Could This Be a Better Solution to Golf's Distance Debate

It has been a year packed full of headlines in golf, but one of the most significant came in December when The R&A and USGA announced their plans to 'rollback' the ball across the game in an attempt to curb the growing impact of increasing distance.

Naturally, this is a divisive topic and likely no one is completely satisfied by the outcome. Many believed that bifurcation was the answer, a measure that would introduce separate regulations between elite players and the everyday golfers who are the lifeblood of the game. Others are of the view that what has been decided is nowhere near enough, while some don't even think there is a problem to solve and things should be left as they are.

Ultimately, the question is whether rolling back the golf ball was the most effective solution or could there have been an alternative. Many have cited the driver itself as being a potential remedy, with technology in these clubs offering dramatically improved forgiveness on previous generations courtesy of a sweet spot that is of a scarcely believable size to anyone who started playing the sport before this century.

For an experiment, Golfshake's Equipment Expert Ryan Rastall put a driver from 2003 to the test against a modern day model and asks whether there could have been an alternative idea for the distance debate and golf ball rollback.

Watch below or on YouTube as Ryan tests out the Titleist 975 J driver against the 2023 Wilson DynaPower driver. Both drivers feature the same shaft length with the Titleist 975 J at 8.5 degrees and the Wilson DynaPower set at 8 degrees.

See how both drivers performed under test conditions and where they compared in terms of distance, forgiveness and consistency.

Perhaps it's simply time to rollback the driver!