"I hate the word “rollback” because what we are trying to do is not roll back."

Joe Passov talked to the USGA’s Mike Davis for a Wall Street Journal interview as the CEO retires from the organization and is replaced by Mike Whan.

Naturally the rollback talk was of most fun.

WSJ: The USGA has co-produced a Distance Insights Report—the product of the Distance Insights project to study the impact of hitting distance in golf. Among other things, it asserts that distance gains put golf on an unsustainable path. Is the golf ball going too far? If so, why is that a negative?

MR. DAVIS: You won’t hear me say that the golf ball is going too far. The problem is that golf courses around the world have been getting longer and will continue to do so, with this trend that every generation hits the ball farther than the last generation.

Everyone bears the brunt of when courses need to change, whether it’s architecturally—more land, new tees, pushing bunkers further down—or, if it’s a new course, more land that’s required. Because at the end of the day, it’s about resources. It’s land, it’s water, it’s nutrients, it’s fungicides. It’s how long it takes to mow and prep a golf course, the fuel it uses, how long it takes to play a golf course. Longer golf courses equal longer rounds of golf. I think in this world where everybody is worried about time, it’s an issue.

The issue is not that the golf ball is going too far.

It is but we know it’s not necessarily the ball’s fault. Go on…

The issue is we need to fit the game on golf courses, and we’d like to see the game balanced, too, on distance, accuracy and shot-making. We want to make sure that it doesn’t become a game all about how far you hit the ball.

WSJ: Are you suggesting what many have termed a “rollback”—taking distances achieved and equipment specifications to numbers where they were a generation or two ago.?

MR. DAVIS: I hate the word “rollback” because what we are trying to do is not roll back. We are trying to look forward and say, based on the data, what’s in the best interest for all who play the game. It’s not looking backward.

No but it would be rolling back.

This expanding footprint [lengthening golf courses] is doing the game no favors as we look forward. Is any other sport on the planet Earth doing that to themselves other than golf? You just don’t see baseball handing out titanium bats and hot baseballs and expanding their stadiums.

The issue is we need to fit the game on golf courses. No more of constantly having to change golf courses. It’s time to do the right thing.

Yes it has been for at least a decade.

Davis is not going quietly and that’s a fantastic way to deflect some heat so that Whan can get established for what will be quite a battle.

Bryson: "There's not much more to gain from [the] technology side of golf club manufacturing"

A multi-layered answer from Bryson DeChambeau’s pre-Masters press conference:

Q. Last year there was a lot of talk that, culturally, you were leading a revolution in golf, especially among young fans who are really energized by the way you swing the golf club and all those things. If so, what's the stage of that revolution now?

BRYSON DeCHAMBEAU: I don't know the scope of that answer, either. You guys are giving me tough questions today.

I will say the Drive, Chip & Putt, what we saw with one of the kids imitating Kyle Berkshire, you're already starting to see it with kids. I've had numerous college kids DM me on Instagram and ask me, "How do I get stronger? How do I get faster?" So you're already starting to see it through -- from collegiate level all the way to junior golf level.

I think as time goes on, there's not much more to gain from technology side of golf club manufacturing, building. There are little things we can do, but where the massive gains will be is in athletes. Once you get somebody out here that's a 7-foot-tall human being and they are able to swing a golf club at 145 miles an hour effortlessly, that's when things get a little interesting. That's when I'm going to become obsolete potentially even.

Look, there's still a chipping aspect and there's still a putting aspect to it, but from a driving aspect, that's where the gains will be had, is with these athletes coming out in the future. And it won't stop. There's just no way it will stop.

I think it's good for the game, too. I don't think it's a bad thing you're bringing in and making it more inclusive to everybody when you're doing that. The athletes are the ones that are going to in the end move the needle in any sport you play, and I think that's pretty amazing.

One way it’ll stop? Injuries to the athletes trying to do things the body won’t enjoy over thousands of shots.

Rose Warns Of Shorter Careers Due To Distance Obsession

Talking to James Corrigan about this fall’s Justin Rose Telegraph Junior Golf Championship at Walton Heath, Rose said his back has improved ahead of the Masters and that he could have played the Players and Match Play.

The 2017 runner-up at Augusta is instead going in off a five week break and was asked by Corrigan what he’ll tell the juniors who qualify for his championship.

“If you look at my generation — say me, Adam Scott and Sergio [Garcia] — we are probably the first wave that’s grown up with the fitness and physio side and I kind of feel we're in the sweet spot, the way we approached the game in the last 20 years, focusing on our mobility and flexibility and looking at the big picture. And I think our best golf could well be in front of us, as weird as that is to say with us all in our 40s. 

