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 bright egg
Speaker 1: Friday egg.
Speaker 2: The dreaded Frida egg, Frida Egg, fridagg.
Speaker 1: Bride egg Lie, I'm about ready to run off of
Speaker 1: the hum. Welcome back to another edition of the Friday
Speaker 1: Golf Podcast. I'm your host, Andy Johnson. There was a
Speaker 1: huge news over the weekend and golf obviously came from
Speaker 1: a Golf Digest report that broke that the USCA and
Speaker 1: RNA are going to be instituting a universal ball rollback
Speaker 1: for everyone. So with that in mind, I decided to
Speaker 1: chat with our own Garrett Morrison, a co host of
Speaker 1: this podcast, and really dive in to everything about the
Speaker 1: roll back. Obviously, we have not heard from the USCA
Speaker 1: yet on this. The report clearly came from some equipment
Speaker 1: companies that have been notified. So when we hear from
Speaker 1: the USCA I and get all the details, I would
Speaker 1: guess that we will have another episode. But we got
Speaker 1: in great detail on everything here. It was a crazy
Speaker 1: weekend with people like Tiger Woods and Rory McElroy sounding
Speaker 1: off on their opinions, as well as some others such
Speaker 1: as you know, Keegan Bradley calling the U the rollback
Speaker 1: monstrous and Ricky Fowler on the on the other side
Speaker 1: of the rollback saying it was such a bad decision.
Speaker 1: So Garrett and I dive into it, why this happened,
Speaker 1: and what we expect from it. So, without further ado,
Speaker 1: here's our discussion on the ball roll back. Garrett, we're back.
Speaker 1: I guess this was really unplanned. I didn't think this
Speaker 1: was going to be Tuesday's episode, But of course, I
Speaker 1: think the big news over the weekend caught everybody off guard,
Speaker 1: probably the USGA and RNA, included the Golf Digest. Mike
Speaker 1: Stakura basically broke the news that there was a there's
Speaker 1: an impending rollback to everybody in the game of golf.
Speaker 1: They are going to cut distances by about five percent,
Speaker 1: starting for the professionals in twenty twenty eight and everybody
Speaker 1: in twenty thirty. So we are talking about news that
Speaker 1: is five years out at the earliest, I guess four four, right, yeah,
Speaker 1: four years out at the soonest, and for everybody six
Speaker 1: years out. So that was the big news and instant reaction.
Speaker 2: Instant reaction is just I am surprised, even shocked. You know,
Speaker 2: I kind of there were indications that something like this
Speaker 2: was coming, but I'm just astonished that we've gotten to
Speaker 2: this place. If you had asked me three years ago
Speaker 2: whether I thought it was even possible that there would
Speaker 2: ever be a universal rollback on the table that the
Speaker 2: USGA and RNA might get behind, I would have said,
Speaker 2: no way, it's not going to happen. But we have
Speaker 2: gotten to this point, and we'll talk about how how
Speaker 2: we've gotten here.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think there's pros and cons of the universal rollback,
Speaker 1: I think, you know, and we'll get into that, but
Speaker 1: but overall, I think, you know, there's a lot of
Speaker 1: different ways, and you know, I for one, think that
Speaker 1: this is great news for the entire golf ecosystem that
Speaker 1: this is you know, this is a move that sets
Speaker 1: up a couple things at the at the large scale,
Speaker 1: like there needed to be a understanding that regulation, large
Speaker 1: scale regulation was okay, and there needed to be somebody
Speaker 1: that was looking at the game at a you know,
Speaker 1: a large scale. And what what I mean by that
Speaker 1: is not about like, is this new product that we're
Speaker 1: going to make going to make us millions of dollars
Speaker 1: or not. More so, the game and how it's set
Speaker 1: up for the future, given the constraints on the environment,
Speaker 1: the changing like society's changing tastes, and just you know,
Speaker 1: making sure that golf courses aren't the ones that are
Speaker 1: taking on the brunt of the costs of you know,
Speaker 1: increased distances across the game. So I think, like overall
Speaker 1: this is a really great thing for golf.
Speaker 2: I agree with you. I want to talk a little
Speaker 2: bit about the way that this has come about, because,
Speaker 2: as I said, it's a little bit surprising that we've
Speaker 2: gotten to the point of universal rollback. Initially, as many
Speaker 2: of our listeners will remember, the USGA and RNA proposed
Speaker 2: a model local rule for the golf ball, basically a
Speaker 2: rolled back golf ball that would be available to be
Speaker 2: used in competitive environments where a model local rule would
Speaker 2: be instituted. That was the first proposal. Essentially, it would
Speaker 2: result in bifurcation of the game. Amateurs, everyday recreational players
Speaker 2: would be playing one golf ball, the golf ball that
Speaker 2: we're currently playing, tested against the current standards. We'd be
Speaker 2: playing that ball, and then elite amateurs and professional golfers
Speaker 2: if their leagues and tours so chose, would play the
Speaker 2: model local rule ball, and so their distance would be
Speaker 2: limited rain dawn through bifurcation essentially, and by the way,
Speaker 2: the way that golf balls are tested is important here too.
Speaker 2: I won't go too deep into it, but basically how
Speaker 2: it's done is a robot is set up to swing
Speaker 2: at a certain very high elite male speed, and any
Speaker 2: golf balls that comply with USGA and RNA rules need
Speaker 2: to go a certain distance or can't go over a
Speaker 2: certain distance. And essentially what the new ball would be
Speaker 2: would be a ball that the robot would swing a
Speaker 2: bit faster at but would still have to go the
Speaker 2: same distance as before. So essentially it would be a
Speaker 2: somewhat more reduced flight ball, and the overall reduction in
Speaker 2: yardage would be something like five percent. So for elite
Speaker 2: players that means something like fifteen yards. For amateur players
Speaker 2: it would means something closer to ten to twelve yards.
Speaker 2: I'm talking about men here.
Speaker 1: I think important to talk about here just where we've
Speaker 1: gotten with technology. Players with higher swing speeds yield greater
Speaker 1: rewards on the current technology, and what that means is
Speaker 1: that somebody that swings one hundred and ten miles an
Speaker 1: hour at a golf ball gets a lot more out
Speaker 1: of a pro V one let's just use them, or
Speaker 1: a TP five X or whatever it may be, than
Speaker 1: somebody that swings ninety five miles an hour. There's like
Speaker 1: a level of speed that yields increase, you know, the
Speaker 1: compression yields increased gains in technology, and then as you
Speaker 1: as the swing speed lowers, it diminishes. So with all
Speaker 1: this in mind, I think, and nobody has seen this
Speaker 1: play out, you know, I would love to get my
Speaker 1: hands on an example of one of these golf balls,
Speaker 1: but nobody's seen this play out. Is like, it's very
Speaker 1: feasible that it could hurt elite players by fifteen yards
Speaker 1: and a normal player by five because the reduced swing speeds.
Speaker 1: You just aren't generating the gains with this golf ball
Speaker 1: technology that someone at the elite level is. It could
Speaker 1: be born out that it's the exact same percentage. I
Speaker 1: would tend to guess, you know, this is I don't
Speaker 1: have any facts around this. This is just my understanding
Speaker 1: of current golf balls. I would tend to guess that
Speaker 1: the everyday you know, ten handicap is going to see
Speaker 1: less of a reduction from percentage basis than a tour pro.
Speaker 2: That is what I suspect too, But we really don't
Speaker 2: know until we see examples of this golf ball and
Speaker 2: have average players test them side by side. But again,
Speaker 2: my suspicion is the same as yours. I believe that
Speaker 2: players like Roy McElroy compress the modern golf ball to
Speaker 2: a degree that players like me are not capable of,
Speaker 2: and therefore Roy McElroy leverages what's inside the golf ball,
Speaker 2: the technology in there, to a much greater degree than
Speaker 2: I do. But in any case, this has been the
Speaker 2: model local rule ball on the table from the beginning. Now,
Speaker 2: there was a comment period and industry stakeholders were asked
Speaker 2: to give their opinion on the prospect of a model
Speaker 2: local rule and effective bifurcation of the game. And their
Speaker 2: response was hell, no, we do not want this.
