ASKMYGOLFSPY Vol. 26

Welcome back to #ASKMYGOLFSPY where readers like you submit questions to our team of experts here at MyGolfSpy.  These week, we tackle a couple of more golf ball rollback questions, discuss the best tools for gaining speed, and more.

Submit your questions any time on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram or in the comments below..

Q: Best swing speed improvement products? – Portell3

A: There are so many good ones now and more hitting the market seemingly every week.

I love the Stack System but it’s probably the most expensive and that’s before you buy something to measure your swing speed (required). Our putter guy, Dave Wolfe, is seeing good results with the RypStick. Super Speed is the original (and it’s backed by plenty of success stories). Finally, for those who want to hit balls as part of the training, I’d suggest Clay Ballard’s Top Speed as an option.

Ultimately, I think swing speed products are a bit like fitness equipment and gym memberships. The most effective will prove to be the one you actually use so there’s a bit of “know thyself” in figuring out which is the best option for you.

Q: How accurate are GPS devices? And if they’re accurate within a couple of yards, does it matter? And how does that impact putting stats from Arccos/Shot Scope? – Andrew the Great

A: Since pretty much all of the golf GPS units out there use pretty much the same satellites, they’re all pretty close when it comes to accuracy. So if you’re in the fairway and it says 154 yards to the center, it’s safe to assume the real number is anywhere from 152 to 156 yards. If you need to know the exact number, that’s what a laser is for and it’s why a lot of golfers carry both.

When it comes to stat tracking, the distances you have with each clubs are probably within that plus or minus two yards. Putting stats, especially distances, should be taken with a grain of salt. – John Barba

Q: What impact do you think the resale market has on new club purchases? Do brands like Tour Edge, Mizuno (drivers) and/or COBRA have lower front-end sales because people know the resale/trade value won’t be as high as a Big-4 brand? Conversely, do two-year cycles help PING/Titleist? – Max Johnson

A: It’s not something I think golfers should worry about. Golf clubs are an investment in your game, not your financial future. That said, we’ve seen enough comments that specifically mention the resale value that we know it’s something some golfers are concerned about. On one hand, worrying about resale can limit your options but if you’re relying on getting a good chunk of cash for your old clubs to finance the new ones, then I suppose I understand.

Q: Any info on the new Snell lineup? – Up and Down for Bogey

A: Absolutely. I’ve got all the info. Unfortunately, I can’t share it right now. Please come back in 10 days or so.

Q: Bifurcation of ball seen as “easiest”…although no change needed, imo..& not sure why Tour/s would agree to any…

BUT: Wouldn’t most immediate & impactful affect be MLR rolled back driver? 360cc/200CT…& ONLY during PGAT level/certain play…the “wood bat” of golf? – Keith Cook

A: As I’ve noted, rolling back the driver only impacts a single club in the bag. While the focus of the golf ball discussion has been largely about distance off the tee, a ball rollback would reduce driver distance and fairway wood distance and hybrid distance.

There’s a lot of uncertainty around how manufacturers will tackle the challenge of a reduced-distance ball so it’s hard to be sure how deep into the bag you’ll see distance drops but the rollback will definitely steal distance from more than just the driver which is very likely why that is the focus of the USGA and R&A.

Q: Based on the proposed spec, if the rollback was made to be unilateral, rather than bifurcated, what do you think the impact on distances would be to the Average Joe golfer? – Emmet Holland

A: It kinda depends on the approach golf companies take and under what launch conditions a given ball is optimized for but—painting with a REALLY wide brush—the USGA and R&A estimate the rollback will reduce PGA TOUR distance by about 15 yards. Based on real-world conditions, the ball manufacturers say the number is likely to be 20 yards. Again, this is all player-dependent but to try and get at something close to a reasonable answer, I looked at current Tour driving distance.

As of these keyboard strokes, that average is 297.1. Take a worst-case 20 yards off that and you’ve got a 6.73-percent drop.

(Reminding you yet again that this is all player-dependent and that performance specs for some balls that are popular with Average Joes aren’t exactly Tour-level …)

The just-released Arccos distance report pegs the average adult male driving distance at 225.9 yards and 6.7 percent off that leaves us with an Average Joe’s estimated rolled-back distance of 210.7 yards (a drop of 15 yards).

Fortunately, the MLR (“model local rule” as proposed by the ruling bodies) means most of us don’t need to worry about that.

This exercise does create an interesting discussion around who benefits and who suffers (at the Tour level) as a result of a rollback.

One school of thought says it further benefits longer players. The argument is that guys who were hitting wedges into greens will be hitting 8-irons while guys already hitting 8-irons into greens will need to hit 6-irons. The thinking is that it’s more punishing to move from an 8-iron to a 6-iron than from a PW to an 8-iron. I buy that.

Let’s look at another way. The current Tour leader in driving distance is Rory McIlory at 326.6 yards. The poor DFL on the list is Brian Stuard at 269.6. If both step up to the tee and hit an average drive, today, there’d be 57 yards between them.

In our “all-things-equal” rollback scenario, Rory’s average would dip to 304.6 while poor Brian drops to 251.5.  But the good news for Mr. Stuard is that, instead of being 57 yards back of McIlory, the USGA and R&A have teamed up to narrow the gap to *only* 53 yards.

For sure, I’d much rather have the shorter iron in my hand but, nevertheless, if the rollback works out as a percentage of distance-lost thing, it does serve to narrow, albeit only slightly, the actual distance (yards) between long and short hitters.

Q: Instead of rolling the ball back can’t we just make the pros play Volviks? – Feral Golfer

A: (Wince emoji)

Q: What will the specs of the proposed MLR ball look like? (Compression, spin, weight, etc.). Cast urethane or likely injected? Will we really be looking at something comparable to Pinnacle Soft (as mentioned on NPG)? – Lee Vandergriff

A: I’m confident the application of urethane won’t change. Titleist and TaylorMade will still cast covers, Callaway and Bridgestone (others) will still injection mold and crosslink. As for the rest, I think it’s too soon to know much of anything. The broad thinking is the ball will likely need to fly, spin and feel like current Tour offerings.

Given that one thing impacts another, I think we’re probably talking about a responsive core material with similar compression. That’s just a guess but the first thing to change (core, for example) will create a domino effect. Mantles and covers will likely need to change as well. Every layer of the golf ball impacts the others.

Behind the scenes, there will likely be plenty of experimentation with various ways to accomplish the desired result. It’s going to be really expensive, which is crazy when you consider we’re talking about balls with limited market appeal designed for a rule that may not actually be adopted.

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