Welcome back to another edition of the Frida Egg Podcast. Today's episode is with the USGAS Senior Managing Director of Governance, Thomas Pagel. You're probably wondering who Thomas Pagel is. You probably remember them from Rules and Rulings and such and us opens of past. Thomas also runs the Distance Insights Project at the USGA, and with last week's big announcement, we wanted to have a bond to talk about its
near and long term implications on golf. For those of you that might not know what Distance Insights Project is, it centers around the golf ball equipment and where the game's going and whether or not the current regulation on different aspects of equipment needs to be recalibrated. So obviously a major implications in terms of what professional golf might look like and even what golf at the local level might look like. I really appreciate Thomas coming on to talk.
I know he's a busy guy and obviously had a lot of things going on last week, so we were glad we could get this, uh get him on this week and to discuss the ins and outs of the report, the next steps and just the different layers of the project and kind of addressing all aspects of it. So, without further ado, here is Thomas Pagel I.
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Get right into it.
Your team obviously made a huge announcement last week. What did golf fans in general need to know about last week's announcement?
Yeah, last week's announcement was really picking up where we left things off in late February of twenty twenty, so you're recall February twenty twenty, we released the Distance Insights Report, which was our comprehensive study with our partners at the RNA talking about distance, looking at the history of distance, understanding trends, what it might mean for the future of the game, and ultimately we concluded that we think the
cycle of increased hitting length, increased course course lengthening is not good for the game and that we need to know it has to come to an end. In that document, we endeavored to release what we call an area of interest to the equipment manufacturers, talking about the areas we want to study. We were scheduled to release that the Monday or Tuesday after the Player's Chance and Chip. As you can recall, Thursday evening in Ponavidra, everything shut down
and the golf world followed closely thereafter. So we made the decision to go ahead and hold on releasing the area of interest, knowing that the equipment manufacturers we're going to have to deal with the entire industry, frankly was going to have to deal with so much related to the pandemic, and it wasn't the right time to engage and continue into engineering or scientific discussion around you know, attributes of a golf baller clubhead, right, So we put
everything on pause for twenty and then as we came into this year, obviously golf is in a good place, had a strong year even with the pandemic. Manufacturers are still having issues, right, Like, let's be clear, I know I talked to them, I hear of supply chain issues, all sorts of things. However, we felt the time was appropriate to re engage on the topic of distance to really kick things off, because this is just the beginning,
This is the beginning of a long journey. So last week we released the Area of Interest, which has, you know, the six categories or six general categories of research that we're interested in under taking over the course of the next year. And then we also release what we call a Notice of proposed rule changes to Equipment Manufacturers, which is really outside of Distance Insights, but it highlighted a few equipment changes that we're proposing here in the near term.
With those that year kind of break.
I imagined you were watching golf, did anything, did any of the areas of interest change? Did an emphasis on anything change? Or did any rule these rules that you're looking to implement come about because of the last year?
You know. We So while our public facing side of things certainly was on pause last year, our team, our equipment standards team, which are brilliant scientists and engineers, continued on with a lot of their research and their day to day operations with testing clubs and evaluating our testing standards and everything else we look at as a team. And so from from the area of interest to six
categories that didn't really expand. In fact, The document that was released last week is largely the document that was going to be released in March of twenty twenty. We made a couple edits to date, so it was more timely,
but outside of that, it was really consistent. When we look at the notice for proposed changes, you know, we did have the benefit of the last year or to look at our testing standards, and so when we look at, you know, testing a golf ball in an optimized fashion, we had the ability to evaluate over the last year and make a determination that it was right to propose
a change to that standard. Same thing with the CT tolerance, right, the characteristic time, so measuring the time that a golf ball makes impact with the club face, so essentially you're measuring trampoline effect. That has carried a historical tolerance of eighteen microseconds. Not to get into the nerd weeds, but manufacturers are so good with their capabilities and our testing capabilities, frankly, have become so much better that that eighteen microsecond tolerance
is no longer necessary. Right, we can take it down to six. Manufacturers can companibly produce within a six microsecond tolerance, We can test within that tolerance, and so we felt that was appropriate. But you know a lot of people say, well, you're not taking distance away with that. We get it, like, look, measuring eighteen microseconds, you're talking a yard. Maybe these changes
are not about reducing distances. It's about modernizing our standards and it's frankly part of the day to day responsibility that we have in serving that role of testing equipment for the game, you know. And then the last proposed changing any that I know a lot of folks have talked about is the shaft length and the reduction and shaft link by model Local rule from forty eight inches
to forty six inches. This is something we've talked about for a while, right, We've we've been looking at this since twenty fourteen, so you know, as Bryson's you know, winning at the amateur level before anybody, before it became really a household name, we were looking at shaft length. So this is not a reaction to what we saw
in the last year. However, you know, given the history of that and we nearly proposed a rule change in twenty eighteen, we thought the time was right to issue the model local rule now because look, as more and more players begin to experiment at all levels of the game. It only makes change that much harder in the future.
