{"id":434758,"date":"2025-05-15T02:13:30","date_gmt":"2025-05-15T02:13:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/?p=434758"},"modified":"2025-05-15T02:13:30","modified_gmt":"2025-05-15T02:13:30","slug":"derek-sprague-reaffirms-pga-stance-on-golf-ball-rollback","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/derek-sprague-reaffirms-pga-stance-on-golf-ball-rollback\/","title":{"rendered":"Derek Sprague Reaffirms PGA Stance On Golf Ball Rollback"},"content":{"rendered":"

Earlier this year, the PGA began experimenting with golf ball rollback<\/a>.\u00a0 An effort to reduce the distance that pro golfers’ balls travel by creating a new ball.\u00a0 The PGA, however, is against this rollback requirement.\u00a0 The PGA CEO, Derek Sprague, has stated that the league is vehemently against the rollback; in fact, he has reiterated that stance ahead of the 2025 PGA Championships.\u00a0 Sprague has also said that the PGA is working on another solution to solve the problems that golfball rollback is trying to address.<\/span><\/p>\n

Rollback Story Recap<\/span><\/h2>\n

The golfball rollback came about because of a certain situation that has been coming up recently.\u00a0 As equipment improves, pro golfers have been hitting their balls further in further.\u00a0 In LIV Golf\u2019s Mexico City event, the league made a big deal about how far players were hitting their balls.\u00a0 Each swing inching closer and closer to record-breaking.\u00a0 This is true across all leagues, and as a result, golf courses were feeling a bit too small for the big leagues.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The most expensive solution is to expand a course and renovate each hole to accommodate longer drives.\u00a0 Two issues come out of this.\u00a0 Issue number one is the logistical issues with expanding a course, it could be the case that the surrounding land is fully developed.\u00a0 Issue number two is that it really is a temporary solution.\u00a0 Equipment will continue to improve further and could lead to the courses needing to expand again further down the line.\u00a0 All this course expansion has the potential to add to the slow play discourse, as Scottie Scheffler alluded to<\/a>.\u00a0 This all leads to the rollback golf ball, something that Sprague has pointed out, no one would like.<\/span><\/p>\n

Sprague On The Rollback<\/span><\/h2>\n

The above reasons are why the rollback was decided back in 2023, and by 2028, they should be in place for pro players, and everyone else by 2030.\u00a0 That 2030 deadline is a real sticking point for Derek Sprague.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI don’t know one recreational golfer that wants to hit it shorter.\u201d He added: \u201cWe’re really concerned about the 28 million golfers in this country, and since I took that stance back in January, a number of people have reached out, a number of amateur golfers, recreational golfers have reached out and have the same concerns that we do.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

This view has been reaffirmed in an interview with Golf Digest<\/a>.\u00a0 Sprague then added that there have been meetings with the governing bodies on how to approach this.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

What Is Derek Sprague\u2019s Rollback Solution?<\/span><\/h2>\n

At the time of writing, there is no alternative solution to the rollback.\u00a0 Sprague is more concerned with how it will affect casual golfers and has started talking with a number of them.\u00a0 Anyone who would lend their time to talk with him really.\u00a0 His current goal is to at least put a pause on the rollback.\u00a0 He does want a different solution, but that solution hasn\u2019t come up.\u00a0 Casual golfers are not happy with the rollback, and this rollback is meant to address pro golfers.\u00a0 There is a sweet spot somewhere in these discussions, and the PGA wants a say in these discussions, and they don\u2019t think making a less aerodynamic ball is the solution.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Main Photo Credit:\u00a0 \u00a9 Michael Madrid-Imagn Images<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Earlier this year, the PGA began experimenting with golf ball rollback.\u00a0 An effort to reduce the distance that pro golfers’ balls travel by creating a new ball.\u00a0 The PGA, however, is against this rollback requirement.\u00a0 The PGA CEO, Derek Sprague, has stated that the league is vehemently against the rollback; in fact, he has reiterated […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5429,"featured_media":434759,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[15,246,19],"tags":[8101],"class_list":["post-434758","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-golf","category-golf-news","category-pga","tag-derek-sprague"],"modified_by":"Taylor Craig","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/434758","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5429"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=434758"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/434758\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":434763,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/434758\/revisions\/434763"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/434759"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=434758"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=434758"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=434758"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}