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 bright egg Friday egg.
The dreaded Frida egg, Frida Egg, fridagg.
Bride egg Lie, I'm about ready to run off of the hum. Welcome back to another edition of the Friday Golf Podcast. I'm your host, Andy Johnson. There was a huge news over the weekend and golf obviously came from a Golf Digest report that broke that the USCA and RNA are going to be instituting a universal ball rollback for everyone. So with that in mind, I decided to chat with our own Garrett Morrison, a co host of this podcast, and really dive in to everything about the
roll back. Obviously, we have not heard from the USCA yet on this. The report clearly came from some equipment companies that have been notified. So when we hear from the USCA I and get all the details, I would guess that we will have another episode. But we got
in great detail on everything here. It was a crazy weekend with people like Tiger Woods and Rory McElroy sounding off on their opinions, as well as some others such as you know, Keegan Bradley calling the U the rollback monstrous and Ricky Fowler on the on the other side of the rollback saying it was such a bad decision. So Garrett and I dive into it, why this happened, and what we expect from it. So, without further ado, here's our discussion on the ball roll back. Garrett, we're back.
I guess this was really unplanned. I didn't think this was going to be Tuesday's episode, But of course, I think the big news over the weekend caught everybody off guard, probably the USGA and RNA, included the Golf Digest. Mike Stakura basically broke the news that there was a there's an impending rollback to everybody in the game of golf. They are going to cut distances by about five percent, starting for the professionals in twenty twenty eight and everybody
in twenty thirty. So we are talking about news that is five years out at the earliest, I guess four four, right, yeah, four years out at the soonest, and for everybody six years out. So that was the big news and instant reaction.
Instant reaction is just I am surprised, even shocked. You know, I kind of there were indications that something like this was coming, but I'm just astonished that we've gotten to this place. If you had asked me three years ago whether I thought it was even possible that there would ever be a universal rollback on the table that the USGA and RNA might get behind, I would have said, no way, it's not going to happen. But we have gotten to this point, and we'll talk about how how we've gotten here.
Yeah, I think there's pros and cons of the universal rollback, I think, you know, and we'll get into that, but but overall, I think, you know, there's a lot of different ways, and you know, I for one, think that this is great news for the entire golf ecosystem that this is you know, this is a move that sets up a couple things at the at the large scale, like there needed to be a understanding that regulation, large scale regulation was okay, and there needed to be somebody
that was looking at the game at a you know, a large scale. And what what I mean by that is not about like, is this new product that we're going to make going to make us millions of dollars or not. More so, the game and how it's set up for the future, given the constraints on the environment, the changing like society's changing tastes, and just you know, making sure that golf courses aren't the ones that are taking on the brunt of the costs of you know,
increased distances across the game. So I think, like overall this is a really great thing for golf.
I agree with you. I want to talk a little bit about the way that this has come about, because, as I said, it's a little bit surprising that we've gotten to the point of universal rollback. Initially, as many of our listeners will remember, the USGA and RNA proposed a model local rule for the golf ball, basically a rolled back golf ball that would be available to be used in competitive environments where a model local rule would be instituted. That was the first proposal. Essentially, it would
result in bifurcation of the game. Amateurs, everyday recreational players would be playing one golf ball, the golf ball that we're currently playing, tested against the current standards. We'd be playing that ball, and then elite amateurs and professional golfers if their leagues and tours so chose, would play the model local rule ball, and so their distance would be limited rain dawn through bifurcation essentially, and by the way, the way that golf balls are tested is important here too.
I won't go too deep into it, but basically how it's done is a robot is set up to swing at a certain very high elite male speed, and any golf balls that comply with USGA and RNA rules need to go a certain distance or can't go over a certain distance. And essentially what the new ball would be would be a ball that the robot would swing a bit faster at but would still have to go the same distance as before. So essentially it would be a somewhat more reduced flight ball, and the overall reduction in
yardage would be something like five percent. So for elite players that means something like fifteen yards. For amateur players it would means something closer to ten to twelve yards. I'm talking about men here.
I think important to talk about here just where we've gotten with technology. Players with higher swing speeds yield greater rewards on the current technology, and what that means is that somebody that swings one hundred and ten miles an hour at a golf ball gets a lot more out of a pro V one let's just use them, or a TP five X or whatever it may be, than
somebody that swings ninety five miles an hour. There's like a level of speed that yields increase, you know, the compression yields increased gains in technology, and then as you as the swing speed lowers, it diminishes. So with all this in mind, I think, and nobody has seen this play out, you know, I would love to get my hands on an example of one of these golf balls,
but nobody's seen this play out. Is like, it's very feasible that it could hurt elite players by fifteen yards and a normal player by five because the reduced swing speeds. You just aren't generating the gains with this golf ball technology that someone at the elite level is. It could be born out that it's the exact same percentage. I would tend to guess, you know, this is I don't have any facts around this. This is just my understanding
of current golf balls. I would tend to guess that the everyday you know, ten handicap is going to see less of a reduction from percentage basis than a tour pro.
That is what I suspect too, But we really don't know until we see examples of this golf ball and have average players test them side by side. But again, my suspicion is the same as yours. I believe that players like Roy McElroy compress the modern golf ball to a degree that players like me are not capable of, and therefore Roy McElroy leverages what's inside the golf ball, the technology in there, to a much greater degree than I do. But in any case, this has been the
model local rule ball on the table from the beginning. Now, there was a comment period and industry stakeholders were asked to give their opinion on the prospect of a model local rule and effective bifurcation of the game. And their response was hell, no, we do not want this.
