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Jack Nicklaus wants to ban level 75 Nike balls!

• chrisironsbones 3,524 Posts

  Thu, Jun 28 2012 4:31 AM

  I saw a interview last night on Sky Sports with Jack Nicklaus talking about the current balls available on the pga tour and he reckoned they should stop producing them!  He reckoned its costing millions for golf courses to upgrade to keep up with the players hitting so far and accurate and put it down to the balls they are using.  He went on to say there are thousands of decent courses which are now obsolete because they are now too short and reckoned if they stopped producing top balls (probably like our nikes here) then courses wouldn't have to be so long, and they wouldn't have to spend millions in keeping up, (only a few such as Augusta that actually do keep up with technology available) bringing thousands of "obsolete" courses back into play.

  Would this be a step forward limiting ball quality, or a step backwards?  WGT might be interested in what Jack had to say.LOL because as soon as the cally's came along we started seeing very low 50's!!!

• Infinito3010 3,689 Posts

  Thu, Jun 28 2012 4:43 AM

  Smart way to limit the distance off the tee would be to change the coefficient of restitution (COR) of the driver.  Thus by going down from 0.83 to 0.76 would be significant, and the holes would play alot longer.  Essentially there would be a 20% decrease in distance off the tee.

• piztaker 5,743 Posts

  Thu, Jun 28 2012 5:18 AM

  I imagine holes 7 through 12 on St Andrews were tricky once.

• srellim234 2,077 Posts

  Fri, Jun 29 2012 7:37 AM

  Nicklaus may be right when referring to the top 0.5% of players in the world. You may be right referring to the top 0.5% of players here. Not so much the general public.

  Even with the advances in technology involving golf clubs and golf balls the average handicap among golfers in the general population has not gone down. They are not any better at getting the ball in the hole. I know from my own life experience that technology has allowed me to retain the distances I hit the ball as a youth much longer. Long term deterioration is being avoided, allowing me to continue enjoying the game as I age. Many of my friends feel the same way.

  It's also probably the same with a lot of the occasional recreational players here. Game play doesn't necessarily need to be toned down for the majority of players.