Speaker 1: I miss a green, for example, I'm already upset. When
Speaker 1: I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset.
Speaker 1: And when I find my ball in a brid egg
Speaker 1: Friday egg, the dreaded Friday Friday, Frida Egg Frida egg.
Speaker 2: Bride egg Lie, I'm about ready to run off of
Speaker 2: the course. Welcome to the Friday Golf Podcast. I'm Garrett Morrison,
Speaker 2: and today we're talking about rollback with two high level
Speaker 2: USGA officials. Our guests are Mike Wan, the CEO of
Speaker 2: the USGA, and Thomas Pagel, the Chief Governance Officer. So
Speaker 2: on Wednesday, the USGA and RNA announced that they would
Speaker 2: institute a universal rollback of the golf ball starting in
Speaker 2: twenty eight for elite competition and filtering down to the
Speaker 2: amateur game by twenty thirty. One of the key revelations
Speaker 2: of this announcement is that the governing bodies expect the
Speaker 2: impact of the new ball to be substantially less on
Speaker 2: the average amateur's game than has been reported so far.
Speaker 2: And we'll get into some of those details. So if
Speaker 2: you've listened to this podcast before, you know that I
Speaker 2: favor a rollback. In fact, i'd get behind a larger
Speaker 2: rollback than the one that the USGA and RNA have
Speaker 2: been intending to carry out here. But having Mike One
Speaker 2: and Thomas Pagel on this podcast at this moment, I
Speaker 2: think is an opportunity to pose to them some challenging
Speaker 2: questions to get their responses to some common criticisms of
Speaker 2: the rollback. So I'm hoping to represent not just my
Speaker 2: perspective on this issue, but also bring in the main
Speaker 2: counter arguments that I've been seeing, because I think it's
Speaker 2: important to subject the governing bodies ideas to some scrutiny here. Now,
Speaker 2: before we get into my interview with Mike Wan and
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Speaker 2: my interview with Mike Wan and Thomas Pagel All right.
Speaker 2: I am joined by Mike Wan and Thomas Pagel of
Speaker 2: the USGA. I know it's been a busy day for
Speaker 2: the two of you. You've both done a lot of
Speaker 2: talking so far, So thank you so much for joining me,
Speaker 2: and let's get right into it. You know, today was
Speaker 2: a big day. Back in March, the governing bodies announced
Speaker 2: the possibility of a model local rule that would roll
Speaker 2: back the golf ball just for elite levels of competition,
Speaker 2: and today it was announced that the direction is more
Speaker 2: for a universal rollback. So Mike, why don't we start
Speaker 2: with you? How did we get to this point?
Speaker 3: It even goes back farther than that, Jared, if you
Speaker 3: go back a year before the MLR announcement, we had
Speaker 3: announced it across the board ball at speed between one
Speaker 3: hundred and twenty five one hundred and twenty seven miles
Speaker 3: an hour of clubhead speed in conjunction with an MLR club.
Speaker 3: So we've definitely made some changes along the way. And
Speaker 3: as Thomas and I have said many times, if you're
Speaker 3: going to call something a notice in comment period or
Speaker 3: in areas of interest and have a comment period, you're
Speaker 3: going to get comments. And when you get quality feedback,
Speaker 3: and I would say even the feedback I didn't want
Speaker 3: to hear was quality feedback. It requires you to kind
Speaker 3: of think it through. So answering your specific question. When
Speaker 3: we were a year ago and came to the market,
Speaker 3: we you know, we had we believed from day one
Speaker 3: that one of our four core tenants was minimize any
Speaker 3: significant impact. Quite frankly, it was really have no discernible
Speaker 3: impact on the enjoyment of the game for the amateur,
Speaker 3: for the amateur, your recreational player. And so with a
Speaker 3: model local rule, we could really address distance, specifically at
Speaker 3: the elite male level, where distance was it was most concerning.
Speaker 3: We could probably do that a little bit more significantly
Speaker 3: than we can do across the board, and we could
Speaker 3: sort of leave the rest of the game untouched, which
Speaker 3: sounds great. See it still sounds great when I say
Speaker 3: it to you, But when you go out and have
Speaker 3: those comments.
Speaker 4: It wasn't just Tours, but it was you.
Speaker 3: Know, PJ of America, a couple of couple of strong manufacturers,
Speaker 3: and and even some individual consumer groups that came to
Speaker 3: us and said, hey, losing the magic between what the
Speaker 3: pros play and what the average recreational player can player
Speaker 3: wants to play. You know, if you're sitting in a
Speaker 3: pro am and that person is playing the same game,
Speaker 3: same equipment, same hole as you, that difference is part.
Speaker 4: Of the uniqueness that makes golf golf. And so I
Speaker 4: didn't I don't really want to argue that. We just
Speaker 4: listened to that and realized.
Speaker 3: That that was really a universal Almost everybody's most significant
Speaker 3: piece of comment to us was if you can figure
Speaker 3: out a way to address distance long term, but not
Speaker 3: do it in this model, local rule, split way, that
Speaker 3: would be our preference. So and I remember saying to
Speaker 3: a couple of folks, including a couple of tours, you
Speaker 3: know that if I do this across the board, I've
Speaker 3: got to really reduce the severity of this because I'm
Speaker 3: not going to have any real significant impact on the
Speaker 3: recreational game. I'm going to have to take longer to
Speaker 3: get to market because I'm going to ask manufacturers to
Speaker 3: make ball changes across their line. And you know they,
Speaker 3: you know, they both knew that and like that less
Speaker 3: severity longer in the marketplace, which probably a good thing.
Speaker 4: So, and answer your question, where did we get there?
Speaker 3: We took a different path, and in really listening to
Speaker 3: the marketplace on that path.
Speaker 4: It was clear to us, and actually made clear to.
Speaker 3: Us directly in a couple of cases, that if you're
Speaker 3: going to make a change on distance, our overwhelming preference
Speaker 3: would be to do so and keeping the game under
Speaker 3: one set of rules, set of regulations, if you will,
Speaker 3: And that's what got us to hear. And then once
Speaker 3: you start talking about and across the board change, the
Speaker 3: first question you can have is can the change be
Speaker 3: significant enough to matter while at the same time making
Speaker 3: sure that you don't kill the momentum or excitement or
Speaker 3: joining force of this game. And that's what this is.
Speaker 3: This the outcome of this is really a delicate balance,
Speaker 3: if you will. It's it's finding the right balance to
Speaker 3: say this would be significant enough to blow the pace
Speaker 3: of growth at the high at the high elite level
Speaker 3: for quite a while. At the same time, you know,
Speaker 3: if the average recreational golfer moves their team markers up
Speaker 3: through or four yards a non issue for them. So
Speaker 3: doesn't mean it's easy, doesn't mean everybody has to like it.
Speaker 3: But to answer your question, that's how you kind of
Speaker 3: get from one end to the other end. Even the
Speaker 3: folks that don't necessarily love everything about this outcome. The
Speaker 3: folks that really had a voice in this thing, and
Speaker 3: really we're pushing hard on model local rule see themselves
Speaker 3: in this and they should because it was their voices
Speaker 3: that really talked us back into this direction.
Speaker 2: Thomas, could you take me into what actually is going
Speaker 2: to change when it comes to the testing of golf
Speaker 2: balls for conformity with USGA and RNA rules.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Garrett, what we're talking about is updating the test
Speaker 1: conditions for what we call the Overall Distance Standard, which
Speaker 1: is the measure by which we governor regulate golf balls.