We can't bifurcate the game. If we bifurcate the game, we lose the essence of the game. You know, this is what they were saying. The the magic of golf is that we all play the same equipment. That was the you know, they kicked and screamed about bifurcation because of this, when you know, I think a lot of people were like, this makes sense. Bifurcation makes sense, right, like wood bats and aluminum bats in baseball. You know.
But everybody who is you know now currently opposed a rollback was also seemingly opposed by furcation.
Yep. Well, I think there are a number of people even who are saying, why don't we buyfurcate who were previously saying bifurcation is no good. I don't think that there's been been a whole lot of consistency in the positions that people have taken. But in any case, essentially, the message that the governing body's got is that the
industry doesn't want bifurcation. And the sense that we have gotten over the past few days we in the fried Egg talking to people is that some manufacturers, especially ball manufacturers, particularly the leading ones in the industry, were more afraid of the threat to their market share that bifurcation would pose than the similar threat from universal rollback. In other words, certain manufacturers actually prefer universal rollback to this bifurcation model.
And in a sense that's understandable because if the game were bifurcated, then a lot of equipment companies would then have to devote their RNA spend and their production capacity to two different product lines.
Also, for years, ball count on the PGA Tour has been such a important statistic, you know, most played.
Ball advertising AGA Tour appeal.
Yeah, and all of a sudden, if that ball is different, then that marketing spend the years of maintaining the number one ball on the PGA Tour or a high percentage of PGA Tour players using a ball would go out the window, right, Because then it's like, Okay, you know, we don't have this marketing weapon that we've had forever, Like play the ball that you know Justin Thomas plays, play the ball that Jordan Speeth plays, Play the ball that Rory McElroy plays, Like that doesn't exist if you
know they're playing different ball because you know amateurs.
You know.
The funny thing is I think like bifurcation would have led to this either way, right, Like I think it would have gotten by it.
It would have trickled down. We talked about this when when that news came out. Yeah, it was likely that you know, the elite game is it leads when it comes to equipment, and I think that the influence would have been significant on all parts of the game.
So anyways, this uh, this is you know, you know, we could get to the timeline and everything, but it feels like where bifurcation would have gotten us to in twenty thirty.
Either way, Yeah, that's very possible. You know. I think that the governing bodies always wanted to have a broad influence on the game as a whole. I don't think their intention, ever, was just to affect the professional game, because their research and their concern applies to the whole game, not just to the elite game. And so that's been true from the beginning. From the beginning, I believe the governing bodies have wanted to affect the entire game, as
opposed to just one segment of it. But in any case, the pretense has come down, and now the governing bodies are reportedly going to say universal rollback is what we are going to do. This information came out late Friday night after markets have closed, right uh, a report from Golf Digest comes out from an equipment journalist from Mike Stakhura.
Sorry if I'm pronouncing your name wrong. Mike. It could be Stakura or Statura in any case, See, I should know how to pronounce his name because he is a very prominent journalist, well connected. He gets these scoops, and he did a good job of getting this scoop. Now, I don't think it's unreasonable to assume that his sources were not from the USGA and RNA. I think it is reasonable to assume that his sources were from the equipment industry.
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We were talking about how the news of the universal rollback broke, and it wasn't because the governing bodies wanted it to break last Friday night. They're going reportedly going.
To the bodies were probably into a bottle of fat cork when it broke.
They very well, I think most of us were were to some degree into a bottle of something at that point in the night. And in any case, this article comes out and h it is from an equipment reporter, citing industry sources, likely equipment industry sources, and so you know, you can see that there would be a motive from equipment companies to get out ahead of the story to make it a thing over the weekend, before the USGA and RNA had a chance to put their message out there.
And so I'm sure that there must to be some frustration among people at the governing bodies that this became a thing over the weekend, but also maybe they should have predicted that this would happen. In any case, that's why we're talking about it now as opposed to after the imminent announcement of this move to universal rollback. So that is essentially where we are. It's been debated on the internet all weekend. We've seen a lot of different
arguments and points being made. I'm sure there are other podcasts coming out, other articles and newsletters being written, but it's blowing up right now, and that's why we're talking about it.
Yeah, I obviously I think like one of the one of the things that you could say that the USGA has not handled well is the messaging.
Nope, totally agree, because the thing is, I want to be clear, their position is strong here, I think. Now that's just my subjective opinion. Another thing that is more objective is that their research, their preparation has been exemplary. The Distance Insights project is an extraordinary piece of research.
But the problem is that nobody's read it. Some people, a lot of people don't even know about it, and in my opinion, a lot of these spokespeople, a lot of the leaders for the governing bodies have not done a good job of communicating the outcomes of that research in an effective, concise, clear way, and that's a problem.
On top of that, you know what's out there and what people are reacting to is a message that is written by someone who regularly writes for about equipment releases and equipment things like it is someone who is getting all their information from one you know, seemingly getting all their information. I just.
Journalists, no USGA people. I don't think this is where this report was source from.
Well, when the USGA gives people information that they embargo it and the release comes like it's like you cannot release.
