New balls, please?
SCORING averages might be tumbling as quickly as driving distances are rising on the world’s professional tours and yet the amateur golfer continues to struggle to meet the challenges of the great game despite enjoying the benefits of new technology.
The great debate on the huge distances the ball now travels is set to come to a head in the near future with the overall good of the game at stake.
Jack Nicklaus and Tom Watson believe the ball has been flying too far, not just recently, but since the improvement of golf ball technology in 2001.
And while the game’s governing bodies this week issued a “Distance Report” on the most recent increases, they also say “there is no fixed timetable” for action.
“Increases in distance can contribute to demands for longer, tougher and more resource-intensive golf courses at all levels of the game,” the report said.
“These trends can impact the costs to operate golf courses and put additional pressures on golf courses in their local environmental landscape.
“The effect of increasing distance on the balance between skill and technology is also a key consideration. Maintaining this balance is paramount to preserving the integrity of golf.”
Many professionals are against a rollback of the ball and wonder aloud how amateurs will like having their drives shortened by 20 percent overnight.
But in an era when some tour professionals are now regularly driving the ball over 400 yards, finding a consensus will not be easy.
Perhaps the most impactful data in the report was not the increased average driving distance on the PGA Tour but the fact that the players on the Web.com Tour are hitting the ball even further – 302.9 yards last season compared to 292.5 on the PGA Tour.
In other words, the stars of tomorrow will be hitting the ball even further than those we watch on TV today.
According to the data, the average male amateur with a handicap of six or less hits the ball 236 yards on average with those in the 13-21 bracket still failing to break 200 yards.
The best women average out at 195 yards with those with handicaps of 2936 averaging just 118 yards.
Rolling the ball back for club players might not be a popular move but whether the governing bodies have the will and the means to force a rollback for the game’s top professionals is another question entirely.
Whatever they do, deciding which is the lesser of the two evils will require some bravery and more sharp thinking than we have seen from the game’s governing bodies so far.