Golf Ball on tour

hi
like to see the pros hit more like the rest of us and see the shots we can try and play. i would cut the ball to 275 in air for pros. try it for a few tour games and see what happens to the scors and who wins, would be intresting to see.
bill

I have no problems with the pros hitting it a mile as long as the course reflects that, so I'm not too bothered about the ball because the same technology can benefit me with my imperfect swing mechanics.

The trouble is that the "authorities" for want of a better term only seem to have two approaches to technology induced distance a) penal rough even for minor mishits as per the US Open (?) b) adding distance as per everywhere else.

imo the first is wrong as minor mistakes should make a par difficult not make a double bogey likely, the second approach surely just plays into the hands of the big hitters and the scientists.

What I'd like to see is courses redesigned so that the pros still have to think their way round; hazard placement, fairway width , blind spots, dog legs etc from their tees and then give me a tee 50 yards forward.

Problem is that costs more than ading a new back tee.

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Great Thread,

Personally I think the course designs are poor, we don't want to stop pros using drivers but we should have far more risk and reward, for me I think the greens are far to big, every green is double the size of the ones I play on so they are harder to hit, I often think when a pro hits the green and has 60 ft putt, if that was my course you would be chipping out of the trees now not putting.

I am for smaller greens and tighter fairways and a bit shorter rough, par 5s should have a very tight gap to the green with deep bunker in front or water etc, after all these guys are so called pros.

OK thats me done.

Ian.

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Once you learn the swing, your next step is mastering golf psychology................

The problem is that the long drives are what most of the paying public want to go watch and what sells golf equipment. If rules are amended my guess that most Ametuers would not want to go back to equipment which takes 50 yards off their drives. Then you will have a situation where some people are respecting the rules others are totally ignoring them, not good.

I think that it needs to be dealt with in course design.

hi
you could make it just the balls used in tour games that had a restricted distance, that is controled just now but make them fly less. every one else use normal balls, would be intresting to see one game with pro's all using a ball that only went say 270 yrs at max with a driver. dont think it will ever happen.
can still hire a fethery and hickery shafted clubs to play a round at the old couse in musselburgh. sure makes the course long lol
bill

But they have already done this!
The .83 COR limits that kick in in 2008 are a perfect example of this.
I traded in my (soon to be) illegal driver for a conforming one.

Changing the max distance a ball can be hit will still benefit people like Tiger.
What needs to be changed is the target golf that is played nowadays on most courses.

Manicured, wide fairways with trees 20 yrds outside the rough and a soft receptive green make it easy for "someone" to score well.
If I hit a ball 10 yrds off my fairways Im either in trees or on the wrong fairway.
If I hit a ball thats 10 yrds away from the centre of the green Im not on the green anymore.

There are some holes on my golf course that we very hard to play 5 years ago, tight drives with doglegs to the green.

Now I can hit a driver 300yrds straight over the dogleg and a wedge to the green.
Parts of my course have become obsolete by technology, but parts of it are still a ***** where extra length off the tee pays off 1 in 10.
The other 9 times you are just further in the trees.

I still think most ametuers like playing the same or similar equipment of the pro's. I am pretty sure the sponsors would go crazy if they could not sell the same product to the public that they give away to the pro's.

You know you're playing the same brand, not the same clubs, right?

Actually, I'm an odd one here. I think they should have left the courses the hell alone. They didn't make american football fields longer because they had better athletes and modern equipment. They didn't raise basketball goals because they had better athletes and modern equipment. They didn't change the size of the hockey rink because they had better athletes and modern equipment. So scores in golf drop into the 50's. BFD. I'd love to see how pros would play our favourite muni's. I'd love to see them play out of footprints in the bunker, divots in the rough, dodge the sprinklers in the fairway - that kind of thing. Now, since that won't happen;

I'm with Ian, primarily, on this. Penalize the long guys who spray it. If you wanna bomb it over 300 bills, you'd better use a laser sight to get it there.

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I say it too often: If it's golf club shaped, you can play with it.

For the record, I'm a club doctor, not a swing doctor.

I think the pros and the rest of us should be using equipment governed by the same requirements, but I think it could be possible to draft specs for clubs and balls that would favor the rest of us more than the pros and thus close the gap in distance to a more reasonable number. For instance, changing the COR, weight, size, etc on drivers in a manner hat would limit the pros a lot more than the rest of us. I believe we could spec golf balls that would give diminishing returns as swing speed gets higher....a ball that amateurs could easily hit the same distances they are now, but that would be very difficult to hit over 280 or so and almost impossible to hit 300.

IMO, we need to be careful not to outgrow our courses. This is our history. The storied courses are the stars of the game just as much as the players. The game should allow for golf courses to appreciate as they mature, not become extinct.

I dont think thats the same comparison.
In baseball you are playing against the other team, in golf you are playing the course aswell.