[Photo: Brennan Asplen]
The decision by the R&A and USGA to revisit the timeline for the ball rollback, and the timing of the announcement on the Friday before the annual PGA Show in Orlando, was not a coincidence. According to Thomas Pagel, the USGA’s chief of governance, it is an effort on the part of the ruling bodies to continue to be more collaborative in the rollout of potentially the biggest equipment rule change in the history of the game.
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While the original plan, announced in late 2023, was to implement a new test standard for golf balls over a two-year phase-in period, beginning in 2028. The rule change, which would potentially roll back distance for tour players by perhaps 10-15 metres, would have made the rollback balls the rule for elite competition for a two-year window before becoming the standard for recreational golfers starting in 2030. (To be deemed conforming, a golf ball would have had to meet the new standard starting in 2028.)
The ruling bodies announced late last week they were soliciting opinions on eliminating the phase-in period and switching the start date for the new rule to apply to all golfers beginning in 2030. The announcement is called an “area of interest” in rulemaking-speak, which basically is a call for comments from manufacturers, golf organisations and other interested parties.
Pagel said the ruling bodies were receiving increasing input that the timeline, and specifically the phase-in, was creating uncertainty, even though the phase-in originally was a concession that the R&A and USGA implemented after input from various organisations, particularly the PGA of America.
“As people have gone to implementation mode, they’ve started to understand what really goes into this at the local level, at the tournament level, and they’re saying, ‘There are a number of questions I have, and this is going to present challenges, and I think it would actually be better if we were on a single date because it eliminates the number of these open questions.’”
Specifically, the proposed implementation timeline would have created two different sets of rules that likely would have to have been monitored in a widespread way by local golf professionals and officials. Those difficulties have been part of the PGA of America’s vocal disagreement with the need for a rollback.
Of course, delaying the rule by two more years means the ruling bodies have two more years to work on the rollback’s bigger potential problem: getting some kind of buy-in from both the PGA of America and the PGA Tour. The former has been highly critical of the rollback, including its former chief executive Derek Sprague calling for a pause in the rollback plan. Meanwhile, the PGA Tour has had little of substance to say since Brian Rolapp has taken over as commissioner, while many players have openly questioned what purpose the change serves.
Sources say the organisations have been meeting more frequently in recent months to discuss the rollback, but it’s not clear whether the PGA of America and PGA Tour are inching closer to the USGA’s position or the other way around. There was no indication from Pagel the ruling bodies were having any kind of a change of heart about the distance issue.
“Our job, our goal, is to be good partners, and we’ll continue to be good partners to get the industry comfortable with this,” he said. “I think our objective is to retain the unity that everybody has told us is critically important in the game.”
When asked how much closer golf is to unity on the subject of distance, Pagel spoke diplomatically.
“I can’t speak on behalf of any organisations other than the USGA,” he said. “This has been a long process. The governing bodies have always been committed to doing what’s best for the game long term, and if the feedback from manufacturers and other stakeholders is that an extra two years helps alleviate some of these challenges, I think it’s a good thing.”
Because of the legal restrictions in rulemaking the USGA can’t simply talk to a few manufacturers to form a consensus, hence the “area of interest” announcement last week, or as Pagel says, “Talk to one, talk to all.
“We really wanted to make sure that we got that out on Friday so that as we came to the show this week, we could have meaningful dialogue with manufacturers and really the open and candid dialogue that we need to have,” he said, indicating on Wednesday (US time) that those conversations already are happening.
While manufacturers already have been readying golf ball designs to meet the new standard and the USGA has already been testing prototypes, Pagel said there was increasingly a sense 2028 was too soon for some. Indeed, even if there were a change to a single start-up date, 2028 was not part of the discussion.
“I think if you look at a single date and full product line, full SKUs, two years out, that becomes challenging,” he said. “Even limited SKUs for the elite game is challenging two years out.”
The announcement stresses that while no decisions on the rule change implementation have been made, the deadline for filing comments is February 15. That’s a relatively short timeframe to receive comments, and Pagel stressed that the USGA was “committed to working expeditiously”.
