I don't understand why there has to be synergy between what the pros play and what we play.

If you're playing in a beer league ball game, which bat are you using: the drop 3 maple bat Aaron Judge plays, or a metal drop 10 from marucci? I don't play blades. I have a ton of clunky bounce on my wedges. I swing an oversized "fargiveness" driver. I don't know why I should try and conform to anything the pros use.

Now, I don't want to cheat by using some auto-correction ball so I can actually see my own improvement, but I don't think that's what these current balls do. Rolling them back because pros hit it too long and then forcing that on all the joes around the munis is like making people use wooden bats and 400 foot fences in a beer league.

I guess my question is why not just freeze the ball where it currently is (and then monitor drivers going forward)? I understand the idea that if distance keeps increasing, it has problematic effects on the playability of some historic courses like St. Andrews, Pebble, etc. at the elite level. But does anyone think these courses are unplayable right now? I thought the Open at St. Andrews a couple years ago was a pretty good tourney. Seems like a freeze right now could potentially accomplish the goal without upsetting everyone.

Well,

It seems their (USGA, R&A, and manufacturers) justification for the change for the masses is that the distance loss is minimal for the majority of golfers as if what's the big deal...

Ok then.. no big deal.

Most club tournaments won't enforce this rule until we all completely run out of the old balls.

Stock up in 2027 because I doubt they'll keep making 2 different golf balls once this takes effect in 2028.

98Ag99Grad said:

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Stock up in 2027 because I doubt they'll keep making 2 different golf balls once this takes effect in 2028.

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But at what point the loss of compression of old balls make it equivalent to the new balls? 1, 2, 3, or 4 years?

But that's not even the point.

Seems like a Tour Driver that is a bit smaller and less forgiving of mis-hits would do the trick
and not have to blow up the entire game for every golfer on the planet. When there is
almost no penalty (distance or direction) for a mis-hit that is 1/2" off center of face then the
pros can just dial up their effort to 100% and not worry about a big miss. Other's have said
this - so its not "my" solution...but I like it a heck of a lot better than monkeying with the ball
and it would be more effective IMO.

JCA1 said:

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AggieDruggist89 said:

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Be serious,

How often do you walk off a course wishing the course was longer or wished your driver was shorter.

Not me.

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This is definitely true. But there's also an epidemic of people playing tee boxes they have no business being on. Just some irony there that we're gonna hear a ton of complaining about this and then those same people are gonna tee it up from 6900 yards while being a 17 index.

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This. Can't count the times I've been paired up with guys playing the blues that don't hit but one fairway all day and half their drives are OB 50-yards left or right and finish over 100 (assuming they keep score half correctly).