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 brid egg Friday egg, the dreaded Friday Friday, Frida Egg Frida egg.
Bride egg Lie, I'm about ready to run off of the course. Welcome to the Friday Golf Podcast. I'm Garrett Morrison, and today we're talking about rollback with two high level USGA officials. Our guests are Mike Wan, the CEO of the USGA, and Thomas Pagel, the Chief Governance Officer. So on Wednesday, the USGA and RNA announced that they would institute a universal rollback of the golf ball starting in twenty eight for elite competition and filtering down to the
amateur game by twenty thirty. One of the key revelations of this announcement is that the governing bodies expect the impact of the new ball to be substantially less on the average amateur's game than has been reported so far. And we'll get into some of those details. So if you've listened to this podcast before, you know that I favor a rollback. In fact, i'd get behind a larger rollback than the one that the USGA and RNA have
been intending to carry out here. But having Mike One and Thomas Pagel on this podcast at this moment, I think is an opportunity to pose to them some challenging questions to get their responses to some common criticisms of the rollback. So I'm hoping to represent not just my perspective on this issue, but also bring in the main counter arguments that I've been seeing, because I think it's
important to subject the governing bodies ideas to some scrutiny here. Now, before we get into my interview with Mike Wan and Thomas Pegel, I want to say a few words about our sponsor for this episode, Fat Cork. Fat Cork works exclusively with small, family run grower champagne houses. These are producers who grow their own grapes. Grower champagne is expressive of a particular vineyard. It's made with care and often through methods that have been passed down through generations. Now,
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So as a special deal for Frida Egg listeners, Fat cork is offering free shipping on any of their products with the code Golf. They handwrite all gift notes on nice stationery and a human will answer your call or email. So check out fat Cork and with that, here is my interview with Mike Wan and Thomas Pagel All right. I am joined by Mike Wan and Thomas Pagel of the USGA. I know it's been a busy day for the two of you. You've both done a lot of talking so far, So thank you so much for joining me,
and let's get right into it. You know, today was a big day. Back in March, the governing bodies announced the possibility of a model local rule that would roll back the golf ball just for elite levels of competition, and today it was announced that the direction is more for a universal rollback. So Mike, why don't we start with you? How did we get to this point?
It even goes back farther than that, Jared, if you go back a year before the MLR announcement, we had announced it across the board ball at speed between one hundred and twenty five one hundred and twenty seven miles an hour of clubhead speed in conjunction with an MLR club. So we've definitely made some changes along the way. And as Thomas and I have said many times, if you're going to call something a notice in comment period or in areas of interest and have a comment period, you're
going to get comments. And when you get quality feedback, and I would say even the feedback I didn't want to hear was quality feedback. It requires you to kind of think it through. So answering your specific question. When we were a year ago and came to the market, we you know, we had we believed from day one that one of our four core tenants was minimize any significant impact. Quite frankly, it was really have no discernible impact on the enjoyment of the game for the amateur,
for the amateur, your recreational player. And so with a model local rule, we could really address distance, specifically at the elite male level, where distance was it was most concerning. We could probably do that a little bit more significantly than we can do across the board, and we could sort of leave the rest of the game untouched, which sounds great. See it still sounds great when I say it to you, But when you go out and have those comments.
It wasn't just Tours, but it was you.
Know, PJ of America, a couple of couple of strong manufacturers, and and even some individual consumer groups that came to us and said, hey, losing the magic between what the pros play and what the average recreational player can player wants to play. You know, if you're sitting in a pro am and that person is playing the same game, same equipment, same hole as you, that difference is part.
Of the uniqueness that makes golf golf. And so I didn't I don't really want to argue that. We just listened to that and realized.
That that was really a universal Almost everybody's most significant piece of comment to us was if you can figure out a way to address distance long term, but not do it in this model, local rule, split way, that would be our preference. So and I remember saying to a couple of folks, including a couple of tours, you know that if I do this across the board, I've got to really reduce the severity of this because I'm not going to have any real significant impact on the
recreational game. I'm going to have to take longer to get to market because I'm going to ask manufacturers to make ball changes across their line. And you know they, you know, they both knew that and like that less severity longer in the marketplace, which probably a good thing.
So, and answer your question, where did we get there?
We took a different path, and in really listening to the marketplace on that path.
It was clear to us, and actually made clear to.
Us directly in a couple of cases, that if you're going to make a change on distance, our overwhelming preference would be to do so and keeping the game under one set of rules, set of regulations, if you will, And that's what got us to hear. And then once you start talking about and across the board change, the first question you can have is can the change be significant enough to matter while at the same time making sure that you don't kill the momentum or excitement or
joining force of this game. And that's what this is. This the outcome of this is really a delicate balance, if you will. It's it's finding the right balance to say this would be significant enough to blow the pace of growth at the high at the high elite level for quite a while. At the same time, you know, if the average recreational golfer moves their team markers up through or four yards a non issue for them. So doesn't mean it's easy, doesn't mean everybody has to like it.
