The Golf Ball Distance Roll Back: A Big Shank
Don Goldberg
Professional golf created a crisis of its own making with a bungled rollout for a significant equipment change
The US Golf Association’s long-awaited move to roll back the distance that golf balls travel (they currently go too far) reminds me of the decision by New York prosecutors to indict Donald Trump for the porn star payoff scandal: It may not have been the best first move, but we all know that it needed to be done. The hope is that other moves to address the distance issue in golf will all come in due course.
But as the widespread criticism by those in the golf industry and many top players shows, it doesn’t appear that the USGA took many of the steps that would have been helpful to controlling the narrative in what has become a communications crisis in the golf world.
There don’t appear to have been enough—if any—pre-briefs to industry analysts, influencers, important players, and other advocates that may have come out in favor of the ball roll-back immediately at the announcement. Nor were there talking points, fact sheets, or other simplified content that would have put more context around the decision or built a story around the three essentials of a successful narrative:
- What is the problem?
- What is the range of solutions?
- Why is this the best solution?
These aren’t difficult questions for the USGA to answer, but you have to dig too deep to get them. The negative response wasn’t hard to predict; why the USGA wasn’t better prepared is still a bit of a mystery.