And so as we look out to the future, if we think forty six inches is the right number, we just thought it was best to go ahead and issue that now, as opposed to waiting for rule changes down the line, because you know, I sort of liken it to anchoring. You know, a long history of allowing players to anchor the club and then the change became hard. We didn't want to experience that again.
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
It's getting in a way out in front of it before. You know, obviously two years ago, twenty eighteen, nobody was really talking about using a forty seven forty eight inch driver, and now all of a sudden you started to see not just Bryson, you know dozens of pros I know, at least experiment we're playing around with it at their Hope course and you know player, So that makes sense.
From with the six areas of interest, could you just outline those areas for the audience that may not have dove in and read the entire report what those are and kind of layman's terms, what they mean.
Yeah, the good news is I'm not an engineer, so this will all come across in layman's terms. Right, So the general areas we talk about, you know, a reductional
limit within the overall distance standard. And so right now we have a standard of three hundred and seventeen yards plus the tolerance of three yards to measure both the carry but then also the bounce and roll of a golf ball, and so is as golf balls are submitted for conformance, we test them under certain standards with launch and spin rates, and then wherever they end up, we just say it needs to be less than three hundred and seventeen yards. So we need to evaluate that three
seventeen and determine is that the right number? Should that number be lesser. I'll preface all this by saying, you know, we don't have the answers, we don't have the solutions. This is really early in the stage where we're just choreographing. Here's what we'd like to look at. We want to
engage with the industry around these topics. We have research, We know the manufacturers have research, and in the end we want to try and identify solutions that are about the long term best interest or health of the game. And so as I go through these, again no solutions have been reaches or just general topics. The next one is a modification on the limitation of ball efficiency. So again it's just testing standards we have on how balls fly,
the aerodynamics of balls, and a review of that. Also looking at you know, size and massing of golf balls, right, So is there a way to do you look at a smaller golf ball a larger golf ball. Do you look at the density of a golf ball so that it impacts different swing speeds differently? You know a lot of different variables within a golf ball that we can look at. And then you're looking at drivers club length.
So model local rule gets us to forty six inches, but maybe we do some further research and determine that forty five or forty three or forty three or forty four excuse me, is a better long term number. So we want to look at that as well as you know, massing, size of the club head, moment of inertia, right, So the forgiveness on a club face, what does that you from a strategic standpoint, if you have a high mlide, is that allowing players to swing perhaps a bit more aggressively.
If you change that, MOI, does that change the need to perhaps hit a little closer to center. All things that we just need to answer as we look through. And then you know, last point is the spin right and looking at spin. This is a great example of both direct and indirect because you can look at spin in a lot of different manners. Right, you can look at spin off the driver face, you can look at spin out of the rough, you can look at the general spin coming from the golf ball. So all things
we need to look at again. Some of those directly impact distance, others indirectly impact distance through either strategic choices the player might make or otherwise.
Yeah, and just for everybody listening, is your job, you know, in a way, you guys are putting together a study slash like an experiment really here where your job is to look at all the different angles of these in the different implications that changes would make, and determine make conclusions off of looking at all the different angles. It's not you're not going into this saying we're going to you know, limit distance.
That's well, we do know that we need to stop the cycle, so some limitation on distance is necessary. But you're right, in that from an equipment standard standpoint, I always think of it in terms of levers. Right. Those six categories are broad, and within each six of those categories there are a lot of things you could potentially
do or levers you could turn. And so we just want to do the research to understand the levers and understand if we turn this one to the right, you know this much, what is it going to do to other levers? Right? Because there's always impacts of other things. And then if you change two levers together, you know, what would the overall amount of reduction that you could achieve be, right, And what are the implications of that reduction?
What are the implications at different swing speeds? Right, So it could impact somebody a one hundred and twenty much different than an impact somebody with a clubhead speed of ninety Likewise, Right, I think it's important that we understand the implications, you know, in the industry on the marketplace as well. Right, It's not like you can make an equipment rule change and manufacturers can retool and shift overnight.
These things sort of have a runway that you have to play out, and some changes might be easier than others. So there are just a lot of factors that you have to look at as we go through this process.
Yeah, and for somebody that would just you know, obviously one rebut would be, oh, golf's never been better, this has been an awesome year. Why why does this? You know, why does the cycle have to stop?