They want to announce it first. They don't like the leaksh.
So so anyways, I think this was done completely out of it and and what what's happened is that the you know people have run with the information that Mike in this case is presented and it's a great article. But like the USGA, what I'm kind of struggling with here is is this happened on Friday night and we're recording now Monday afternoon, East Coast time. There's nothing the USCA announced Curtis Cup, a Curtis Cup participation like that was the press release I got for the USDA this
morning was about the Curtis Cup. And it's you know, you've known that you're gonna do this for let's just say, three months, two months at least you've communicated something to the equipment manufacturers, which is why this report got released. So you've had communication. How is there not like just like a boiler plate statement, even even to the extent of like, hey, you know, we know this is out there,
we're doing this like three bullets. We'll have more information for you at this date, right, Like by by hanging there in you know, it's allowing people to race around to conclusions, like you know, like that statement they could have released had could have had links to their their insights report, right, it could have had like here's how we got here, all these things. It's just it's just
kind of crazy. Where again, the people reacting to this, The people that are talking about this are golf media. Most of golf media and I are propped up by equipment manufacturers. Bigest spend and their advertising portfolio is equipment manufacturers and PGA tour pros. Those are the people that are reacting to this, and they're all sponsored by the
equipment manufacturers. This was an opportunity to somewhat put put out like a strong message and as of right now, as of this recording, there's been nothing.
There are so many things that you could do to communicate the findings of their research or to convey a sense of what a rolled back world would look like, and very few of them have been done so far, and it feels like those of us who have supported rollback for a long time are kind of carrying the load here. And that feels a bit frustrating, because our job really is to report on this stuff, to talk about it in as honest a way as we can.
We are not interested in doing messaging for the governing bodies. But it feels like that responsibility has fallen to people who do support rollback, who do believe in shrinking the scale of the game a bit for the sake of golf courses, And so it's a you know, it's an
annoying position to be in. But with that said, maybe we could get to a few of the debates that have been happening about rollback, a few of the common arguments against it, and what we might say in response to those Do you want to do you want to get there?
Yeah that sounds good. Okay, Well what do you think about growing grass higher?
Just grow the grass, that's all you need to do. Okay. Yeah, this has been like a catchphrase from my golf Spy, which is an independent equipment media company, and I go to their website a lot. I look at the tests that they do for drivers and hybrids and stuff. I'm an equipment nerd. I like seeing this kind of stuff, so I think they do a good job with that. But basically they've said, all you need to do is
grow the grass and you'll have a rollback. So the usgan R and A have actually done research on how much fairway mow height effects distance, and it's at most two to four yards, so that wouldn't have much of an effect. But I'll give more credit to the grow the Grass slogan right now than I think it deserves and say that it's not just about fairway mow height
or rough height. What grow the Grass means to people, I think is an overall setup and design philosophy that would limit distance at the elite levels of the game. And what I mean by this is there are those who argue that we don't need to roll the ball back. All we need to do is change the golf courses, get the fairways a narrowerre make some more dog legs,
maybe put some trees in there, more penalty hazards. Sure, you know, push the fairway, mo height up, grow the rough up, and effectively what we would have would be a rollback because players would strategically approach courses in a different way. That's the overall philosophy that's being suggested here as a replacement for changing the equipment. How do you react to that.
I think that it's crazy. We've already seen this philosophy, the philosophy of grow the rough up, narrow the fairways, what moto. What this philosophy does is it promotes distance even more when faraway has become impossible to hit and the penalty for missing them a small fairway becomes extremely high. What it does is it promotes the you know, it's just a game of chance. So the game of chance, it's best to just swing away and hit it as
hard as you can. I think Rory had comments about this at Okhill, where like I think after like the first round, he he had this realization that he should just hit it as far as he could, yeah, and he would end up in a better spot like more often like I'm probably not going to hit the fairway anyways, so I might as well hit it as far as I possibly can.
Wait, wasn't it. It was Xander who said this.
Right, somebody I can't remember who said it, but it was like they had this realization. It's like, well, I might as well hit it as far as I can because I'm probably not going to hit the fairway anyways. So that's what the golf. Golf becomes, that which just promotes distance and speed even more and eats away at the skill. I think what people are missing just in general, it's not about low scores. This isn't about low scores.
It's about how scorers are being achieved on the PGA Tour and how scores are being achieved is it's become like almost every course is reduced to driver wedge. I mean, when you think about how long a golf hole needs to be to consistently get like a seven iron in elite players hands, I mean you're talking about like a five hundred and fifty yard hole. Yeah, I mean it's insane, like five point twenty a lot of times ends up being like a driver nine iron for the long players.
And it's just it means like a it's about a representation of the game that is, like, this game is more than just hitting a wet a driver in a wedge. It is about using all the clubs in the bag, right. I saw a pro I saw Michael Kim tweet about, like, oh, how like it would be great to limit limit clubs in the bag. Yeah, but not change anything.
Ten clubs ten clubs, yeah, I think. I don't think the players use fourteen clubs anything. Irons iron six through four are pretty much out of use at this point anyway.
