Archie Coupar is a PGA Club Pro at Hadden Hill golf club, and he agrees with Titleist in that the rolling back of the golf ball isn’t necessary in his opinion.
He said: “Titleist put a really good post out on Instagram, about the ball roll back. And it pretty much put it into perspective for everyone.
“I think that it’s not necessary, if you look at courses that have been built, in the past 20 years the average course length was actually got shorter from the tips.”
The rule is set to come into effect from January 2028 for professionals and then 2030 for amateurs and recreational players and is set to reduce the distance that the golf ball flies by around 5%.
Coupar believes that this effects the amateurs and manufacturers the most, he said: “It will cost manufacturers a huge amount of money. They’ve got to basically redesign their golf balls and re-brand them.
“And by 2030 it will come into effect for amateurs, so the amount of golf balls that we can offer on sale will be reduced and our profit margins will be slashed, and we don’t have huge profit margins anyway.”
This change also brings a certain degree of uncertainty for amateur players in the transitional period between 2028 and 2030 because they will have to adapt to two different types of balls if they are turning professional between the years of 2028 and 2030.
Coupar said: “The people that are going from amateur to professional are going to be in a bit of an in between period where they are going to find it really hard because those people are going to effectively lose a club and half’s worth of distance.”
Coupar believes that this will pose an extreme challenge for amateurs coming through to get on tour. He said: “It will be really hard for people to get from amateur through to Q School and then becoming a touring professional.”
However, there are some positives of the roll back, it will mean that courses will stop having to extend and change the layout of their course to accommodate to these big hitters.
It also means that we will see some courses on tour that we haven’t seen for a few years. Coupar said: “You’re going to get quite a nostalgic tour, there will be some older courses that can’t be played on because of their length.
“Such as Sun City and Leopard Creek, you only really see them on DP World Tour or senior tours, you don’t really get to see them on PGA anymore and they were some of the best courses to watch.”
Coupar also thinks that this will test golfers and will lead to better golf being played. He said: “The benefits will be that you will see better golf.
“In theory, the ball is going shorter it means professionals will have to learn to work the ball better and get themselves out of trouble more because they can’t fly over it.”