Speaker 1: It's been in place for almost fifty years. It was
Speaker 1: first established in nineteen seventy six, and the test has
Speaker 1: never been a measure of success, never been a measure
Speaker 1: of scoring. It truly has been about how do we
Speaker 1: regulate golf balls to manage their distance or their efficiency
Speaker 1: or effectiveness when in the hands of the longest players
Speaker 1: in the game. When that was first established in nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy six, the late Frank Thomas did some research that
Speaker 1: was a data set of one. There was a golfer
Speaker 1: at the time that was known to be a long hitter,
Speaker 1: and he hit a whole bunch of balls and we
Speaker 1: arrived at one hundred and nine mile an hour swing speed.
Speaker 1: It's been updated several times since nineteen eighty. There were
Speaker 1: some small updates, and then again in two thousand and two,
Speaker 1: and in two thousand and four again we stepped back
Speaker 1: and looked and that one hundred and nine miles an
Speaker 1: hour was no longer reflective of the longest hitters at
Speaker 1: that time, so we updated the clubhead speed to one
Speaker 1: hundred and twenty miles an hour. As we sit here today,
Speaker 1: in that one hundred and twenty miles an hour, by
Speaker 1: the way, on our test, which doesn't achieve a smash
Speaker 1: factor one to five, it's more of like a one
Speaker 1: to four to seven. Did the ball speed that's produced
Speaker 1: at one hundred and twenty miles an hours one hundred
Speaker 1: and seventy six miles an hour. So as we sit
Speaker 1: here today, we look at testing equipment at one hundred
Speaker 1: and seventy six miles an hour and step back and
Speaker 1: that's not reflective of the longest hitters of the game,
Speaker 1: and so we're going to update that to one hundred
Speaker 1: and eighty three miles an hour. We're also going to
Speaker 1: adjust the launch conditions so we're going to go from
Speaker 1: a ten degree launch angle to an eleven degree launch angle. Again,
Speaker 1: as players try and achieve more distance, they're looking for
Speaker 1: higher launch angles, so trying to reflect the longest golfers,
Speaker 1: and also lowering the spin from twenty five to twenty
Speaker 1: down to twenty two hundred, again trying to be more
Speaker 1: reflective of the conditions those longest players are trying to achieve.
Speaker 1: So this really is about ensuring that our testing standards
Speaker 1: are relevant to the current game. And as we look
Speaker 1: at there's a lot of data you can look at.
Speaker 1: We've looked at the data the same over the last
Speaker 1: forty years, not only distance and the amount of distance increases,
Speaker 1: but also how we measure or look at the longest players.
Speaker 1: And if you look in twenty twenty three, the average
Speaker 1: of the top twenty five longest players in the PGA Tour,
Speaker 1: their ball speed was right around one eighty three. So
Speaker 1: that's in twenty twenty three, you know, four years before
Speaker 1: we're going to implement this in twenty and twenty eight.
Speaker 1: If we go backwards, we didn't have shot link or
Speaker 1: robust data set in two thousand and four, but in
Speaker 1: two thousand and seven when that was first of the
Speaker 1: average of the top twenty five longest players over the
Speaker 1: two thousand and seven PGA Tour season was one hundred
Speaker 1: and seventy six, which is how we measure today. So
Speaker 1: it shows the trend line of how we got here
Speaker 1: year over year, but it also shows that we've been
Speaker 1: consistent in how we've updated the standard over the years,
Speaker 1: again trying to regulate or manage the distance of a
Speaker 1: golf ball, not necessarily looking at measures of success or scoring.
Speaker 2: Thomas, Where does this come down to for the average
Speaker 2: player in terms of impact on their average distance off
Speaker 2: the tee?
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, let's start with the recreational golfer, because that's
Speaker 1: you know, the audits, that's who we're speaking to. It's
Speaker 1: going to be five yards or less. Right, So, when
Speaker 1: we're looking at clubhead speeds and launch conditions of the
Speaker 1: average recreational golfers, the average male recreational golfer is going
Speaker 1: to be right around three to five yards. The average
Speaker 1: recreational female is going to be close to that one
Speaker 1: to three yard range. So as swing speeds decrease as
Speaker 1: spin increases, the impact to those recreational golf golfers is
Speaker 1: really going to be minimal, and so when Mike talks
Speaker 1: about you know, the three yards, pick up the t's
Speaker 1: and move them forward. That's really what we're looking at.
Speaker 1: And the other thing is this is limited to drivers, right,
Speaker 1: just given our launch conditions. As recreational golfers, by the
Speaker 1: time you two to three ordre hybrid, you're probably not
Speaker 1: going to notice. At the highest level those players that
Speaker 1: achieve ball speeds of one eighty three or higher, which
Speaker 1: is what we're testing at, the impact is probably thirteen
Speaker 1: to fifteen yards, but we would still estimate that by
Speaker 1: the time they get to their five iron, given the
Speaker 1: launch conditions, they won't see a distance decrease from today.
Speaker 1: So a lot of people have been talking, you know,
Speaker 1: this is going to be ten percent through the bag.
Speaker 1: That's just certainly not the case. We're increasing the test
Speaker 1: speed by about just under four percent, and that's around
Speaker 1: the impact that we're going to have on golfers. But
Speaker 1: again the recreational game, we really are looking at the driver.
Speaker 1: That's where the impact will be. And another point for
Speaker 1: the recreational game is as we look at the current
Speaker 1: list of conforming balls that we have post today, about
Speaker 1: a third of those balls would meet the standard that
Speaker 1: we're going to put into effect in twenty twenty eight.
Speaker 1: And so what we mean by that, we're not talking
Speaker 1: balls you see at elite level competitions, but certainly balls
Speaker 1: that are manufactured and marketed and played by recreational golfers
Speaker 1: will continue to conform in twenty twenty eight when this
Speaker 1: goes into effect, and certainly in twenty thirty when it
Speaker 1: goes into effect for the recreational game.
Speaker 2: So when it comes to balls that might not be
Speaker 2: affected by this new standard, we're sort of talking about
Speaker 2: the soft cover or low compression models of golf balls,
Speaker 2: as that's sort of what we're talking about.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the two or three layer balls that have a
Speaker 1: different cover that aren't necessarily you're a than that just
Speaker 1: have different properties that will continue to conform.
Speaker 2: Great Now, Mike, in terms of what the USGA and
Speaker 2: RNA know about how average golfers feel about the potential
Speaker 2: of a golf ball rollback across the game, what sense
Speaker 2: have you gotten or or what specific studies have you
Speaker 2: done to assess the general feeling about this prospect among
Speaker 2: the players who play the game recreationally.
Speaker 3: Yeah, The difficult part of this, Garrett, is when you
Speaker 3: if you ask people how do you feel about being
Speaker 3: shorter in a few years, We don't really have to
Speaker 3: do a study for that, right, And And what we've
Speaker 3: quickly learned in this sort of early weekend before we
Speaker 3: announced where some of the news got leaked is, you know,
Speaker 3: the desire for a lot of people to kind of
Speaker 3: sensationalize this and you know, generate more clicks and more
Speaker 3: calls and more more craziness.
Speaker 4: And in today's world, it's easier, it's easier to believe
Speaker 4: the bad stuff than the fact.
Speaker 3: So, as I've said a few times today, if you
Speaker 3: want to listen to the folks that will tell you
Speaker 3: this is going to take twenty yards off your drive,
Speaker 3: then feel free to listen to them.
