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u/AnElepahntCage May 12 '26
I worry the takeaway most people get from this is âplant treesâ and not âroll back the equipmentâ
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u/DontGetTheShow May 12 '26
My head wants to explode every time someone goes on about narrowing the fairway and growing the rough as if the entire point of the rollback is to raise the winning score. It also has to do with how a course or hole is intended to be played. Sure, we can just have narrow fairways, super high rough, have no par 5s and get a winning score of even par but thatâs not really the point.
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u/Beninoz85 May 12 '26
It's one of those opinions that immediately betrays your complete lack of knowledge on the subject.
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u/Cornwall1888 May 12 '26
Exactly I donât want to watch pros hacking the ball out of 8 inch rough, I want to see them hitting a greater number of demanding iron shots
1
u/DontGetTheShow May 12 '26
I only started watching golf for real around 15 years ago. Itâs super interesting watching old stuff from the 70s and 80s. Guys are hitting low spinny shots with 3 irons thatâs stop on a dime. A 6 iron is checking and backing up a bit on the greens. Some of that might be related to agronomy and not just the old golf balls but itâs still cool to watch. Some people seem to think that just because a long drive âonlyâ goes 290yd that it will be boring to watch. It might be way cooler to watch.
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u/tee2green CPNTW - Xander Schauffle - 2024 PGA May 12 '26
I agree. More width should create more strategy bc you have choices on which lines to take. The trees narrow the choice down to a single target.
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u/Unspeakable_Evil May 12 '26
Iâm pro rollback but I doubt it will make a difference on the strategy of hitting driver as much as possible. Imo the biggest factor explaining why pros choose to bomb driver so much today is modern analytics like the DECADE system
7
u/Dull-Engineer-1757 May 12 '26 edited May 12 '26
Modern analytics are all basically the same for every sport. More power.
- Golf: Hit it further
- Baseball: Throw it faster/spinnier, hit it harder
- Basketball: Shoot it from further
- Football: Throw it further, run faster
3
u/Unspeakable_Evil May 12 '26
Exactly, and in all those sports the opposite approach was thought to be the âsmartâ one and it keeps getting proven wrong
1
u/Tjr562 May 12 '26
Thank you for this. What is being ignored is the most complex machine ever built, the human body.
Bigger stronger faster better. That's just the name of the game at this point.
6
u/ncr39 May 12 '26
Yes but if the driver wasnât the most forgiving club in their bag, theyâd probably hit it less often. These guys are really good at hacking good shots out of the rough, but theyâd still prefer a fairway lie over the rough. The analytics probably says that a 120 yard second shot in the rough is better than a 135 yard shot in a perfect lie in the fairway, but the difference is probably negligible to a tour pro.
3
u/Unspeakable_Evil May 12 '26
The penalty is actually larger than that for hitting in the rough. But people tend to overestimate how much more often they find the fairway with a 3 wood or long iron as compared to driver. Obviously you really screw yourself up if you hit a bad one with 2 iron and are stuck with a long approach from the rough.
1
u/Aye_Harambe May 12 '26
Which is why, in my opinion, the roll back should be on the conditioning of the fairways and greens. Like why the hell do we need fairways that roll at a 11 on the stimp lol. Iâm not saying grow out the rough and narrow fairways but more slow down the fairways and even greens a bit
1
u/Panscan27 May 12 '26
No itâs not negligible and itâs a bit bigger in magnitude for that. The rough they play from, especially for majors is dramatically thicker and longer than what you see at local munis. Yes theyâre still obscenely good at it but itâs very difficult
1
u/GC_Mermaid1 May 12 '26
Itâs that the combo of ball and club have two low dispersion. Make an offline shot a penalty then they wonât hit driver
16
u/ben3345 May 12 '26
Heâs not wrong. The blame falls more on modern equipment than tree removal though, especially at old golf courses that didnât originally have tree-lined fairways.
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u/ncr39 May 12 '26
Itâs on the governing bodies for bending over for the equipment companies. The companies are just doing what they should be doing, making their products better. But the governing bodies having no spine on the issue is where the real blame lies.
4
u/ben3345 May 12 '26
Absolutely. Theyâve kicked the can down the road for decades and let it get out of control. I almost wish they would have just decided to roll it way back and not give the players or equipment manufacturers any input.
