Under that scenario, there would’ve been a “pro ball” and a regular ball.
Rather than back off the rollback entirely, the governing bodies opted to rollback the ball for all golfers.
While increasing the swing speed, the test would not change the distance limit of 317 yards.
Balls would then have to be made to stay within that 317-yard standard.
The benefits of the rollback are clear.
That’s not sustainable from a money or land perspective.
I don’t disagree with any of the above.
What would make most sense in a vacuum, then, is bifurcation.
This is what Tiger Woods has been in favor of for decades.
“I’ve always said that.
Just like wood bats and metal bats.”
That last sentence is the kicker, though.
Nothing happens in a vacuum.
The golf business is simply not comparable to baseball.
You don’t have a massive market looking to buy baseball bats or balls.
It’s a unique dynamic in sports.
I disagree that certain skills in the pro game have been “eradicated.”
Collin Morikawa has won two major championships with his precision.
Brian Harman doesn’t win because he mashes the ball.
Sure, long irons maybe aren’t as common into par 4s as they used to be.
Still, the best players in the world are still the best iron players.
Advanced driver technology has had a big impact.
Off-center hits go way farther and straighter than they used to.
The best college players are longer than the average PGA Tour player.
The ball is part of the equation, but it’s only part of it.
The game is different than it used to be.
The vast majority of golfers are against this decision.
Is part of that self-interest?
Launching drives is part of the fun of this game.
The average player wants to hit it as far as possible and need all the help they can get.
But does that render their opinions totally irrelevant?
Golf is in a fantastic place.
Participation is way up across the board.
More kids are playing, which is fantastic.
Initiatives like TopGolf and PopStroke are making golf less daunting and broadening what it means to be a golfer.
The game is slowly becoming less stuffy, more inclusive.
The public perception of golf has evolved.
This is a step backward in that process.
It’s a page out of the Old Golf playbook.
But I find myself nodding my head fare more to Keegan than to Rory.
I think that the USGA … everything that they do is reactionary.
They don’t think of a solution.
They just think we’re going to affect a hundred percent of the population that plays golf.
For the amateur world to hit the ball shorter is monstrous.
I can’t think of anything more stupid than that.
Now, will I get over this?
Change is always jarring at first.
And a (roughly) 5% rollback isn’tsodrastic to make the game unrecognizable.
A 6,500-yard course still isn’t long enough for the pros.
Which begs the question I’ve been hinting at: Why do it?
He’s back
Tiger Woods looked great.
All things considered, he looked great.
All in all, a hugely successful debut.
“I haven’t done this in a long time so it was fun to feel that again.
Every day I got faster into the round.
And that’s eventually, when I play on a regular basis, that’s normally how it is.
It takes me usually during warmup before I get a feel for the round.
To be honest, that first day took me a while.”
“I think that I can get into the rhythm of it.
It’s just a matter of getting in better shape basically.
This is the most optimistic Woods has been about his health since the accident.
Now, a word of caution.
He sounded optimistic after Riviera earlier this year, only to have issues in his recovery.
Two months later, he was hard to watch on the hills of Augusta National.
His body is literally being held together by rods and screws and whatever else they might use in fusions.
(Plural, since he’s had two).
All those surgeries don’t just impact the incision site.
As he’s said throughout this latest comeback, it puts stress on different parts of the body.
His health will always be precarious.
Then again, like we’ve been saying, the score doesn’t matter.
The week couldn’t have gone much better.
The details are a little less black and white.
This all stems back to the banning of the greens-reading books.
PGA Tour players used to have laser renderings of every green in their yardage books.
If you’re using aimpoint, that’s hugely beneficial.
Those books are no longer allowed.
But those greenbooks still exist.
The guys have them.
So it’s basically a memory challenge.
He was told, correctly, that he can’t write down the slopes in his books.
Now, here’s where he could’ve acted differently.
Listen, it’s nothing personal.
Of course, Morikawa wasn’t trying to pull a fast one.
He’d been given some bad information from a rules official before.
“We had deemed it to be an OK thing,” Morikawa said.
And when you ask an official something, you assume it’s right.
Obviously it’s not.
But it just seems like there’s such a gray line in today’s rules.”
The issue lies with the nebulous rule and with officials who don’t communicate them clearly.
Morikawa’s the furthest thing from a cheater.
This was a simple misunderstanding.
He didn’t pick one off this year.
It’s a shame, because those are absurd statistics.
A 71% top-10 ratio when you’re playing mostly against the strongest fields is Tiger-level stuff.
If only the putter cooperated more this year it could’ve been something truly special.
Which is what made his win in the Bahamas so notable.
Scheffler put a new putter in from Olson and looked comfortable all week at Albany.
The early signs are positive.
The Jon Rahm-LIV rumors continue.
They’ve approached him multiple times in the past.
It sure seems like they’ve done so again, likely with more dollars.
I know he’s maybe weighing some decisions, maybe not.
You know, that’s somewhat out of my control in a way.
It’d be a strange time to make the leap.
One party in that negotiation poaching away the reigning Masters chamipon during the negotiation would seem to complicate matters.
That would follow logic.
Either way, his silence on the matter is telling.
Min Woo Lee is electric, and I can’t wait to watch him on the PGA Tour.
The 25-year-old Aussie went back home to play the Australian PGA Championship and the Australian Open.
He absolutely pumps the golf ball and he hits jaw-dropping recover shots like these two.
He’s got his PGA Tour card for the next year and will immediately become a fan favorite.