Speaker 4: It's not based in any kind of fact. It's you know,
Speaker 4: it's it's myth based.
Speaker 3: I mean, we're being even the different data when we
Speaker 3: when we say zero to five yards, did the average
Speaker 3: recreational golfer that's we took those estimates, that took them
Speaker 3: to independent third party ball expert as well and just said, hey,
Speaker 3: what are you what are your ranges, and they came
Speaker 3: back on our same ranges for that for an average
Speaker 3: for a player.
Speaker 4: For the people generating the most ball speed. So the
Speaker 4: fact is this is going to be I'm a recreational golfer.
Speaker 4: I play a lot of golf.
Speaker 3: I think I could tell you how far I hit
Speaker 3: a drive, But if I really had to pick the number,
Speaker 3: I wouldn't really probably be within eight yards of the truth,
Speaker 3: And I probably have never, in the course of fourteen
Speaker 3: holes of driving, hit a drive in the exact same
Speaker 3: yards each time. I understand the people that can, I
Speaker 3: watched them all the time, and they playing a lot
Speaker 3: of our events. I'm just not one of them. So
Speaker 3: if you told me my drive went two forty two
Speaker 3: or two thirty nine, I'm not exactly sure I could
Speaker 3: tell the difference unless I knew the difference.
Speaker 4: Now I'm not trying to bid a little.
Speaker 1: It is.
Speaker 3: This is something we're doing to make sure that our
Speaker 3: you know, the next generation and the generation after that
Speaker 3: inherit a game that's at least as healthy as the
Speaker 3: one one we did. But in the grand scope of this,
Speaker 3: oh my gosh, you know, rollback. I mean, the rollback
Speaker 3: word itself generates all kinds of reaction. What we've said
Speaker 3: from the very beginning is we will not implement a
Speaker 3: plan that lessens the enjoyment of playing the game. If
Speaker 3: you don't think you know, us, together with thirty thousand
Speaker 3: PGA professionals and two thousand LPGA professionals, can manage a
Speaker 3: three yard difference on every golf course. And if for
Speaker 3: that very front tee where there's nowhere to go, if
Speaker 3: that person's playing the right ball, as Thomas just said,
Speaker 3: that ball's not changing in twenty twenty eight, so there's
Speaker 3: zero difference.
Speaker 4: So I think it's and if the worst thing that
Speaker 4: happens in twenty twenty eight is everybody slides their te.
Speaker 3: Box up four five yards, including the back team, move
Speaker 3: the back t up twenty yards. If you want, what
Speaker 3: we can't have on that back t is room to
Speaker 3: keep going back over the next twenty thirty and forty years.
Speaker 3: I've said this many times. If if the tours around
Speaker 3: the world say, okay, you're going to reduce our yards
Speaker 3: by ten yards, we're going to move our teas up
Speaker 3: by twelve, right, we could care less what you do
Speaker 3: with your t's, what you do with your scoring.
Speaker 4: Feel free.
Speaker 3: We just want to make sure there's room for this
Speaker 3: game to grow without asking every venue to grow. Imagine
Speaker 3: if Baseball said to the green Monster, in the next
Speaker 3: ten years, you're going to probably have to move the
Speaker 3: green Monster back, and if you can't, we'll find other venues.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 3: Just sports don't do that, And so we're not going
Speaker 3: to save every venue that was been built from the
Speaker 3: beginning of time. We get that, But at the same time,
Speaker 3: we should respect the fact that one of the things
Speaker 3: this game's going to have to be in the next
Speaker 3: thirty to fifty years is sustainable and environmentally conscious. And
Speaker 3: this keeps us from getting into a place thirty forty
Speaker 3: years from now where the game.
Speaker 4: Of golf is viewed in a way we certainly wouldn't
Speaker 4: accept today.
Speaker 2: And I'd like to eventually get into those questions about sustainability,
Speaker 2: both financial and environmental. But first, and this is for
Speaker 2: Mike again, there are those who claim to be worried
Speaker 2: that this new rule will dampen the popularity of golf
Speaker 2: at the very moment when the game is experiencing a
Speaker 2: kind of surge it hasn't seen in a while. Are
Speaker 2: you worried about that prospect as well?
Speaker 3: We worried about it through this whole process, you know,
Speaker 3: And anytime you're talking about change It's why you know
Speaker 3: our changes are as minimal as they are to make
Speaker 3: sure that.
Speaker 4: We didn't have that impact. I'm not concerned.
Speaker 3: I wouldn't have launched something today that I thought had
Speaker 3: the potential to dampen that interest. Definitely would not have
Speaker 3: Do I think we can swallow this change up pretty quickly,
Speaker 3: at least in terms of impact to the recreational golfer.
Speaker 4: I believe that.
Speaker 3: I think if anybody takes any bit of time and
Speaker 3: thinks that through, they will too. When you get out
Speaker 3: of the emotion of just the first word and you
Speaker 3: get into what specifically are we talking about, I think
Speaker 3: this is something that will certainly be able to address.
Speaker 3: I mean, for everybody who's telling us about how great
Speaker 3: the game is, do you think there's anybody who spends
Speaker 3: more time on the excitement of the game, both today
Speaker 3: and in the future than the RNA and the USJ.
Speaker 4: We don't have members otherwise to focus on.
Speaker 3: We don't worry about all contracts, we don't worry about
Speaker 3: member retirement programs.
Speaker 4: This is our business.
Speaker 3: And and you know, nobody invests more in the growth
Speaker 3: of our game, in our case in the States and
Speaker 3: the erinace case around the world than we do. This
Speaker 3: is this is as exciting for us as it is
Speaker 3: for everybody else, because you know, our name is United
Speaker 3: States Golf Association, and the United States Golf being healthy
Speaker 3: has got to be priority one.
Speaker 2: Now, Thomas, getting back to some of the specifics of
Speaker 2: the technology and its potential impact. First of all, you've
Speaker 2: you've mentioned what the governing bodies expect the various impacts
Speaker 2: of this new ball to be on different swing speeds,
Speaker 2: different skill levels. First of all, where did you get
Speaker 2: that data? How did you find all of that out?
Speaker 1: So, our engineers and our scientists have tested balls with
Speaker 1: with aerodynamic changes that are consistent with how we believe
Speaker 1: manufacturers would approach this, and we've touched them under simulations
Speaker 1: to meet these new conditions, and we do find that
Speaker 1: the higher swing speeds excuse me, have a greater impact
Speaker 1: of that thirteen to fifteen yards, and that as we
Speaker 1: get to the lower swing speeds. Again, the recreational game,
Speaker 1: it's that five and under. For the average PGA tour player,
Speaker 1: it's probably in the nine to eleven yard range, and
Speaker 1: for the average LPGA or elite female, it's going to
Speaker 1: be in that five to seven range. And so this
Speaker 1: was about running simulations, but again with balls that we
Speaker 1: have examples of. And then there's some extrapulating and some
Speaker 1: interpolating that our engineers and our scientists did to arrive
Speaker 1: at these numbers, and that was done both by the USGA,
Speaker 1: by the RNA, and as Mike said, a third party
Speaker 1: industry expert who was very well known in the industry
Speaker 1: and as well as shared with the manufacturers, and several
Speaker 1: manufacturers have agreed with the ranges. In fact, they arrived
Speaker 1: at the same ranges on their own relative to their
Speaker 1: own equipment. So it's all simulation based, but we're very confident.