“Whereas I feel like that the generation coming up behind us is pushing the limit much harder than than we did from a physical point of view and even though science is improving and we are understanding more and more about the body, eventually those aggressive motions have to take their impact.”

This wisdom should be appreciated by the various ageist Tour types…

"If it carries on like this and if everyone coming out here is looking for the power game, then maybe careers will get shorter and there won’t be players in their 40s still able to compete at the top of the sport. 

“Apart from the physical issues that might be suffered, I think that would be a huge shame. Watching Westy [Lee Westwood] and Bryson going at it at Bay Hill [last month] was great because you had a 48-year-old taking on a 27-year-old. That sort of battle between the generations is unique to golf. 

“Westy and what he has done in the last year and a half is a huge inspiration. It’s a great part of what I love about golf. Lee is playing with wisdom and experience and gratitude. They are powerful words, but there is something so noble about it.  That longevity and endless hunger should be celebrated and it is. That is my concern with this drive for length — the professional male game could lose all that.”

Yes but people in their forties are not what the advertisers want Justin! Please, think of the brands!

Bryson's Agent On NFT Flop: "Golf is still a niche sport.”

Brian Wacker devotes a lot of space to recapping the NFT saga of Bryson DeChambeau and gets this intriguing blame from agent Brett Falkoff.

“Whether he made $2,000 or $20 million, he had no idea how this was going to play out,” Falkoff said. “What it shows [by the total] is that golf is still a niche sport.”

Golf was the problem here, not the crappy art and terrible rushed rollout. Right.

R.I.P. Frank Thomas, USGA Technical Director And Golf Inventor

Mike Stachura and Mike Johnson pen a lengthy remembrance of Frank Thomas, longtime USGA technical director and inventor. While the story goes into great depth on some of the fascinating moments in his career, Thomas’s accomplishments were well summed up by the USGA’s Mike Davis:

Thomas earned the respect of both those who worked with him at the USGA and those whose products he ruled on sometimes negatively. “Frank was such an important part of the USGA and the game,” said Mike Davis, CEO of the USGA. “He was an innovator who created golf’s first graphite shaft and played an integral role in creating the Slope System for golf course rating, among many of his incredible achievements. Most importantly, he was a friend of so many in our game. He will be sorely missed.”

And this on the graphite shaft:

Prior to coming to the USGA, Thomas earned an engineering degree from Western Michigan University and was working for Shakespeare Sporting Goods. He developed the filament winding technique for graphite fibers around a mandrel to control the demanding torsional bending properties of a golf shaft.

Thomas took on several pieces of equipment during his time, including the Polara ball and Ping’s square grooves. Both got the USGA sued and Thomas was named by Ping in the Eye2 iron case.

But it was the USGA’s knockdown-drag-out fight with Ping and its founder Karsten Solheim over the “square grooves” in his Eye2 irons that was a kind of Cuban Missile Crisis event for equipment rulemaking. It led to a $300 million antitrust lawsuit in 1985 that named Thomas personally and hinged on the interpretation of the measurement of a groove, a measurement that for all intents and purposes constituted the width of a human hair. Thomas initiated a change in the rules that provided updated and practical guidelines that in essence prevented more than half the irons on the market at the time from being ruled non-conforming. But the new specifics on groove width and spacing ran into measurement challenges, and the ruling bodies eventually blinked—albeit with no money changing hands and, perhaps most importantly, the USGA’s authority to make equipment rules was upheld.

Padraig: "Bryson should be screaming for a rollback because it would give him a big advantage"

Quite a few sites picked up Padraig Harrington’s kind “could have told you so” remarks about Rory McIlroy and the pursuit of speed. But the real headline can with his answer discussing what Bryson DeChambeau has done and why he should root for a rollback.

The full Honda Classic press conference transcript is here at ASAP. The full answer on a “curtail distance” question:

PADRAIG HARRINGTON: Okay, I think -- right. I've got to think this through. One, everybody argues about speed, and the argument always tends to go about whether you like people who hit it long and playing golf with long hitting or you don't. But that argument is just personal opinion. You can't argue, if some person likes it, some person doesn't like it, whether the golf is more fun or not more fun. That is purely down to each individual person. So anybody who's arguing on social media, it's crazy because it's just personal opinion. It's not a factual argument.

