If the announcement from the USGA and the R&A that an across-the-board golf ball rollback comes Wednesday as expected, the question finally will shift from what might happen (no sooner than 2028) to what it means.
If golf had a Richter scale, the anticipated announcement would send the measuring needle jumping.
The same goes for blood pressures, anger levels and, in many corners, satisfied smiles.
The USGA and the R&A are putting themselves in the firing line, but it is their charge to protect and govern the game. To paraphrase the leaders of both organizations, doing nothing is not an option.
The governing bodies have been patient and prudent. They have reams of evidence to suggest this change is necessary just as their critics can find numbers that indicate otherwise. That argument will continue – loudly – but the verdict appears to have been rendered.
What has made getting to this point so challenging is that two different things can be true at once.
There is a need to regulate distance, which has distorted the game. At the same time, golf is hard enough already for all of us, regardless of the level, and it’s dangerous to tinker with the rules at a time when the game is surging.
The decision is controversial, but it’s the right one even if it’s taking too long to implement.
The rules makers reason that the longest-hitting professionals will lose 15 yards off their tee shots while the vast majority of amateurs will lose about 4 yards, hardly enough to notice. If those numbers are accurate, the change will not do irreparable harm to the game.
This is a better alternative than the proposed model local rule that would have divided the game by swing speed and handicap. The PGA Tour and the PGA of America already had crossed their arms and given their heads a good shake to indicate their unwillingness to go along with the first proposal.
Neither is apparently in love with this alternative, but perhaps there will be another comment period to allow their input to be considered before the future guidelines are scorecard signed into existence in 2028 for the pros and 2030 for the rest of us.
The rules makers reason that the longest-hitting professionals will lose 15 yards off their tee shots while the vast majority of amateurs will lose about 4 yards, hardly enough to notice. If those numbers are accurate, the change will not do irreparable harm to the game. Whether Rory McIlroy drives it 330 or 315 doesn’t make an appreciable difference to him or the people watching in awe as he does it. Chicks can still dig the long ball.
And for most of the rest of us, the difference that a slightly throttled-back ball makes will hardly be noticed thanks to clubhead speeds which might hurt our feelings if we knew our numbers.
Equipment makers can continue to make golf balls and chase whatever the next generation of improvements may be while the game maintains its one-size-fits-all ideal, holding off bifurcation (at least in terms of equipment because playing different tee markers is the very essence of bifurcation).
Most golfers aren’t going to like this, nor are the equipment companies, who understandably believe in their right to push the limits for the benefit of the masses. It’s a hard game, and every little bit of help helps.
When the USGA and R&A announced the proposed model local rule earlier this year, a TaylorMade online survey of 45,000 respondents showed 81 percent against the suggested changes. There’s no reason to think that’s going to change now. Taking something away from people is rarely popular.
When the PGA Tour told the governing bodies that it would not support the originally proposed rule and the PGA of America said the same thing, both wanted to protect their businesses, as they should. The same goes for the ball manufacturers.
The PGA Tour is an entertainment product, and seeing McIlroy or Tiger Woods do things that the rest of us can’t is magnetic. However, rolling the ball back slightly won’t change that.
McIlroy and Woods, it should be noted, are both on record as supporting a rollback of the ball, though they seem to be in the minority among their peers.
If the tour and the PGA of America have a voice in the process, they may grudgingly go along with this initiative down the line.
Critics argue that this is about protecting the Old Course at St. Andrews, which now has a handful of drivable par-4s and is threatened with competitive extinction. The Old Course is worth protecting, but it’s more than that.
A former major champion last week pointed to the additional 35 yards (which can be stretched beyond that) at the iconic par-5 13th hole at Augusta National as proof that distance has distorted the game. He’s not wrong.
It’s not just that 500-yard par-4 holes have become commonplace. It’s that elite players can routinely have short irons or wedges into those greens.
This change isn’t likely to force Justin Thomas to hit two more clubs into a green. Maybe one club. Players will adjust. They do it week to week. Playing at Pebble Beach and playing in Phoenix aren’t the same thing.
For the rest of us, it’s still about finding the center of the clubface more often, not whether we drive it 236 or 232.
This decision won’t send players scurrying away from the game, which continues to thrive in its post-COVID glow. How many people do you know who actually quit when anchored putting was banned?
It doesn’t take an environmentalist to understand that land is precious and many golf courses are maxed out on real estate. Even if they have the extra land, do they have the money or the desire to keep making changes to accommodate the longest hitters?
The easy answer is to grow the rough deeper and plant more trees. To borrow a line from Donald Ross, “as beautiful as trees are, we must not lose sight of the fact that there is a limited place for them in golf,” and chopping out of dense rough isn’t so much a skill as it is an annoyance – as is trying to find your ball nestled down in it.
While a definitive decision on this is overdue, it adds another fracture in a game that’s already been ripped apart by the arrival of LIV Golf and its challenge to the status quo. Golf doesn’t need more disruption, but it’s getting it.
The overall impact of this proposal may be minimal. Remember how the square-grooves rule was going to change the game? It didn’t.
This is about trying to do what’s best for the game.
Doing something is better than doing nothing.
E-MAIL RON
Top: Tiger Woods, shown at the Hero World Challenge, has come out in favor of the ball rollback.
MIKE EHRMANN, GETTY IMAGES.