Trotter: The golf ball will change. Will the way we approach the game?

It’s easy to understand why professional golfers might oppose the plan to reduce the distance balls travel in the air, but using recreational players as a crutch to oppose the change is disingenuous at best and disingenuous at worst. case laughable.

Losing an average of 3-5 yards won’t negatively impact club golfers or weekend warriors fantasizing about the next Happy Gilmore. It will not significantly change your score. The reduction is so negligible as to be not significant.

But when pros like Keegan Bradley call the change for amateurs “monstrous,” they’re watering a seed that should never have been planted.

Bradley grew up in a golfing household, with a father who is a club professional, so he understands that recreational players don’t have the technique, swing speed and accuracy to be affected by the plan, which the USGA and R&A will implement for professionals in 2028. for everyone else in 2030.

His statement earlier this month to reporters in the Bahamas was disappointing because it felt like an attempt to manipulate a gullible audience, which is recreational players. He gave us another reason to point the finger at everyone and everything for our failures on course but ourselves.

Bad shot? We tell ourselves it has to be the balls or the clubs, and so we buy a dozen balls for $50 even though we know we’ll probably lose at least two or three per round because we’re not as good as we think . We are, otherwise we spend thousands of dollars on irons thinking it will make our shots longer and straighter without the required practice time. Bad driving? He has to be the driver, and that’s why we’ll spend hundreds of dollars to replace the car we bought the year before.

Perhaps Bradley felt he could pressure the Gulf leadership to reconsider its plan by getting the rank and file to join his fight. But the truth is that the changes are necessary to compensate for advances in technology and equipment. USGA data shows that the number of top professional players who average at least 300 yards from the tee has increased from 13 to 98 over the past 10 PGA Tour seasons, making it easier for them to find a well-placed bunker or to avoid a group of trees by simply going over them.

That was the concern of the USGA and R&A early last year when they released joint statements that said, in part: “The governing bodies continue their work to address the long-term cycle of increased shot distances and course lengthening that threatens the long term of golf . sustainability over time and undermines the core principle that a broad and balanced set of playing skills should remain the key determinant of success in golf.”

Some courses have tried to fight back by increasing hole distances, but there is only so much property and money available. Consequently, course management and shot-shaping appear to play a smaller role in mapping plans for success.

The irony of Bradley’s statement is that he is advancing a narrative that is harmful to recreational golfers. They should focus on navigating a gap instead of trying to drive like Bryson DeChambeau or Rory McIlroy. There’s a reason why golf scholars remind us that you drive for show and putt for money, because the short game is the most effective and proven formula for lowering scores.

Our obsession with distance is one of the reasons we can hit nine consecutive drives out of bounds and still keep swinging at the moon, hoping that the tenth strike will find the sweet spot and soar through the air, oohing and aahing. provokes spectators as he finds the fairway. But the fact remains that we will never consistently do it as far or as accurately as the pros, regardless of our delusions of grandeur.

The USGA and R&A examined driving distances by handicap among club golfers in the UK and found that male amateurs of all levels averaged around 215 yards off the tee, those with handicaps between 13 and 20 averaged 200 yards off the tee were, and that those with a handicap between 13 and 20 were on average 200 yards from the tee, and that those with a handicap between 13 and 20 were on average 200 yards from the tee. single digits and low double digits average just under 220 yards. Golfers with a handicap of under six averaged about 240 yards.

The loss of 3 to 5 yards will not affect their game in any way, but the change in the golf ball could have significant consequences for professional players if the estimates of the change are correct. According to the USGA and R&A, the changes will reduce drives by 11 yards for tour professionals and by 7 yards for female tour players, although Bradley claims that tests by Srixon, one of the leading ball manufacturers, showed a loss of 40-50 yards when using the new specifications.

“I think the USGA … everything they do is reactionary,” Bradley said. “They don’t come up with a solution. They just think we’re going to affect 100 percent of the population that plays golf.”

Normally the Everyman argument would be laudable, but this is lacking because something needed to be done at the highest level of the game. If Bradley and his supporters were honest with themselves, or if they wanted the opinions of recreational players like me, they would know that the men’s professional game is becoming less interesting because it lacks those moments on the tee that require real thought about the consequences versus the consequences. benefit. Too often we get: long drive, pitch, putt.

Yawn.

Golf has plenty of challenges that deserve serious discussion, such as the PGA Tour and LIV Golf, figuring out whether they can ever coexist and what the game could look like if they merge. Spending time complaining about a reduction of 3-5 yards on drives by recreational players should be a two-stroke penalty, if not an automatic ejection.

(Top photo: Luke Walker/Getty Images)