I would say, though, golf ball going further means it's more expensive to build a golf course, it's more expensive to maintain a golf course. Golf ball going further definitely slows down the round of golf in terms of it's a longer walk, it takes longer, and that's the biggest issue with golf is the pace, the time it takes to get around. The golf ball going further also slows down the style of play because there's more bottle necks when people wait on par-4s and par-5s. Golf ball going further has meant that some golf courses are obsolete, some of the great courses, and the golf ball -- I shouldn't say golf ball. Equipment going further. And it could be an equipment change. It doesn't have to be a ball change. With the ball going further, equipment going further, it also means that golf -- and I see this at home. Golf is extremely dangerous at home. People wing it off fairways. You go to any regular club in Ireland, guys who are 25 years of age are hitting it 340 in the air and they don't know where it's going. I'm not saying good players, I'm talking just your regular guys hitting it miles, and you can't keep it on these courses because there's doglegs, so it's dangerous, so for those six reasons I think the game should be tailed back.

But the one thing that nobody seems to be getting in the whole of this argument, it's a massive advantage to the long hitters if they tail back the equipment. If they bring it back, it's a huge -- Bryson gains massively if they draw back the equipment. The longer you hit it, if you reduce Bryson by 10 percent, say he's hitting it 350 and he's now hitting it 315 and you reduce a guy who's hitting it 300 and you reduce him to 270, Bryson is okay. He's still that same percentage ahead but it's a lot easier to hit the golf ball on a golf course at 315 than it is at at 345 or 350. It is an incredible advantage to the long hitters if they tail back how far the ball goes.

If only more listened and appreciated that the distanistas really do love the long ball, just in proportion with the courses we have.

I'm talking it will encourage even more of a chase of long hitting because it's such an advantage.

And remember, doesn't matter what they do with the equipment going forward. You can't change now. You're going to have young guys coming out who swing a 7-iron at 110 miles an hour and that means that there's no lie in the rough, there's no tree in the way that they can't get over or can't get out of.

Of course if you take 8% off their drives maybe that 7 becomes a 6 or a 5 and magically the tree is in play.

As I said, I saw it with Tiger Woods. In 1996 he destroyed everybody because he was faster -- he was a good player and was faster, and Rory did the same thing.

Now we're seeing Bryson, he's obviously getting the limelight for it, and it's very impressive, but it will be -- he should be screaming for a rollback because it would give him a big advantage.

Bryson Drives It 370 Yards At Bay Hill's 6th

Tourcast’s depiction of the shot

He’s been pondering driving the green, gave it a bit of a look Friday and on Saturday of the Arnold Palmer Invitational but the wind wasn’t quite to his liking. We don’t know the wind numbers because NBC is resting their on-screen windometer for bigger events. Or it’s a COVID thing.

Saturday with apparently a wind to his liking, Bryson DeChambeau took the boldest line known in tournament history during a third round 68. He trails Lee Westwood by one heading into Sunday’s final round.

From Brentley Romine’s GolfChannel.com story on DeChambeau’s bold play:

"For the most part, that's a shot that I know I can do, and I was able to accomplish that," DeChambeau said. "I would have done it without the fans, but the fans definitely edged me on a little bit and it was fun to give them what they wanted."

Feeling the energy, DeChambeau stepped up to the plate, gave it a mighty lash and watched the ball sail over the water. With the ball still in the air, DeChambeau raised both arms in the air and pointed to the sky.

"It was amazing," DeChambeau said. "It felt like I won a tournament there."

Almost.

Romine also shared these numbers. Look at that 23 yards of roll! More than 5% of the 370!

Here are some of the numbers:

• Carry: 347 yards

• Total distance: 370 yards

• Clubhead speed: 137 mph

• Ball speed: 196 mph

• Smash factor: 1.43

• Launch angle: 11.9 degrees

• Apex: 124 feet

The big shot and World Long Drive reaction.

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Deacon: "Golf course management tool created to help operators improve the golfer experience"

Fun IOS and Android-friendly concept rolled out from the USGA for golf course “managers” to monitor a variety of things associated with operations and in particular, maintenance related elements.

This sounds like, if nothing else, a great way to monitor what green speeds do for pace of play. For Immediate Release, followed by a video explaining the app.

USGA Launches ‘Deacon,’ An Innovative Green Section Solution to Help Courses Deliver a Better Golfer Experience

Tool named in collaboration with the Palmer family as a tribute to Deacon Palmer, father of Arnold Palmer and longtime caretaker of Latrobe (Pa.) Country Club

 LIBERTY CORNER, N.J. (Feb. 25, 2021) – The United States Golf Association (USGA) has reached a key milestone in its efforts to support the long-term health of golf courses with the launch of Deacon, an innovative golf course management tool created to help operators improve the golfer experience by delivering better playing conditions while optimizing and prioritizing critical resource consumption.

