might fall, But it's a way to kind of break the flow of seventy two hole stroke play and its relative reliability and just get in there and kind of
mess things up. And that's good. A little bit of chaos, a little injection of chaos, just like in golf course design, in my opinion, can be really good.
Totally agree, right, And I think a cool thing about match play is if you're struggling, you're going home. But if you're struggling in the third round of a seventy two whole tournament stroke play and you have a couple bad holes to finish your round, you can get a good night's sleep and go out play a soft course in the morning and hope you go low. That doesn't exist in match play, so I think that's really cool.
Also to the high variance point, it is high variance, but part of that is the golf course is a little bit different. Scotty Scheffler's finished, he's won, and he's been runner up here in his two starts.
It's not a complete crapshoot.
So I think it has a great balance between chaos and rewarding mentally tough play when one players step up and hit good shots.
All right, So my storyline this week is pretty simple. Will more equipment companies come out against the model local rule? Now? Titleist got a lot of attention this past week, or kushnit It's parent company, got a lot of attention for putting out a long, very critical statement about the model local rule. They're against it. We knew that they've been against it. They've been preemptively arguing against this rule for years and years now, for decades, and so that was
no surprise. But Titleist is the market leader in ball manufacturing right now. They have a position to defend. They don't like the idea of things being disrupted this much. Now. Other manufacturers were a lot more quiet. Bridgetone did put out a statement of its own, but it was significantly more lukewarm. They said, we're concerned about the idea of bifurcation. We don't want anything to get in the way of
golf's success right now. But they also said we're going to continue making as good of a ball as we can, and so basically they're saying, if this happens, fine, we'll adjust to it. The other manufacturers were totally silent, gave a complete no comment. They said, we are studying the information and the proposals provided we have no further comment at this time. Taylor Made did not say anything. Strickson did not say anything. Wilson did not say anything. Go Wilson.
So this is interesting to me because you know, according to the common sense position on all this, every ball manufacturer is super against the model local rule ball and the governing bodies are going to have a revolt on their hands. But so far, it doesn't seem like that's the case. It seems like there are some sort of second tier in terms of the market manufacturers looking at this and saying, you know, we're not going to say anything about this right now because this could be an
opportunity for us. So I wonder if that's what they're thinking now. If they come out this week and say we're against the model Local rule just as much as Titleist is, then then that's one thing. Maybe they just needed some time to study this. But you know what, they've all had a lot of time to consider a possibility like this. They all sort of knew this was coming, and so I think that they're silence so far is
really notable. And what I'm going to be looking out for is if they do say something this week, and if they don't, then I think that there are some sort of second, third, fourth place manufacturers looking at Titleist and saying we might be able to take that throne.
Yeah.
Look, I think if the government came out and said that chocolate is bad for you and we're going to reduce chocolate consumption in the country, Hershey's would come out with a statement that they're displeased. Yes, And that's what a kushnet coming out with this statement that they're not happy with the rollback. To me, it's the same thing, like, yeah, we get it, you're financially incentivized to keep the train rolling.
But coming out of the statement that you're upset is very different than saying you're not going to adapt to it. And until somebody comes out and says we're not even going to build that ball, then it's all just noise to me.
So I agree with you.
I'm really excited to see how this shakes out and there's going to be an opportunity for a hungry ball manufacturer to come up and fill that need.
All right, Joseph, thank you for coming on the podcast.
Thanks for having me, Garret appreciate it.
To This episode of the fridagg Podcast was produced and edited by Matt Rushius. Thank you, Matt. If you'd like to support the Frida Egg, there's one thing that I would encourage you to do. Go to the Frida egg dot com slash membership and see what CLUBTFE is all about. CLUBTFE is our membership. It's one hundred and twenty dollars a year and we offer all kinds of content with it.
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