They're only used on par fives and par threes like, so that wouldn't change that much. Like the problem, it's just moving around the problem. The problem is that the ball goes so far that it's almost impossible to get long irons in players hands outside of par fives and par threes, right and in order, Like long par threes used to be two hundred yards long par threes today
are like two two hundred and seventy yards. I mean that nothing and golf signifies that as much I and I just I think that's the that's the thing that people are missing a little bit. And I understand, like it's really easy to just look at scores. Oh, scoring is not that much different. Like golf courses are attempting everything they can do to curb scores, and scoring hasn't
you know, changed that much. But like the means in the clubs and the skills that are required to score have never been less than now, right.
And to be clear, this is just one part of what we're concerned about with distance gains in golf, the stuff related to the pro game, the strategic approach to golf courses that has emerged in this era, the one dimensionality of the game as compared to how it used to be played years ago, forty years ago. That's just this is just one part of this is just one part of it, to be clear. Another part of it is is more broadly applicable to the golf world.
But well, I think people people are people are like, oh, this only matters for the pros. It doesn't if you go look at like state ams. This matters at state ams. State ams like have a bigger distance problem than the pro game. You know, there's only so many golf courses in the in the country that could present a good test for people that hit it three hundred and thirty yards, right, A lot of state ams get contested at sixty five hundred yard courses where like I played one with Nick Carty.
Nick Carty was in college. Nick Carty, who's on the PGA Tour. He I think he finished fifty one on the on the FedEx Cup. Nick Carty played the sixty five hundred yard course and shot twenty eight under over four rounds. Twenty eight under. It was incredible. It was
utterly unbelieve unbelievable. But for him, a sixty five hundred yard course with limited trouble, like, here's just hidden driver up there and just hidden wedges, like little flip wedges close like there's nothing a golf course like that can do to protect against it. This there is a three hundred yard hitter, somebody who is at three hundred yard plus yards at every course in America. I would you know, glean to guess. Would you agree with that?
Yes? I would. And this is something that people often forget about when they talk about the effect of distance gains on the average player's game. Yes, the average player isn't the problem in the sense that the ninety five to one hundred mile per hour driver swinger is not
the problem. But every course has a few players who hit the ball really far and the course needs to be sized for them, right, And that that is where the issue with golf course size creeps in is that not just professional venues, but normal golf courses try to size themselves for the longest players because if they don't do that, those players won't show up or will be hitting the ball all over the ballpark in a way that's not particularly safe.
And and so I think the safety thing is the biggest issue here. Like there are long hitters at local munis, and you know what, those long hitters don't do that PGA tour players do. They aren't as accurate. They present a lot of like I am like the least the least into the idea of like safety as a golf architecture architecture thing, Like I think like a lot of
safety measures yield things less safe. But for these courses, when somebody is a let's just say a five handicap and hits the ball three hundred and ten yards, they're very wild and all of a sudden, it's like they're hitting it all over the place roads because they could hit it twenty yards thirty yards further than thirty years ago because of equipment, let's be clear, because of equipment. And Tiger Woods talked about this in his press conference at the Hero this is all equipment game, this is
not he talked about it. He's like, I hit the ball further now than when I came on tour because of the tech. That's what he said, all right.
I mean he doesn't swing faster now.
So so because of this tech. Like I've gone back and played the Beauty that I played in high school. I was a high school golfer. I played on a team that was very good in our state. Like I used to hit like a mid iron into the first screen at my Beauty that I grew up playing. Now I hit like a sixty yard wedge.
You know.
Like this is so this longer. It brings roads into dispersion patterns. It brings other fair ways into dispersion patterns. It brings other greens into dispersion patterns that weren't there when the course was built. So this presents problems. And getting five percent back also reduces the dispersion pattern that same five percent the thing that I think is missing. And I guess we're hitting on another subject here. People saying, oh, you're making the game harder. I'm not sure that this
is going to make the game harder. I have I think it might fractionally, like very very small amount, make the game harder, and for some players, I think it will make the game easier because the ball will go less offline.
Yeah, I mean that's very possible, and it's very player dependent.
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I want to get back quickly to the course setup and course design issues. You mentioned that courses that grow their rough up and narrow their fairways often have the unintended effect of actually making things easier for the longest players relative to the shortest players. I think that's true. But there are also courses out there there's a model of design and setup where the advantage of distance is limited. These are the harbor towns of the world, right the
TPC sawgrasses. A lot of pete die courses do this, and they do it through the use of penalty hazard, water hazards, sharp dog legs, plenty of trees, narrow corridors. Basically, these courses through everything at the wall to get players to know on occasion take driver out of the back. And so those courses do limit the advantage of distance in the way that many anti rollback people would want. But here's the thing. We should want a variety of golf courses in the world. This is where our love
for golf architecture really comes out. I think in this debate, Andy, it's when people suggest that all golf courses should should pursue the same model for setups for elite tournaments. It makes me cringe because I really wouldn't want to see golf courses do that. First of all, it would be very expensive, and that's an issue that deserves more attention. The financial consequences of distance gains for golf courses. I think that might be the single biggest factor motivating the rollback,
and we haven't even touched on it yet. So there's the cost issue, but there's also the design and art issue. You don't want every golf course that hosts an elite tournament to pursue this same design philosophy. We like variety in our golf courses. That's one of the central beauties of this game at all levels is the variety of playing fields that we get to play on and that
we get to see golf plate on. And if you're saying that we have to homogenize golf courses to a certain model, to the Harbor Town or TPC Sagrass model. As great as those courses are, they wouldn't feel so great if they were every golf course.