You know? And it's funny. This is a debate or discussion that's been happening for decades, if not centuries, around distance, and it's something that just continues to get passed down from one generation to the next. Right, And there's this belief that every generation should hit the ball further than the last, that somehow distance equals enjoyment. I'm gonna I'll sit back and say I agree, read with everything you
said about the game is in a good place. Like no one should read the report or misinterpret anything we're saying. For us to be as sky is falling, the game's in a bad place, we need to come in and say it game's great. Like we rallied around as an industry last year, and it's pretty unbelievable what we are able to accomplish. Now we need to focus on retaining those golfers that came to the game last year or
the lapse golfers that came back to the game. But I'd like to think that you can sort of chew them and walk at the same time. Right, what we're saying is, as we look at trends, it's obvious golfers hit the ball further now than they did ten years ago, than they did thirty years ago. And if you play that trend out, it's only going to continue. So what happens when golfers continue to increase distance, Well, venues continue
to increase in length where they can. With that comes capital costs, comes, maintenance costs, come, labor costs, comes everything. Where do those costs ultimately go They get passed down to the golfer. Right. Then you also look at pace of play. You're extending the golf course, which means it's going to take longer to play. So we're looking out into the future and saying if golf, if hitting distance continue to increase, golf courses are going to continue to increase.
That impacts all of us and at some point it has to stop, right, especially when you layer on top you know, the environmental sustainability and the cost frankly associated with maintaining a golf course right now, cost of water, cost of labor, cost of nutrients are all outpacing inflation, which means it's becoming more and more expensive to maintain golf courses. Again, that expense ultimately gets passed on to us.
So this is it's a matter of do you continue the conversation, do you hand off this challenge to the next generation, or you try and be a bit more proactive make some changes so that when we hand the game off to the next generation, we can ensure that we're building on the strengths of today and having a healthy game into the future.
And regulation is currently in place, it's not a question of whether we're regulator or not. It's a question of recalibrating what the regulation standards are.
Right, That's exactly right. I mean, it's we have our equipment standards, we have the rules in place, and it's a it's a matter of looking at where where should we look to potentially sort of tighten the screws a little bit. So to speak.
With the you know announcement last week, you're in a place and it outlined a twelve to eighteenth months period before we hear kind of what's next, what's the timeline involved with that period and what should we expect, what's happening behind the scenes in this period.
So it is, it is. There's a lot of research that's ongoing with our folks on our equipment standards team as well as you know, our counterparts at the RNA and their equipment standards team in Saint Andrews and in that you know, uh, you know, working with manufacturers. Again, a lot of them have already done research on these topics, or a lot of them will initiate research on the topics.
And this period of this area of interest is all about the exchanging of information, right Believe it or not, there is a high level of collaboration that happens within the industry. A lot of people don't like to a lot of people may not take the time to understand that. But we're working with manufacturers, you know, on a daily, weekly basis, and this will really continue that. It's just we're going to have more specific topics around distance we're going to want to look at with them, you know.
So as far as the next twelve to eighteen months, I say, in one of the good things about our process that we follow from an equipment rulemaking procedures that it's transparent. We choreograph early on, here is what we're interested, here's here's potentially where we'd like to go. The bad part about it being transparent is you're putting a lot of things out there and that are going to generate questions and you just don't have the answers to those
questions yet. Right, So, as we go through the research, as we begin to look at solutions, look at the knobs, we'll have a better idea about what potential solutions might be, what timelines we might have to implement those solutions. Some could be short, some could be long term. To use my local rules, do you make it a do you
make it an overall rule change? So there's just a lot of questions we have to answer, and most of that, frankly, will be done you know, behind the scenes over the next you know, twelve twelve or so months.
In the document, you guys define this period working with golf stakeholders and a comment period for golf stakeholders who are golf stakeholders in it for this exercise, you know, I think that was something that a lot of people wondered, Can I just write a comment?
So, first of all I mean, I would tell you that, you know, the USGA is a nonprofit as and as a membership organization. As the governing body, we're always you know, our doors, our phone lines, our email boxes are always open, so people should never hesitate to reach out to us if they have questions, inquiry, suggestions. You know, as we as we look at this, we are really in a technical stage, right, and so it is the primary stakeholder
is going to be the manufacturing community. And then outside of that, we also have you know, the major tours that are a key stakeholder that the players. We also have you know, at the amateur level, you have our allied golf associations who are out there running state amateurs, you know, junior tours. So it's a lot of the groups that represent golf or subsets of golfers. And again it's important that everybody's voice is heard, which is why we have this process we go through.
Yeah, and for the collaboration standpoint with manufacturers, I imagine, like some of the stuff you outlined, like changing the MOI on a club and seeing the impacts that have, like that's something you have to work directly with manufacturers on.
Right, It is I mean, look, our team. Again, they can undertake the research, but it's a lot of validation and thought sharing that needs to happen between manufacturers and our teams. That's just it's critical for success, and they've been.
Manufacturers have been very open with collaborating on these types of things with you guys historically.
Yeah, they have been. It's again, I think it provides sideline into what we're thinking from an equipment standard standpoint, but allows for them to share their views because, as I say, whatever decisions are made, we need to make sure that they're fully informed, right, and so we need to validate the research or that that we're seeing, but we also need to make sure that when it translates out into you know, the marketplace or into the plane
of the game, that we've thought through everything. We don't want to make any hasty decisions here.