Speaker 2: In it now. In that vein. There have been some
Speaker 2: claims out there elite players will gain back any distance
Speaker 2: that they might lose under these new regulations pretty quickly.
Speaker 2: How do you react to that.
Speaker 1: Look, this is not going to stop distance gains. As
Speaker 1: we look back over the last forty years, we see
Speaker 1: a pretty constant increase of distance about a yard per
Speaker 1: year in that timeframe. I'd expect that to continue moving forward.
Speaker 1: There might be a small period of time where it
Speaker 1: flattens out, but then it'll pick back up in distance
Speaker 1: will go back and we're okay with that. This is
Speaker 1: not about stopping distance, to Mike's point, this is about
Speaker 1: slowing the pace of distance. And so in fifteen years
Speaker 1: from now, if we're right back to where we are now,
Speaker 1: we're okay with that. We might need to take further action.
Speaker 1: But what that means is we're not going to be
Speaker 1: fifteen yards further than we are today, which is the
Speaker 1: pace again that we've seen.
Speaker 3: I think we can agree, Jarret that whether we implement
Speaker 3: a change in twenty twenty eight or we don't, players
Speaker 3: are going to chase distance as an advantage because if
Speaker 3: you can, if you can achieve it and you keep
Speaker 3: it on the on the course, you can use it
Speaker 3: as an advantage.
Speaker 4: So we know that, in fact, one of the things
Speaker 4: we said.
Speaker 3: From the very beginning we would not implement is some
Speaker 3: sort of governor on the ball that it falls out
Speaker 3: of the sky three hundred twenty yards and drives just
Speaker 3: couldn't go farther than that. So sometimes when players say, well,
Speaker 3: just don't let it go any farther than it is
Speaker 3: right now. So you mean your drive or his drive,
Speaker 3: I mean, when are we going to win? When's it
Speaker 3: going to hit the fence and fall down to the ground.
Speaker 4: We don't want that.
Speaker 3: We want this game to be about athleticism and drive
Speaker 3: and trying to get better. So I think, to your
Speaker 3: original point, will people earn this distance back at one
Speaker 3: hundred percent? How fast they'll earn that back? Nobody knows,
Speaker 3: including them. But to Thomas's point, will it slow the
Speaker 3: pace of where we would have been in twenty years
Speaker 3: with no change versus where we will be with this change?
Speaker 4: It will will one hundred percent slow that.
Speaker 3: Exactly how long and how much to be determined, But
Speaker 3: it's this change has much more of a future vision
Speaker 3: to it than what's going to happen. When people talk
Speaker 3: about this change today, they all are answering today's terms
Speaker 3: and what I'm going to do.
Speaker 4: And what we're going to do.
Speaker 3: And we're looking at this more over twenty to thirty
Speaker 3: year period in terms of how it helps helps our
Speaker 3: game longer term.
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Speaker 2: code fried Egg. All one word, Mike. We've heard from
Speaker 2: various stakeholders to use the terminology that the USGA likes
Speaker 2: to use when it comes to this. We've heard from
Speaker 2: some stakeholders today including ball manufacturers, the PGA Tour and
Speaker 2: others other big voices in the golf world. How do
Speaker 2: you feel generally about the feed back or the statements
Speaker 2: that have come out from those sectors so far.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'll give you three responses.
Speaker 3: And again, you know, this is not the first time
Speaker 3: they'd be accused of being an optimistic god.
Speaker 4: But number one, I'm really.
Speaker 3: I'm glad that in almost all of those statements we've
Speaker 3: seen people point out that the process has been open, iterative,
Speaker 3: that you know, some of their comments have shown up
Speaker 3: in this final outcome, not all of them, but I'm
Speaker 3: glad that they're at least recognizing that this has been
Speaker 3: a pretty back and forth, open process with real change
Speaker 3: coming after some of these notice and comment periods.
Speaker 4: So that's one. Number two is.
Speaker 3: It doesn't surprise me that the people that didn't get
Speaker 3: the exact change they wanted isn't implemented.
Speaker 4: That you know that they're they're not all the way there.
Speaker 3: But if you read these different statements, or if you
Speaker 3: know what Thomas and I know, each of them have
Speaker 3: a slightly different perspective on what they think the right
Speaker 3: outcome should be, and they're certainly not like each other.
Speaker 3: Even if you read two ball manufacturers, one of them
Speaker 3: said we really prefer the end and Morton said, we
Speaker 3: really want to thank the USJ and the RNA for
Speaker 3: not pursuing the MLR. So there's there's two ball manufacturers,
Speaker 3: significant players in the business, having two points of view
Speaker 3: on a proposal that's real. That's what happens when you
Speaker 3: have industry feedback. So so one is I'm glad they're
Speaker 3: to the open process, too is I'm not surprised that
Speaker 3: it's not exactly what we want.
Speaker 4: The third is that kind of comes out in some
Speaker 4: of these is we wish they just wouldn't have been
Speaker 4: this aggressive, which you know, this is too much change
Speaker 4: at one time, And I'll just address that real quick
Speaker 4: to say, I understand if you come from a.
Speaker 3: Scope of I don't want my members or my players
Speaker 3: to have that much change at once, Can you please
Speaker 3: just make a lesser change and then evaluate it more frequently,
Speaker 3: Because we would rather in governance identify a problem, identify
Speaker 3: a solution, implement that solution, and then get out of
Speaker 3: the way for as long as you can give the
Speaker 3: game back and because a lot of interruption from the
Speaker 3: governing bodies.
Speaker 4: Isn't our goal. But you also have to think about
Speaker 4: this from all the other parts of the business. And
Speaker 4: what we know is it would not be reasonable but
Speaker 4: really prudent for us to say to manufacturers, we're going
Speaker 4: to make a small change that you're going to have
Speaker 4: to make across your product line, and then we're just
Speaker 4: going to do it a lot more often, or potentially
Speaker 4: do it a lot more often. That sounds great in
Speaker 4: one meeting a one set of one group of members,
Speaker 4: and sounds idiotic in another meeting with another group of members.
Speaker 4: And that's that's what governance is. That's listening through those things.
Speaker 4: So I understand the comment of.
Speaker 3: We just wish you wouldn't have moved so far and
Speaker 3: everybody could just adjust to it so much easier. But
Speaker 3: if you're going to have a real impact on the
Speaker 3: long part of the game, you just have to look
Speaker 3: at it more often.
Speaker 4: You have to moment change more often, so be it.
Speaker 3: But that wouldn't be realistic for the governing bodies to
Speaker 3: essentially assess that on the manufacturer, doesn't Our hope is
Speaker 3: you know, if you're a player playing this game, you
Speaker 3: might go through this change once, but you don't go
Speaker 3: through this change multiple times in your in your career.
Speaker 4: And the same thing for manufacturers.
Speaker 3: We want to be able to make a change and
Speaker 3: stay out of the way as long as we think
Speaker 3: we can and let the game be the game.
Speaker 1: One other thing on the stakeholders, right, I mean, I
Speaker 1: think it's sort of today's culture and just where we
Speaker 1: are in the world, but everybody tries to create these
Speaker 1: divides and makes it seem like it's very divisive. I
Speaker 1: think the feedback around the process and sort of the
Speaker 1: respect for the process and the appreciation to participate shows
Speaker 1: this truly is a partnership as an industry, as a game, right,
Speaker 1: The PGA Tour and the USGA are great partners. We're
Speaker 1: great partners with the PGA of America have deep friendships
Speaker 1: and relationships across both organizations. You look at the manufacturers
Speaker 1: and it's not like we jump in, give them a
Speaker 1: piece of research and then wait six months to hear
Speaker 1: from them. Our team is working with their team on
Speaker 1: a weekly, if not daily basis, not only on current product,
Speaker 1: but also future product as well. So that relationship that
Speaker 1: working together, that partnership in this industry, it exists, and
Speaker 1: I think the feedback we've heard so far is really
Speaker 1: reflective of that.