Speaker 1: We can't bifurcate the game. If we bifurcate the game,
Speaker 1: we lose the essence of the game. You know, this
Speaker 1: is what they were saying. The the magic of golf
Speaker 1: is that we all play the same equipment. That was
Speaker 1: the you know, they kicked and screamed about bifurcation because
Speaker 1: of this, when you know, I think a lot of
Speaker 1: people were like, this makes sense. Bifurcation makes sense, right,
Speaker 1: like wood bats and aluminum bats in baseball. You know.
Speaker 1: But everybody who is you know now currently opposed a
Speaker 1: rollback was also seemingly opposed by furcation.
Speaker 2: Yep. Well, I think there are a number of people
Speaker 2: even who are saying, why don't we buyfurcate who were
Speaker 2: previously saying bifurcation is no good. I don't think that
Speaker 2: there's been been a whole lot of consistency in the
Speaker 2: positions that people have taken. But in any case, essentially,
Speaker 2: the message that the governing body's got is that the
Speaker 2: industry doesn't want bifurcation. And the sense that we have
Speaker 2: gotten over the past few days we in the fried
Speaker 2: Egg talking to people is that some manufacturers, especially ball manufacturers,
Speaker 2: particularly the leading ones in the industry, were more afraid
Speaker 2: of the threat to their market share that bifurcation would
Speaker 2: pose than the similar threat from universal rollback. In other words,
Speaker 2: certain manufacturers actually prefer universal rollback to this bifurcation model.
Speaker 2: And in a sense that's understandable because if the game
Speaker 2: were bifurcated, then a lot of equipment companies would then
Speaker 2: have to devote their RNA spend and their production capacity
Speaker 2: to two different product lines.
Speaker 1: Also, for years, ball count on the PGA Tour has
Speaker 1: been such a important statistic, you know, most played.
Speaker 2: Ball advertising AGA Tour appeal.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and all of a sudden, if that ball is different,
Speaker 1: then that marketing spend the years of maintaining the number
Speaker 1: one ball on the PGA Tour or a high percentage
Speaker 1: of PGA Tour players using a ball would go out
Speaker 1: the window, right, Because then it's like, Okay, you know,
Speaker 1: we don't have this marketing weapon that we've had forever,
Speaker 1: Like play the ball that you know Justin Thomas plays,
Speaker 1: play the ball that Jordan Speeth plays, Play the ball
Speaker 1: that Rory McElroy plays, Like that doesn't exist if you
Speaker 1: know they're playing different ball because you know amateurs.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: The funny thing is I think like bifurcation would have
Speaker 1: led to this either way, right, Like I think it
Speaker 1: would have gotten by it.
Speaker 2: It would have trickled down. We talked about this when
Speaker 2: when that news came out. Yeah, it was likely that
Speaker 2: you know, the elite game is it leads when it
Speaker 2: comes to equipment, and I think that the influence would
Speaker 2: have been significant on all parts of the game.
Speaker 1: So anyways, this uh, this is you know, you know,
Speaker 1: we could get to the timeline and everything, but it
Speaker 1: feels like where bifurcation would have gotten us to in
Speaker 1: twenty thirty.
Speaker 2: Either way, Yeah, that's very possible. You know. I think
Speaker 2: that the governing bodies always wanted to have a broad
Speaker 2: influence on the game as a whole. I don't think
Speaker 2: their intention, ever, was just to affect the professional game,
Speaker 2: because their research and their concern applies to the whole game,
Speaker 2: not just to the elite game. And so that's been
Speaker 2: true from the beginning. From the beginning, I believe the
Speaker 2: governing bodies have wanted to affect the entire game, as
Speaker 2: opposed to just one segment of it. But in any case,
Speaker 2: the pretense has come down, and now the governing bodies
Speaker 2: are reportedly going to say universal rollback is what we
Speaker 2: are going to do. This information came out late Friday
Speaker 2: night after markets have closed, right uh, a report from
Speaker 2: Golf Digest comes out from an equipment journalist from Mike Stakhura.
Speaker 2: Sorry if I'm pronouncing your name wrong. Mike. It could
Speaker 2: be Stakura or Statura in any case, See, I should
Speaker 2: know how to pronounce his name because he is a
Speaker 2: very prominent journalist, well connected. He gets these scoops, and
Speaker 2: he did a good job of getting this scoop. Now,
Speaker 2: I don't think it's unreasonable to assume that his sources
Speaker 2: were not from the USGA and RNA. I think it
Speaker 2: is reasonable to assume that his sources were from the
Speaker 2: equipment industry.
Speaker 1: And hey, before, you want to talk about something else
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Speaker 2: We were talking about how the news of the universal
Speaker 2: rollback broke, and it wasn't because the governing bodies wanted
Speaker 2: it to break last Friday night. They're going reportedly going.
Speaker 1: To the bodies were probably into a bottle of fat
Speaker 1: cork when it broke.
Speaker 2: They very well, I think most of us were were
Speaker 2: to some degree into a bottle of something at that
Speaker 2: point in the night. And in any case, this article
Speaker 2: comes out and h it is from an equipment reporter,
Speaker 2: citing industry sources, likely equipment industry sources, and so you know,
Speaker 2: you can see that there would be a motive from
Speaker 2: equipment companies to get out ahead of the story to
Speaker 2: make it a thing over the weekend, before the USGA
Speaker 2: and RNA had a chance to put their message out there.
Speaker 2: And so I'm sure that there must to be some
Speaker 2: frustration among people at the governing bodies that this became
Speaker 2: a thing over the weekend, but also maybe they should
Speaker 2: have predicted that this would happen. In any case, that's
Speaker 2: why we're talking about it now as opposed to after
Speaker 2: the imminent announcement of this move to universal rollback. So
Speaker 2: that is essentially where we are. It's been debated on
Speaker 2: the internet all weekend. We've seen a lot of different
Speaker 2: arguments and points being made. I'm sure there are other
Speaker 2: podcasts coming out, other articles and newsletters being written, but
Speaker 2: it's blowing up right now, and that's why we're talking
Speaker 2: about it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I obviously I think like one of the one
Speaker 1: of the things that you could say that the USGA
Speaker 1: has not handled well is the messaging.
Speaker 2: Nope, totally agree, because the thing is, I want to
Speaker 2: be clear, their position is strong here, I think. Now
Speaker 2: that's just my subjective opinion. Another thing that is more
Speaker 2: objective is that their research, their preparation has been exemplary.
Speaker 2: The Distance Insights project is an extraordinary piece of research.
Speaker 2: But the problem is that nobody's read it. Some people,
Speaker 2: a lot of people don't even know about it, and
Speaker 2: in my opinion, a lot of these spokespeople, a lot
Speaker 2: of the leaders for the governing bodies have not done
Speaker 2: a good job of communicating the outcomes of that research
Speaker 2: in an effective, concise, clear way, and that's a problem.
Speaker 1: On top of that, you know what's out there and
Speaker 1: what people are reacting to is a message that is
Speaker 1: written by someone who regularly writes for about equipment releases
Speaker 1: and equipment things like it is someone who is getting
Speaker 1: all their information from one you know, seemingly getting all
Speaker 1: their information. I just.
Speaker 2: Journalists, no USGA people. I don't think this is where
Speaker 2: this report was source from.
Speaker 1: Well, when the USGA gives people information that they embargo
Speaker 1: it and the release comes like it's like you cannot release.
Speaker 2: They want to announce it first. They don't like the leaksh.