But to answer your question, that's how you kind of get from one end to the other end. Even the folks that don't necessarily love everything about this outcome. The folks that really had a voice in this thing, and really we're pushing hard on model local rule see themselves in this and they should because it was their voices that really talked us back into this direction.
Thomas, could you take me into what actually is going to change when it comes to the testing of golf balls for conformity with USGA and RNA rules.
Yeah, Garrett, what we're talking about is updating the test conditions for what we call the Overall Distance Standard, which is the measure by which we governor regulate golf balls. It's been in place for almost fifty years. It was first established in nineteen seventy six, and the test has never been a measure of success, never been a measure
of scoring. It truly has been about how do we regulate golf balls to manage their distance or their efficiency or effectiveness when in the hands of the longest players in the game. When that was first established in nineteen seventy six, the late Frank Thomas did some research that was a data set of one. There was a golfer at the time that was known to be a long hitter, and he hit a whole bunch of balls and we arrived at one hundred and nine mile an hour swing speed.
It's been updated several times since nineteen eighty. There were some small updates, and then again in two thousand and two, and in two thousand and four again we stepped back and looked and that one hundred and nine miles an hour was no longer reflective of the longest hitters at that time, so we updated the clubhead speed to one
hundred and twenty miles an hour. As we sit here today, in that one hundred and twenty miles an hour, by the way, on our test, which doesn't achieve a smash factor one to five, it's more of like a one to four to seven. Did the ball speed that's produced at one hundred and twenty miles an hours one hundred
and seventy six miles an hour. So as we sit here today, we look at testing equipment at one hundred and seventy six miles an hour and step back and that's not reflective of the longest hitters of the game, and so we're going to update that to one hundred and eighty three miles an hour. We're also going to adjust the launch conditions so we're going to go from
a ten degree launch angle to an eleven degree launch angle. Again, as players try and achieve more distance, they're looking for higher launch angles, so trying to reflect the longest golfers, and also lowering the spin from twenty five to twenty down to twenty two hundred, again trying to be more reflective of the conditions those longest players are trying to achieve. So this really is about ensuring that our testing standards
are relevant to the current game. And as we look at there's a lot of data you can look at. We've looked at the data the same over the last forty years, not only distance and the amount of distance increases, but also how we measure or look at the longest players. And if you look in twenty twenty three, the average of the top twenty five longest players in the PGA Tour,
their ball speed was right around one eighty three. So that's in twenty twenty three, you know, four years before we're going to implement this in twenty and twenty eight. If we go backwards, we didn't have shot link or robust data set in two thousand and four, but in two thousand and seven when that was first of the average of the top twenty five longest players over the two thousand and seven PGA Tour season was one hundred
and seventy six, which is how we measure today. So it shows the trend line of how we got here year over year, but it also shows that we've been consistent in how we've updated the standard over the years, again trying to regulate or manage the distance of a golf ball, not necessarily looking at measures of success or scoring.
Thomas, Where does this come down to for the average player in terms of impact on their average distance off the tee?
Well, yeah, let's start with the recreational golfer, because that's you know, the audits, that's who we're speaking to. It's going to be five yards or less. Right, So, when we're looking at clubhead speeds and launch conditions of the average recreational golfers, the average male recreational golfer is going to be right around three to five yards. The average recreational female is going to be close to that one
to three yard range. So as swing speeds decrease as spin increases, the impact to those recreational golf golfers is really going to be minimal, and so when Mike talks about you know, the three yards, pick up the t's and move them forward. That's really what we're looking at. And the other thing is this is limited to drivers, right, just given our launch conditions. As recreational golfers, by the time you two to three ordre hybrid, you're probably not
going to notice. At the highest level those players that achieve ball speeds of one eighty three or higher, which is what we're testing at, the impact is probably thirteen to fifteen yards, but we would still estimate that by the time they get to their five iron, given the launch conditions, they won't see a distance decrease from today. So a lot of people have been talking, you know, this is going to be ten percent through the bag.
That's just certainly not the case. We're increasing the test speed by about just under four percent, and that's around the impact that we're going to have on golfers. But again the recreational game, we really are looking at the driver.
That's where the impact will be. And another point for the recreational game is as we look at the current list of conforming balls that we have post today, about a third of those balls would meet the standard that we're going to put into effect in twenty twenty eight.
And so what we mean by that, we're not talking balls you see at elite level competitions, but certainly balls that are manufactured and marketed and played by recreational golfers will continue to conform in twenty twenty eight when this goes into effect, and certainly in twenty thirty when it goes into effect for the recreational game.
So when it comes to balls that might not be affected by this new standard, we're sort of talking about the soft cover or low compression models of golf balls, as that's sort of what we're talking about.
Yeah, the two or three layer balls that have a different cover that aren't necessarily you're a than that just have different properties that will continue to conform.
Great Now, Mike, in terms of what the USGA and RNA know about how average golfers feel about the potential of a golf ball rollback across the game, what sense have you gotten or or what specific studies have you done to assess the general feeling about this prospect among the players who play the game recreationally.