Speaker 2: So a question for Mike, I know you can't predict
Speaker 2: the future, but what if the PGA Tour were not
Speaker 2: to adopt this new ball, what would the golf landscape
Speaker 2: look like as a result of that, Well, it would.
Speaker 3: Be exactly what the PJ tor asked us to avoid,
Speaker 3: you know, when we went to the PJ Tour and said,
Speaker 3: what if we created a different ball for for you
Speaker 3: and elite amateur competitions and that kind of thing, and
Speaker 3: what if, you know what if there was a one
Speaker 3: for you and one for everybody else. So I would
Speaker 3: be shocked by that response, given that that was the
Speaker 3: one thing they asked us not to do, which is
Speaker 3: to separate the two entities. So if they said, you
Speaker 3: know what, We're going to go our own way, you
Speaker 3: go your way, that's that's the exact that's the exact
Speaker 3: opposite of their number one.
Speaker 4: Piece of feedback. I like I said, And I think
Speaker 4: the Thomas's point.
Speaker 3: You know, we've you know, Jay Seth, David Abley's, Chip Brewer,
Speaker 3: I mean, David Borrow. These are these are friends. These
Speaker 3: are people that I'm glad are in the business because
Speaker 3: these are leaders that I that I like and I trust,
Speaker 3: and and as as as as they've said to me
Speaker 3: many times, as I said them, as one person said
Speaker 3: to me, I'm gonna push you until you don't let
Speaker 3: me push you anymore. And then when you tell me
Speaker 3: it's over, we're going to go win. And that's that's
Speaker 3: you know, that's how we're that's how we're viewing this.
Speaker 3: And you know, we took a long process, maybe longer
Speaker 3: than some would like, maybe longer sometimes that some even
Speaker 3: inside our.
Speaker 4: Buildings would like. We made a lot of changes.
Speaker 3: When we started this, Garrett, we were one hundred percent
Speaker 3: in the belief that we were going to test balls
Speaker 3: going forward what we called optimum flight conditions. We would
Speaker 3: look at a ball, figure out what flight conditions maximize
Speaker 3: that ball's flight, and that's how we test that ball.
Speaker 4: Then the next ball would come in, we'd optimize its
Speaker 4: launch conditions. And we loved it because it's doable in
Speaker 4: today's technology.
Speaker 3: After our first area of interest with manufacturers, they pointed
Speaker 3: out for us that, well, that's doable.
Speaker 4: And we understand it.
Speaker 3: Let me explain to you the pain that causes an
Speaker 3: R and D process, the extra expense that causes, and
Speaker 3: so would you guys please look at whether or not
Speaker 3: it's worth whatever yard or two you think you could
Speaker 3: develop by ball. And I remember sitting in a meeting
Speaker 3: and I think it was Thomas and his team taking
Speaker 3: us through that, and we said, that's so logical, and
Speaker 3: that's so fair.
Speaker 4: Let's move on.
Speaker 3: Even though for years we were convinced that was a
Speaker 3: better way to go. So, you know, if you're going
Speaker 3: to go through this open dialogue process, sometimes like an
Speaker 3: our case, sometimes something like optimum fly.
Speaker 4: Condition we really believed in, you're going to move on from.
Speaker 3: And I can tell you that there's definitely manufacturers and
Speaker 3: tours and associations that have things they really believed in.
Speaker 4: But they didn't get it set of in the final thing.
Speaker 3: But at the same time they did certainly get things
Speaker 3: that were in the Addressing CT creep on a driver
Speaker 3: was not part of our original premise. The tours and
Speaker 3: quite frankly, tours and associations and a couple of manufacturers
Speaker 3: asked us to take a closer look at CT creep
Speaker 3: at face rebound creep and see if we could addressed
Speaker 3: something before it actually got played in a competition, rather
Speaker 3: than just testing on site.
Speaker 4: What can you do to make sure that's addressed early on.
Speaker 3: So to their credit, they created a process and quite frankly,
Speaker 3: an outcome that wasn't even part of our original vision.
Speaker 2: Now, Thomas, the main rationale for the new ball rule
Speaker 2: at least, I mean maybe not the main rationale from
Speaker 2: the perspective of the governing bodies. But one of the
Speaker 2: points that really is persuasive to me personally is that
Speaker 2: distance gains have caused golf courses to lengthen and expand,
Speaker 2: and that this trend is a threat to long term
Speaker 2: sustainability of the game. This is clearly happening at courses
Speaker 2: that host elite men's tournaments. I don't think anybody can
Speaker 2: deny that, But many golfers I've spoken to are skeptical
Speaker 2: that this issue exists at average courses, everyday courses that
Speaker 2: don't host PGA Tour events or major championships. So, Thomas,
Speaker 2: what can you say to persuade me or someone else
Speaker 2: that distance gains are a problem for courses outside of
Speaker 2: the PGA Tour and men's major rotations.
Speaker 1: I think the first thing is we have to look
Speaker 1: at how you define elite male competitions or elite competitions.
Speaker 1: This is not about a single tour, right There are
Speaker 1: elite competitions held across the globe of thousands of courses.
Speaker 1: Whether you think of the collegiate game, you think of
Speaker 1: state amateurs, you think of state open, you think of
Speaker 1: national championships. Outside of the US, there are league competition
Speaker 1: competitions played everywhere, and there's a strong correlation that you
Speaker 1: can see, and this is part of the Distance Insights
Speaker 1: report that people can go find on our website. There's
Speaker 1: a graph that shows a strong correlation between increase in
Speaker 1: hitting distances and increasing course lengths. And there's another study
Speaker 1: in there that shows the top one hundred courses, only
Speaker 1: eighteen of which have hosted a major at some point.
Speaker 1: All top one hundred follow that same trend line. So
Speaker 1: it's this stigma of championship golf course or wanting to
Speaker 1: host an elite event that might not be a tour event,
Speaker 1: might not be a US Open, but yet they want
Speaker 1: to be able to support the game. Our Green Section
Speaker 1: recently did a study with our allied Golf Association, so
Speaker 1: the state golf associations, and looked at an inventory, the
Speaker 1: inventory of golf courses relative to the length where they
Speaker 1: played their state events, their state amateurs, their state Opens,
Speaker 1: and if distance were to continue to increase at the
Speaker 1: pace that it is today, in thirty years, they would
Speaker 1: be down to an infantry of two to five percent
Speaker 1: of the golf courses across each state where they could
Speaker 1: actually conduct these events. So this is a real issue
Speaker 1: that's facing the game, and it is as distance is increasing. Again,
Speaker 1: you talk about one yard year over year, it doesn't
Speaker 1: sound like a lot, but when you step back twenty
Speaker 1: years from now, that's twenty additional yards and that could
Speaker 1: mean up to two hundred yards of additional length on
Speaker 1: a golf course. That comes with the cost. Like we
Speaker 1: are one of the only sports it says, if you
Speaker 1: have things change, go ahead and change your venue to accommodate.
