Golf ball rollback

How much distance do you stand to lose?

- Meraj Shah

LET'S GET TO the heart of the matter.

Much like you, dear reader-assuming we're all amateur casual golfers here the first thing to come to my mind when I learned that the governing bodies of golf had finally decided to curtail the distance a golf ball is capable of travelling was: How many yards do I stand to lose? Golf journalism could wait: This was personal.

If you haven't been following the discussion, let's get you up to speed. The Royal & Ancient and the USGA are the governing bodies in golf. Among other aspects of the game, these good folk define stringent conditions that golf club equipment manufacturers need to follow. Think. materials used in golf head construction, length of shafts, size of driver heads, and so forth.

Now there's been a lot of discussion over the last decade about reducing the distance a golf ball can travel. I know: it sounds ridiculous, given how hard we amateurs work at trying to hit it longer.

But this isn't about us, but rather, longhitting pros who've changed the way the game is played at the highest level.

The 'Bomb & Gouge' style of play has meant that there's way more premium today on length off the tee than precision or even strategy. And that has had purists of the game up in arms bemoaning the loss of creativity and finesse to brute strength. On a practical level, this has also meant that golf courses have had to add length and modify layouts to be able to preserve their challenge. That translates into expenses, a greater strain on resources, and is generally not a long-term solution or an ecologically desirable practice. That's pretty much the gist of it rein in the obnoxiously long hitters.