That certainly works for courses that have the space to set the pro tees super far back, but not every club can pull that off given space constraints.
Well we are talking majors here. I don't think anyone really cares what bryson does at the john deere classic.
A dead ball wouldn't really fix things would it? You'd move Bryson 20 yards back but the gap would be the same between him and others. Now he hits PW while they hit 9i. In the future he'd hit 9i while they hit 8i right?
I believe there is a way for distance to die at a certain threshold. I've been told that the range balls at our club die at 270ish due to small range. A longer hitter would still hit it further than 270 but the flight would significantly die faster past that threshold.
Where did I say anything that contradicts this? I'm not against them making changes on the PGA Tour....hell I made several suggestions as to what they could do or continue to do. I'm against them (golfs governing bodies) making changes for everyone based on a couple of people hitting it too far.
It would make it where courses don't have to be 8000 yards to challenge the tour players. ANGC moved a road. That isn't feasible for most places
Grow the course out to penalize the long ball hitter. Grow rough through the fairway, long rough. So on a 575 yard par 5, have long rough from 300 yards to 400 yards. Force long hitters to play short of it and lay up on the next shot or try and hit a 280 or so 3 wood if they want to go for it in two. Do the same thing on par 4s. Make it target golf.
I want them to roll back the ball for the Tour so they could potentially play more of the classic courses. ANGC would seem to have the most leverage to start something like this.
While I agree with you the powers that be are concerned with the history of the game with regards to scoring along with keeping courses relevant. I envision a spinnier ball more than a dead ball.
Spinny ball- So wayward drives are more likely to de-incentivize swinging as hard as you can with a 48" driver. And this isn't my opinion, I can't wait to watch Bryson this week.
Idk the last time you have been but have you seen the amount of property they have bought? The ACC is small potatoes for their longterm plans. They arent going to do anything crazy, but if they wanted to get crazy they could.
Know all about the property they have and you somehow think that translates into lengthening the course?
They have plans to do just that. Move 1 green back, 9 tee back, shift 2 back/over and closer to where the maintenance shed is now. Thats all I have seen, but I am sure there are other plans for other holes.
While it seems that AGNC has no problems financially acquiring more land surrounding the course, I just wonder when the appetite to keep lengthening and changing it around runs out...
They will absolutely continue to make "improvements" to the course. I think the talk of a tournament ball would be something they would be all about as well. The massive land grab is not as much to do with the current course as future plans to expand their overall operations and experience. Think about it this way, if they continue to tweak the course as we are talking about, what does that do to the women's amateur?
If it's for the pros only then I don't care, that's fine. Again, you don't make a huge change like that for everyone though.
This would just be for competitors in the specific events. The main ones I've heard are the Open Championship and the Masters. I would have to imagine it would be the same ball and that might be adopted by other events but not necessarily full scale on the PGA tour. You would think they have to give all of the ball manufacturers an opportunity to make the ball to the right specs and the players the time to practice with it. Hard to imagine it happens in the next 2 years.
It really sucks that there wasn't a crowd there for that. I was there when Bubba aced it during in a practice round and it sounded like a Sunday roar.
Continuing to change the courses seems like a weird solution to a problem pretty clearly driven by technology.
Is it really a problem if a single player has a unique skill that he uses to his advantage? Other than old guys bitching is there really an issue that rises to the level of requiring equipment changes ?
It's not just Bryson though, he's just putting an exclamation point on it. Hitting it long is such a huge predictor of success now. I do think you could make the argument that hitting it long is a skill that should be rewarded, I just wished they had a ball where it wasn't so easy to crush it long and straight.
Bryson is unique right now in that he can pull off the distance and still keep it on the planet. I'm sure a few others will try their hand at what he is doing in the next few years with varying degrees of success but I think rolling back the ball would help them (AGNC, USGA, PGA Tour, etc.) get out ahead of whats inevitably coming down the tracks, where you have 10-20 Bryson's in the field a decade from now. Again, I have no problem with what he's doing (it's fun as hell to watch and I can't wait to see it this week). I'd just like to get to a place where they aren't having to worry about lengthening the courses and maybe bring back some classics that today's length has bypassed.
I mean wouldn’t rolling back the ball hurt the real short guys even more? What mal was saying with making it spin a lot more so a miss is an entire hole away and not ten yards I think would do more
Yeah I shouldn’t have used “roll back” as I understand the distance stuff hurts the short guys more. More spin if perfectly fine with me!
I believe the intention is not for the reduction to be linear. Like, a 275yd tee shot still goes 275. But a 350 one only goes 300.