Speaker 1: And we want to alleviate that burden because that burden
Speaker 1: comes with the real cost, both economic, whether it's moving bunkers,
Speaker 1: whether it's building new tees, but also environmental. That's not
Speaker 1: the right message for the game that we should be
Speaker 1: increasing our footprint because we have people hitting it longer.
Speaker 1: And so this is again to Mike's point, this is
Speaker 1: if there's a golf course that's been passed over in
Speaker 1: the modern era, this isn't going to bring that golf
Speaker 1: course out of that pile and put that back in.
Speaker 1: But that's going to do is it's going to slow
Speaker 1: the pressures, slow the burden put on golf courses. So
Speaker 1: we're not adding other golf courses to that list at
Speaker 1: the pace that we're doing today.
Speaker 2: Thomas, I want to press on this again. You mentioned
Speaker 2: that the range of golf courses affected by elite men's
Speaker 2: tournament play is maybe broader than many people think. It's
Speaker 2: not just the PGA Tour, it's not just the majors,
Speaker 2: it's also these state amateur hosts or what have you
Speaker 2: point taken. But what about courses that don't do any
Speaker 2: of that, that don't host really any kind of elite
Speaker 2: tournament or have no aspirations of doing so. Have those
Speaker 2: courses also been affected by these overall trends toward more
Speaker 2: distance and more advanced equipment.
Speaker 1: You certainly see examples through golf courses that don't host
Speaker 1: these elite competitions that again are just in their minds
Speaker 1: trying to keep up with the modern game. These mom
Speaker 1: and pop courses that aren't going to host anything. But
Speaker 1: they don't think that having a back tee at fifty
Speaker 1: yards is actually enjoyable for the recreational golfers. So they're
Speaker 1: looking to find land, they're looking to build new tea's,
Speaker 1: they're looking to add bunkers to try it add a
Speaker 1: challenge to meet the standards that golfers today are looking
Speaker 1: for relative to their plane of the game.
Speaker 4: Heared.
Speaker 3: I was just driving back from New York and Scott Langley,
Speaker 3: who's our former tour player works at the USGA ahead
Speaker 3: of our player relations experiences, called me and he was
Speaker 3: out in Vegas with the College Coaches Show, and he
Speaker 3: had presented on this distance this morning, just to give
Speaker 3: him the and I said, well, what were the conversations
Speaker 3: like here in the break, And one of the things
Speaker 3: he said caught me, said, Mike, the number of coaches
Speaker 3: who said to me, our home course is a great
Speaker 3: course to practice in, our home campus course. Can't play
Speaker 3: an event there, I just, you know, just can't play
Speaker 3: a college event on that course anymore. And so we
Speaker 3: sort of just we sort of just say that, nod yes,
Speaker 3: and move on. You know, here's a golf course built
Speaker 3: for college or right next to college campus. In fact,
Speaker 3: I can't play an event there anymore. It is fine,
Speaker 3: you know, we just move on. We'll find another one
Speaker 3: in town. But once we go thirty yards thirty years
Speaker 3: into the future, and maybe thirty yards into the future,
Speaker 3: how many fewer choices do they have for college events?
Speaker 3: In our case, you might find it strange, but junior
Speaker 3: amateur courses are getting tougher to find. I mean, we
Speaker 3: have junior amateur courses that are looking for two hundred
Speaker 3: and seventy yard carries for the for the bunkers, and
Speaker 3: you know, you're you're talking about young kids gnerating ball
Speaker 3: speeds at a higher level.
Speaker 4: And so and we we always think about this as
Speaker 4: a US thing.
Speaker 3: Remember this is happening all around the world and countries
Speaker 3: all around the world in a lot of places where
Speaker 3: simply saying work it out, find yourself some more.
Speaker 4: Land, or figure out how to get more out of
Speaker 4: the land you're.
Speaker 3: In is not only a difficult task, it may be
Speaker 3: governmentally challenged, you know, to actually do that kind of thing.
Speaker 3: And so I always find a strong when somebody says,
Speaker 3: whether that's not a problem on my course, or it's
Speaker 3: not a problem you're talking to me about.
Speaker 4: Today in today's world.
Speaker 3: I'm asking you to think about thirty years from now
Speaker 3: and a thirty years from our world and how.
Speaker 4: Many more courses.
Speaker 3: Because I'll ask anybody in their hometown, can you think
Speaker 3: of a great old venue that used to hold some
Speaker 3: amazing things that doesn't anymore, And they'll rattle off a
Speaker 3: couple I'm like well, the whole world. If the high
Speaker 3: end game is thirty yards longer over the next three
Speaker 3: how many more of those courses will we rattle.
Speaker 4: Off in your town? And you know, like I said,
Speaker 4: football wouldn't do that.
Speaker 3: They wouldn't just move past a bunch of venues, and
Speaker 3: baseball doesn't do that. So we've got to we've got
Speaker 3: to care enough about future generations to not hand them
Speaker 3: this challenge.
Speaker 2: Given the scale of that issue, and given the associated costs,
Speaker 2: will a five percent reduction really make a dent?
Speaker 4: That's good question, and it's a fair question. I said
Speaker 4: this this morning and I'll consistently say it, and it's
Speaker 4: unfortunately turned out to be true. I'm going to come
Speaker 4: back to a computer that has as many emails saying
Speaker 4: I can't believe you just did that, just the same
Speaker 4: a number of even us as I can't believe that's
Speaker 4: all you did.
Speaker 3: You know, that's governance, And when we talk about it
Speaker 3: across the board change, we simply couldn't do whatever we
Speaker 3: thought was right at one end and let the rest be.
Speaker 3: I mean, we have to govern for the overall game first,
Speaker 3: and we did in this case. So you know, you're
Speaker 3: back to Thomas's point, I don't think it brings a
Speaker 3: lot of courses back into play who are no longer
Speaker 3: in play. But if this change keeps us at this
Speaker 3: general distance for the next fifteen or twenty years, and
Speaker 3: so wherever we are today is kind of kind of
Speaker 3: what we're dealing with in fifteen or twenty years, that
Speaker 3: feels like more than worth the effort.
Speaker 2: Thomas, there was some material in the press release from
Speaker 2: the governing bodies today about a continued interest in driver
Speaker 2: head regulations. Could you tell me more about that microfer
Speaker 2: to CT creep earlier, I think probably a lot of
Speaker 2: people out there don't know what that means. So what
Speaker 2: is what is the USGA, what is the RNA looking
Speaker 2: at here?
Speaker 1: So, so, as Mike explained to CT creep, we're going
Speaker 1: to address starting this year. And the CT creep is
Speaker 1: really you have a driver that can form meets the
Speaker 1: spring like effect tests or the CT test we have
Speaker 1: which measures how quickly a ball bounces off the club face,
Speaker 1: but yet after not many hits, all of a sudden
Speaker 1: it can creep over that conformance number. And so we're
Speaker 1: going to start testing clubs. If a club is submitted
Speaker 1: that's close to the conformance number. We're not going to
Speaker 1: render a decisional in that club and add it to
Speaker 1: the conforming driver list. We're actually going to request more
Speaker 1: models and we're going to fire with a can and
Speaker 1: fireballs at that club phase one hundred and fifty times
Speaker 1: to see what the number is. So we just this
Speaker 1: is about trying to ensure that the product before it
Speaker 1: ever gets in the hands of the longest players, remains conforming.
Speaker 1: And that's not just important to us. It's important to
Speaker 1: the players because if they're winning, having success, they really
Speaker 1: want to know that they're doing it with conforming equipment.