Yeah, The difficult part of this, Garrett, is when you if you ask people how do you feel about being shorter in a few years, We don't really have to do a study for that, right, And And what we've quickly learned in this sort of early weekend before we announced where some of the news got leaked is, you know, the desire for a lot of people to kind of sensationalize this and you know, generate more clicks and more calls and more more craziness.
And in today's world, it's easier, it's easier to believe the bad stuff than the fact.
So, as I've said a few times today, if you want to listen to the folks that will tell you this is going to take twenty yards off your drive, then feel free to listen to them.
It's not based in any kind of fact. It's you know, it's it's myth based.
I mean, we're being even the different data when we when we say zero to five yards, did the average recreational golfer that's we took those estimates, that took them to independent third party ball expert as well and just said, hey, what are you what are your ranges, and they came back on our same ranges for that for an average for a player.
For the people generating the most ball speed. So the fact is this is going to be I'm a recreational golfer. I play a lot of golf.
I think I could tell you how far I hit a drive, But if I really had to pick the number, I wouldn't really probably be within eight yards of the truth, And I probably have never, in the course of fourteen holes of driving, hit a drive in the exact same yards each time. I understand the people that can, I watched them all the time, and they playing a lot
of our events. I'm just not one of them. So if you told me my drive went two forty two or two thirty nine, I'm not exactly sure I could tell the difference unless I knew the difference.
Now I'm not trying to bid a little.
It is.
This is something we're doing to make sure that our you know, the next generation and the generation after that inherit a game that's at least as healthy as the one one we did. But in the grand scope of this, oh my gosh, you know, rollback. I mean, the rollback word itself generates all kinds of reaction. What we've said from the very beginning is we will not implement a
plan that lessens the enjoyment of playing the game. If you don't think you know, us, together with thirty thousand PGA professionals and two thousand LPGA professionals, can manage a three yard difference on every golf course. And if for that very front tee where there's nowhere to go, if that person's playing the right ball, as Thomas just said, that ball's not changing in twenty twenty eight, so there's zero difference.
So I think it's and if the worst thing that happens in twenty twenty eight is everybody slides their te.
Box up four five yards, including the back team, move the back t up twenty yards. If you want, what we can't have on that back t is room to keep going back over the next twenty thirty and forty years. I've said this many times. If if the tours around the world say, okay, you're going to reduce our yards by ten yards, we're going to move our teas up by twelve, right, we could care less what you do with your t's, what you do with your scoring.
Feel free.
We just want to make sure there's room for this game to grow without asking every venue to grow. Imagine if Baseball said to the green Monster, in the next ten years, you're going to probably have to move the green Monster back, and if you can't, we'll find other venues.
You know.
Just sports don't do that, And so we're not going to save every venue that was been built from the beginning of time. We get that, But at the same time, we should respect the fact that one of the things this game's going to have to be in the next thirty to fifty years is sustainable and environmentally conscious. And this keeps us from getting into a place thirty forty years from now where the game.
Of golf is viewed in a way we certainly wouldn't accept today.
And I'd like to eventually get into those questions about sustainability, both financial and environmental. But first, and this is for Mike again, there are those who claim to be worried that this new rule will dampen the popularity of golf at the very moment when the game is experiencing a kind of surge it hasn't seen in a while. Are you worried about that prospect as well?
We worried about it through this whole process, you know, And anytime you're talking about change It's why you know our changes are as minimal as they are to make sure that.
We didn't have that impact. I'm not concerned.
I wouldn't have launched something today that I thought had the potential to dampen that interest. Definitely would not have Do I think we can swallow this change up pretty quickly, at least in terms of impact to the recreational golfer.
I believe that.
I think if anybody takes any bit of time and thinks that through, they will too. When you get out of the emotion of just the first word and you get into what specifically are we talking about, I think this is something that will certainly be able to address. I mean, for everybody who's telling us about how great the game is, do you think there's anybody who spends more time on the excitement of the game, both today and in the future than the RNA and the USJ.
We don't have members otherwise to focus on.
We don't worry about all contracts, we don't worry about member retirement programs.
This is our business.
And and you know, nobody invests more in the growth of our game, in our case in the States and the erinace case around the world than we do. This is this is as exciting for us as it is for everybody else, because you know, our name is United States Golf Association, and the United States Golf being healthy has got to be priority one.
Now, Thomas, getting back to some of the specifics of the technology and its potential impact. First of all, you've you've mentioned what the governing bodies expect the various impacts of this new ball to be on different swing speeds, different skill levels. First of all, where did you get that data? How did you find all of that out?
So, our engineers and our scientists have tested balls with with aerodynamic changes that are consistent with how we believe manufacturers would approach this, and we've touched them under simulations to meet these new conditions, and we do find that the higher swing speeds excuse me, have a greater impact of that thirteen to fifteen yards, and that as we get to the lower swing speeds. Again, the recreational game,
it's that five and under. For the average PGA tour player, it's probably in the nine to eleven yard range, and for the average LPGA or elite female, it's going to be in that five to seven range. And so this was about running simulations, but again with balls that we
have examples of. And then there's some extrapulating and some interpolating that our engineers and our scientists did to arrive at these numbers, and that was done both by the USGA, by the RNA, and as Mike said, a third party industry expert who was very well known in the industry and as well as shared with the manufacturers, and several manufacturers have agreed with the ranges. In fact, they arrived at the same ranges on their own relative to their
own equipment. So it's all simulation based, but we're very confident.