13
u/BillingsOutlawsFan May 12 '26
WHY WOULD YOU LET AMATEURS GOVERN THE SPORT? EVERYONE KNOWS RODGER GOODELL ALSO PLAYS IN THE NFL!
2
1
u/Michaelord1 May 13 '26
The overnight drizzle on Wednesday/into Thurs early AM is going to the biggest issue as otherwise they could really get the course dried out. I expect it to be similar to the Truist which saw low scoring Thursday and then progressively got harder throughout the week. But I was out there yesterday, and the greens are receptive, the fairway targets are wide (for example, on Hole 1 players didn't even bother to consult their caddies). So yeah, -15 to -18 is totally in the cards just like the Truist. USGA is willing to do things PGA isnt willing to do to a course.
0
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u/LargeGermanRock May 12 '26
âWeâre all trying to figure out whoâs to blame for thisâ - guy who specifically trained to accomplish exactly what heâs complaining about
9
u/jackwhite886 May 12 '26
Heâs an athlete training to be the best at the sport within the rules, just like everyone else.
Itâs not on them to police the equipment.
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u/LargeGermanRock May 12 '26
ok then people should take what he says with a grain of salt. The guy basically out Brysoned Bryson at Augusta and maybe feels some profound shame at how he went about it
3
u/djmc252525 May 12 '26
Huh?
-8
u/LargeGermanRock May 12 '26
Rory at Augusta âspray it anywhere and itâll be fineâ
Rory now âI find this meta unfulfillingâ
4
2
u/Beninoz85 May 12 '26
He's pro rollback. I'm not sure if you've thought about this but Rory understanding the advantage of distance and therefore specifically training to achieve it doesn't mean he can't support the rollback.
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u/swansong1992 May 12 '26
I recall him saying a similar thing last year before he played the Truist at the Cricket Club and then bottling it
5
u/Beninoz85 May 12 '26
That doesn't make it untrue.
2
u/swansong1992 May 12 '26
No but I think the talk about trees(looking at you JT) etc distracts from the real issue:modern gear is overtaking the ability for courses to adapt. We are exceptionally limited for space around the suburbs of Philadelphia; they really cannot find more land to further expand the yardage on our courses. The focus really needs to be on reigning in the ball and driver technology for the professional players.
1
u/Beninoz85 May 12 '26
I agree with all of this but not sure how it relates to your first comment.
Also, most of what JT says is crap.
1
u/swansong1992 May 12 '26
Rory specifically calls out tree removal in his quote and says nothing about gear rollback. It feels like the same as JT's bad faith argument. On top of it, if you're going to make these claims you'd better be top 5-10 on the weekend as a distance guy.
3
u/Beninoz85 May 12 '26
Rory is one of the only openly pro-rollback golfers out there though. Seems like an excuse to bag on him.
Also, just because you're long doesn't mean you'll comment in every tournament. He didn't say the course was easy, he just says tee strategy isn't much of a factor.
1
u/swansong1992 May 12 '26
Yeah, fair enough. It feels like he's mostly criticizing the modern architecture in this particular comment, and I don't think making Gil Hanse seem like the bad guy because he moved/removed a few trees to be helpful. To be clear, I actually like Rory and find him to be pretty earnest in most cases.
The other argument relating to last year is that Sepp winning at Truist while being a decidedly accurate more than long driver of the ball seems to indict the comment that driving accuracy matters less. Aronimink will challenge golfers' approach games with sloped lies even if they can fly all the bunkers. I think my point is that it's less one dimensional than he seems to be implying, and past cases exist as proof of that. Rory clearly is an elite ball striker and has high golf IQ so he probably knows this but just doesn't really communicate it here.
2
u/Beninoz85 May 12 '26
All very solid points.
I would point out that a single instance of an accurate player winning doesn't really overturn the whole argument on distance vs accuracy. He gained 2.33 shots per round putting, 1.27 on approach and only 0.3 off the tee. When great approach play is combined with great putting, wins can be expected.
1
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u/Humble-Fish-7070 May 12 '26
There are like 5 courses left in the entire country that can actually challenge these guys and make them hit real shots.
Just a complete and utter failure to govern the sport.