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It felt like an important moment. A very important moment.
Golf's rulesmakers are serious this time around. No more nipping around the margins. Hitting distance is a problem in the game that must be addressed, and curtailed, they contend.
Last Tuesday, the USGA and R&A released their long-awaited Distance Insights Report. Checking in at a robust 102 pages, it is not light reading.
In a 15-page summary of the report’s conclusions, the governing bodies state: “We believe that golf will best thrive over the next decades and beyond if this continuing cycle of ever-increasing hitting distances and golf course lengths is brought to an end. Longer distances, longer courses, playing from longer tees and longer times to play are taking golf in the wrong direction.”
No definitive solutions were offered; that will be the purview of the next part of the process, which is expected to carry into 2021 and perhaps beyond.
The report clearly delineated what the USGA and R&A believe the causes of increased distance to be: equipment innovation, player improvements and course conditions. The combination of these factors, the report concludes, will result in increased hitting distance in the future, as it has for the past 120 years.
The rulesmakers clearly have linked distance to golf course sustainability. The median length of courses has risen, in some cases drastically, since 1900. At the turn of the 20th century, the average and median lengths of courses were in the range of 5,400 to 5,500 yards. From the 1930s to the 1990s, average course lengths increased at a rate of more than six yards a year, pushing average and median lengths to between 6,600 and 6,700 yards. By the most recent decade, average and median lengths had increased to between 6,700 and 6,800 yards. The report concludes this trend is expected to continue, with serious long-term economic and sustainability consequences.
Reactions were all across the spectrum. Jack Nicklaus (pictured), a longtime advocate of rolling back the golf ball, voiced his approval, while Phil Mickelson expressed great skepticism. Golf Channel’s Brandel Chamblee disagreed with some of the conclusions, arguing that, if there is a distance problem, it exists only in the pro game, and that can be addressed by narrowing fairways and growing deeper rough.
And then there was PGA Tour veteran Dustin Johnson, who reportedly said, “I saw the e-mail and looked at how long it was, and I did not read it.”
Social media is the new thermometer to measure public opinion, and not surprisingly, reaction there was mixed, depending on already-formed opinions. Those who feel that the ball goes too far said so, adamantly. Others, not willing to give up a single yard, panned the findings. You saw the expected comments, like “I gave up golf because I hit it too far and the game is too easy, said no one ever.” You also encountered well-meaning comments about “the good of the game” and “it’s about time.” One thing seems certain: No minds were changed by social-media commentary.
The PGA Tour issued a statement that read, in part: “The R&A and the USGA are our partners, and the PGA Tour will continue to collaborate with them, along with all of our other industry partners, on the next steps in this process. We believe the game is best served when all are working in a unified way, and we intend to continue to approach this issue in that manner. The PGA Tour is committed to ensuring any future solutions identified benefit the game as a whole without negatively impacting the Tour, its players or our fans’ enjoyment of our sport.”
That last sentence is very telling. If the tour feels that whatever solutions arise are detrimental to its players, it reserves the right to play by its own rules. That would result in bifurcation, a situation USGA CEO Mike Davis said the rulesmakers want to avoid.
I cannot help but think that PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan holds a lot of cards in this debate. My intelligence suggests that he does not see a problem, and although he is willing to engage with the rulesmakers, he does not welcome change. “Why fix what isn’t broken?” is the question he will ask.
In the end, I hope for meaningful compromise by both parties. The last thing this game and industry needs at this moment is a protracted legal battle.
Many were startled by the degree to which rulesmakers laid the onus of the solution on equipment makers. While citing the combination of factors that have led to increases in hitting distance, the report concluded that, going forward into the solutions study, “We expect the main topic for research and assessment to be potential changes in the equipment rules.”
Two of the leading equipment makers – Acushnet Holdings, parent of the Titleist brand, and Callaway Golf, are publicly traded companies. Rules changes could impact, perhaps significantly, the value of the respective companies. The leadership of these two companies, including their boards of directors, have no choice but to defend their interests, to protect not just shareholders but all stakeholders.
The day after the release, the golf industry’s leading Wall Street financial analyst, Casey Alexander, released his opinion on the report. As is his custom and responsibility, he did not hold back. “We believe the conclusions of (the) report represent an implied threat to the golf equipment companies,” he wrote, citing Acushnet and Callaway specifically. He went on to write that “the entire industry is on notice that new rules are coming.”
Davis is optimistic: “We want to work together with everybody, and we see this as an opportunity. We really want to work with manufacturers. We really want to have their input.”
The USGA and the R&A have a long, uphill par-5 ahead of them. They need to thread a needle with the recreational golf community, to convince average golfers that they are not collateral damage in the effort to restrict distance advances in the professional game. And they have to find common ground with manufacturers who sell equipment and hope to that same community.
My concern by the end of last week remained the same as it has been for many years, and it is one shared by many throughout the game. Are we going to change the rules of the game, equipment or otherwise, due to hitting distances achieved by a very, very tiny segment of those who play the game, perhaps less than 10,000 elite golfers if you combine all those in the Official World Golf Ranking and the World Amateur Golf Ranking? What about the millions of golfers who play the game recreationally who don’t hit the ball very long at all?
The shots have been hit from the first tee. Game on.
Top: R&A chief executive Martin Slumbers.
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