Speaker 1: But it's also about adding additional test for the future. Right,
Speaker 1: we don't know what composits are next, what metals are next.
Speaker 1: If ct creep can be design into a product, we
Speaker 1: don't want that, the manufacturers don't want that, the tours
Speaker 1: don't want that, and so this will help be a
Speaker 1: proactive measure against that specific topic. And then we also
Speaker 1: reference our desire just to more generally look at the driver, right,
Speaker 1: the forgiveness of the driver. In twenty twenty two, as
Speaker 1: part of the area of interest we issued, we talked
Speaker 1: about a model local rule for a driver where we
Speaker 1: are going to investigate lowering CT or that spring like
Speaker 1: effect and lowering MOI or the forgiveness. The reality is,
Speaker 1: as we began to look at that, it gets really
Speaker 1: really challenging. There workarounds that manufacturers can get through just
Speaker 1: changing CG and doing a few other things to where
Speaker 1: you can't just focus on a driver. In order for
Speaker 1: it to be impactful. You actually have to go down
Speaker 1: into three woods, five woods, hybrids, in some cases irons
Speaker 1: for it to be effective. So we're sitting here looking
Speaker 1: at a model local rule that could potentially have people
Speaker 1: changing out four or five clubs out of their bag,
Speaker 1: and that was just untenable. That's unachievable, especially if you're
Speaker 1: looking at a model local rule of Ross the Elite game,
Speaker 1: which as we talked about, is not defined to one tour.
Speaker 1: And so you know, we set that to the side,
Speaker 1: but we know that that discussion continues. We hear it
Speaker 1: from players, we hear it from others. I'm saying, it's
Speaker 1: really the driver that we should be looking at, or
Speaker 1: we should be looking at the driver as well. And
Speaker 1: because that conversation is out there, we don't want to
Speaker 1: be blind to it, and so we're going to continue
Speaker 1: to investigate. Are there things that we could do with
Speaker 1: the driver, you know, around that forgiveness, so that golfers
Speaker 1: aren't necessarily swinging as hard as they can at it
Speaker 1: and getting the results that they're getting. We don't know
Speaker 1: what that would look like. Frankly, we have no idea
Speaker 1: what timeline that could be. What we issue today is
Speaker 1: not a formal area of interest. It's just a recognition
Speaker 1: of the community that we know it's important to people
Speaker 1: and that's the role we play, and so we're going
Speaker 1: to continue to look at that and see if there's
Speaker 1: a solution for some point in the future.
Speaker 2: So, Mike, when you look at the modern driver, what
Speaker 2: do you think are some of the issues with it?
Speaker 2: How would you like to see things change in that area? Potentially?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 3: If I would say issues with it, I would just
Speaker 3: say in the hands to here to Thomas pointing the
Speaker 3: hands of the of the fastest ball speed players in the.
Speaker 4: World, there's not a lot of downside if I'm missing
Speaker 4: the center.
Speaker 3: And if you just jump back, you know, twenty five
Speaker 3: years ago, you know, a mishit was was significant enough
Speaker 3: that standing on the eighteenth t with a creek on
Speaker 3: the right or left you had to think about, you know,
Speaker 3: there was there was more to think about than.
Speaker 4: How hard could I could I swing it?
Speaker 3: And even at the younger ages, it wasn't just about
Speaker 3: swinging as hard as you can. And we'll figure out
Speaker 3: the rest less by the rest later. But we don't
Speaker 3: really have a good answer for that. Jarrett and I
Speaker 3: think what we're essentially setting in that paper and that
Speaker 3: when what we announced today is that's an area we're
Speaker 3: still going to have to assess. One of the things
Speaker 3: we learned through this whole area of interest and notice
Speaker 3: in common period is when you tell people what you're
Speaker 3: thinking about, you get a lot of insights from others
Speaker 3: about how you might do it.
Speaker 4: Now you have to kind of weed through some of
Speaker 4: the crazy.
Speaker 3: But the reality of it is telling people kind of
Speaker 3: something we're really perplexed by tends to un ale some
Speaker 3: others that maybe maybe thought their idea was crazy, But
Speaker 3: when get in front of us, we really start thinking
Speaker 3: it through. So we just don't know that. Going back
Speaker 3: all the way back to the beginning talking about the
Speaker 3: recreational golfer, the real problem we have on drivers is
Speaker 3: if we were going to make a driver that had
Speaker 3: a significant reduction in in forgiveness enough to really make
Speaker 3: a difference in the hands of elite player, that driver
Speaker 3: would be crushing from an amateur game excitement, performance, enjoyed
Speaker 3: the game. So until we kind of figure out a
Speaker 3: better model, we can figure out, you know, a driver
Speaker 3: or a three ord or even a rescue club that that
Speaker 3: gets that that changes it quite a bit for an
Speaker 3: elite player. But bringing that across the board and at
Speaker 3: this point kind of trying to stay with you across
Speaker 3: the board team is unrealistic and just the wrong thing
Speaker 3: to do for the game. So we won't go there.
Speaker 3: But we're not We're not the toured. We're just we
Speaker 3: just don't have the right answer yet.
Speaker 2: So, Thomas, these questions around the driver bring to mind
Speaker 2: a separate set of concerns about how the modern game
Speaker 2: has evolved. So far. We've talked mainly about long term sustainability,
Speaker 2: golf course footprint, that area of concern, but another one
Speaker 2: is skill. What skills are being rewarded and what skills
Speaker 2: are kind of slipping underground right now at the elite
Speaker 2: levels of the game. Could I get some thoughts from
Speaker 2: you on what the governing body's goal is when it
Speaker 2: comes to emphasizing certain skills or bringing back certain skills
Speaker 2: in the way the game is played by the best players.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Look, I think we've been very clear on this
Speaker 1: since we issued the Distance Report. We believe the games
Speaker 1: at its best when a variety of skills are needed
Speaker 1: to determine success. And we have seen certain skills begin
Speaker 1: to become more important than others. And that's a concern, right, like,
Speaker 1: how can we help the game try to find that balance?
Speaker 1: And today certainly will be a start of that, but
Speaker 1: it's not going to solve it totally and we recognize that.
Speaker 1: But if it does help the variety of skills, we
Speaker 1: think that's important. But the reality is, I think Mike
Speaker 1: mentioned this earlier. You look at tours or tournament organizers
Speaker 1: of elite competitions across the globe. They can set up
Speaker 1: the golf course in certain ways to demonstrate or have
Speaker 1: certain skills come through, and we don't control that, and
Speaker 1: that's okay. But for those that share the view that
Speaker 1: it's important for a variety of skills to determine success,
Speaker 1: we want to be able to help support that for sure.
Speaker 2: Now back to you, Mike, these changes around the ball
Speaker 2: that the timeline that we're looking at right now is
Speaker 2: you know, it's not out of this decade, but there's
Speaker 2: plenty of time. You know. I often I look at
Speaker 2: twenty thirty and I consider how old I'm going to
Speaker 2: be or how old my kids are going to be,
Speaker 2: and it starts to seem like a long time. And
Speaker 2: that's twenty thirty is when these changes will likely come
Speaker 2: into effect for the amateur game. Twenty twenty eight is
Speaker 2: more what's being targeted for elite competition. So why is
Speaker 2: there this much time between the announcement and the implementation
Speaker 2: and what do you think can be or should be
Speaker 2: achieved in those years.
