The PGA is reining in long hitters with new golf balls

Technology to shorten drives on tour will have an impact on all golfers.

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Golf equipment, particularly golf balls, have seen significant impact of technological advancements, leading to longer driving distances. This trend poses challenges for golf course design as courses struggle to accommodate the increased length. To address this, the PGA, in collaboration with the Royal and Ancient, plans to implement new engineering criteria for golf balls by 2028, aiming to reduce driving distances for both professional and amateur players.

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Episode Transcript:

Golf is a funny sport. A pleasant pastime for some, an addition for others, and a lucrative career for a talented few. At the turn of the last century, an unidentified author in Ireland called it “a good walk spoiled”, a line so popular that it has been attributed to everyone from Gladstone to Mark Twain over the years. That line is so enduring because it neatly summarizes the complex relationship that avid golfers have with the game. It’s compelling, and even a little success drives a player to achieve more. 

And to spend money on the latest equipment, a global market worth about $24 billion, and growing at almost 6% annually. And there is a major disturbance in the force within the golf equipment world, related to golf balls. The average driving distance for male golfers is about 216 yards, and for women, 148 yards. In 2003, the average PGA Tour player drove the ball 278 yards. In 2021, the driving average was 296 yards. And that’s the average. 

The result has been a serious problem for golf course designers. For most courses today, a PGA player can play a par four with a driver, a nine iron and a putter. The boxes have been moved progressively rearward as a result, complicated and course design and making it difficult to design courses playable by both high-level competitors and Saturday four-ballers. 

And everyone loves length off the tee, something golf equipment manufacturers have exploited to produce new generations of drivers, and golf ball manufacturers to create longer and longer balls. 

But the golf ball is the focus of the PGA’s latest attempt to rein in the big guns, and the Association, in collaboration with Scottish mothership, the Royal and Ancient, has announced that starting in 2028, legal golf balls will have to conform to a specific set of engineering criteria. 

They will be tested with a robot swinging a titanium club at hundred 25 miles an hour, impacting the ball with an 11° launch angle at 2200 RPMs of spin. At those criteria, the ball cannot travel a distance exceeding 317 yards of combined carry and roll plus or -3 yards. Interestingly, current testing uses 120 mile an hour clubhead speed with 10° of launch angle and 2500 RPMs of backspin. So, what’s the impact? A 300-yard drive will be about 285, and a more amateur realistic 225-yard drive will lose 10 yards of distance. 

So, what is this matter to amateurs? Because unlike other sports, 30 handicap duffers can and do play with the same balls that pros use. Or better amateurs, the loss of driving distance may turn a middle iron into a long iron, adding a little more challenge to a game that’s already challenging. So how are golf ball makers going to achieve the new standards? Popular high-end balls like the Titeleist Pro V1 are three- and four-layer designs, with an inner core, one or more outer cores and an ionomeric polyurethane cover. 

Energy wise, it’s pure high school physics, with the ability of the ball to transfer the momentum of a moving clubhead depending on the elasticity of the ball, as well as hysteresis effects. Of course, in flight, aerodynamics are critical, and with the diameter of the ball regulated, this comes down to dimple design, and number. 

Which gives golf ball manufacturers an interesting conundrum: do they deaden the ball through mechanical compressibility, or through aerodynamic drag, or both? And will tinkering with the engineering of the golf ball have the desired effect? 

We’re not going to know for another six or seven years, but we are headed for a showdown. Pros want to bifurcate the golf world, with different rules for their golf balls. Equipment makers know there are billions of dollars to be made by selling people like you and me the same balls that Rory McIlroy uses. 

Personally, I’m for bifurcation. Let Scottie Scheffler hit a hot ball and let me use one with an embedded radio homing beacon. Because I want to play a round with a sleeve in my bag, not a box.

Written by

James Anderton

Jim Anderton is the Director of Content for ENGINEERING.com. Mr. Anderton was formerly editor of Canadian Metalworking Magazine and has contributed to a wide range of print and on-line publications, including Design Engineering, Canadian Plastics, Service Station and Garage Management, Autovision, and the National Post. He also brings prior industry experience in quality and part design for a Tier One automotive supplier.