Speaker 1: So so anyways, I think this was done completely out
Speaker 1: of it and and what what's happened is that the
Speaker 1: you know people have run with the information that Mike
Speaker 1: in this case is presented and it's a great article.
Speaker 1: But like the USGA, what I'm kind of struggling with
Speaker 1: here is is this happened on Friday night and we're
Speaker 1: recording now Monday afternoon, East Coast time. There's nothing the
Speaker 1: USCA announced Curtis Cup, a Curtis Cup participation like that
Speaker 1: was the press release I got for the USDA this
Speaker 1: morning was about the Curtis Cup. And it's you know,
Speaker 1: you've known that you're gonna do this for let's just say,
Speaker 1: three months, two months at least you've communicated something to
Speaker 1: the equipment manufacturers, which is why this report got released.
Speaker 1: So you've had communication. How is there not like just
Speaker 1: like a boiler plate statement, even even to the extent
Speaker 1: of like, hey, you know, we know this is out there,
Speaker 1: we're doing this like three bullets. We'll have more information
Speaker 1: for you at this date, right, Like by by hanging
Speaker 1: there in you know, it's allowing people to race around
Speaker 1: to conclusions, like you know, like that statement they could
Speaker 1: have released had could have had links to their their
Speaker 1: insights report, right, it could have had like here's how
Speaker 1: we got here, all these things. It's just it's just
Speaker 1: kind of crazy. Where again, the people reacting to this,
Speaker 1: The people that are talking about this are golf media.
Speaker 1: Most of golf media and I are propped up by
Speaker 1: equipment manufacturers. Bigest spend and their advertising portfolio is equipment
Speaker 1: manufacturers and PGA tour pros. Those are the people that
Speaker 1: are reacting to this, and they're all sponsored by the
Speaker 1: equipment manufacturers. This was an opportunity to somewhat put put
Speaker 1: out like a strong message and as of right now,
Speaker 1: as of this recording, there's been nothing.
Speaker 2: There are so many things that you could do to
Speaker 2: communicate the findings of their research or to convey a
Speaker 2: sense of what a rolled back world would look like,
Speaker 2: and very few of them have been done so far,
Speaker 2: and it feels like those of us who have supported
Speaker 2: rollback for a long time are kind of carrying the
Speaker 2: load here. And that feels a bit frustrating, because our
Speaker 2: job really is to report on this stuff, to talk
Speaker 2: about it in as honest a way as we can.
Speaker 2: We are not interested in doing messaging for the governing bodies.
Speaker 2: But it feels like that responsibility has fallen to people
Speaker 2: who do support rollback, who do believe in shrinking the
Speaker 2: scale of the game a bit for the sake of
Speaker 2: golf courses, And so it's a you know, it's an
Speaker 2: annoying position to be in. But with that said, maybe
Speaker 2: we could get to a few of the debates that
Speaker 2: have been happening about rollback, a few of the common
Speaker 2: arguments against it, and what we might say in response
Speaker 2: to those Do you want to do you want to
Speaker 2: get there?
Speaker 1: Yeah that sounds good. Okay, Well what do you think
Speaker 1: about growing grass higher?
Speaker 2: Just grow the grass, that's all you need to do. Okay. Yeah,
Speaker 2: this has been like a catchphrase from my golf Spy,
Speaker 2: which is an independent equipment media company, and I go
Speaker 2: to their website a lot. I look at the tests
Speaker 2: that they do for drivers and hybrids and stuff. I'm
Speaker 2: an equipment nerd. I like seeing this kind of stuff,
Speaker 2: so I think they do a good job with that.
Speaker 2: But basically they've said, all you need to do is
Speaker 2: grow the grass and you'll have a rollback. So the
Speaker 2: usgan R and A have actually done research on how
Speaker 2: much fairway mow height effects distance, and it's at most
Speaker 2: two to four yards, so that wouldn't have much of
Speaker 2: an effect. But I'll give more credit to the grow
Speaker 2: the Grass slogan right now than I think it deserves
Speaker 2: and say that it's not just about fairway mow height
Speaker 2: or rough height. What grow the Grass means to people,
Speaker 2: I think is an overall setup and design philosophy that
Speaker 2: would limit distance at the elite levels of the game.
Speaker 2: And what I mean by this is there are those
Speaker 2: who argue that we don't need to roll the ball back.
Speaker 2: All we need to do is change the golf courses,
Speaker 2: get the fairways a narrowerre make some more dog legs,
Speaker 2: maybe put some trees in there, more penalty hazards. Sure,
Speaker 2: you know, push the fairway, mo height up, grow the
Speaker 2: rough up, and effectively what we would have would be
Speaker 2: a rollback because players would strategically approach courses in a
Speaker 2: different way. That's the overall philosophy that's being suggested here
Speaker 2: as a replacement for changing the equipment. How do you
Speaker 2: react to that.
Speaker 1: I think that it's crazy. We've already seen this philosophy,
Speaker 1: the philosophy of grow the rough up, narrow the fairways,
Speaker 1: what moto. What this philosophy does is it promotes distance
Speaker 1: even more when faraway has become impossible to hit and
Speaker 1: the penalty for missing them a small fairway becomes extremely high.
Speaker 1: What it does is it promotes the you know, it's
Speaker 1: just a game of chance. So the game of chance,
Speaker 1: it's best to just swing away and hit it as
Speaker 1: hard as you can. I think Rory had comments about
Speaker 1: this at Okhill, where like I think after like the
Speaker 1: first round, he he had this realization that he should
Speaker 1: just hit it as far as he could, yeah, and
Speaker 1: he would end up in a better spot like more
Speaker 1: often like I'm probably not going to hit the fairway anyways,
Speaker 1: so I might as well hit it as far as
Speaker 1: I possibly can.
Speaker 2: Wait, wasn't it. It was Xander who said this.
Speaker 1: Right, somebody I can't remember who said it, but it
Speaker 1: was like they had this realization. It's like, well, I
Speaker 1: might as well hit it as far as I can
Speaker 1: because I'm probably not going to hit the fairway anyways.
Speaker 1: So that's what the golf. Golf becomes, that which just
Speaker 1: promotes distance and speed even more and eats away at
Speaker 1: the skill. I think what people are missing just in general,
Speaker 1: it's not about low scores. This isn't about low scores.
Speaker 1: It's about how scorers are being achieved on the PGA
Speaker 1: Tour and how scores are being achieved is it's become
Speaker 1: like almost every course is reduced to driver wedge. I mean,
Speaker 1: when you think about how long a golf hole needs
Speaker 1: to be to consistently get like a seven iron in
Speaker 1: elite players hands, I mean you're talking about like a
Speaker 1: five hundred and fifty yard hole. Yeah, I mean it's insane,
Speaker 1: like five point twenty a lot of times ends up
Speaker 1: being like a driver nine iron for the long players.
Speaker 1: And it's just it means like a it's about a
Speaker 1: representation of the game that is, like, this game is
Speaker 1: more than just hitting a wet a driver in a wedge.
Speaker 1: It is about using all the clubs in the bag, right.
Speaker 1: I saw a pro I saw Michael Kim tweet about, like, oh,
Speaker 1: how like it would be great to limit limit clubs
Speaker 1: in the bag. Yeah, but not change anything.
Speaker 2: Ten clubs ten clubs, yeah, I think. I don't think
Speaker 2: the players use fourteen clubs anything. Irons iron six through
Speaker 2: four are pretty much out of use at this point anyway.
Speaker 1: They're only used on par fives and par threes like,
Speaker 1: so that wouldn't change that much. Like the problem, it's
Speaker 1: just moving around the problem. The problem is that the
Speaker 1: ball goes so far that it's almost impossible to get
Speaker 1: long irons in players hands outside of par fives and
Speaker 1: par threes, right and in order, Like long par threes
Speaker 1: used to be two hundred yards long par threes today
Speaker 1: are like two two hundred and seventy yards. I mean
Speaker 1: that nothing and golf signifies that as much I and
Speaker 1: I just I think that's the that's the thing that
Speaker 1: people are missing a little bit. And I understand, like
Speaker 1: it's really easy to just look at scores. Oh, scoring
Speaker 1: is not that much different. Like golf courses are attempting
Speaker 1: everything they can do to curb scores, and scoring hasn't
Speaker 1: you know, changed that much. But like the means in
Speaker 1: the clubs and the skills that are required to score
Speaker 1: have never been less than now, right.
