The USGA Has Once Again Shown It Does Not Care About Most Golfers

The USGA Has Once Again Shown It Does Not Care About Most Golfers

<rant on>

The USGA’s decision to roll back the golf ball for all golfers is monstrous.

Those aren’t my words. Those are the words of major championship winner Keegan Bradley.

For the amateur world to hit the ball shorter is monstrous. I can’t think of anything more stupid than that

Keegan Bradley on the golf ball rollback

Rickie Fowler has a similar take:

I don’t see how when we’re at the best place the game has ever been. ‘Oh, you love the game? Yeah. Hey, thanks for joining us over COVID. Now we’re going to make you hit it 20 yards shorter. Have fun.

Rickie Fowler on the golf ball rollback

The monstrosity of the USGA’s decision is that GOLF DOES NOT HAVE A DISTANCE PROBLEM. A miniscule percentage of players on a fraction of a percent of courses have a distance problem.

Ten thousand players signed up to try out for the 2023 US Open. The USGA runs fourteen championships. If we assume — generously — that all fourteen of those championships had a different ten thousand signing up (and that each one of them hits the ball too far), there are 140,000 players who have a “distance problem.”

There are 25 million golfers in the United States. The number of players with a distance problem is therefore 0.56 percent of us golfers.

The USGA and PGA TOUR run tournaments on perhaps a hundred courses. There are 16,000 golf courses in the US. That means that the rules are being changed for the benefit of 0.6%.

The USGA Dead Ball will be in effect for everyone because of 0.5% of golfers on 0.6% of courses.

The vast majority of golfers will never play in a USGA championship on a USGA course.

The USGA DOES. NOT. CARE.

All the USGA cares about are its exclusive tournaments on its exclusive courses. The millionaires on its board — and USGA officials — who play at their private clubs have shown with this (and other decisions) that they have little to no regard for 99.5% of the golfing public.

We are proles, whose job is to nod and pony up our annual membership fees to the high church of golf. (Full disclosure — I stopped being a USGA member years ago over some other ridiculous rules).

When do you think the last time was that a USGA board member spent time browsing GolfNow to find a bargain for a round? When was the last time they dug through the bargain bin at a local shop to find a replacement for a broken ten-year-old three wood.

They don’t have to, and it’s why they’re out of touch.

And don’t hand me this nonsense about Pebble, Pinehust No. 2 and others being “public.” Their rates make them exclusive. The golfers I play with on the local munis can’t possibly justify the expense of playing those courses.

The USGA doesn’t even really have a reason to care how many golfers there are. Most golfers don’t pay them annual dues. As long as they collect their hefty tv revenues, they are good.

What the USGA has shown is that its collective head is so far up its own backside that it can’t see the light. It will do anything to protect Holy Par on its Holy Courses.

Golf Channel commentator Brandel Chamblee has a similar take:

I appreciate the governing bodies and what they mean to the game, but on the rollback issue, they are not only out of touch with the game, but the people that play it.

It is a very small number of people that are in favor of a roll back,” Chamblee wrote, “Golf course architects of which there are what, maybe a hundred or so? Golf course architect geeks of which there are maybe a few thousand? And a very few tour players and former tour players, compared to 50 million global golfers against it and 28,000 PGA of America members against it and most every single touring professional against it.”

Brandel Chamblee

Here’s his tweet:

There’s also this disturbing tweet from Michael Breed, which just adds to my conviction that in spite of all its purported “evidence” the USGA has no clue:

I am not convinced that the USGA’s dead ball will ultimately result in a significant reduction of distance for the pros (who are the ones with a “distance problem.” Using Trackman and physio coaches, the top players will very quickly figure out how to get more distance. The existing distance standard on balls has been in place for decades; players are just swinging faster with optimized launch angles.

It will, however, result in a reduction of distance for us hackers.

Why does that 10-yard reduction matter?

First, it is less fun. No one wants to see their ball go shorter.

From a more practical perspective, the dead ball will inevitably lengthen rounds. Shorter tee shots mean longer shots into the green. The effect is compounded because not only are tee shots shorter; each individual iron is as well. Longer shots into the green mean more missed greens. More missed greens adds more shots, which adds time to the rounds. Compound that with every player and group on the course and you add unnecessary time to an already overlong game.

The powers that be are correct: people won’t stop playing because the ball is 10% shorter. They will, however, play less golf because it eats up even more of their time than it already did. (They may also play less golf because their scores have increased. The average score is 100. How will people react when the average score is 120?).

The powers that be also say that people should just move up a tee. We all know that is not going to happen. And what if you already are playing it forward?

One justification for a dead ball is the expense of adding more tee boxes at the back end. What about having to add an equal number of tee boxes forward.

The solution is blindingly obvious: Bifurcation.

Bifurcation is not a bad word. College baseball uses aluminum bats. High school and college footballs are different from pro footballs. NCAA football and basketball rules are different from the pros.

It is also true that, no matter what manufacturers may claim, the equipment you buy off the shelf is not the same as the finely tuned, infinitely tweaked equipment that the pros play. I once spent a tournament day in the TaylorMade equipment van and watched one player after another come in to get a club adjusted or a head swapped out because it “didn’t feel right.”

And that was before the advent of Trackman. There is bifurcation in the equipment by default. Even if we buy the same model, we are not playing the same clubs.

There is no reason why there can’t be a tournament specific dead ball for the USGA. Titleist can sell them as “Pro V1 USGA Tournament.” Callaway can have the “Chrome Soft USGA Tournament.”

It will just be another category of ball for the manufacturers to sell. No one on Tour uses a Wilson Duo Soft. But Wilson still sells them.

As for sales, I don’t know of anyone who buys balls or clubs because a particular pro plays them. Manufacturers will still be able to sell enough of the live balls to justify their existence AND cover any cost of making a smaller number of USGA dead balls.

There’s also this: how will manufacturers sell a ball that “goes ten yards shorter” rather than the accustomed “ten yards longer.”

If the PGA TOUR wants a dead ball, they can have their players use the USGA Tournament model.

I suspect they wouldn’t though. Three-hundred-yard drives are exciting. Birdies are exciting. Eagles are exciting. Exciting attracts eyeballs and drives ratings.

If the PGA TOUR doesn’t require the USGA’s dead ball, wouldn’t that put the players at a disadvantage at the US Open? No. For decades, the R&A golf ball was different from the USGA golf ball. The best players in the world adapted and won. The best players in the world will win with whatever standard is imposed on a tournament. There is no way some rando practicing with the USGA’s dead ball is going to beat touring professionals who switch it up for one week.

I will sign off this rant by saying that I have long wished that the PGA of America would step up and take a chunk of the USGA’s pie. I have a notion that the PGA of America would have the backs of the majority of golfers far more than the USGA. There is a PGA professional at nearly every course I visit. They run courses. They run local tournaments, help with outings, give lessons, and have more interactions with golfers in a day than USGA officials do in a month of Sundays.

I actually have never seen a USGA official at a course outside of a championship. The PGA professional is at the heart of every players’ game.

The PGA of America (and of other countries) could have conforming equipment labels, and rules that make more sense for the average golfer. The USGA doesn’t have an annual equipment show. The PGA of America does. I’m sure they can build an Iron Byron at their fancy new location in Texas. There’s a revenue stream for them there, if only they would step up.

<rant off>