Speaker 3: So the first on the why, it's to be fair
Speaker 3: to the game and to the people who are part
Speaker 3: of it. It's, you know, we may want to go faster,
Speaker 3: but I think when we make a change like this
Speaker 3: across the board that affects a lot of people's businesses,
Speaker 3: we need to be cognizant of the time it takes
Speaker 3: to do that.
Speaker 4: Right, I think we need to be cognizant of the people.
Speaker 3: That have inventory, and retailers that have inventory, and people
Speaker 3: that have grudge inventory. And so let's let's you know,
Speaker 3: as my father used to always say, it's never too
Speaker 3: late to do the wrong, to do the right thing,
Speaker 3: but doing the right thing too quick and can sometimes
Speaker 3: be wrong. So I, you know, I was born with
Speaker 3: a lot of skills. Patients wasn't one of them. So this,
Speaker 3: you know, this is harder for me probably than it
Speaker 3: was for many. But to me, I would rather make
Speaker 3: sure we were protecting you know, we're protecting the game
Speaker 3: through adjustment, then feel like we have to throw anybody
Speaker 3: into an electrical shock to get through adjustments. So, yes,
Speaker 3: this is going to take a while, and yes it's
Speaker 3: fair to critique the pace in which this change will
Speaker 3: come into play, just like it's fair to critique maybe
Speaker 3: we should have done this five or ten years ago.
Speaker 3: That's fair critique too. But the most important thing is
Speaker 3: that we are that we're willing to make adjustments to
Speaker 3: the game that we think that can be right long term.
Speaker 3: And I think this is exactly what the recreational business
Speaker 3: side of the stakeholders asked for and exactly what the
Speaker 3: manufacturing side of the business asked for. In order to
Speaker 3: do this in a right way and not cause more stress, anxiety,
Speaker 3: and quite frankly unnecessary, financial strain because of the change,
Speaker 3: and we thought that was more than fair. Like I said,
Speaker 3: not every input makes it to the final output, but
Speaker 3: the ones that we think, quite frankly, we can get
Speaker 3: over ourselves and not be twenty twenty six, but be
Speaker 3: twenty eight if we think we're actually if we're actually
Speaker 3: listening to quality feedback. And you know, sometimes two years
Speaker 3: seems like forever, but in the grand scope of.
Speaker 4: Things, it's not much as long as you get to
Speaker 4: a better.
Speaker 2: Place, Thomas, would you expect that a new set of
Speaker 2: regulations around the ball might be necessary when it's twenty
Speaker 2: thirty five or twenty forty five. Would you expect this
Speaker 2: to be kind of a thing that happens at regular intervals, Because,
Speaker 2: as you mentioned earlier, the official distance standard has been
Speaker 2: changed various times throughout history. This is not the first
Speaker 2: time that something has been altered in that formula. So
Speaker 2: do you think this is going to be an ongoing
Speaker 2: kind of change?
Speaker 1: This will become I mean, it is part of long
Speaker 1: term management of distance. Right to Mike's earlier point, we
Speaker 1: don't know at what pace or what timeline distance will
Speaker 1: continue to grow post twenty twenty eight, but we believe
Speaker 1: as it does the RNA that it will continue to
Speaker 1: grow and there will be a point in time where
Speaker 1: we're back to where we are today and we'll need
Speaker 1: to consider further action. And so I fully expect that
Speaker 1: to be the case. When that will be tough to
Speaker 1: put a timeline on it. Don't believe it's going to
Speaker 1: be twenty thirty five, you know, as Mike mentioned earlier,
Speaker 1: part of our goal was really to have meaningful impact
Speaker 1: and minimize disruption, and so we believe that the change
Speaker 1: being proposed will have a meaningful enough impact to spread
Speaker 1: out the wave of change to where there'll be a
Speaker 1: long enough time horizon before the governing bodies have to
Speaker 1: take further action. Because if it's twenty thirty five when
Speaker 1: we're taking further action, we really haven't given the game
Speaker 1: that much time to adjust from this change, and we
Speaker 1: certainly want to avoid that.
Speaker 2: Say, we can project ourselves forward to the twenty twenty
Speaker 2: eight US Open, when this new ball, presumably if everything
Speaker 2: goes as planned, is being used by players in competition.
Speaker 2: I'm not sure which course is hosting the twenty twenty
Speaker 2: eight US Opened, but I know it's been.
Speaker 4: Selects I can tell you. But I'm not sure if
Speaker 4: we've announced yeah, oh.
Speaker 2: It's twenty twenty eight, one of the few years that's
Speaker 2: not I think it's there. But in any case, I'll
Speaker 2: look it up back.
Speaker 4: I know where we're going here. I just don't know
Speaker 4: if I've told everybody.
Speaker 2: Oh, say okay. In any case, say this ball is
Speaker 2: in play. What does success look like if we're watching
Speaker 2: that tournament on TV? What might be different and what
Speaker 2: are we going to be looking for?
Speaker 3: If I'm right, and you can put whatever asterisk next
Speaker 3: to if Mike is right, I think people will be
Speaker 3: playing this ball earlier than twenty twenty eight. I really
Speaker 3: believe there's gonna be people on tours playing a.
Speaker 4: New ball in twenty two.
Speaker 3: When you unleashed thousands of the best engineers in the
Speaker 3: world on a new standard that then have four years
Speaker 3: to do it, They're going to be creating new technologies,
Speaker 3: new excitement, new and they're going to start doing ball
Speaker 3: testing with players, and players are going to say I
Speaker 3: want that one, and so I would be shocked if
Speaker 3: we didn't see balls and in play. The real answer
Speaker 3: to your question is in twenty twenty eight, if we're
Speaker 3: at the US Open, a success to me is we
Speaker 3: won't be talking about a ball because I don't think
Speaker 3: it really matters. If the guy steps up and hits
Speaker 3: a two hundred and twenty six yard drive or a
Speaker 3: two hundred and thirty nine yard drive, If it's the
Speaker 3: longest drive of the day on that whole, it's still impressive.
Speaker 3: I mean, Tiger Woods was impressive to me in two
Speaker 3: thousand and he wasn't hitting the ball three hundred and
Speaker 3: twenty seven that Rory might have hit last last year.
Speaker 3: When you're it's relative to the rest of your peers,
Speaker 3: it's relative to what's capable. I feel really confident that
Speaker 3: come twenty twenty eight will almost go what was the
Speaker 3: big deal? Now we might be playing the course a
Speaker 3: little shorter than we would have been playing it in
Speaker 3: twenty twenty seven. We might feel differently about certain holes,
Speaker 3: but I feel fairly confident when the best, when the
Speaker 3: best in the world have time to dial in a
Speaker 3: new ball and then that ball is going to play.
Speaker 3: If you're not careful, you'll forget it happened.
Speaker 2: By the way, the twenty twenty eight US Open is
Speaker 2: going to be held at Wingfoot. That has been announced,
Speaker 2: and so I'm sure there will be some interesting comparisons
Speaker 2: to make between the twenty twenty eight US Open and
Speaker 2: the US Opened that Bryce and deshambo One at his
Speaker 2: biggest and burliest, so distance will certainly be part of
Speaker 2: the discussion at that tournament and at many tournaments in
Speaker 2: the future. So thank you to both of you for
Speaker 2: coming on the podcast today. I really appreciate your time
Speaker 2: and hope to talk to you again soon.
Speaker 4: Thanks, Thank you, Garrett, appreciate it.
Speaker 2: This episode of the Friday Golf Podcast was produced by
Speaker 2: Matt Ruschius. Thank you, Matt. So if you've been enjoying
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