In it now. In that vein. There have been some claims out there elite players will gain back any distance that they might lose under these new regulations pretty quickly. How do you react to that.
Look, this is not going to stop distance gains. As we look back over the last forty years, we see a pretty constant increase of distance about a yard per year in that timeframe. I'd expect that to continue moving forward. There might be a small period of time where it flattens out, but then it'll pick back up in distance will go back and we're okay with that. This is not about stopping distance, to Mike's point, this is about
slowing the pace of distance. And so in fifteen years from now, if we're right back to where we are now, we're okay with that. We might need to take further action. But what that means is we're not going to be fifteen yards further than we are today, which is the pace again that we've seen.
I think we can agree, Jarret that whether we implement a change in twenty twenty eight or we don't, players are going to chase distance as an advantage because if you can, if you can achieve it and you keep it on the on the course, you can use it as an advantage.
So we know that, in fact, one of the things we said.
From the very beginning we would not implement is some sort of governor on the ball that it falls out of the sky three hundred twenty yards and drives just couldn't go farther than that. So sometimes when players say, well, just don't let it go any farther than it is right now. So you mean your drive or his drive, I mean, when are we going to win? When's it going to hit the fence and fall down to the ground.
We don't want that.
We want this game to be about athleticism and drive and trying to get better. So I think, to your original point, will people earn this distance back at one hundred percent? How fast they'll earn that back? Nobody knows, including them. But to Thomas's point, will it slow the pace of where we would have been in twenty years with no change versus where we will be with this change?
It will will one hundred percent slow that.
Exactly how long and how much to be determined, But it's this change has much more of a future vision to it than what's going to happen. When people talk about this change today, they all are answering today's terms and what I'm going to do.
And what we're going to do.
And we're looking at this more over twenty to thirty year period in terms of how it helps helps our game longer term.
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that with the purchase of a club. So again that's code fried Egg. All one word, Mike. We've heard from various stakeholders to use the terminology that the USGA likes to use when it comes to this. We've heard from some stakeholders today including ball manufacturers, the PGA Tour and others other big voices in the golf world. How do you feel generally about the feed back or the statements that have come out from those sectors so far.
Yeah, I'll give you three responses.
And again, you know, this is not the first time they'd be accused of being an optimistic god.
But number one, I'm really.
I'm glad that in almost all of those statements we've seen people point out that the process has been open, iterative, that you know, some of their comments have shown up in this final outcome, not all of them, but I'm glad that they're at least recognizing that this has been a pretty back and forth, open process with real change coming after some of these notice and comment periods.
So that's one. Number two is.
It doesn't surprise me that the people that didn't get the exact change they wanted isn't implemented.
That you know that they're they're not all the way there.
But if you read these different statements, or if you know what Thomas and I know, each of them have a slightly different perspective on what they think the right outcome should be, and they're certainly not like each other. Even if you read two ball manufacturers, one of them said we really prefer the end and Morton said, we really want to thank the USJ and the RNA for not pursuing the MLR. So there's there's two ball manufacturers, significant players in the business, having two points of view
on a proposal that's real. That's what happens when you have industry feedback. So so one is I'm glad they're to the open process, too is I'm not surprised that it's not exactly what we want.
The third is that kind of comes out in some of these is we wish they just wouldn't have been this aggressive, which you know, this is too much change at one time, And I'll just address that real quick to say, I understand if you come from a.
Scope of I don't want my members or my players to have that much change at once, Can you please just make a lesser change and then evaluate it more frequently, Because we would rather in governance identify a problem, identify a solution, implement that solution, and then get out of the way for as long as you can give the game back and because a lot of interruption from the governing bodies.
Isn't our goal. But you also have to think about this from all the other parts of the business. And what we know is it would not be reasonable but really prudent for us to say to manufacturers, we're going to make a small change that you're going to have to make across your product line, and then we're just going to do it a lot more often, or potentially
do it a lot more often. That sounds great in one meeting a one set of one group of members, and sounds idiotic in another meeting with another group of members. And that's that's what governance is. That's listening through those things. So I understand the comment of.
We just wish you wouldn't have moved so far and everybody could just adjust to it so much easier. But if you're going to have a real impact on the long part of the game, you just have to look at it more often.
You have to moment change more often, so be it.
But that wouldn't be realistic for the governing bodies to essentially assess that on the manufacturer, doesn't Our hope is you know, if you're a player playing this game, you might go through this change once, but you don't go through this change multiple times in your in your career.
And the same thing for manufacturers.
We want to be able to make a change and stay out of the way as long as we think we can and let the game be the game.