With the Distance Inside report that came out last year, were there any you know, big revelations for you personally or and also for your team. Were there specific things that really stuck out more than others with that report?
Yeah, I mean, I think the number one thing that's stuck out is, frankly, just how this does impact all of us as golfers, whether that be you know, the pace of play or the cost of that gets passed along the golfers, but also distance. It's actually much thicker than just the long hitting golfers. Right. It's on all sides.
There's a stat that I believe it's only eight percent of golf courses in the United States have a tea that's short enough for the shorter hitting players, for the shortest hitting players, right, and so distances, there's issues on all sides. When we talk about a game that we want to be welcoming and inclusive, we know that it can be that there are barriers to entry. We know
that it can be intimidating. I'd say it's pretty intimidating if you come out to start the game and there's not a set of tees that you can play and go out and enjoy yourself. So we're trying to take a really a holistic view of this. This is not just about equipment. I know, it's where everybody wants to go. I know that you know obviously issue in the area of interest in the research topics, but there is a huge golf course component to this as well that we
want to look at. And the golfer experience component as to how how can we come together with the industry develop best practices around you know, maintenance, set up everything else that welcomes golfers and allows for them to enjoy their experience.
One of the biggest rebuttals to any sort of recalibration of regulation on distance and equipment is that this is just a zero point one percent problem. And from what I'm hearing you talk about, this is not a point one percent professional golf problem at all. It's a problem for all of golf.
It is, right, and part of the study you look at golf courses that will never host a PGA Tour level event or a professional event. They're lengthening, right or they're making changes to their golf course, whether it be perception based or reality, and those changes again come with costs. As costs get passed along to us, the trend of
those changes, they're only going to continue. And so even if you have a facility where there's a small fraction of players that play that back tis, we're all paying for those back tees, and when there's a new set of back teas that goes up, we all end up paying for those as well, well, you know, so as we look at distance reduction, there's a huge inventory of t's in front of us, and so so if there is some change in distance, most of us have the ability to move up with tea and frankly have an
equallys enjoyable experience while shrinking the footprint of the golf course at the same time. You know, it's we are the only sport that I'm aware of where we change our venue to meet the needs of equipment.
Yeah, that was the question I had, And I'm curious, you know, when you guys look at other sports that have confronted these issues, like you know, most most recently we saw, you know, the Nike running shoe, which we're all of a sudden, marathon records were falling left and right because of a shoe that could a lot of people are run four to five minutes faster over the
course of twenty six miles. And you know, swimming had obviously the swimsuits, and you know, cycling has a lot of mechanical stuff that goes into a race.
Car driving.
Do you guys look at other sports and how they've confronted these issues and the impacts that they've had before and after and and so forth. When with this study that you guys are conducting.
Yeah, you know, we we have looked at other sports and you know, you're right, this is innovation is not something that's unique to golf, and athleticism is not something that's unique to golf either. Right. It's as we think about this topic, right, there are three contributing factors to distance. You have course setup, you have athleticism, and with that
there's a number of things. It's not just you know, how big and strong and flexible golfers are, but it's also the amount of information they have, the data they can have to really optimize their performance. And then you
have equipment, right, golf course setup. We can issue best practices as a governing body, we can work with our industry partners, but ultimately that's you know, the host committee or the golf course's decision to make athleticism desire to get sort of bigger, stronger, more flexible to optimize that. That's fantastic, right. As golf fans, I think we're all in awe of that. I think it's the definition of athletic endeavor and there's no way to regulate it in
any sport. No, should it be regulated, right, And so that then leads us to equipment. And so the only way we have to monitor distance or have an impact on distance reduction is through equipment. And even if players are the primary contributing factor, that letticism is the primary contributing factor to current distance gains, the reality is is
that will continue to increase as well. Right there's a subset of golfers you look at on the World Long Drive Tour right where they're able to get swing speeds up above one point forty ball speeds two fifteen. It's only a matter of time before you have that capability on the PGA Tour. And so my point is they're still room for distance increase. And if we see that cycle or that continued increase being a problem, the primary lever we have to help control it is through equipment.
And so that's what we're faced with right now.
I think something that I think about sometimes is I actually sympathize the player today in some regard because their athletic accomplishments are sometimes muddied by is this equipment or is this athletics? Like what what's the rory's athleticism? You know, you know, we see Usain Bolt. He's faster than anybody ever before. And that's a simple thing. They run the same distance, they run with essentially the same equipment, and
you can say this is the fastest man ever. But with golf, with with the changing golf course dimensions and then also the changing equipment, it's impossible to tell. How much are you know this modern era of player has progressed over over the years.
