Opinion: Golf ball rollback is unpopular – but it’s the best option

If there’s one thing that amateur golfers are not good at, it’s playing the correct golf ball.

Unlike with their clubs, most players have never been for a golf ball fitting. In fact, take a look in almost any golf bag at your club and you’ll find an assortment of different brands, models, even colours of golf balls.

All of this is to make a roundabout point, that the fallout to this week’s news around the rollback of the golf ball has been over the top, and in some cases pretty ludicrous.

Keegan Bradley was among those who had his say, where he described the changes as “monstrous.”

If you’ve not read the announcement from the R&A and USGA, let me get you briefly up to speed. From 2030 – or 2028 if you’re a professional – you’ll be playing a golf ball that has been tested at a higher club head speed than the balls currently in your bag.

In effect, this will mean that balls are going to fly a little bit shorter than what they do today. If you’re an amateur, that will be to the tune of around five yards with your driver. If you’re one of the longest in the game, you can expect to lose no more than 15 yards.

To me, that’s not monstrous. In fact, for a game that is becoming more and more focussed around distance, it’s a sensible compromise to ensure that architects don’t need to keep building 8,000-yard-long golf courses to host major championships.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m fully aware that other factors come into play when it comes to the distance debate. Player fitness, the use of launch monitors to optimise ball flights, even the length of fairway grass all have a part to play.

But, to suggest that these are playing a bigger role in increasing distance than the ball is a stretch.

A quick look at historic PGA Tour stats paints that picture. In 1999, the average drive on the PGA Tour went 271 yards. By 2005, the average drive was going 288 yards. What happened in those six years? The Titleist Pro V1 was introduced, and every player on tour was using it, or an equivalent. That’s no coincidence.

Back to more recent times.

As Rory McIlroy rightly pointed at in an unusually terse series of posts on X over the weekend, the option of bifurcation was suggested by golf’s governing bodies and shot down by almost everyone in golf. Tour pros, amateurs and, most importantly, manufacturers, said it wasn’t in the interest of the sport.

At the end of the day, most of us want to play under the same rules and regulations as the best golfers in the world. I completely agree.

So, the R&A and the USGA went away and came back with this proposal that we see today. According to Martin Slumbers, doing nothing isn’t an option, and, thanks to the uproar from almost everyone in golf, neither is bifurcation.

Therefore, a rollback for every golf ball appears to be the only way to go.

Believe it or not, this isn’t an issue that is exclusive to golf. Let’s take tennis, for example. Back in 2001, it was decided that the ball used for matches on grass should be made heavier and larger, in order to slow the game down, making for longer, more exciting rallies.

Javelin is another, more niche example. In the 1980s, the sport’s governing body realised the spear was travelling too far, and something had to be done to keep it under control. It was decided that rather than build a bigger stadium to contain athletes who were getting stronger, the equipment should be slightly redesigned to make it so it couldn’t fly as far. Sound familiar?

Of course, none of us want to see our ball fly a shorter distance down the fairway. I include myself in that. If I could play a ball that guaranteed an extra 20 yards, I’d buy two dozen of them tomorrow. But it’s important to remember that if you currently hit the ball ten yards further than your playing partner, unless something else changes, you’ll still hit it ten yards further than them in 2030. This is all relative.

In fact, there’s a good chance that with the help of better technology, you’ll probably still be gaining distance when 2030 rolls around. All the more reason to rein us back in.

Will the golf ball rollback be universally popular? Absolutely not. Is it the best, least messy option? Most likely.

Lewis Fraser As bunkered’s Performance Editor, Lewis oversees the content that’s designed to make you a better player. From the latest gear to tuition, nutrition, strategy and more, he’s the man. A graduate of the University of Stirling, Lewis joined bunkered in 2021. Formerly a caddie at Castle Stuart Golf Links, he is a member of Bathgate Golf Club where he plays off four.

Performance Editor