Paul Azinger - "Solving the Distance Issue" SHORT TRACK

Intro Music 0:07

Straight down the middle. It went straight down the middle.

Paul Azinger 0:13

Then it started to the s the problem is for distance and all that stuff. It's just so easy to solve. It's just, you know, I don't know how many dimples are on a ball anymore. Do you? Is it 416 dimples? No, no. Just go back to 384 and say every no ball can have more than X number of dimples. Period. And then it'll spin. Yeah. I I've talked to the USJ about that. I think that's too hard for them. They're shortening the legal length of a driver, which is probably, if you look back, it's probably something that's pretty simple. And uh, but my I I actually threw out another suggestion. I said, just lower the legal height of the T. You know, Bryson's got a driver right now in 2021.

Mike Gonzalez 0:58

Five degrees.

Paul Azinger 0:59

He's hitting off a he's hitting a five degree driver. He's hitting eight degrees up on it. Six to eight degrees up. But you can only do that because the T's four and three quarter inches. If the T was three and a half inches or something, or just an inch shorter. No. And that would that would be part of the solution. Just change the trajectory they are capable of launching it on. This dude's launching it s between twelve and eighteen if he can launch. Right. Come on. We were taught to play close to the ground. Hit that worm burner under the trees.

Mike Gonzalez 1:34

Well, we could we could do a whole podcast on this equipment discussion, and Bruce and I have actually talked about that, uh, Paul, uh getting the regulatory bodies on and and uh just identify from the very beginning. First of all, what are we trying to fix? Right? What's the problem? Let's define what the problem is. And and the the approach from the USGA and the RNA, the the problem definition is all about uh uh uh distance, right? It's it's it's their distant distance insight study. And everything's around distance. Uh what directly and indirectly impacts on distance? And I think uh you you both mentioned ball spin. That seems to be an easier one to get it back spinning the way it used to, which would probably cause guys to back off, don't you think?

Paul Azinger 2:21

Well, uh look, you can make a golf ball that goes half distance on some of these ranges, driving ranges, three-quarter distance, right? Cayman. Um you can make a ball spin so much that it can't work. And you can also have a ball with no dimples that'll knuckle so poorly it won't work. There's a spot in between there. It's perfect. That's just they they got it, they got it. All they gotta do is just put a hammer down and say, look, here's the deal. We figured out through incredible studies that the balls in order to go appropriate distance that we determine. I don't know, I don't know how you rain anything back this day and age, to be honest. You know, now literally with the golf channel, you know, they're wanting content and they're gonna play this long drive thing, and I gotta tell you the truth, it's exciting. They rack out 30 balls as fast as they can. Come on. It's fun to watch. And it's like, man, if those guys can chip and putt, why not? So if you're the USGA, you got a bit of a situation. I I think that the the easy thing right there was to shorten the driver, and I would shorten the driver and lower the height of the T. You can still swing as hard as you can. You know, that's mental too, by the way, Bruce. You know and I both know I can swing as hard as I can on every shot if I want. Right, but you don't have it's a mental decision to do that. You don't, because you just don't. But Bryson seems to do that. Yeah. And that is you gotta. I remember thinking several times, you know, I'm gonna go out there this week and I'm gonna swing as hard as I can at every drive, and I'm gonna hit every shot at the flag, and you get there and you can't do it. But he's doing it.

Mike Gonzalez 4:12

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Intro Music 4:32

Whack down the fairway. It went smack down the fairway. And it started just like just spit offline. It went straight down the middle.