Yeah, I mean it's it's tough to compare era to era, and that's always been the case, and I think that will always continue to be the case. You know. But you talk about, you know, the players and their athleticism and their athletic endeavor and just how good they are. I mean, that's one of the benefits we also have as a game, right, we all play the same equipment. There aren't too many sports where the professional athlete is going to use the same equipment as as the amateurs.
And so you and I go out and play. We might be using the same drivers as as a Roary or someone else. Uh, And yet we can sit back and marvel at the distance they have as compared to you and I. So I think that you know their abilities as athletes, Uh, really does shine through.
With the with the local rule.
That's something that was used heavily in the announcement. Is a local rule bifurcation by another name.
You know, it's fine, I get that question all the time, and and and I'll sort of go rules nerd on you for here.
Explain a local rule to to the to the audience as well, because I think that would be an important place to start and probably should have been the first question.
Well it was, you know, so local rules. So you have the rules of golf, and you have local rules. But if we go all the way back to seventeen forty four, that first set of rules, the thirteen rules that were written there for a single golf course, for a single tournament. So in essence, it was a series
of local rules. And as you look at golf in the UK around that time, every golf course they were writing their own rules, and it wasn't until eighteen ninety nine that the RNA was sort of appointed as the governing body to write a single set of rules. Here in the US we even used the RNA's rules, but then we made adaptations that we called local rules on our side. In nineteen fifty two, the USGA and the RNA came together and for the first time ever, we had a single set of rules playing rules to be
used at every golf course throughout the world. That said, there's thirty thousand plus golf courses. I always tell people the playing rules are tough because you have to imagine that anything that can and will happen to that little white ball, and you have to write a rule around it. We don't have We're not football right where we don't have a standard playing field, and so riding rules can
become challenging. So if you have a local golf course, or you have a tour, or you have a tournament that has something unique to that golf course, unique to that event, they have to adapt the rules in some regards. And that's where model local rules step in. It's areas where committees running a tournament or committees running golf course have flexibility or options around rules to put into place for their golf course. Most people think of those in
terms of the playing rules. However, there are a number of equipment related local rules currently in place. Right the one ball condition which a lot of people hear about, and that's you start around. You know, with the make and model of golf ball, and you have to use that same make and model golf ball throughout the entire round.
That's a local rule. A lot of talk within certainly competitive circles around grooves, right like your grooves have to meet a standard that was put in place in twenty ten. That's a local rule. The use of conforming golf balls or driver or conforming drivers. Those are lists that can put into place by local rule, not necessarily always in place at the club level, but certainly when you start getting into competitions. And so this concept of flexibility, as
concept of options has long existed. And all we're saying now is as we look at these different areas of research, is we look at changes to the balls, we look to changes to the club. If we step back and we say, you know what, we can actually achieve some significant amount of reduction here. But that reduction might not be best for the game as a whole, right Like, maybe it impacts the low swing speeds more than we'd like it too, and so it's going to have an
impact a greater impact on the recreational game than we'd like. Well, perhaps we can put that option out as a local rule so that courses tournaments tours that might want to use that option would have it as an option. So it's again there's no specifics in mind, but it's just let's explore, like, let's not be afraid of exploring the idea of options for the game.
Yeah, and so obviously you just outlay there's no specifics in mind. This is just an exploration. But to say there was a local rule put in place, how would you go about, you know, suggesting delineation between the different layers of golf. You know, where is it an elite amateur because like you said before, distance is an issue
at you know, at everywhere. You know, a player that hits the ball three hundred yards distant an issue at a sixty four hundred yard golf course for that player, you know, they might hit it out of the range they you know, So what would be you know, in you know, in a hypothetical world, a type of way to delineate, you know, when the local rule is put in place versus not in place.
Yeah, and look, I mean for the equipment related local rules I mentioned earlier, we have a provider in there. We say, you know, these are usually are typically recommended for elite level competitions, right, but that even that is undefined, So what does that mean? Does that mean you know, the NCAA, your state amateurs, what about your state junior amateur?
It becomes really difficult. And when you start talking local rules that could potentially have an impact on distance, I think that any what you just raised there is probably going to be the toughest question around implementation, like where do you recommend it, where do you start, where do you stop? And then you're going to have those players, frankly on the fringes that might need you know, two different sets of equipment or two different types of golf balls,
whatever it might be. Right, So I'm going to play under this set of rules at the state Amateur this week, but then next week I'm playing in the you know, the high School Association by regional where that local rule is not in effect, and so it can get pretty muddy pretty quick.
Yeah, I mean, and I think obviously, like baseball is a perfect example, where you play with aluminum bats your entire life until you turn professional, and then you play with wooden bats. And I don't think it's it's prohibited any all time greats from not making it. You know, if anything you know, it just accelerated their pass when they get to play with wooden bats.
That's exactly right. And so it is. Look there there are fortunate for us, and you mentioned this before with other sports, there are other sports that have models out there, whether it be you know, baseball and bats or tennants in the different balls that we really need to consider closely and see are their models that that might benefit the game of golf as well.