Speaker 2: And to be clear, this is just one part of
Speaker 2: what we're concerned about with distance gains in golf, the
Speaker 2: stuff related to the pro game, the strategic approach to
Speaker 2: golf courses that has emerged in this era, the one
Speaker 2: dimensionality of the game as compared to how it used
Speaker 2: to be played years ago, forty years ago. That's just
Speaker 2: this is just one part of this is just one
Speaker 2: part of it, to be clear. Another part of it
Speaker 2: is is more broadly applicable to the golf world.
Speaker 1: But well, I think people people are people are like, oh,
Speaker 1: this only matters for the pros. It doesn't if you
Speaker 1: go look at like state ams. This matters at state ams.
Speaker 1: State ams like have a bigger distance problem than the
Speaker 1: pro game. You know, there's only so many golf courses
Speaker 1: in the in the country that could present a good
Speaker 1: test for people that hit it three hundred and thirty yards, right,
Speaker 1: A lot of state ams get contested at sixty five
Speaker 1: hundred yard courses where like I played one with Nick Carty.
Speaker 1: Nick Carty was in college. Nick Carty, who's on the
Speaker 1: PGA Tour. He I think he finished fifty one on
Speaker 1: the on the FedEx Cup. Nick Carty played the sixty
Speaker 1: five hundred yard course and shot twenty eight under over
Speaker 1: four rounds. Twenty eight under. It was incredible. It was
Speaker 1: utterly unbelieve unbelievable. But for him, a sixty five hundred
Speaker 1: yard course with limited trouble, like, here's just hidden driver
Speaker 1: up there and just hidden wedges, like little flip wedges
Speaker 1: close like there's nothing a golf course like that can
Speaker 1: do to protect against it. This there is a three
Speaker 1: hundred yard hitter, somebody who is at three hundred yard
Speaker 1: plus yards at every course in America. I would you know,
Speaker 1: glean to guess. Would you agree with that?
Speaker 2: Yes? I would. And this is something that people often
Speaker 2: forget about when they talk about the effect of distance
Speaker 2: gains on the average player's game. Yes, the average player
Speaker 2: isn't the problem in the sense that the ninety five
Speaker 2: to one hundred mile per hour driver swinger is not
Speaker 2: the problem. But every course has a few players who
Speaker 2: hit the ball really far and the course needs to
Speaker 2: be sized for them, right, And that that is where
Speaker 2: the issue with golf course size creeps in is that
Speaker 2: not just professional venues, but normal golf courses try to
Speaker 2: size themselves for the longest players because if they don't
Speaker 2: do that, those players won't show up or will be
Speaker 2: hitting the ball all over the ballpark in a way
Speaker 2: that's not particularly safe.
Speaker 1: And and so I think the safety thing is the
Speaker 1: biggest issue here. Like there are long hitters at local munis,
Speaker 1: and you know what, those long hitters don't do that
Speaker 1: PGA tour players do. They aren't as accurate. They present
Speaker 1: a lot of like I am like the least the
Speaker 1: least into the idea of like safety as a golf
Speaker 1: architecture architecture thing, Like I think like a lot of
Speaker 1: safety measures yield things less safe. But for these courses,
Speaker 1: when somebody is a let's just say a five handicap
Speaker 1: and hits the ball three hundred and ten yards, they're
Speaker 1: very wild and all of a sudden, it's like they're
Speaker 1: hitting it all over the place roads because they could
Speaker 1: hit it twenty yards thirty yards further than thirty years
Speaker 1: ago because of equipment, let's be clear, because of equipment.
Speaker 1: And Tiger Woods talked about this in his press conference
Speaker 1: at the Hero this is all equipment game, this is
Speaker 1: not he talked about it. He's like, I hit the
Speaker 1: ball further now than when I came on tour because
Speaker 1: of the tech. That's what he said, all right.
Speaker 2: I mean he doesn't swing faster now.
Speaker 1: So so because of this tech. Like I've gone back
Speaker 1: and played the Beauty that I played in high school.
Speaker 1: I was a high school golfer. I played on a
Speaker 1: team that was very good in our state. Like I
Speaker 1: used to hit like a mid iron into the first
Speaker 1: screen at my Beauty that I grew up playing. Now
Speaker 1: I hit like a sixty yard wedge.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: Like this is so this longer. It brings roads into
Speaker 1: dispersion patterns. It brings other fair ways into dispersion patterns.
Speaker 1: It brings other greens into dispersion patterns that weren't there
Speaker 1: when the course was built. So this presents problems. And
Speaker 1: getting five percent back also reduces the dispersion pattern that
Speaker 1: same five percent the thing that I think is missing.
Speaker 1: And I guess we're hitting on another subject here. People saying, oh,
Speaker 1: you're making the game harder. I'm not sure that this
Speaker 1: is going to make the game harder. I have I
Speaker 1: think it might fractionally, like very very small amount, make
Speaker 1: the game harder, and for some players, I think it
Speaker 1: will make the game easier because the ball will go
Speaker 1: less offline.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean that's very possible, and it's very player dependent.
Speaker 1: Hey, Garrett, let's take a quick break to talk about
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Speaker 1: all right, let's get back to it, Garrett.
Speaker 2: I want to get back quickly to the course setup
Speaker 2: and course design issues. You mentioned that courses that grow
Speaker 2: their rough up and narrow their fairways often have the
Speaker 2: unintended effect of actually making things easier for the longest
Speaker 2: players relative to the shortest players. I think that's true.
Speaker 2: But there are also courses out there there's a model
Speaker 2: of design and setup where the advantage of distance is limited.
Speaker 2: These are the harbor towns of the world, right the
Speaker 2: TPC sawgrasses. A lot of pete die courses do this,
Speaker 2: and they do it through the use of penalty hazard,
Speaker 2: water hazards, sharp dog legs, plenty of trees, narrow corridors. Basically,
Speaker 2: these courses through everything at the wall to get players
Speaker 2: to know on occasion take driver out of the back.
Speaker 2: And so those courses do limit the advantage of distance
Speaker 2: in the way that many anti rollback people would want.
Speaker 2: But here's the thing. We should want a variety of
Speaker 2: golf courses in the world. This is where our love
Speaker 2: for golf architecture really comes out. I think in this debate, Andy,
Speaker 2: it's when people suggest that all golf courses should should
Speaker 2: pursue the same model for setups for elite tournaments. It
Speaker 2: makes me cringe because I really wouldn't want to see
Speaker 2: golf courses do that. First of all, it would be
Speaker 2: very expensive, and that's an issue that deserves more attention.
Speaker 2: The financial consequences of distance gains for golf courses. I
Speaker 2: think that might be the single biggest factor motivating the rollback,
Speaker 2: and we haven't even touched on it yet. So there's
Speaker 2: the cost issue, but there's also the design and art issue.
Speaker 2: You don't want every golf course that hosts an elite
Speaker 2: tournament to pursue this same design philosophy. We like variety
Speaker 2: in our golf courses. That's one of the central beauties
Speaker 2: of this game at all levels is the variety of
Speaker 2: playing fields that we get to play on and that
Speaker 2: we get to see golf plate on. And if you're
Speaker 2: saying that we have to homogenize golf courses to a
Speaker 2: certain model, to the Harbor Town or TPC Sagrass model.
Speaker 2: As great as those courses are, they wouldn't feel so
Speaker 2: great if they were every golf course.