Developed by the USGA’s Green Section and backed by its 100 years of hands-on industry experience, Deacon was designed to address two universal problems faced by golf courses: a gradual decline in participation due to a lack of satisfaction and rising maintenance costs. The digital tool is accessible online and available in both iOS and Android app stores.

The name is a tribute to Deacon Palmer, whose 50-year stewardship of Latrobe (Pa.) Country Club starting in 1926 – as superintendent and later golf professional – shaped a course that generations of golfers have enjoyed to this day. Latrobe is where Deacon taught his son Arnold to play the game on his way to becoming one of the most beloved figures in sports history, inspiring millions with his passion, character and values.

“In caring for Latrobe Country Club and influencing the life of one of the iconic figures in golf history, Deacon Palmer served the game in a way that matches our mission,” said Mike Davis, CEO of the USGA. “We are humbled that the Palmer family has entrusted the USGA with honoring his legacy.”

The tool contains 10 key features that will enhance a golf course manager’s ability to deliver accessible, enjoyable rounds to its golfers, including pace of play reports, GPS heat mapping, golf course condition management and hole locations. According to USGA research, golfer experience plays a vital role in the financial viability of facilities and the game’s long-term health and sustainability. 

Complementing and expanding upon the USGA’s proven impact in turfgrass research, educational reach and on-site consultations, the tool will serve as an important supplement to the work done daily by golf course operators and empower them to make more efficient, data-driven decisions.

“Deacon represents the latest evolution in the USGA’s efforts to champion and advance the game,” said Davis. “The investment in this innovative technology will have a positive and long-lasting impact on the millions of golfers who visit green-grass facilities each year as well as thousands of golf course operators, the unsung backbone of our game.” 

The USGA and the Palmer family share a long association dating to Arnold Palmer’s amateur career. Palmer cited his victory in the 1954 U.S. Amateur Championship as the turning point in his decision to become a professional golfer. The first player to win the U.S. Amateur, U.S. Open (1960) and U.S. Senior Open (1981), Palmer was honored in 1971 with the Bob Jones Award, the organization’s highest honor, and in 1975, he was named the honorary chairman of the USGA Members Program – a position he held until his passing in 2016. His relationship with the USGA and his role in American golf history were further cemented in 2008 with the opening of the Arnold Palmer Center for Golf History at the USGA Golf Museum and Library in Liberty Corner, N.J. 

“My father wanted to be remembered as a caretaker of golf because it was my grandfather, Deacon, who first taught him how to care for the game,” said Amy Palmer Saunders, chair of the Arnold & Winnie Palmer Foundation. “Our family is proud to continue this longstanding association with the USGA through the Deacon tool because it supports the same common-sense people – superintendents and professionals – my father and grandfather identified with so closely in their own lives.”

 More information about Deacon can be found at gsshop.usga.org.

The United States Golf Association (USGA) conducts many of golf's most prestigious championships, highlighted by the U.S. Open, the U.S. Women's Open and the...

"MLB is deadening baseballs to liven up the game."

The L.A. Times’ Mike DiGiovanna talked to managers and pitchers about Major League Baseball’s efforts in 2021 that include a tweak to ball construction and more humidors in certain parks. The goal appears to be dialing in the emphasis on all-or-nothing at bats and to restore “action” in the form of more balls in play, more importance placed on speed, and an increase in small ball for some teams.

In other words, the numbers show launch angle baseball is not resonating.

DiGiovanna writes:

The changes are so subtle that they may result in fly balls traveling only one to two feet shorter when hit more than 375 feet, but if that pushes baseball one small step toward its more traditional roots, it would be one giant leap for the game, in Maddon’s eyes.

“I’m hoping it impacts the game a lot,” Maddon said. “We’ll see how it works out this year, but if, in fact, the ball doesn’t travel as far, it will change the analytics of the game, and a lot of things will change off that.

“Strategically speaking, it will put more emphasis on speed, on hitting the ball the other way, especially with two strikes, on contact. Strikeouts will be more disdained, like they were in the past. Pitchers might challenge hitters more because they want the ball in play, and they won’t walk as many guys.”

This from Rich Hill:

“The overall feeling I’ve gotten from friends and family and fans that I’ve talked to is that, yeah, seeing home runs is almost like watching the NBA and guys throwing up three-pointers all the time,” said Rich Hill, a 40-year-old pitcher who recently signed with the Tampa Bay Rays.