How's the response?
How have you felt the response has been thus far, both you know, publicly and then you know behind in back channels as your team's communicated with you know, the various stakeholders and had you know, more private conversations.
Yeah, I mean, in a lot of respects, this last week has just sort of been a sort of reignited some of the conversation that came out with the first distance report last year. So I'm not surprised by any of it. Again, I think that people are asking a lot of questions that were just not far enough along in our process to have the answers for, and so
they'll continue to be chattering. Look, it's a it's a discussion that's happened for a while, but it's a discussion that we think is important and as people want to talk publicly or privately, I think I think it's only going to benefit all of us. So the response has been frankly about what we expected. Behind the scenes, I can tell you. I mean, we've already started engaging with manufacturers, already started talking around you know, here's some of the
things we've looked at. How about how about you guys? And and that will continue because, like I said, that's for this to be successful, that's going to be the most critical component. So I'm pleased with where we are. I think that we're set up for success. It's just not going to happen overnight, which I know might disappoint some folks, but that's the process that we have to adhere to.
Yeah, I mean, you know, want to rush daddy decisions because that's the knee jerk reactions are probably usually the worst thing. I'm curious if the way golf looks today versus you know what the romanticization of the sixties or fifties or before, does that have anything to do with this effort.
No, And that's you know a lot of people will will want to suggest that there's some era that needs to be replicated here. This is not about replicating an era. This really is about again understanding where the game is today, understanding the strengths of the game, but looking out into the future and just saying this is not sustainable, right, I mean, is this confluence of economic environmental pressures, pressures on the golf course to lengthen safety concerns which I
know you've talked at length about. There's there's that you know path, and then there's this path of increased hitting distance. At some point they're going to converge and it's not going to be healthy for the game, and so how can we best try and keep the pass parallel. That's really what this is all about. Certainly, you know, you look at distance, and you can look at the game and in some aspects you can see perhaps there's now an over reliance on distance as opposed to other forms
of the game. And so that's where people want to talk about romanticizing about other eras. But it is important that there be a variety of skills required to be successful in the game. Right. It's poor of the challenge. It's not just how far you hit it, but it's how it's how you sort of deal with the pressures and challenges of the next shot with which it with which comes you know, the need to frankly hit more than just a few clubs in your bag.
I will always contend, and this is just a personal and this might not be the best time to bring up this is a personal opinion, but I will always contend that the game of golf is so like intoxicating and enthralling for people because at the very core, no matter how well you play, you always feel like you suck. And the challenge of it is the aspect of the
game that is so important. Is that that's what makes it different than throwing darts or bowling, is where the perfection is attainable for players of every skill level.
You're You're right. I mean, look, the difference between good and great in our game is paper thin. And I know that you've sort of been there and experienced that, right, we all have. It's the challenge of the game. And that's when you talk to golf fans and golfers, it's the challenge that comes out as the number one attribute, right. It's not I love the game because I can hit it really far. It's I love the game because it challenges me, and as you always hear people say, it's
that one good shot that keeps you coming back. So you hit one good shot and I'm back at the challenge again tomorrow, again trying to get better, knowing that perfection is unattainable. And I think that frankly, it's golf fans. That's why when you step back and you watch, you know, the best players in the world, you are just in awe because you're thinking, how are they able to achieve that? How did he just you know, hit that shot where he cut up, you know, cut over those trees, and like,
it's just it amazes you. Because you can put because we have the same set of playing rules, because we can play the same golf courses, because we play the same equipment, you can put yourself in that player's shoes and realize how unbelievably difficult it is to pull off what he or she just did. Uh.
I wanted to go through some of the you know, common rebuttals for for distance, If that's all right, I just would love to hear your your take on them. These are the things that you know, I see on the internet. I've heard players discuss and I'm curious how how you would address them?
In general?
Why can't architects just alter courses, uh to for the And this is generally pointed towards the point one percent problem.
Yeah, but but again it's not just a point one percent problem, because we're seeing major golf course renovations, you know, all across the industry, right, and a lot of those courses are not hosting even state level events, let alone tour level events. So it's happening. And I would just say that it's been it's been a default solution for for years, right, It's been, well, let's just go ahead and move this bunker here, or hey, let's you know, dude,
let's create a dog leg here. And the question really becomes why, like, why should golf courses have to make that type of investment and capital costs? Why should they have to change potentially historic architecture in some cases just because the ball is going farther. As I mentioned before, I mean, we're the only sport where the venues manipulated to react to equipment as opposed you know, to retain the venue and address equipment. So it's just thinking about it differently.
In conversations, do you guys have you guys talked at all to like golf course owners. I feel like in a way they've kind of been like the silent party in this whole thing. Like everybody talks about professional golf OEMs, but nobody talks about the golf course owner. And a lot of them are effectively small business owners.