Speaker 1: I always like to compare golf courses with restaurants. I
Speaker 1: think there's so many parallels. Just imagine if the restaurant
Speaker 1: industry became everybody has to do the same thing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because of some technological advance that like you know, eaters have,
Speaker 1: you know, technology is forced this to be the only
Speaker 1: way you can have a restaurant. You'd be like, wait, what,
Speaker 1: like I can't have different experiences, Like this is the
Speaker 1: only way and I especially with golf on TV, like
Speaker 1: you contrast is so so important. Different tests are so
Speaker 1: important because you know, that's what makes golf different than
Speaker 1: every other sport. It's it's the player against a feel
Speaker 1: against the course, right, and different courses are should be
Speaker 1: set up to reward different skills and different tests. There
Speaker 1: should be different tests. That's what makes the game so compelling.
Speaker 1: That's what makes it different than every other sport. Like
Speaker 1: you know, basketball, it's about how one team matches up
Speaker 1: with another team. Golf is about how this set of
Speaker 1: elite players match up against the course. That's the discourse.
Speaker 1: Like at every Master's like when when a new star
Speaker 1: comes on the on the scene is like how will
Speaker 1: he match up against augusta national? Right, how will his
Speaker 1: skills translate? At the Masters, right, They're like one of
Speaker 1: the big storylines every year going into Augusta is like,
Speaker 1: why is JT? Why does JT not have that had
Speaker 1: that master's breakthrough that everybody is expected his game should
Speaker 1: fit here wonderfully, Why hasn't he? Every time we go
Speaker 1: to a major site that we haven't seen in a while,
Speaker 1: it is what type of players are going to thrive
Speaker 1: at this golf course?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: And if all the golf courses become the same, that
Speaker 1: makes golf infinitely less compelling. And the way that distance
Speaker 1: was advancing the idea, and I think this is a
Speaker 1: later topic. The idea with Bryson finding a driver that
Speaker 1: he could hit anywhere on the face, you know, and
Speaker 1: that was this big breakthrough in twenty twenty four was
Speaker 1: like I can hit this driver anywhere and I get
Speaker 1: like a very good result. That's really bad for the
Speaker 1: overall game, right. Imagine a pair of gloves that you know,
Speaker 1: a receiver in football could wear that they you know
Speaker 1: after a game. You know this, somebody, let's just use
Speaker 1: Marquez Valdez Scantling. He had a big drop a couple
Speaker 1: of weeks ago, you know, very fast but unreliable hands.
Speaker 1: If he starts catching balls all every ball that's thrown
Speaker 1: to him, and people are like, what's happened with your
Speaker 1: ability to catch a ball? And he says, you know,
Speaker 1: I got these new gloves and if my hand touches
Speaker 1: the ball, I'm going to catch it. Do you think
Speaker 1: that football fans would be like, well, that that doesn't
Speaker 1: seem right now.
Speaker 2: It's not as impressive when a player jumps up high
Speaker 2: in the air and catches the ball with one hand
Speaker 2: and manages to come down with it. You're like, Okay,
Speaker 2: well I expect that.
Speaker 1: I think the thing the overarching So golf courses need variety,
Speaker 1: they need to be a different tests. But also for
Speaker 1: the PGA Tour players, I think it's like actually been
Speaker 1: super unfair to them what they've lived through the last
Speaker 1: ten to fifteen years where there's this constant question hanging
Speaker 1: over is it like is this player really that great?
Speaker 1: Or is the technology gotten to such a level that
Speaker 1: it it has made that made all these players great?
Speaker 1: Like is this class of player really are they that great?
Speaker 1: Are there that many great players? Or is the technology
Speaker 1: just made the game so simple that it allows a
Speaker 1: lot of players to be at this level? And I
Speaker 1: think that should be the guiding principle on all these
Speaker 1: decisions in terms of elite play. And this is where
Speaker 1: I hope that this is just the beginning of some regulation,
Speaker 1: because I think there are a lot of other aspects
Speaker 1: of this that you could go to make the product
Speaker 1: of golf are more fascinating on a television side of things.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying that this needs to be the case
Speaker 1: for everybody, but I think that golf would be significantly
Speaker 1: better with more regulation in the professional game. Make it
Speaker 1: more about the players and their skills and like, don't
Speaker 1: make technology that they have in their hands any part
Speaker 1: of the story.
Speaker 2: Right. I think both of us would love to see
Speaker 2: possibly a model rule related to a driver head regulation, right,
Speaker 2: so smaller, maybe less spring like effect. These are the
Speaker 2: things that are the factors that are currently regulated when
Speaker 2: it comes to driver head. I think that there's a
Speaker 2: way to come up with a model local rule that
Speaker 2: would be minimally disruptive, that would reintroduce some more skill
Speaker 2: into the driving game at the elite levels of play.
Speaker 2: I believe that would be a tough sell in the
Speaker 2: amateur game. But I also thought to three years ago
Speaker 2: that a rold back ball would be a prohibitively tough
Speaker 2: sell for the amateur game, and maybe that that's still
Speaker 2: the case, but we have gotten to this point. So
Speaker 2: I want to address one quick question or a point
Speaker 2: of debate that people often bring bring up and then
Speaker 2: get into talking about the questions around whether this makes
Speaker 2: the game harder for amateurs, because I think you and
Speaker 2: I can discuss that really well. But I do want
Speaker 2: to touch on one thing quickly that people often bring up.
Speaker 2: This is maybe the single most common point that I
Speaker 2: see being made in opposition to roll back, and it
Speaker 2: is an honest confusion that people have. They ask why
Speaker 2: should amateur players be forced to compensate for a problem
Speaker 2: that's limited to the top point oh one percent of
Speaker 2: elite golfers. In other words, if this is just a
Speaker 2: problem that exists in the professional game and four professional courses,
Speaker 2: then why am I asked to be Why am I
Speaker 2: at being asked to shoulder some of the load here?
Speaker 2: And that's just it's a point that I see being
Speaker 2: made over and over. It's the elite golfers and the
Speaker 2: elite courses that are disrupting my average game at average courses.
Speaker 2: That there's a little bit of anger here toward the
Speaker 2: elite trying to change how normal players play the game.
Speaker 2: And I get that. The thing is, if anybody, if
Speaker 2: anybody had read the research that came out, if anybody
Speaker 2: had engaged with the Distance Insights Project and looked at
Speaker 2: what they were studying and what they found, they would
Speaker 2: see that this problem is certainly not limited to professional
Speaker 2: golf venues. The distance gains across the history of golf
Speaker 2: have caused golf courses not just for elite players, but
Speaker 2: for all players to get longer, to have to get longer,
Speaker 2: to expand their footprints, to push up their maintenance, and,
Speaker 2: by the way, to push up your green fees. Maybe
Speaker 2: that process isn't very visible to you. Maybe you just
Speaker 2: see rising green fees and think, well, that sucks. Inflation
Speaker 2: or whatever. There are a number of factors that could
Speaker 2: cause green fees to rise, but part of that story
Speaker 2: of the rising costs of golf is that the footprint
Speaker 2: of golf courses has had to get better over the
Speaker 2: course of history. In order to accommodate advances in equipment.
Speaker 2: Golf courses have had to push up their own budgets
Speaker 2: to react to what's been happening in the equipment industry.
Speaker 2: Golf courses need to pay those bills and what the
Speaker 2: governing bodies are doing is intervening and saying somebody needs
Speaker 2: to speak up for the golf courses here because the
Speaker 2: industry as a whole is not going to be sustainable
Speaker 2: if we keep going in this direction. And that's not
Speaker 2: just professional venues. That is so many golf courses, ones
Speaker 2: that host state amateurs, ones that host qualifiers, and just
Speaker 2: normal golf courses.
Speaker 1: How about the marketing term championship golf Like a championship
Speaker 1: golf course. Everybody's seen that marketed from a local course.