I always like to compare golf courses with restaurants. I think there's so many parallels. Just imagine if the restaurant industry became everybody has to do the same thing. Yeah, because of some technological advance that like you know, eaters have, you know, technology is forced this to be the only way you can have a restaurant. You'd be like, wait, what, like I can't have different experiences, Like this is the only way and I especially with golf on TV, like
you contrast is so so important. Different tests are so important because you know, that's what makes golf different than every other sport. It's it's the player against a feel against the course, right, and different courses are should be set up to reward different skills and different tests. There should be different tests. That's what makes the game so compelling. That's what makes it different than every other sport. Like you know, basketball, it's about how one team matches up
with another team. Golf is about how this set of elite players match up against the course. That's the discourse. Like at every Master's like when when a new star comes on the on the scene is like how will he match up against augusta national? Right, how will his skills translate? At the Masters, right, They're like one of the big storylines every year going into Augusta is like, why is JT? Why does JT not have that had that master's breakthrough that everybody is expected his game should
fit here wonderfully, Why hasn't he? Every time we go to a major site that we haven't seen in a while, it is what type of players are going to thrive at this golf course?
Right?
And if all the golf courses become the same, that makes golf infinitely less compelling. And the way that distance was advancing the idea, and I think this is a later topic. The idea with Bryson finding a driver that he could hit anywhere on the face, you know, and that was this big breakthrough in twenty twenty four was like I can hit this driver anywhere and I get like a very good result. That's really bad for the
overall game, right. Imagine a pair of gloves that you know, a receiver in football could wear that they you know after a game. You know this, somebody, let's just use Marquez Valdez Scantling. He had a big drop a couple of weeks ago, you know, very fast but unreliable hands. If he starts catching balls all every ball that's thrown to him, and people are like, what's happened with your ability to catch a ball? And he says, you know, I got these new gloves and if my hand touches
the ball, I'm going to catch it. Do you think that football fans would be like, well, that that doesn't seem right now.
It's not as impressive when a player jumps up high in the air and catches the ball with one hand and manages to come down with it. You're like, Okay, well I expect that.
I think the thing the overarching So golf courses need variety, they need to be a different tests. But also for the PGA Tour players, I think it's like actually been super unfair to them what they've lived through the last ten to fifteen years where there's this constant question hanging over is it like is this player really that great? Or is the technology gotten to such a level that it it has made that made all these players great? Like is this class of player really are they that great?
Are there that many great players? Or is the technology just made the game so simple that it allows a lot of players to be at this level? And I think that should be the guiding principle on all these decisions in terms of elite play. And this is where I hope that this is just the beginning of some regulation, because I think there are a lot of other aspects of this that you could go to make the product of golf are more fascinating on a television side of things.
I'm not saying that this needs to be the case for everybody, but I think that golf would be significantly better with more regulation in the professional game. Make it more about the players and their skills and like, don't make technology that they have in their hands any part of the story.
Right. I think both of us would love to see possibly a model rule related to a driver head regulation, right, so smaller, maybe less spring like effect. These are the things that are the factors that are currently regulated when it comes to driver head. I think that there's a way to come up with a model local rule that would be minimally disruptive, that would reintroduce some more skill into the driving game at the elite levels of play. I believe that would be a tough sell in the
amateur game. But I also thought to three years ago that a rold back ball would be a prohibitively tough sell for the amateur game, and maybe that that's still the case, but we have gotten to this point. So I want to address one quick question or a point of debate that people often bring bring up and then get into talking about the questions around whether this makes the game harder for amateurs, because I think you and
I can discuss that really well. But I do want to touch on one thing quickly that people often bring up. This is maybe the single most common point that I see being made in opposition to roll back, and it is an honest confusion that people have. They ask why should amateur players be forced to compensate for a problem that's limited to the top point oh one percent of
elite golfers. In other words, if this is just a problem that exists in the professional game and four professional courses, then why am I asked to be Why am I at being asked to shoulder some of the load here? And that's just it's a point that I see being made over and over. It's the elite golfers and the elite courses that are disrupting my average game at average courses. That there's a little bit of anger here toward the elite trying to change how normal players play the game.
And I get that. The thing is, if anybody, if anybody had read the research that came out, if anybody had engaged with the Distance Insights Project and looked at what they were studying and what they found, they would see that this problem is certainly not limited to professional
golf venues. The distance gains across the history of golf have caused golf courses not just for elite players, but for all players to get longer, to have to get longer, to expand their footprints, to push up their maintenance, and, by the way, to push up your green fees. Maybe that process isn't very visible to you. Maybe you just see rising green fees and think, well, that sucks. Inflation
or whatever. There are a number of factors that could cause green fees to rise, but part of that story of the rising costs of golf is that the footprint of golf courses has had to get better over the course of history. In order to accommodate advances in equipment. Golf courses have had to push up their own budgets to react to what's been happening in the equipment industry.
Golf courses need to pay those bills and what the governing bodies are doing is intervening and saying somebody needs to speak up for the golf courses here because the industry as a whole is not going to be sustainable if we keep going in this direction. And that's not just professional venues. That is so many golf courses, ones that host state amateurs, ones that host qualifiers, and just normal golf courses.
How about the marketing term championship golf Like a championship golf course. Everybody's seen that marketed from a local course.