Yeah. No, you're right to bring that up, and it goes back to that earlier question about stakeholders, right. I mean, there's it's a big industry, big gains, lots of important viewpoints. So as we look at it, right, golf course owners, operators, golf course superintendents, PGA professionals, so the twenty nine thousand members that are interacting and engaging golfers on a daily basis, we engage with all of them, right, and it's important that we do that I mentioned before, the fully informed.
We need to have a fully informed view on what they see as the issues and what they see as potential solutions. And so, you know, outside of our equipment process, we have this you know, the golf course golfer experience side of things that I spoke to earlier, where we're actively engaging all those groups, right, all those audiences to understand, you know, what is the impact, right, if you lengthen a whole by forty yards, what does it cost to put that team? What is now your annual cost to
maintain that? What is that doing to labor? And if you did that over time you know X number of times, what is that going to do to your bottom line? And how do you pass alone the golfers And so it's important that we understand where you know, as you say, the small business owners are, what their views are on things, and how we can best support them as we move forward.
There.
They're an interesting one because they kind of have both sides of the coin where they where they have the they have to combat distance with their golf course, but they also sell equipment and their pro shops. It's actually an interesting dichotomy.
It is, but it's it's, uh, you know, I don't think it has to be right one or the other. I think that there's there's a happy medium that will come from all this. But you know, you put the mom and pop type golf course where you know, they feel like they have to lengthen just for perception. Right, It's it's marketing as much as anything. My golf course is too short. People don't want to come play here. My driving range is too short. People don't want to
come hit balls here. And so, whether it's right or wrong, people are making changes to their to their courses, to their facilities in order to to sort of address distance and what they think the customer wants from distance.
Yeah, and I think about it a lot of times. One of my favorite places is this little public course ach and golf club. It's fifty nine hundred yards on a good day if you got all the way back. But what are the coolest aspects of it? You know, it's really hard anyway, it's not a pushover at fifty nine hundred yards, but because of you know, just the wonderful topography and everything.
But one of the coolest things is you go play.
There at Saturday, Saturday at eight am, you're done at eleven am. It's unbelievable how much time you save when when the golf course footprints so much smaller.
Yeah, you say you save time, you save, you save you know, resources, you save so many things, and it can be so much more enjoyable. Right. You look at a golf course like that and it's probably very short walks from green to tea. So you finish a hole, you move on to the next and you put a ball in the ear and you just keep going.
Uh.
Those are some of the more most enjoyable experiences you can have as a golfer.
Yeah, and I think obviously anybody that's more interested in the golf course aspect of this, you guys just put you put together. The USGA Green Section put together a new collaborative project that was all focused on golf courses that's incredibly insightful and kind of outlines a lot of the things that we've touched on in this conversation.
Yeah, I mean our Green Section. I mean, that's that's a group, right one hundred years a green USGA Green Section has been in existence and doing things on behalf of the game, from whether it be turf turf grash research to agronomic best practices. But it is very thoughtful research. But that group that I mean, their their hands on the pulse of the game and they're looking I mean, we talk about trends and understanding the future and challenges
the games potentially going to face. I mean, it's that group that has their finger on the pulse.
So let's get back into some rebuttals and Rory Backleroy has some had a statement this week and I was curious if you could address this. He said, Honestly, I think this Distance Insight Report has been a huge waste of time and money because that money that's that its costs to do this report could have been way better distributed getting people into the game, introducing young kids of
the game, introducing minorities the game. Can you go into detail on the cost of the report and where the allocation of money came from, and did this money that was allocated take away from any growing the game initiatives?
Yeah? So, so first let me just start by saying, you know, it is especially when you're talking about you know, best players in the world. I appreciate everybody has opinions, and so I'll never sort of agree disagree. It's just I'll make what I believe to be my statement. But
look again, Rory's entitled to his opinion. I'll just tell you that from my perspective as a governing body, it's important, right we're the objective party, so I think it's important that we have, as I said, our sort of finger on the pulse of the game. And that's really bigger than just equipment related factors with distance. No one else is going to go through and do the comprehensive study.
No one else is going to go through and draw the trend lines as it relates to distance challenges facing the game with resources right and understand the correlation between the two. And so I think it's an important project that we undertook and it's something that's going to benefit the game well into the future as it relates to resources. Right,
we can do multiple things at a single time. What we're able to multitask, we have a great staff, and so everything Roy just listed there totally agree with as being important. Right. I think that as an organization we would say that those are our priorities as well, and we're able to accomplish those things all while at the
same time undertaking this report on distance. So I think if we sat down, I think that we would find we actually agree a lot on what the vision of a healthy game in the future looks like, and the USGA is working hard to help bring that vision to life.
Yeah, it's something that got glossed over with Roy's comments that I kind of gloss Who's asked to follow up about a potential local rule bifurcation that he said, I'd be all for that, you know. Yeah, so I think I think that you know, this convent was one covet and then the other covet.
