Amidst all of the chaos concerning the future of the three biggest tours in the men’s professional game, golf fans would be forgiven for forgetting about a significant change which is coming in January 2028.
Of course, it seems impossible to predict just how the men’s professional game will look by the start of 2028 with so many question marks hanging over the likes of the PGA Tour, LIV Golf and the DP World Tour.
But one decision which has already been made is the call to roll back the golf ball in an attempt to remove some of the advantage the game’s longest hitters have. It has been announced that the new golf balls will travel around 15 yards less for those who hit it the furthest.
Pete Cowen questions decision to roll back the golf ball
It is a controversial decision. There are almost certainly going to be plenty of amateurs who, at best, do not benefit from the changes. And with that, legendary coach Pete Cowen has told The 19th Uncut what he believes would be a better option if they were going to make changes to the game.
“Although I teach a lot of short game, what I would do, if you wanted to control the actual scoring, I’d get rid of bunkers. They’re too good out of bunkers, and you get such good lies. They’re so good out of bunkers. If you put all those bunkers as thick grass or flying grass out of the bunkers, then all of a sudden, there would be a premium on hitting greens,” he said.
“So your best player would obviously come to the surface, more often than not. But if those bunkers were grass bunkers and you really couldn’t control it – because they can spin it for fun out of the bunkers, you watch them all the time, ‘oh, he’s going to get down in two’ – if that was a grass bunker with thick grass around the ball, you’re really going to struggle to control the ball out of there.”
Golf needs a change, but ball decision may not be the right approach
The PGA Tour average for 2024 saw players get up and down from bunkers nearly 53 percent of the time. Meanwhile, Xander Schauffele is in top spot as he got up and down just over 70 percent of the time.
It was interesting that Bryson DeChambeau suggested that his bunker shot on the 72nd hole at the US Open was not quite as difficult as some would assume.
Meanwhile, there is definitely a place for much shorter holes which include plenty of hazards. The Postage Stamp is the signature hole at Royal Troon, the course which hosted the 2024 Open, and that is a hole which can even play under 100 yards.
Environmentally, it would be better if golf courses required less land. But the planned golf ball rollback looks unlikely to make such a significant change that much improves on that front.
With that, Cowen is surely right to suggest that there may be other changes which would make more sense.
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