One other thing on the stakeholders, right, I mean, I think it's sort of today's culture and just where we are in the world, but everybody tries to create these divides and makes it seem like it's very divisive. I think the feedback around the process and sort of the respect for the process and the appreciation to participate shows this truly is a partnership as an industry, as a game, right,
The PGA Tour and the USGA are great partners. We're great partners with the PGA of America have deep friendships and relationships across both organizations. You look at the manufacturers and it's not like we jump in, give them a piece of research and then wait six months to hear from them. Our team is working with their team on a weekly, if not daily basis, not only on current product,
but also future product as well. So that relationship that working together, that partnership in this industry, it exists, and I think the feedback we've heard so far is really reflective of that.
So a question for Mike, I know you can't predict the future, but what if the PGA Tour were not to adopt this new ball, what would the golf landscape look like as a result of that, Well, it would.
Be exactly what the PJ tor asked us to avoid, you know, when we went to the PJ Tour and said, what if we created a different ball for for you and elite amateur competitions and that kind of thing, and what if, you know what if there was a one for you and one for everybody else. So I would be shocked by that response, given that that was the one thing they asked us not to do, which is
to separate the two entities. So if they said, you know what, We're going to go our own way, you go your way, that's that's the exact that's the exact opposite of their number one.
Piece of feedback. I like I said, And I think the Thomas's point.
You know, we've you know, Jay Seth, David Abley's, Chip Brewer, I mean, David Borrow. These are these are friends. These are people that I'm glad are in the business because these are leaders that I that I like and I trust, and and as as as as they've said to me many times, as I said them, as one person said to me, I'm gonna push you until you don't let me push you anymore. And then when you tell me
it's over, we're going to go win. And that's that's you know, that's how we're that's how we're viewing this. And you know, we took a long process, maybe longer than some would like, maybe longer sometimes that some even inside our.
Buildings would like. We made a lot of changes.
When we started this, Garrett, we were one hundred percent in the belief that we were going to test balls going forward what we called optimum flight conditions. We would look at a ball, figure out what flight conditions maximize that ball's flight, and that's how we test that ball.
Then the next ball would come in, we'd optimize its launch conditions. And we loved it because it's doable in today's technology.
After our first area of interest with manufacturers, they pointed out for us that, well, that's doable.
And we understand it.
Let me explain to you the pain that causes an R and D process, the extra expense that causes, and so would you guys please look at whether or not it's worth whatever yard or two you think you could develop by ball. And I remember sitting in a meeting and I think it was Thomas and his team taking us through that, and we said, that's so logical, and that's so fair.
Let's move on.
Even though for years we were convinced that was a better way to go. So, you know, if you're going to go through this open dialogue process, sometimes like an our case, sometimes something like optimum fly.
Condition we really believed in, you're going to move on from.
And I can tell you that there's definitely manufacturers and tours and associations that have things they really believed in.
But they didn't get it set of in the final thing.
But at the same time they did certainly get things that were in the Addressing CT creep on a driver was not part of our original premise. The tours and quite frankly, tours and associations and a couple of manufacturers asked us to take a closer look at CT creep at face rebound creep and see if we could addressed something before it actually got played in a competition, rather than just testing on site.
What can you do to make sure that's addressed early on.
So to their credit, they created a process and quite frankly, an outcome that wasn't even part of our original vision.
Now, Thomas, the main rationale for the new ball rule at least, I mean maybe not the main rationale from the perspective of the governing bodies. But one of the points that really is persuasive to me personally is that distance gains have caused golf courses to lengthen and expand, and that this trend is a threat to long term sustainability of the game. This is clearly happening at courses
that host elite men's tournaments. I don't think anybody can deny that, But many golfers I've spoken to are skeptical that this issue exists at average courses, everyday courses that don't host PGA Tour events or major championships. So, Thomas, what can you say to persuade me or someone else that distance gains are a problem for courses outside of the PGA Tour and men's major rotations.
I think the first thing is we have to look at how you define elite male competitions or elite competitions. This is not about a single tour, right There are elite competitions held across the globe of thousands of courses. Whether you think of the collegiate game, you think of state amateurs, you think of state open, you think of
national championships. Outside of the US, there are league competition competitions played everywhere, and there's a strong correlation that you can see, and this is part of the Distance Insights report that people can go find on our website. There's a graph that shows a strong correlation between increase in hitting distances and increasing course lengths. And there's another study in there that shows the top one hundred courses, only eighteen of which have hosted a major at some point.
All top one hundred follow that same trend line. So it's this stigma of championship golf course or wanting to host an elite event that might not be a tour event, might not be a US Open, but yet they want
to be able to support the game. Our Green Section recently did a study with our allied Golf Association, so the state golf associations, and looked at an inventory, the inventory of golf courses relative to the length where they played their state events, their state amateurs, their state Opens, and if distance were to continue to increase at the pace that it is today, in thirty years, they would be down to an infantry of two to five percent of the golf courses across each state where they could
actually conduct these events. So this is a real issue that's facing the game, and it is as distance is increasing. Again, you talk about one yard year over year, it doesn't sound like a lot, but when you step back twenty years from now, that's twenty additional yards and that could mean up to two hundred yards of additional length on a golf course. That comes with the cost. Like we are one of the only sports it says, if you have things change, go ahead and change your venue to accommodate.