Speaker 1: This is a championship golf course, and it came with
Speaker 1: a moniker of like being a certain distance, you know,
Speaker 1: sixty eight hundred yards whatever, you know, seven thousand yards,
Speaker 1: and the idea of the championship golf course was pooh
Speaker 1: pooing the sixty three hundred yard old school course down
Speaker 1: the street, right Like that was the whole marketing ploy
Speaker 1: was that come play this new golf course that's built.
Speaker 1: That's a modern golf course. It's it is a long, tough,
Speaker 1: challenging test. And I think like there's been a reaction
Speaker 1: in the golf world in a movement in the last
Speaker 1: you know, ten to fifteen twenty years too, like isn't
Speaker 1: it wonderful these sixty three hundred yard courses that are
Speaker 1: like that, I could get around quicker. You know, they
Speaker 1: take three and a half hours to play sometimes instead
Speaker 1: of five, and you know there aren't as many water hazards,
Speaker 1: and you know it's really nice when you walk off
Speaker 1: of green and the te's right next to it. Like
Speaker 1: there's been this reaction. I've seen people be like, you know,
Speaker 1: what's the big deal if you can knock three hundred
Speaker 1: yards off a golf course And it's like, are we
Speaker 1: really talking about three football fields of turf that don't
Speaker 1: have to be maintained as like not a big deal, right?
Speaker 2: Or maybe you can close down that back tea box.
Speaker 2: Yeah you felt you had to build and you're just
Speaker 2: sending mowers out there every day, and it would be
Speaker 2: a lot simpler if you could just kind of chop
Speaker 2: that off of your maintenance routine and you know, maintain
Speaker 2: a smaller footprint.
Speaker 1: And I've seen some people talk about what about forward tees?
Speaker 1: You know, are forward t is going to be obsolete
Speaker 1: with this change? Now, if if it's a five percent
Speaker 1: change for players that would play the forward tees, I
Speaker 1: would doubt that it will be a full five percent.
Speaker 1: But if it is, you know what the leading I
Speaker 1: would say the most forward thinking golf courses in the
Speaker 1: world resorts are doing with forward tees and and a
Speaker 1: lot of non back tees just in general, they're in
Speaker 1: the fairway.
Speaker 2: They just put them in the fairway, on the fairway,
Speaker 2: and they put them there.
Speaker 1: Epically acceptable to put a forward tee in the fairway.
Speaker 2: Because the traffic is a little bit less. Right. The
Speaker 2: reason that a tea has to be big is if
Speaker 2: it gets a lot of foot traffic. But the most
Speaker 2: forward t at a golf course, frankly, it doesn't get
Speaker 2: as much traffic as the end it should be, so
Speaker 2: it can be a little more casual.
Speaker 1: Every golf course, see this is just a separate sidebar topic,
Speaker 1: but like every golf course in America should have like
Speaker 1: a thirty five hundred yard tee that's basically like in
Speaker 1: the fairway on every hole. Absolutely a lot of them
Speaker 1: do it with plates for like kid teas. You know
Speaker 1: at one hundred and fifty, there's no reason there can't
Speaker 1: be another tea box like this is you don't need
Speaker 1: a tea box. I set up our fried egg events
Speaker 1: often and sometimes I put tea boxes that are on
Speaker 1: areas that I think would be really cool to hit
Speaker 1: a tea shot from. That's not a standard tea box.
Speaker 1: It's okay, how many times when you were When I
Speaker 1: was playing a lot of golf and very competitively in
Speaker 1: my like early twenties, I played at a golf course
Speaker 1: that was sixty four hundred yards regularly, and you know
Speaker 1: what I did. I had a bunch of back tea boxes.
Speaker 1: I stretched that thing to sixty eight hundred yards for myself.
Speaker 1: But the tea boxes were like in preposterous spots. They
Speaker 1: were like off behind a fairway on another hole, and
Speaker 1: I would I found like a little flat fairway spot
Speaker 1: and I tea off from there, and people would play
Speaker 1: with me. They're like this is crazy, and it's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm just trying to set this golf course up a
Speaker 1: little bit differently for myself. You know, Like this is
Speaker 1: the thing is that just like that forward t's can
Speaker 1: just go to the fairway. That's what we I mean,
Speaker 1: it's what we do so much at our events is
Speaker 1: we move. It's fun and it's perfectly fine. It's the
Speaker 1: same as a tea box.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, building a forward t doesn't necessarily have
Speaker 2: to push up the maintenance budget. Building back tea's does
Speaker 2: tend to because they're not typically within the existing footprint
Speaker 2: of the golf course. And so if people are equating
Speaker 2: the maintenance cost of a forward T with the maintenance
Speaker 2: cost of a newly built back tea or whatever, then
Speaker 2: they just don't know what they're talking about. And the
Speaker 2: people who bring up these points, I mean, are are
Speaker 2: sort of the people who generally don't know what they're
Speaker 2: talking about, but are out there talking and we all
Speaker 2: know who they are on Twitter, et cetera. So, moving
Speaker 2: on from those issues around golf course sustainability, financial as
Speaker 2: well as environmental, that is really the main issue here,
Speaker 2: and it's the one one that is hardest to understand,
Speaker 2: I think, and that requires people to actually look at
Speaker 2: the research that has been done and try to get
Speaker 2: what the governing bodies are really concerned about here on
Speaker 2: an industry wide basis. And I think that once you
Speaker 2: see some of the facts and some of the discoveries
Speaker 2: of this process that the RNA and USGA have gone
Speaker 2: through over the past several years, that maybe you won't
Speaker 2: agree with it, but you'll at least understand it a
Speaker 2: little better and you won't have as many questions and
Speaker 2: confusions as you might right now. So highly recommend going
Speaker 2: and looking at some of that stuff. But I'd like
Speaker 2: to talk about this issue of making the game harder
Speaker 2: for average players and whether this is going to make
Speaker 2: a moment of rising popularity in golf less celebrated, because
Speaker 2: you know, golf has seen a surge since COVID, and
Speaker 2: now we're just making the game harder for everybody, and
Speaker 2: everybody's just going to abandon the game, and you know
Speaker 2: we'll be back in the in the dark ages again.
Speaker 2: All right, let's talk about making the game harder for
Speaker 2: average players. Andy, you're not an average player, You're an
Speaker 2: exceptional player. I am closer to an average player, maybe
Speaker 2: maybe on the maybe on the higher end of ability
Speaker 2: for most average players, but but not significantly on the
Speaker 2: higher end. Do you think this is going to make
Speaker 2: the game harder you talked earlier about you know, maybe
Speaker 2: players who are a little bit wild, they might actually
Speaker 2: see their dispersion shrink a little bit. But in general,
Speaker 2: when you look at average players, do you think a
Speaker 2: five percent rolled back ball is going to make a
Speaker 2: big difference?
Speaker 1: I think for every player, it's going to be different.
Speaker 1: And for people to make these blanket statements about you
Speaker 1: know what you know everybody is going to do is
Speaker 1: kind of wildly off base. In general, I think there
Speaker 1: was data a data golf. I've had something at the
Speaker 1: PGA Tour level ten ten ten yards is worth like
Speaker 1: a half a shot.
Speaker 2: So and that's for PGA Tour players who hit the
Speaker 2: ball in this in the same spot on the club
Speaker 2: head pretty much all the time in a way that
Speaker 2: average players don't even come close to.
Speaker 1: So for the for the very best players, where like
Speaker 1: the very best players are like Lamborghini's right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, their margins are thin, right, and so that's why
Speaker 2: they pursue those those marginal gains.
