Tiger Woods spoke of the significance of wanting towards the way forward for golf as he voiced help for the lately proposed rule aimed toward limiting the space a golf ball can journey in skilled occasions.
“The guys are going to become more athletic. Everyone is going to get bigger, stronger, faster as the generations go on,” Woods mentioned on Tuesday as he ready to compete for his sixth inexperienced jacket and sixteenth main championship this week on the 2023 Masters at Augusta National.
“With technology, you’re going to find — even if you roll the ball back and get a spinnier golf ball, guys will find you may go to a 4-degree driver and you may find a different shaft and you may have that one match up. But I just think that the — yes, I think this should have happened a long time ago.”
As golf’s gear know-how has improved exponentially over the previous a number of many years, one of the best gamers on this planet have been capable of carry the ball to growing lengths, generally over 330 yards, leading to issues and debate over golf course design and size.
The new rule proposed by the United States Golf Association and the R&A would give excursions and tournaments the choice to require elite males’s gamers to make use of a golf ball that might be examined beneath modified launch situations to cut back driving distance by 20 or extra yards starting in January 2026, if adopted.
The governing our bodies are set to obtain suggestions on the proposal from producers and others till Aug. 14.
“If you do anything to the equipment, I don’t think that you can change the size of the heads anymore, just because there’s so many out there,” Woods mentioned. “But I still think that it’s very much like baseball with aluminum bats and wooden bats.
“You can have a difference in the golf ball, and tennis has the same thing. You go to different events, they have different balls; the public doesn’t really know that but the players do. I’ve been of the position: If you play in a pro event or you have a ‘P’ next to your name, you should be playing a pro ball. Now, that was my opinion on it. If you have an ‘A’ next to your name and you’re playing an amateur event, you should use an amateur ball.
“But (if) you’re an amateur playing a pro event, now, that’s where the transition can be had, where you can start — I wouldn’t say rolling the game back, but you can start slowing it down because we’re just not able to create enough property out there.”
Rory McIlroy additionally lately expressed help for the brand new rule, however amongst present gamers, he and Woods are to this point alone of their view. Justin Thomas, Sam Burns and Jon Rahm have publicly come out in opposition to the proposed rule.
Augusta National and Masters chairman Fred Ridley is ready to satisfy with the press on Wednesday, the place the subject is more likely to come up given the newly lengthened thirteenth gap.
Woods will tee off on Thursday at Augusta National with Xander Schauffele and Norway’s Viktor Hovland in a bunch that can begin at 10:18 a.m. ET for Round 1 and 1:24 p.m. ET for Round 2.