And we want to alleviate that burden because that burden comes with the real cost, both economic, whether it's moving bunkers, whether it's building new tees, but also environmental. That's not the right message for the game that we should be increasing our footprint because we have people hitting it longer.
And so this is again to Mike's point, this is if there's a golf course that's been passed over in the modern era, this isn't going to bring that golf course out of that pile and put that back in. But that's going to do is it's going to slow the pressures, slow the burden put on golf courses. So we're not adding other golf courses to that list at the pace that we're doing today.
Thomas, I want to press on this again. You mentioned that the range of golf courses affected by elite men's tournament play is maybe broader than many people think. It's not just the PGA Tour, it's not just the majors, it's also these state amateur hosts or what have you point taken. But what about courses that don't do any of that, that don't host really any kind of elite
tournament or have no aspirations of doing so. Have those courses also been affected by these overall trends toward more distance and more advanced equipment.
You certainly see examples through golf courses that don't host these elite competitions that again are just in their minds trying to keep up with the modern game. These mom and pop courses that aren't going to host anything. But they don't think that having a back tee at fifty
yards is actually enjoyable for the recreational golfers. So they're looking to find land, they're looking to build new tea's, they're looking to add bunkers to try it add a challenge to meet the standards that golfers today are looking for relative to their plane of the game.
Heared.
I was just driving back from New York and Scott Langley, who's our former tour player works at the USGA ahead of our player relations experiences, called me and he was out in Vegas with the College Coaches Show, and he had presented on this distance this morning, just to give him the and I said, well, what were the conversations like here in the break, And one of the things he said caught me, said, Mike, the number of coaches who said to me, our home course is a great
course to practice in, our home campus course. Can't play an event there, I just, you know, just can't play a college event on that course anymore. And so we sort of just we sort of just say that, nod yes, and move on. You know, here's a golf course built for college or right next to college campus. In fact, I can't play an event there anymore. It is fine, you know, we just move on. We'll find another one
in town. But once we go thirty yards thirty years into the future, and maybe thirty yards into the future, how many fewer choices do they have for college events? In our case, you might find it strange, but junior amateur courses are getting tougher to find. I mean, we have junior amateur courses that are looking for two hundred and seventy yard carries for the for the bunkers, and you know, you're you're talking about young kids gnerating ball speeds at a higher level.
And so and we we always think about this as a US thing.
Remember this is happening all around the world and countries all around the world in a lot of places where simply saying work it out, find yourself some more.
Land, or figure out how to get more out of the land you're.
In is not only a difficult task, it may be governmentally challenged, you know, to actually do that kind of thing. And so I always find a strong when somebody says, whether that's not a problem on my course, or it's not a problem you're talking to me about.
Today in today's world.
I'm asking you to think about thirty years from now and a thirty years from our world and how.
Many more courses.
Because I'll ask anybody in their hometown, can you think of a great old venue that used to hold some amazing things that doesn't anymore, And they'll rattle off a couple I'm like well, the whole world. If the high end game is thirty yards longer over the next three how many more of those courses will we rattle.
Off in your town? And you know, like I said, football wouldn't do that.
They wouldn't just move past a bunch of venues, and baseball doesn't do that. So we've got to we've got to care enough about future generations to not hand them this challenge.
Given the scale of that issue, and given the associated costs, will a five percent reduction really make a dent?
That's good question, and it's a fair question. I said this this morning and I'll consistently say it, and it's unfortunately turned out to be true. I'm going to come back to a computer that has as many emails saying I can't believe you just did that, just the same a number of even us as I can't believe that's all you did.
You know, that's governance, And when we talk about it across the board change, we simply couldn't do whatever we thought was right at one end and let the rest be. I mean, we have to govern for the overall game first, and we did in this case. So you know, you're back to Thomas's point, I don't think it brings a lot of courses back into play who are no longer
in play. But if this change keeps us at this general distance for the next fifteen or twenty years, and so wherever we are today is kind of kind of what we're dealing with in fifteen or twenty years, that feels like more than worth the effort.
Thomas, there was some material in the press release from the governing bodies today about a continued interest in driver head regulations. Could you tell me more about that microfer to CT creep earlier, I think probably a lot of people out there don't know what that means. So what is what is the USGA, what is the RNA looking at here?
So, so, as Mike explained to CT creep, we're going to address starting this year. And the CT creep is really you have a driver that can form meets the spring like effect tests or the CT test we have which measures how quickly a ball bounces off the club face, but yet after not many hits, all of a sudden it can creep over that conformance number. And so we're going to start testing clubs. If a club is submitted
that's close to the conformance number. We're not going to render a decisional in that club and add it to the conforming driver list. We're actually going to request more models and we're going to fire with a can and fireballs at that club phase one hundred and fifty times to see what the number is. So we just this is about trying to ensure that the product before it ever gets in the hands of the longest players, remains conforming.