This is a championship golf course, and it came with a moniker of like being a certain distance, you know, sixty eight hundred yards whatever, you know, seven thousand yards, and the idea of the championship golf course was pooh pooing the sixty three hundred yard old school course down the street, right Like that was the whole marketing ploy was that come play this new golf course that's built. That's a modern golf course. It's it is a long, tough,
challenging test. And I think like there's been a reaction in the golf world in a movement in the last you know, ten to fifteen twenty years too, like isn't it wonderful these sixty three hundred yard courses that are like that, I could get around quicker. You know, they take three and a half hours to play sometimes instead of five, and you know there aren't as many water hazards, and you know it's really nice when you walk off of green and the te's right next to it. Like
there's been this reaction. I've seen people be like, you know, what's the big deal if you can knock three hundred yards off a golf course And it's like, are we really talking about three football fields of turf that don't have to be maintained as like not a big deal, right?
Or maybe you can close down that back tea box. Yeah you felt you had to build and you're just sending mowers out there every day, and it would be a lot simpler if you could just kind of chop that off of your maintenance routine and you know, maintain a smaller footprint.
And I've seen some people talk about what about forward tees? You know, are forward t is going to be obsolete with this change? Now, if if it's a five percent change for players that would play the forward tees, I would doubt that it will be a full five percent. But if it is, you know what the leading I would say the most forward thinking golf courses in the world resorts are doing with forward tees and and a lot of non back tees just in general, they're in the fairway.
They just put them in the fairway, on the fairway, and they put them there.
Epically acceptable to put a forward tee in the fairway.
Because the traffic is a little bit less. Right. The reason that a tea has to be big is if it gets a lot of foot traffic. But the most forward t at a golf course, frankly, it doesn't get as much traffic as the end it should be, so it can be a little more casual.
Every golf course, see this is just a separate sidebar topic, but like every golf course in America should have like a thirty five hundred yard tee that's basically like in the fairway on every hole. Absolutely a lot of them do it with plates for like kid teas. You know at one hundred and fifty, there's no reason there can't be another tea box like this is you don't need
a tea box. I set up our fried egg events often and sometimes I put tea boxes that are on areas that I think would be really cool to hit a tea shot from. That's not a standard tea box. It's okay, how many times when you were When I was playing a lot of golf and very competitively in my like early twenties, I played at a golf course that was sixty four hundred yards regularly, and you know what I did. I had a bunch of back tea boxes. I stretched that thing to sixty eight hundred yards for myself.
But the tea boxes were like in preposterous spots. They were like off behind a fairway on another hole, and I would I found like a little flat fairway spot and I tea off from there, and people would play with me. They're like this is crazy, and it's like, yeah, I'm just trying to set this golf course up a little bit differently for myself. You know, Like this is the thing is that just like that forward t's can
just go to the fairway. That's what we I mean, it's what we do so much at our events is we move. It's fun and it's perfectly fine. It's the same as a tea box.
Yeah, I mean, building a forward t doesn't necessarily have to push up the maintenance budget. Building back tea's does tend to because they're not typically within the existing footprint of the golf course. And so if people are equating the maintenance cost of a forward T with the maintenance cost of a newly built back tea or whatever, then
they just don't know what they're talking about. And the people who bring up these points, I mean, are are sort of the people who generally don't know what they're talking about, but are out there talking and we all
know who they are on Twitter, et cetera. So, moving on from those issues around golf course sustainability, financial as well as environmental, that is really the main issue here, and it's the one one that is hardest to understand, I think, and that requires people to actually look at the research that has been done and try to get what the governing bodies are really concerned about here on
an industry wide basis. And I think that once you see some of the facts and some of the discoveries of this process that the RNA and USGA have gone through over the past several years, that maybe you won't agree with it, but you'll at least understand it a little better and you won't have as many questions and confusions as you might right now. So highly recommend going
and looking at some of that stuff. But I'd like to talk about this issue of making the game harder for average players and whether this is going to make a moment of rising popularity in golf less celebrated, because you know, golf has seen a surge since COVID, and now we're just making the game harder for everybody, and everybody's just going to abandon the game, and you know we'll be back in the in the dark ages again. All right, let's talk about making the game harder for
average players. Andy, you're not an average player, You're an exceptional player. I am closer to an average player, maybe maybe on the maybe on the higher end of ability for most average players, but but not significantly on the higher end. Do you think this is going to make the game harder you talked earlier about you know, maybe players who are a little bit wild, they might actually
see their dispersion shrink a little bit. But in general, when you look at average players, do you think a five percent rolled back ball is going to make a big difference?
I think for every player, it's going to be different. And for people to make these blanket statements about you know what you know everybody is going to do is kind of wildly off base. In general, I think there was data a data golf. I've had something at the PGA Tour level ten ten ten yards is worth like a half a shot.
So and that's for PGA Tour players who hit the ball in this in the same spot on the club head pretty much all the time in a way that average players don't even come close to.
So for the for the very best players, where like the very best players are like Lamborghini's right.
Yeah, their margins are thin, right, and so that's why they pursue those those marginal gains.