“It understandably has a point to it, but strategically, if we want to continue to grow the health of the game, we might want to rethink where we are right now. And I don’t think I’m the only one who feels that way.”

The parallels with golf’s infatuation with launch angle and power are clear: long balls must be all folks want to see. While control, shot shaping, recovery play and the ground game are seen as not as sexy.

Scatter Chart Horror: Riviera's 10th Hole, Round One Genesis

The silliness above is on the governing bodies for not doing anything. Riviera for allowing the green to evolve as it has, and on someone else for not at least getting a tee extension ordered up.

Players now regularly say they aim for the trees left and hope. Is this how golf treats its elders? Oh right, yes it is.

Jordan Spieth’s description is just more forthright than most. But to think a whole ingeniously masterminded no longer gets to present the best players the intended options on a grand stage like the Genesis Invitational, is a stain on the game.

Yeah, so the idea was to hit a 3-wood over the left bunker into those trees. I mean, for real. You can get stymied and not have a shot and if that's the case you just have to kind of punch it forward. And then--but that angle's the best angle to be chipping into the green from. It was blowing pretty hard so I knew I needed to kind of hook it in order to get it over that bunker. So I went a little left of where I wanted, ended up in one of those spots that was not ideal because the palm tree happened to be right in the line I wanted to go. Ended up choosing to go to the left side of it and actually kind of almost cut it out of the rough from about 60yards. That shot was the shot of the day for me. That could have easily been a 5 and it turned out to be a 3.

"No Rollback On Talent"

LET player Meghan Maclaren added some much needed perspective with her latest blog post by addressing what USGA/R&A equipment standards changes might mean for elite players.

Add her perspective with Bryson DeChambeau and Rory McIlroy (both pro-skill) and note how little pushback there has been since last week’s announcement (other than from the Titleist toadies and Dustin Johnson) perhaps most good players get it: the rules need to protect skill and highlight the immense talent pool in the game.

Maclaren points out that this might even make the pro game more interesting. Please check out the full piece but is her summation:

And there’s currently 291 players ranked ahead of me in the women’s professional rankings. Not to mention your pick of every player shown on tv every week. Professional golfers will always be able to enthrall, because that is their job. They work every day to be able to do things you cannot. And you can still make the game as hard or as easy as you want, depending on the course you choose to play, the tees you choose to play from, the time you put into practice. None of that will change, even if Bryson or Anne van Dam max out at 25 yards less than they currently do. It might even make the game better.

USGA: Courses Built In Last Three Decades Around 64 Acres Larger Than Yesteryear's Footprint

USGA

Adam Moeller and George Waters of the USGA Green Section set out to determine how much golf courses footprints have changed as the sport has chased distance.

They developed an 80-course random sample with an even distribution of public and private from different regions and built in different eras. As always I urge you to read the whole thing. But the key takeaway part is a landmark finding and explains precisely why the USGA invested in studying distance. Well done.

A carefully selected case study of courses that had recently hosted men’s professional golf events was also included in the research because we recognized that these facilities face unique pressures with regard to hitting distance, and because these facilities typically have resources above and beyond what is available to most golf courses, so their patterns of change were likely to be different. The championship courses selected had a variety of opening dates and architects, and came from different regions.

For the purposes of this study, footprint is defined as all playing areas of the golf course, all practice facilities, all native areas that are likely to require some maintenance, ponds and lakes, roads and paths, the maintenance facility, the clubhouse, and any dumping or staging areas that can clearly be attributed to the golf facility. Where a course had woodland borders, an approximation within the perimeter of the tree line was made to account for maintenance that likely occurs along and within the woodland margins.

In the 80-course sample, courses built during the three most recent decades had an average total footprint of 216.3 acres. Courses from the earliest three decades – the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s – had an average footprint of 152.3 acres, a difference of 64 acres. This pattern was also observed in the championship course case study, where the five most-recently opened courses had an average footprint 47 acres larger than the five oldest courses (260 acres versus 213 acres, respectively).

There could be folks out there who love a bigger, longer walk in the park that wastes more resources and spreads out those strolls between holes. I just haven’t met them yet.

Another key finding: the average total area of greens and bunkers decreased over time. Meaning the expansion also came at the expense of design features in favor of dead space or roughs.

