'Insignificant': Jack Nicklaus says golf-ball rollback might not go far enough

Jack Nicklaus met with reporters on Tuesday at the Memorial and discussed the golf-ball rollback and why it continues to be a tricky topic.

Nicklaus was asked for his thoughts on the rollback. Essentially, given that Young has seen only minimal distance losses, are the proposed changes enough to not only rein in the evolving distance increases but also keep some of the world’s best golf courses from becoming obsolete?

After being filled in on exactly what happened to Young at the PGA Championship, Nicklaus had lots to say, digging into the manufacturers’ role, the future of championship golf courses and more.

“I keep saying, it’s like throwing a deck chair off the Titanic,” Nicklaus said. “It’s not very much.”

Nicklaus followed up by asking the reporter who offered the question if he played golf.

“It won’t make any difference, about a yard to you, maybe 2 at the absolute most, and you’ll never know that,” he said, making his point that amateur golfers will see little change with the golf-ball rollback. “To the pro, maybe, Rory [McIlroy], who is maybe as long as there is, might have maybe 12 to 14 yards it might pull him back. It might be a benefit. Might keep him out of trouble. I don’t know. But you know, I mean, it’s insignificant.

“The only thing that’s good about it is that it’s actually reined in the game back a little bit and pulled it back to where it shouldn’t get any further than that; let’s hope not,” he continued. “I mean, we run out of real estate. We run out of time to play. We run out of money. We run out of water. You run out of all kinds of things. You know, we’re not all like Augusta where we can go buy another golf course if we need to lengthen the tee. I say that facetiously … but we’re limited by what we’ve got. So you can keep making it to where the game can’t be played.”

World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler chimed in on the topic during his press conference Wednesday. He said that while he agrees with some of the principles behind the golf-ball rollback, there are lingering issues.

“When you start moving it back only 8 yards, not only does it disproportionately affect certain players —where you have some guys who it won’t affect at all, and some guys where it will affect 15 to 20 yards —I think it creates some issues within our game when you start changing the rules,” Scheffler said.

He added that while he likes how classic, tight golf courses like Harbour Town or last week’s venue, Colonial, challenge players in different ways, the way many courses are now —open with less penalizing rough —dictates how younger players learn the game. If distance and power are being rewarded, he says, guys will hit the gym and work on speed training to meet that challenge.

Nicklaus ended his final answer on the topic by saying the golf-ball rollback isn’t a popular subject, although the better word might have been it continues to be controversial.

“Most of the reason why the guys will complain about the golf ball being brought back is because of the manufacturers,” Nicklaus said. “And I mean, the manufacturer complains to a player and says, ‘No, no, don’t you tell them that you want that golf ball rolled back, otherwise you aren’t going to be working for us.’

“It’s just now getting to the point where we got to buy more land to build, to do anything,” he continued. “I mean, in this country today we probably have, if you don’t touch the golf courses that are out there and play them the way they are, we probably don’t have 20, 25, maybe 30 golf courses that are really of championship caliber without fooling around with them. If the ball was brought back a little bit, we would have a lot more golf courses.”