Speaker 1: And like in a way like they're more consistent. But
Speaker 1: when things go bad, we see this, We see this
Speaker 1: with PGA. I mean like Billy Horssechell shot what like
Speaker 1: eighty five this year at Memorial. Like when things go
Speaker 1: bad for really good players, it's like embarrassingly bad, right,
Speaker 1: Like you just like you can look like a complete dog,
Speaker 1: Like you could play with a PGA Tour player who
Speaker 1: has a bad day and you could walk off the
Speaker 1: course and be like, is that really a PGA Tour player,
Speaker 1: like you know, but like what makes so what I'm
Speaker 1: trying to say here is that say you hit four
Speaker 1: solid golf shots around right, and this ball goes five
Speaker 1: to ten yards shorter for those four solid shots, and
Speaker 1: you've adjusted. I don't think this is a huge deal.
Speaker 1: Like half the country plays at altitude and then they
Speaker 1: go play somewhere else that's not at altitude. You don't
Speaker 1: hear people be like, well, it's way harder because it
Speaker 1: wasn't an altitude. I don't think I've ever heard somebody say, like,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm struggling to play golf here because of
Speaker 1: the altitude. Isn't because I'm leaving altitude. Have you ever
Speaker 1: heard somebody complain about that.
Speaker 2: There are innumerable factors that cause your distance off the
Speaker 2: tee to vary from day to day. Altitude is one
Speaker 2: of them. The sogginess of the turf is one of them.
Speaker 2: The air density is one of them. You know, I
Speaker 2: want to talk.
Speaker 1: About regular players, Like this is something that I think
Speaker 1: about all the time, is like I played really well
Speaker 1: if I've played three days in a row, and what
Speaker 1: happens to me is my body gets used to swinging
Speaker 1: a golf club again, and my and my muscles get
Speaker 1: longer and I hit it, I'll hit it twenty yards
Speaker 1: further or ten to fifteen yards further three days on
Speaker 1: the third day, ind than I hit it the first day.
Speaker 1: Just because my swing short, I don't have like the speed.
Speaker 1: My speed comes back as I play more days in
Speaker 1: a row. Yeah, I mean, I don't think a lot
Speaker 1: of regular players ever even think about this, right, Like.
Speaker 2: I mean I think of it. I have a bad back.
Speaker 2: On a day when my back is feeling good, I'm
Speaker 2: a lot longer off the tee.
Speaker 1: I I just think that it's kind of like, yeah,
Speaker 1: sure it might, it's going to be a little harder.
Speaker 1: I played with Persimmons for a year and a half.
Speaker 1: I played with Persimmons and in seventies blades, and can
Speaker 1: I can confidently say, like I am one thousand percent
Speaker 1: sure that I got extremely, like way better at golf
Speaker 1: because of that period. And why I got better was
Speaker 1: like I was forty yards shorter off the tee. And
Speaker 1: I think, like one of the things that I'm good
Speaker 1: at in my personal game, this is all personal, is
Speaker 1: that like I hit a driver really well, a modern
Speaker 1: driver really well, and when I lost forty yards, I
Speaker 1: stopped having a lot of wedges in my hand, and
Speaker 1: then I was hitting mid irons.
Speaker 2: And you were hitting the Wilson goose necks.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I was hitting mid irons, And.
Speaker 2: So it's meaningful, like the difference between a five iron
Speaker 2: and a eight iron with those those clubs.
Speaker 1: Is hugely meaningful. So then I missed more greens, and
Speaker 1: I missed more greens, so I had to get up
Speaker 1: and down more. But anyways, I came out of it
Speaker 1: away better golfer because what was valued was hitting the
Speaker 1: center of the club face. What was valued, like my
Speaker 1: short game got better because I was chipping more on
Speaker 1: a round by round basis. And then when I went
Speaker 1: back to modern technology, I was a substantially improved golfer.
Speaker 1: But the thing I found was that when I played well,
Speaker 1: I still still shot really low scores.
Speaker 2: Yeah, your ceiling, your ceiling was still there.
Speaker 1: Yes, And what even despite being forty yards shorter, my
Speaker 1: my ceiling was still there. And and that's the thing
Speaker 1: I think that like this is such a small loss.
Speaker 1: You might shoot a few more scorers that are a
Speaker 1: little higher, but I don't think you're gonna lose this set, Like,
Speaker 1: because because you could break eighty with modern club, with
Speaker 1: the current equipment, if you lose five percent on your
Speaker 1: on your distance, doesn't mean you can't break eighty outside
Speaker 1: of it. Yeah, Like I mean so much. A golf
Speaker 1: is a mindset and attitude thing and a confidence thing,
Speaker 1: and I just I think that, like, yeah, sure you might,
Speaker 1: you might be slightly worse, your handicap might go up
Speaker 1: like a half a shot. I just don't think that
Speaker 1: maybe real, maybe maybe you might get better.
Speaker 2: I mean, I don't know, Like there are so many
Speaker 2: variables when it comes to a mid handicap player's game.
Speaker 2: You know, I can shoot ninety on a given day.
Speaker 2: I can also shoot seventy five on a given day.
Speaker 2: That's all within my ability and my shooting on the
Speaker 2: lower end of that spectrum versus the higher end of
Speaker 2: that spectrum depends really on how many drives I hit
Speaker 2: out of bounds, or how many pitches I absolutely lay
Speaker 2: the sod over, or how many times I miss a
Speaker 2: one footer. It's stuff like that that makes me shoot
Speaker 2: ninety and so hitting the ball two hundred and thirty
Speaker 2: yards off the tee on a perfect strike versus two
Speaker 2: hundred and forty two yards off the t on a
Speaker 2: perfect strike. Okay, that's a difference. That's a club into
Speaker 2: the green and the and the club into the green
Speaker 2: is going to be a marginally shorter as well. But
Speaker 2: you know what, that's not really what makes me score
Speaker 2: well or poorly. What makes me score well or poorly
Speaker 2: are the big mistakes that I make in every round.
Speaker 2: And if I make fewer of those, I'm going to
Speaker 2: do well on that day. If I make more of them,
Speaker 2: I'm going to do worse on that day. And that's
Speaker 2: going to be just as true after the rollback as
Speaker 2: it was before.
Speaker 1: I think. The other thing is that when you're if
Speaker 1: the ball's going less, you're dispersions smaller, and thus the
Speaker 1: big cataclysmic mistakes that a lot of players make, every
Speaker 1: player in the world makes become less because of the
Speaker 1: distance dispersion that the how far off line you hit,
Speaker 1: it becomes smaller, so you might hit one extra fairway
Speaker 1: around and that makes up for the one extra club
Speaker 1: that you're hitting into the green.
Speaker 2: Yeah, right, yeah, this is a I mean, the difference
Speaker 2: between playing with a five percent roll back ball and
Speaker 2: today's ball is I think going to be quite a
Speaker 2: bit smaller than people imagine. But at the same time,
Speaker 2: you know, I don't want to piss down people's legs
Speaker 2: and pretend it's raining. This is a difference like if
Speaker 2: you could choose to be twelve yards longer off the
Speaker 2: tee versus twelve yards shorter. Of course you choose to
Speaker 2: be twelve yards longer. Of course that is ultimately going
Speaker 2: to be an advantage. So let's grant that a roll
Speaker 2: back ball makes the game slightly more difficult for average players.
Speaker 2: I would say two things to that. One is that
Speaker 2: if you believe that a rollback would be good for
Speaker 2: the game overall, if you review the research and look
Speaker 2: at all the issues from a global perspective and decide
Speaker 2: that a rollback would be a positive for the game,
Speaker 2: then I think you should be willing to make that
Speaker 2: small sacrifice for the greater good. And I know this
Speaker 2: is a little bit old fashioned to say this, or
Speaker 2: maybe maybe a little bit lame, but shouldn't I think
Speaker 2: something that's a little that's unique about golfers is that
Speaker 2: we are concerned for the game overall. We're devoted to golf,
Speaker 2: we love this game, and so I think we should
Speaker 2: take the perspective that we want to do something that
Speaker 2: is good for golf overall. That's one thing. The other
Speaker 2: thing is that if you took up golf because you
Speaker 2: wanted it to be easy, then I would say you're
Speaker 2: a somewhat unusual golfer. Most of us play this sport
Speaker 2: because it's hard, and the fact that it might become
Speaker 2: marginally harder I don't think should necessarily be that big
Speaker 2: of a deal to people who are as sick as us.