In the 80-course sample, the average total putting green area was 109,077 square feet for the earliest map year and 101,197 square feet for the last map year. The average total putting green area for the championship courses decreased from 125,642 square feet in the earliest map year to 115,755 square feet in the last map year. The average area of bunkers in the 80-course sample decreased from 82,573 square feet to 76,823 square feet. In the championship course case study, the decrease was even more pronounced, with a drop from an average of 243,971 square feet of bunker area in the earliest map year to 156,033 square feet in the most recent map year.

Course alterations for distance have been more recent:

In both the 80-course sample and the championship course case study, alterations to golf courses with a clear distance component have increased from 1990 onward. In the 80-course sample, 79% of the total distance added through new tees or moved greens occurred from 1990 to the present. In the championship course case study, a more pronounced version of this pattern arises, with 92.9% of all distance added since 1990. This suggests that courses have faced more pressure in recent years to accommodate increased hitting distance than in decades past.

MLB Slightly Deadening Ball Due To HR Surge

The Athletic’s Eno Sarris and Ken Rosenthal broke the news along with the incredible details of Major League Baseball’s plan to tweak the ball. The focus seems to be on not overemphasizing the home run but safety has to be part of the equation. Either way, chicks digging the long ball appears to be taking a back seat to the game getting played at a faster clip with less emphasis on the home run.

Golfers will enjoy hearing about COR…

“In an effort to center the ball with the specification range for COR and CCOR, Rawlings produced a number of baseballs from late 2019 through early 2020 that loosened the tension of the first wool winding,” the memo from the office of the commissioner reads, explaining that this change had two effects — reducing the weight of the ball by less than one-tenth of an ounce, and also a slight decrease in the bounciness of the ball as measured by the COR and CCOR. 

COR is the coefficient of restitution, or the relationship of the incoming speed to the outgoing speed. So, in other words, this new ball will be less bouncy. How much less is a matter of science, but also opinion.

Research conducted by Rawlings says the balls will be centered more in the midpoint of the established COR range, which is from .530 to .570 with a midpoint around .550, as the (now missing) first report on the home run rate surge stated. So the COR likely changed around .01 to .02 at most, and the ball size was likely reduced by less than 2.8 grams.

AP’s Jake Seiner added this:

MLB anticipates the changes will be subtle, and a memo to teams last week cited an independent lab that found the new balls will fly 1 to 2 feet shorter when hit over 375 feet. Five teams also plan to add humidors to their stadiums, raising the total to 10 of 30 MLB stadiums equipped with humidity-controlled storage spaces.

Trying To Grasp McIlroy's Take On Distance Research, Endorsement Of Bifurcation

Quite a few folks have reached out to ask for clarification of Rory McIlroy’s contradictory remarks last week. As I noted at the time, say what you want about his criticism of the governing bodies, he endorsed their likely solution as well. They will take the latter and ignore the former.

But the Golf.com roundtable gang did a nice job summing up the matter for those trying to figure out McIlroy’s point.

Berhow: The study and research and time that went into this is important. Facts matter. And it’s good to see how the game evolves. Hardly a waste of money or time. I do agree with him that the game has other issues to address as well, but that doesn’t mean the USGA and R&A should give distance or any other relevant topics the cold shoulder. That would be irresponsible. 

Zak: I was seriously disappointed in Rory’s knee-jerk perspective. It surprised me. The USGA is not ruining the game for amateurs with this study. The R&A is not focused solely on professionals. They are simply trying to make sure that some of the pillars this game sits on — centuries-old courses and using all the clubs in the bag — are not bastardized and made extinct by extreme advancements in technology. If slight bifurcation is the answer that keeps Bryson occasionally using a 4-iron at St. Andrews, it would be a great success.

Sens: I think he’s right about bifurcation. It makes good sense. 

Bamberger: Oh, I got ahead of things here — yes, he makes good sense, to a point. All recreational golf, as well as club golf and after-work leagues and all the rest need rules and regulations. But we should play lost ball. drop one where you think you lost it, add a shot. The Tour can do it some other way. 

News And Notes From The Majors: The Open Will Happen, Torrey Pines Wrap

So much to cover in a busier-than normal week for major championship news. But The Quadrilateral is here for you and Thursday’s notes edition is free.

Be sure to sign up and thanks to so many of you who’ve taken the leap. I’m beyond thrilled at the support on February 4th already, confirming my suspicions that the majors mean a lot to plenty of golf fans.

Here is more on The Quadrilateral and one note: I do anticipate Q&A’s and podcasts coming soon. But just keeping up with and analyzing the major(s) news has been kind of incredible lately! Thanks for your patience.