You know.
He I don't think he's you know, necessarily opposed to a lot of what the study is uncovering in in ways, what about the rebuttal this will have a negative impact on growing the game.
Look, I think the game has always been faced with challenges. Again, I think primarily intimidation, right, people that are new to the game, they can find it really intimidating. And and I'm not sure that a reduction and distance is going to change that. I think we have to look at other things. Right, So hitting the ball far it's an endeavor that a lot of people, you know, especially starting the game you're a year or two in. I want to hit the ball as far as I can. That
will always be there, right, that challenge. But reducing distance by some small amount, I don't think it's going to take away from the enjoyment of the game. As I mentioned before, I mean, there's an inventory of teas in front of us that if we're concerned about our distance into the green being lengthened as a result of a reduction and distance, we can move forward to tea and have just an enjoyable experience tomorrow as we did today.
And so again I don't view distance as being the primary contributing factor to enjoyment.
Why can't we just drow log rough to penalize the long hitters?
Look, that is a golf course set up variable. So certainly things can be done from a strategic standpoint to try and indirectly impact distance, But I don't think that's the solution, right. It's you know, potentially, are you looking at more water? Are you looking at more nutrients? It's just it's something that you can't or governing bodies we don't have control over on a universal basis, and so it's not really addressing the issue from my perspective.
And then kind of a big picture question, you're the senior managing director of governance and I'm just curious, there's a lot of talk obviously with Mike Davis stepping down as CEO soon, will this have any impact on how distance insights the work moves forward with a potential hiring of a new CEO. Is there anything that could impact you know where this project is going.
No, So the short answer is no. Right, as an organization, I think we're all we all believe that there is this cycle of distance that needs to be dealt with. So this is this goes far beyond Mike Davis. Now, certainly Mike is very passionate about the topic. I know a lot of people have associated his name with this topic for years. But this, this goes beyond Mike. Right, This is organizationally and that goes for the RNA as well.
I think as the governing bides again, we step back and globally look at the game and just want to make sure that it's in a healthy place. Want to make sure it's in a good place moving forward. And so as Mike steps down at the end of this year, the new CEO will have a new CEO in place, and and that new CEO is going to believe in the vision as well.
With the with the CT test, I just want to back up for a second. I'm trying to clean up some odds and ends here of things I wanted to ask you the CT test, the how how difficult is this to minister on a regular basis. I'm curious in terms of like, how long does it take?
What goes into it?
Yeah, I mean our test technicians could could tell you. I mean it's not that. It's not that difficult of a process, right. And you have a pendulum with a golf ball on it or a weight that mimics a golf ball, uh, And and it also has the sensors in it, and you literally just drop the pendulum onto the club face and all and the sensors give you the reading in the computer. So it's not a hard
process to go through. Uh. In addition to you know, the U. S G and the RY, the majority of manufacturers, if not all of them that mass produce, have the pendulum so that they can test and calibrate on their end as they're developing the golf club. So it's not Look I'm a non engineer speaking, but the testing itself
is not is not that difficult. You know, there's testing that takes place at certain tour events throughout the year, and that's that's able to take place in a trailer relatively quickly where a player hands over his club and then gets it back not long thereafter. So it's pretty pretty straightforward.
Are you surprised that more testing doesn't take place with ct A as in regards to like you know, when you compare testing that goes into auto racing, cycling and different things on a mechanical object used to you know, play a sport.
I mean, I would just say that I think part of that goes back to the game, right and sort of the spirit and ethos of the game. We're not a sport that gets followed around by a referee with a yellow flag that's just throwing them you know, at every every turn, right, We we apply the rules on our own. Certainly, they're officials in place at certain events to help us out, but for the most part, we're out there acting with integrity, and I think that that
carries over into the equipment testing as well. I think, more than anything, the equipment testing is just done to ensure manufacturing is sort of is manufacturing with the clubs that put in the tour player's hands or are in line. But there's there's been nothing to signal that there's some large swath of non conforming equipment that any tournament organizer needs to be worried about. We just haven't seen it because again, as golfers, we all want to do the
right thing. We want to make sure that we're playing with the right equipment, conforming equipment. We want to make sure we're playing by the rules.
So thank you so much for coming on and shedding some light on last week's announcements. I think it is really helpful, and I appreciate for anybody that's out there looking.
To, you know, voice, how do they reach out? Is there an email?
Is there a web page that they could reach out to with their you know, I know, with their comments and different things.
Yeah, the best the best place to go is on the USGA's website, so it's us GA dot org. And if they go under the plane tab, there'll be a distance Insights page that they can go to and that has all of the documents that we've discussed today, the distance report in the area of interest, and it also includes an email box on how to get in touch with us.
Awesome.
Thanks so much for the time, Thomas, and we look forward to hopefully talking to you again as this process moves forward.
Andy, thanks for having me. I really appreciate it.