Speaker 1: I think there's something to be said too that, like,
Speaker 1: some things are good about golf courses are going to
Speaker 1: get easier, and some things are going to get harder
Speaker 1: if you hit it five percent shorter, right, Like a
Speaker 1: bunker you could clear will get harder if you can't
Speaker 1: clear it anymore. But there's also a bunkers that you
Speaker 1: probably hit into regularly that you're like, damn that bunker
Speaker 1: I always hit into it, that you won't get to anymore.
Speaker 1: Like it that it's going to work both ways right
Speaker 1: where some features are and I think, like what the
Speaker 1: big thing at the at the professional level of this
Speaker 1: changes is like actually restoring the long hitters having to
Speaker 1: think about bunkers, right, Like, I think that's the goal
Speaker 1: of this whole thing is that, like the game gets
Speaker 1: really out of whack with distance when the long hitters
Speaker 1: can bypass all the hazards and the medium length hitters
Speaker 1: on tour then hit into it, and then it becomes well,
Speaker 1: just build new bunkers. Well then it's like wait, so
Speaker 1: like one hundred courses or two hundred, and if you
Speaker 1: start to think about state ams or other smaller USGA
Speaker 1: events USGA qualifiers, so downstream, five hundred golf courses have
Speaker 1: to do millions of dollars of renovation work to put
Speaker 1: bunkers in places that these long hitters that are going
Speaker 1: to get longer are eventually going to carry, right, Like
Speaker 1: it's a self perpetuating thing. But the idea of the
Speaker 1: distance coming back, like you're going to be like, oh,
Speaker 1: I work my ass off to be able to hit
Speaker 1: it over this creek and now it can't. Well, there's
Speaker 1: all also a bunker that probably came into your purview
Speaker 1: or a hazard that came into your into your you know,
Speaker 1: potential outcomes because of that same distance game that cleared
Speaker 1: that one creek. Right, So you just need to think
Speaker 1: about this. I think back when I played in in
Speaker 1: the mid Am, I think back to this all the time.
Speaker 1: There's a center line bunker on one of the holes,
Speaker 1: and I was I was well well inside the cut
Speaker 1: line to make match play going into my last nine
Speaker 1: of qualifying, and I completely shit the bed and my
Speaker 1: like downfall happened on a hole with a cunderlined bunker
Speaker 1: on it. And during the practice round, I was like,
Speaker 1: what do I do? And my thought was like, just
Speaker 1: hit it at the bunker. You're not going to hit
Speaker 1: it in it. It's a tiny little bunker. Now, Like,
Speaker 1: I hit it right at the bunker, hit a good
Speaker 1: T shot, went right into the bunker. Guess what With
Speaker 1: a five percent rollback, I would have been short of
Speaker 1: it and I would have been fine, right, Like there
Speaker 1: you go, Like that would have made that hole easier
Speaker 1: for me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's golf courses. Golf courses are not grids, right.
Speaker 2: Golf courses are chaotic, and so the effects of hitting
Speaker 2: it shorter on certain holes or hitting up longer are
Speaker 2: not going to be perfectly predictable. I think. I think
Speaker 2: that's the point here. And then besides all of that, look,
Speaker 2: if you're playing the role back ball, likelihood is the
Speaker 2: people you're competing against or your buddies are going to
Speaker 2: be doing the same thing. And so if you've made
Speaker 2: gains over the past couple of years, if you've gone
Speaker 2: and done the done the whips or the the the
Speaker 2: stack system or yeah, super speed, yeah, super speed. Yeah,
Speaker 2: if you've, if you if you've gone to the weight room,
Speaker 2: if you've, then that's great. You know. I think that
Speaker 2: the self improvement drive of golfers in general is really
Speaker 2: admirable and something that should be celebrated. If you've made
Speaker 2: those gains, this isn't taking it away because you're still
Speaker 2: going to have those gains relative to other people that
Speaker 2: you're playing against, and I feel like that's really what
Speaker 2: matters to us in the end. Yes, golf is a
Speaker 2: sport that's played against a course, but our perception of
Speaker 2: what a long drive is is really relative to what
Speaker 2: other people are doing. It always has been, and so
Speaker 2: I think that people are going to adjust to this
Speaker 2: pretty quickly and it's going to be less painful than
Speaker 2: people think. But in that vein, it's kind of a
Speaker 2: bummer that it's so far off because people are just
Speaker 2: going to be worrying about it right up to twenty
Speaker 2: thirty or whenever it is that we're going to play
Speaker 2: this new ball, and you know, instead of just ripping
Speaker 2: the band aid off, where we're going to have to
Speaker 2: stew in it for a while. And so I'm girding
Speaker 2: myself up for some of the complaining and the whining
Speaker 2: that's going to happen in the interim. But I really
Speaker 2: feel that when the day comes, it's going to be
Speaker 2: less of a cataclysm than some people seem to think
Speaker 2: it will be.
Speaker 1: We're yeah, we're so far away, is the great thing.
Speaker 1: I will say. I think there's going to probably be
Speaker 1: another rollback pod on this podcast once the official news
Speaker 1: apologies in advance. I think we I would love to
Speaker 1: dive into some things then that I because we don't
Speaker 1: have the entire you know, roll back the entire fact base.
Speaker 1: I'd love to dive into some things that I probably
Speaker 1: would like to see more of less of, like some
Speaker 1: some maybe, you know.
Speaker 2: I think we'd both like to see more than five percent.
Speaker 2: That's something we didn't really talk about, but five percent,
Speaker 2: you know, it really isn't enough to address to some
Speaker 2: of the some of the problems that we talked about
Speaker 2: with sustainability and the financial expenditures of golf courses, yeah,
Speaker 2: five percent.
Speaker 1: Is five years.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well we'll see. Yeah, I don't know, I don't know.
Speaker 2: It's uh, I wish it were ten percent or fifteen percent,
Speaker 2: But then then we would really be talking about the
Speaker 2: game getting harder and so that that would be the issue.
Speaker 1: All right, Garrett, thanks for coming on. This was This
Speaker 1: will be the first of a few of these we got.
Speaker 1: We got six seven years to bat this around.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it's good to be invited to be on
Speaker 2: the podcast that I co host. It's always always a
Speaker 2: pleasure to talk to Andy.
Speaker 1: Well, we'll be back later this week with more us
Speaker 1: always not going away. Thank you for listening to another
Speaker 1: edition of the Friday Golf Podcast. Thanks to Garrett for
Speaker 1: joining in here on short notice, and big thanks to
Speaker 1: Matt Rusis for getting this thing edited, produced and uploaded
Speaker 1: in uh in short order. So he a quick reminder.
Speaker 1: We are we've been we've been knocking it out this
Speaker 1: whole year with Club TFB. I think there's stuff in
Speaker 1: it for everybody. Uh. We did a little you know,
Speaker 1: Garrett did a little roll back Q and A with
Speaker 1: a bunch of architects who submitted how they would, you know,
Speaker 1: how their design philosophies would change with a five percent rollback.
Speaker 1: It was a fascinating thing to read through. So if
Speaker 1: you're interested in joining Club TF it's one hundred and
Speaker 1: twenty dollars a year. You could do so at the
Speaker 1: fridagy dot com slash membership. Thank you to everybody who's
Speaker 1: supported us this year through that and in another you know,
Speaker 1: the pro shop, the events, all the things. It really
Speaker 1: means a lot and it keeps our small shop a
Speaker 1: hummet So thanks. We'll be back later this week with
Speaker 1: another edition of the Fridagg Golf Podcast