And that's not just important to us. It's important to the players because if they're winning, having success, they really want to know that they're doing it with conforming equipment. But it's also about adding additional test for the future. Right, we don't know what composits are next, what metals are next. If ct creep can be design into a product, we don't want that, the manufacturers don't want that, the tours don't want that, and so this will help be a
proactive measure against that specific topic. And then we also reference our desire just to more generally look at the driver, right, the forgiveness of the driver. In twenty twenty two, as part of the area of interest we issued, we talked about a model local rule for a driver where we are going to investigate lowering CT or that spring like effect and lowering MOI or the forgiveness. The reality is, as we began to look at that, it gets really
really challenging. There workarounds that manufacturers can get through just changing CG and doing a few other things to where you can't just focus on a driver. In order for it to be impactful. You actually have to go down into three woods, five woods, hybrids, in some cases irons for it to be effective. So we're sitting here looking at a model local rule that could potentially have people changing out four or five clubs out of their bag,
and that was just untenable. That's unachievable, especially if you're looking at a model local rule of Ross the Elite game, which as we talked about, is not defined to one tour. And so you know, we set that to the side, but we know that that discussion continues. We hear it from players, we hear it from others. I'm saying, it's really the driver that we should be looking at, or
we should be looking at the driver as well. And because that conversation is out there, we don't want to be blind to it, and so we're going to continue to investigate. Are there things that we could do with the driver, you know, around that forgiveness, so that golfers aren't necessarily swinging as hard as they can at it and getting the results that they're getting. We don't know what that would look like. Frankly, we have no idea what timeline that could be. What we issue today is
not a formal area of interest. It's just a recognition of the community that we know it's important to people and that's the role we play, and so we're going to continue to look at that and see if there's a solution for some point in the future.
So, Mike, when you look at the modern driver, what do you think are some of the issues with it? How would you like to see things change in that area? Potentially?
Yeah, I don't know.
If I would say issues with it, I would just say in the hands to here to Thomas pointing the hands of the of the fastest ball speed players in the.
World, there's not a lot of downside if I'm missing the center.
And if you just jump back, you know, twenty five years ago, you know, a mishit was was significant enough that standing on the eighteenth t with a creek on the right or left you had to think about, you know, there was there was more to think about than.
How hard could I could I swing it?
And even at the younger ages, it wasn't just about swinging as hard as you can. And we'll figure out the rest less by the rest later. But we don't really have a good answer for that. Jarrett and I think what we're essentially setting in that paper and that when what we announced today is that's an area we're
still going to have to assess. One of the things we learned through this whole area of interest and notice in common period is when you tell people what you're thinking about, you get a lot of insights from others about how you might do it.
Now you have to kind of weed through some of the crazy.
But the reality of it is telling people kind of something we're really perplexed by tends to un ale some others that maybe maybe thought their idea was crazy, But when get in front of us, we really start thinking
it through. So we just don't know that. Going back all the way back to the beginning talking about the recreational golfer, the real problem we have on drivers is if we were going to make a driver that had a significant reduction in in forgiveness enough to really make a difference in the hands of elite player, that driver would be crushing from an amateur game excitement, performance, enjoyed
the game. So until we kind of figure out a better model, we can figure out, you know, a driver or a three ord or even a rescue club that that gets that that changes it quite a bit for an elite player. But bringing that across the board and at this point kind of trying to stay with you across the board team is unrealistic and just the wrong thing to do for the game. So we won't go there. But we're not We're not the toured. We're just we just don't have the right answer yet.
So, Thomas, these questions around the driver bring to mind a separate set of concerns about how the modern game has evolved. So far. We've talked mainly about long term sustainability, golf course footprint, that area of concern, but another one is skill. What skills are being rewarded and what skills are kind of slipping underground right now at the elite
levels of the game. Could I get some thoughts from you on what the governing body's goal is when it comes to emphasizing certain skills or bringing back certain skills in the way the game is played by the best players.
Yeah. Look, I think we've been very clear on this since we issued the Distance Report. We believe the games at its best when a variety of skills are needed to determine success. And we have seen certain skills begin to become more important than others. And that's a concern, right, like, how can we help the game try to find that balance? And today certainly will be a start of that, but it's not going to solve it totally and we recognize that. But if it does help the variety of skills, we
think that's important. But the reality is, I think Mike mentioned this earlier. You look at tours or tournament organizers of elite competitions across the globe. They can set up the golf course in certain ways to demonstrate or have certain skills come through, and we don't control that, and that's okay. But for those that share the view that it's important for a variety of skills to determine success, we want to be able to help support that for sure.
Now back to you, Mike, these changes around the ball that the timeline that we're looking at right now is you know, it's not out of this decade, but there's plenty of time. You know. I often I look at twenty thirty and I consider how old I'm going to be or how old my kids are going to be, and it starts to seem like a long time. And that's twenty thirty is when these changes will likely come into effect for the amateur game. Twenty twenty eight is
more what's being targeted for elite competition. So why is there this much time between the announcement and the implementation and what do you think can be or should be achieved in those years.
So the first on the why, it's to be fair to the game and to the people who are part of it. It's, you know, we may want to go faster, but I think when we make a change like this across the board that affects a lot of people's businesses, we need to be cognizant of the time it takes to do that.
