PGA Tour: Restrict the Touring pros; don’t restrict me

The first question is whether the PGA Tour needs to further restrict the types of balls and clubs that are used on Tour.

The answer to that question is an unequivocal yes.

The next question is whether the R&A and USGA, which recently proposed such restrictions – now projected to be implemented before this April’s Masters – are the right bodies to legislate these changes.

The answer to that question is almost certainly no. They are, after all, not the PGA Tour.

The matter of changes to balls and clubs, especially with respect to whether those changes render many great courses obsolete, is – for the vast majority of golfers – a hard no.

To restrict or not to restrict.

As a double-digit handicapper – and an aging one at that — I need all the mechanical assistance the technicians can provide just to remain competitive on the profusion of more challenging courses that are being created yearly.

If the concern is that the 99 percent of us who play golf as recreation are going to invalidate Augusta National, Oakmont, Pebble, and Merion, that’s just silly.

Are the pros in the process of invalidating those courses? That’s another question, a less silly one. In fact the answer may well be affirmative.

But with rare exceptions – principally the Majors – the problems created by touring pros are the province of the PGA Tour.

What is needed then is the kind of bifurcated approach being discussed in some quarters. This bifurcated approach envisions two distinct levels of technology for equipment.

In the first level — my level — anything goes.

In the second level, the Tour level, players are issued a couple of dozen balls at the start of each event – balls that meet Tour-dictated specifications for Coefficient of Restitution – and told to go at it. They can still use their own clubs, but those also must be tested to ensure that they fit with pre-set Tour specs.

Such an approach is hardly revolutionary in professional sports. Major League Baseball serves as a clear prototype. Baseballs, which have been tested to ensure they fit within certain performance ranges – are the province of umpires, not players.

So what we really have in this entire debate is a governance issue. The matter is being pushed by the R&A and USGA, entities that for the most part lack the power to restrict change where it is most badly needed…on Tour.

The argument may be made that this is a solution in search of a problem, that such restrictions disincentivize players’ efforts to improve, that improved play has throughout the game’s history always rendered courses obsolete, and that historically great courses do not need to be protected.

There is some element of truth in the above, especially the part about the concept of great courses being an evolving species. Prior generations looked at layouts such as Prestwick, Myopia, and even St. Andrews as classic tests.

Prestwick and Myopia still exist, but both are considered way too passé to be a challenge to today’s players. St. Andrews obviously remains a classic, is scheduled to host its 30th iteration of the Open in 2022.

The data, however, demonstrates that – despite the best efforts of architects to update the home of golf —  it ain’t the same. Of the 18 Opens held at the Old Course since the end of World War I, the five lowest winning scores were all shot since 1990. Those were Nick Faldo’s -18 in 1990, Tiger Woods’ -19 in 2000, Woods’ -14 in 2005, Louis Oosthuizen’s -16 in 2010, and Zach Johnson’s -15 in 2015.

In fact of the nine lowest winning scores at The Open since 1990, five have been shot on the Old Course.

That doesn’t diminish St. Andrews’ classic status. But it does demonstrate that it is no longer able to stand up to the modern game when played at its elite level by pros wielding continually evolving equipment. The easiest way to fix that is to ‘normalize’ — which is to say restrict — the ball and clubs.

Here’s the bottom line: The ball and equipment used on Tour do need to be reined in legislatively. That’s a task largely for the PGA Tour, only occasionally abetted by the organizers of the game’s majors.

The pros won’t like this. Rory McIlroy has already loudly sounded out. The pros’ views are understandable; they have a financial stake in promoting the sale of equipment. That task may be made harder if they themselves are prohibited from using the equipment they are attempting to sell.

Because yes, juiced-up equipment would still be available for sale to people like me and would still be appropriate for normal play.

There is no reason for the restrictions to apply to you and me. There is some reason to apply them to other Tours and to various state, regional, and perhaps even local tournaments. That decision can be made at the appropriate level; that’s what bifurcation is all about.

But there is every reason to apply them on the PGA Tour, and leave us regular golfers alone.