Although the PGA Tour is in the midst of a five-week hiatus before it resumes in early January at the Tournament of Champions in Kapalua, there really is no such thing as an offseason in golf. It’s summer time in Australia and this week a number of the big boys are competing in the Australian PGA Championship, one week after they played in the Australian Open. A limited-field event is playing out this weekend in the Caribbean and the buzz is all about the return of Tiger Woods to competitive golf following a fourth back surgery.
So while there is really no such thing as a hot stove league in golf, the talk during the past couple of weeks has been a back-and-forth between golf’s hierarchy regarding the golf ball. Believe it or not, the golf ball and its improvement down through the years has been an issue in the game for more than 100 years. Moving from the featherie to the gutta percha to the rubber-cored ball, every generation of great golfers has remarked about the game changing improvement provided by the ball.
When I was first introduced to the game, some 50-plus years ago, the wound, rubber-cored golf ball of the 1960s had a balata cover. Any sort of skulled shot would result in damage to the ball’s cover. When I say damage, I mean real damage to the point where the ball was unplayable, with the interior rubber bands poking through the cover. Shots made with a cut golf ball would start hooking while in flight, and then wildly slice to the ground. It was in 1970 that the Faultless golf ball came out on the market. The Faultless felt like a rock but it didn’t cut, sort of a forerunner to the Top Flite. Lee Trevino endorsed the Faultless even though he played a Titleist balata when he competed. Since then we have seen a myriad of improvements to the golf ball. There is very little to compare the Titleist balata of the 1960s to the modern era’s Titleist Pro V1, the current high-profile golf ball of choice.
Fast-forward to two weeks ago. Tiger Woods was in the process of preparing to play in this week’s Hero World Challenge when he commented about the modern golf ball. Tiger, a power player who brought about the onset of the bomb-and-gouge generation, made several comments about the golf ball of the 21st century. Tiger was quoted as saying that the “golf ball needs to be throttled back. We need to do something about the golf ball. I think the 8,000-yard golf course is not too far away.”
Mike Davis, the executive director of the United States Golf Association, followed up on Tiger’s commentary with some of his own in much stronger terms. Davis stated that “the impact it (the ball) has had has been terrible. I don’t care how far Tiger Woods hits it. The reality is this is affecting all golfers and affecting them in a bad way. All it’s doing is increasing the cost of the game.”
From my weak perspective, Tiger’s commentary is fairly self-serving. It rings hollow. After all, when he was bombing it 50 yards past Nick Faldo and Tom Kite in 1997, I didn’t hear any concerns about the ball. Mike Davis’s comments are also baffling. As the head of the organization that monitors the ball and golf equipment, Davis and the USGA have sat on their proverbial hands and done next to nothing about technology and its impact upon the game.
Of course, everyone loves the long ball, and Wally Uihlein found plenty of time to weigh in on this argument. Uihlein is best known to golf fans as the father of PGA Tour golfer and former U.S. Amateur champ, Peter Uihlein. He is also the chief executive officer of Achushnet Golf, the company that owns Foot Joy golf shoes and Titleist golf balls and clubs. It probably wouldn’t surprise many of us that the big boss of Titleist thinks that things are just peachy today as it relates to the golf ball.
Uihlein asked the New York Times if there is “any evidence to support this canard? Where is the evidence to support the argument that golf course operating costs nationwide are being escalated because of advances in equipment technology?” Uihlein piled on Tiger by adding that Tiger was being motivated by Bridgestone’s business interests. Tiger endorses Bridgestone golf balls. He stated that “given Bridgestone’s very small worldwide market share and paltry presence in professional golf, it would seem logical they would have a commercial motive for making the case for a reduced distance golf ball.”
I personally think that Tiger’s comments are motivated by the fact that the tables have turned. Nowadays, Justin Thomas and Dustin Johnson are hitting the ball 50 yard past Woods. Regardless of the rationale behind Tiger bringing up this subject, Uihlein kept going by pointing a second finger at golf course architects and developers. Uihlein added that “the only people that seem to be grappling with advances in technology are the shortsighted golf course developers and the supporting golf course architectural community who built too many golf courses where the notion of a ‘championship golf course’ was brought on line to primarily sell real estate.”
Former U.S. Open champ Geoff Ogilvy got involved in the commentary and added that “if major leaguers used aluminum bats, it would totally destroy their stadiums. Do you rebuild every stadium or do you make the ball go shorter? It seems relatively simple from that perspective?”
Is it really that simple? Do the pros play one ball and the rest of us get to bomb away with our 80 mile per hour golf swings? What about college golf, high-level amateur golf, and the mini-tours? If the pros play a designated reduced flight ball, shouldn’t lower level players do the same to get ready for the pros? Maybe high school kids should do the same to get ready for college golf and subsequently pro golf?
There really is no simple solution to the golf ball controversy. All I know is that I am not looking forward to playing Erin Hills from 9,200 yards. Then again, I figure that 100 years ago Chick Evans and Walter Hagen were cringing at the thought of playing 6,500-yard courses.