Right, I think we need to be cognizant of the people.
That have inventory, and retailers that have inventory, and people that have grudge inventory. And so let's let's you know, as my father used to always say, it's never too late to do the wrong, to do the right thing, but doing the right thing too quick and can sometimes be wrong. So I, you know, I was born with a lot of skills. Patients wasn't one of them. So this, you know, this is harder for me probably than it
was for many. But to me, I would rather make sure we were protecting you know, we're protecting the game through adjustment, then feel like we have to throw anybody into an electrical shock to get through adjustments. So, yes, this is going to take a while, and yes it's fair to critique the pace in which this change will come into play, just like it's fair to critique maybe we should have done this five or ten years ago.
That's fair critique too. But the most important thing is that we are that we're willing to make adjustments to the game that we think that can be right long term. And I think this is exactly what the recreational business side of the stakeholders asked for and exactly what the manufacturing side of the business asked for. In order to do this in a right way and not cause more stress, anxiety, and quite frankly unnecessary, financial strain because of the change,
and we thought that was more than fair. Like I said, not every input makes it to the final output, but the ones that we think, quite frankly, we can get over ourselves and not be twenty twenty six, but be twenty eight if we think we're actually if we're actually listening to quality feedback. And you know, sometimes two years seems like forever, but in the grand scope of.
Things, it's not much as long as you get to a better.
Place, Thomas, would you expect that a new set of regulations around the ball might be necessary when it's twenty thirty five or twenty forty five. Would you expect this to be kind of a thing that happens at regular intervals, Because, as you mentioned earlier, the official distance standard has been changed various times throughout history. This is not the first time that something has been altered in that formula. So do you think this is going to be an ongoing kind of change?
This will become I mean, it is part of long term management of distance. Right to Mike's earlier point, we don't know at what pace or what timeline distance will continue to grow post twenty twenty eight, but we believe as it does the RNA that it will continue to grow and there will be a point in time where we're back to where we are today and we'll need to consider further action. And so I fully expect that to be the case. When that will be tough to
put a timeline on it. Don't believe it's going to be twenty thirty five, you know, as Mike mentioned earlier, part of our goal was really to have meaningful impact and minimize disruption, and so we believe that the change being proposed will have a meaningful enough impact to spread out the wave of change to where there'll be a long enough time horizon before the governing bodies have to
take further action. Because if it's twenty thirty five when we're taking further action, we really haven't given the game that much time to adjust from this change, and we certainly want to avoid that.
Say, we can project ourselves forward to the twenty twenty eight US Open, when this new ball, presumably if everything goes as planned, is being used by players in competition. I'm not sure which course is hosting the twenty twenty eight US Opened, but I know it's been.
Selects I can tell you. But I'm not sure if we've announced yeah, oh.
It's twenty twenty eight, one of the few years that's not I think it's there. But in any case, I'll look it up back.
I know where we're going here. I just don't know if I've told everybody.
Oh, say okay. In any case, say this ball is in play. What does success look like if we're watching that tournament on TV? What might be different and what are we going to be looking for?
If I'm right, and you can put whatever asterisk next to if Mike is right, I think people will be playing this ball earlier than twenty twenty eight. I really believe there's gonna be people on tours playing a.
New ball in twenty two.
When you unleashed thousands of the best engineers in the world on a new standard that then have four years to do it, They're going to be creating new technologies, new excitement, new and they're going to start doing ball testing with players, and players are going to say I want that one, and so I would be shocked if
we didn't see balls and in play. The real answer to your question is in twenty twenty eight, if we're at the US Open, a success to me is we won't be talking about a ball because I don't think it really matters. If the guy steps up and hits a two hundred and twenty six yard drive or a two hundred and thirty nine yard drive, If it's the longest drive of the day on that whole, it's still impressive.
I mean, Tiger Woods was impressive to me in two thousand and he wasn't hitting the ball three hundred and twenty seven that Rory might have hit last last year. When you're it's relative to the rest of your peers, it's relative to what's capable. I feel really confident that come twenty twenty eight will almost go what was the big deal? Now we might be playing the course a little shorter than we would have been playing it in
twenty twenty seven. We might feel differently about certain holes, but I feel fairly confident when the best, when the best in the world have time to dial in a new ball and then that ball is going to play. If you're not careful, you'll forget it happened.
By the way, the twenty twenty eight US Open is going to be held at Wingfoot. That has been announced, and so I'm sure there will be some interesting comparisons to make between the twenty twenty eight US Open and the US Opened that Bryce and deshambo One at his biggest and burliest, so distance will certainly be part of the discussion at that tournament and at many tournaments in the future. So thank you to both of you for
coming on the podcast today. I really appreciate your time and hope to talk to you again soon.
Thanks, Thank you, Garrett, appreciate it.
This episode of the Friday Golf Podcast was produced by Matt Ruschius. Thank you, Matt. So if you've been enjoying the Friday Golf Podcast, if you like what we're doing here, if you appreciate the content, then one big thing that I'd like you to check out, especially now that it's
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