And like in a way like they're more consistent. But when things go bad, we see this, We see this with PGA. I mean like Billy Horssechell shot what like
eighty five this year at Memorial. Like when things go bad for really good players, it's like embarrassingly bad, right, Like you just like you can look like a complete dog, Like you could play with a PGA Tour player who has a bad day and you could walk off the course and be like, is that really a PGA Tour player, like you know, but like what makes so what I'm trying to say here is that say you hit four solid golf shots around right, and this ball goes five
to ten yards shorter for those four solid shots, and you've adjusted. I don't think this is a huge deal. Like half the country plays at altitude and then they go play somewhere else that's not at altitude. You don't hear people be like, well, it's way harder because it wasn't an altitude. I don't think I've ever heard somebody say, like, you know, I'm struggling to play golf here because of the altitude. Isn't because I'm leaving altitude. Have you ever heard somebody complain about that.
There are innumerable factors that cause your distance off the tee to vary from day to day. Altitude is one of them. The sogginess of the turf is one of them. The air density is one of them. You know, I want to talk.
About regular players, Like this is something that I think about all the time, is like I played really well if I've played three days in a row, and what happens to me is my body gets used to swinging a golf club again, and my and my muscles get longer and I hit it, I'll hit it twenty yards further or ten to fifteen yards further three days on the third day, ind than I hit it the first day. Just because my swing short, I don't have like the speed. My speed comes back as I play more days in
a row. Yeah, I mean, I don't think a lot of regular players ever even think about this, right, Like.
I mean I think of it. I have a bad back. On a day when my back is feeling good, I'm a lot longer off the tee.
I I just think that it's kind of like, yeah, sure it might, it's going to be a little harder. I played with Persimmons for a year and a half. I played with Persimmons and in seventies blades, and can I can confidently say, like I am one thousand percent sure that I got extremely, like way better at golf because of that period. And why I got better was
like I was forty yards shorter off the tee. And I think, like one of the things that I'm good at in my personal game, this is all personal, is that like I hit a driver really well, a modern driver really well, and when I lost forty yards, I stopped having a lot of wedges in my hand, and then I was hitting mid irons.
And you were hitting the Wilson goose necks.
Yeah, and I was hitting mid irons, And.
So it's meaningful, like the difference between a five iron and a eight iron with those those clubs.
Is hugely meaningful. So then I missed more greens, and I missed more greens, so I had to get up and down more. But anyways, I came out of it away better golfer because what was valued was hitting the center of the club face. What was valued, like my short game got better because I was chipping more on a round by round basis. And then when I went back to modern technology, I was a substantially improved golfer.
But the thing I found was that when I played well, I still still shot really low scores.
Yeah, your ceiling, your ceiling was still there.
Yes, And what even despite being forty yards shorter, my my ceiling was still there. And and that's the thing I think that like this is such a small loss. You might shoot a few more scorers that are a little higher, but I don't think you're gonna lose this set, Like, because because you could break eighty with modern club, with the current equipment, if you lose five percent on your on your distance, doesn't mean you can't break eighty outside
of it. Yeah, Like I mean so much. A golf is a mindset and attitude thing and a confidence thing, and I just I think that, like, yeah, sure you might, you might be slightly worse, your handicap might go up like a half a shot. I just don't think that maybe real, maybe maybe you might get better.
I mean, I don't know, Like there are so many variables when it comes to a mid handicap player's game. You know, I can shoot ninety on a given day. I can also shoot seventy five on a given day. That's all within my ability and my shooting on the lower end of that spectrum versus the higher end of that spectrum depends really on how many drives I hit out of bounds, or how many pitches I absolutely lay the sod over, or how many times I miss a
one footer. It's stuff like that that makes me shoot ninety and so hitting the ball two hundred and thirty yards off the tee on a perfect strike versus two hundred and forty two yards off the t on a perfect strike. Okay, that's a difference. That's a club into the green and the and the club into the green is going to be a marginally shorter as well. But you know what, that's not really what makes me score
well or poorly. What makes me score well or poorly are the big mistakes that I make in every round. And if I make fewer of those, I'm going to do well on that day. If I make more of them, I'm going to do worse on that day. And that's going to be just as true after the rollback as it was before.
I think. The other thing is that when you're if the ball's going less, you're dispersions smaller, and thus the big cataclysmic mistakes that a lot of players make, every player in the world makes become less because of the distance dispersion that the how far off line you hit, it becomes smaller, so you might hit one extra fairway around and that makes up for the one extra club that you're hitting into the green.
Yeah, right, yeah, this is a I mean, the difference between playing with a five percent roll back ball and today's ball is I think going to be quite a bit smaller than people imagine. But at the same time, you know, I don't want to piss down people's legs and pretend it's raining. This is a difference like if you could choose to be twelve yards longer off the tee versus twelve yards shorter. Of course you choose to be twelve yards longer. Of course that is ultimately going
to be an advantage. So let's grant that a roll back ball makes the game slightly more difficult for average players. I would say two things to that. One is that if you believe that a rollback would be good for the game overall, if you review the research and look at all the issues from a global perspective and decide that a rollback would be a positive for the game, then I think you should be willing to make that
small sacrifice for the greater good. And I know this is a little bit old fashioned to say this, or maybe maybe a little bit lame, but shouldn't I think something that's a little that's unique about golfers is that we are concerned for the game overall. We're devoted to golf, we love this game, and so I think we should take the perspective that we want to do something that
is good for golf overall. That's one thing. The other thing is that if you took up golf because you wanted it to be easy, then I would say you're a somewhat unusual golfer. Most of us play this sport because it's hard, and the fact that it might become marginally harder I don't think should necessarily be that big of a deal to people who are as sick as us.
I think there's something to be said too that, like, some things are good about golf courses are going to get easier, and some things are going to get harder if you hit it five percent shorter, right, Like a bunker you could clear will get harder if you can't clear it anymore. But there's also a bunkers that you probably hit into regularly that you're like, damn that bunker I always hit into it, that you won't get to anymore.
Like it that it's going to work both ways right where some features are and I think, like what the big thing at the at the professional level of this changes is like actually restoring the long hitters having to think about bunkers, right, Like, I think that's the goal of this whole thing is that, like the game gets really out of whack with distance when the long hitters can bypass all the hazards and the medium length hitters on tour then hit into it, and then it becomes well,
just build new bunkers. Well then it's like wait, so like one hundred courses or two hundred, and if you start to think about state ams or other smaller USGA events USGA qualifiers, so downstream, five hundred golf courses have to do millions of dollars of renovation work to put bunkers in places that these long hitters that are going to get longer are eventually going to carry, right, Like
it's a self perpetuating thing. But the idea of the distance coming back, like you're going to be like, oh, I work my ass off to be able to hit it over this creek and now it can't. Well, there's all also a bunker that probably came into your purview or a hazard that came into your into your you know, potential outcomes because of that same distance game that cleared that one creek. Right, So you just need to think
about this. I think back when I played in in the mid Am, I think back to this all the time. There's a center line bunker on one of the holes, and I was I was well well inside the cut line to make match play going into my last nine of qualifying, and I completely shit the bed and my like downfall happened on a hole with a cunderlined bunker on it. And during the practice round, I was like, what do I do? And my thought was like, just hit it at the bunker. You're not going to hit
it in it. It's a tiny little bunker. Now, Like, I hit it right at the bunker, hit a good T shot, went right into the bunker. Guess what With a five percent rollback, I would have been short of it and I would have been fine, right, Like there you go, Like that would have made that hole easier for me.
Yeah, it's golf courses. Golf courses are not grids, right. Golf courses are chaotic, and so the effects of hitting it shorter on certain holes or hitting up longer are not going to be perfectly predictable. I think. I think that's the point here. And then besides all of that, look, if you're playing the role back ball, likelihood is the people you're competing against or your buddies are going to
be doing the same thing. And so if you've made gains over the past couple of years, if you've gone and done the done the whips or the the the stack system or yeah, super speed, yeah, super speed. Yeah, if you've, if you if you've gone to the weight room, if you've, then that's great. You know. I think that the self improvement drive of golfers in general is really
admirable and something that should be celebrated. If you've made those gains, this isn't taking it away because you're still going to have those gains relative to other people that you're playing against, and I feel like that's really what matters to us in the end. Yes, golf is a sport that's played against a course, but our perception of what a long drive is is really relative to what
other people are doing. It always has been, and so I think that people are going to adjust to this pretty quickly and it's going to be less painful than people think. But in that vein, it's kind of a bummer that it's so far off because people are just going to be worrying about it right up to twenty thirty or whenever it is that we're going to play this new ball, and you know, instead of just ripping the band aid off, where we're going to have to
stew in it for a while. And so I'm girding myself up for some of the complaining and the whining that's going to happen in the interim. But I really feel that when the day comes, it's going to be less of a cataclysm than some people seem to think it will be.
We're yeah, we're so far away, is the great thing. I will say. I think there's going to probably be another rollback pod on this podcast once the official news apologies in advance. I think we I would love to dive into some things then that I because we don't have the entire you know, roll back the entire fact base. I'd love to dive into some things that I probably would like to see more of less of, like some some maybe, you know.
I think we'd both like to see more than five percent. That's something we didn't really talk about, but five percent, you know, it really isn't enough to address to some of the some of the problems that we talked about with sustainability and the financial expenditures of golf courses, yeah, five percent.
Is five years.
Yeah, well we'll see. Yeah, I don't know, I don't know. It's uh, I wish it were ten percent or fifteen percent, But then then we would really be talking about the game getting harder and so that that would be the issue.
All right, Garrett, thanks for coming on. This was This will be the first of a few of these we got. We got six seven years to bat this around.
Yeah, it's it's good to be invited to be on the podcast that I co host. It's always always a pleasure to talk to Andy.
Well, we'll be back later this week with more us always not going away. Thank you for listening to another edition of the Friday Golf Podcast. Thanks to Garrett for joining in here on short notice, and big thanks to Matt Rusis for getting this thing edited, produced and uploaded in uh in short order. So he a quick reminder. We are we've been we've been knocking it out this whole year with Club TFB. I think there's stuff in
it for everybody. Uh. We did a little you know, Garrett did a little roll back Q and A with a bunch of architects who submitted how they would, you know, how their design philosophies would change with a five percent rollback. It was a fascinating thing to read through. So if you're interested in joining Club TF it's one hundred and twenty dollars a year. You could do so at the
fridagy dot com slash membership. Thank you to everybody who's supported us this year through that and in another you know, the pro shop, the events, all the things. It really means a lot and it keeps our small shop a hummet So thanks. We'll be back later this week with another edition of the Fridagg Golf Podcast