Westwood, the Attached Tour Professional at Close House<\/a>, in Newcastle \u2013 which has marked the 15th anniversary of the opening of its Colt Course \u2013 admitted he hadn\u2019t taken too much of an interest in the proposed ball limits.<\/p>\n The R&A and USGA are planning to update the testing conditions that are used for golf ball conformance under what\u2019s called the Overall Distance Standard. The maximum distance a golf ball is allowed to travel when struck is currently 317 yards with a three-yard tolerance.<\/p>\n LISTEN TO THE NCG GOLF PODCAST<\/p>\n ALSO AVAILABLE ON:<\/p>\n Apple Podcasts:\u00a0Listen Now<\/a><\/p>\n Spotify:\u00a0Listen Now<\/a><\/p>\n Amazon Music:\u00a0Listen Now<\/a><\/p>\n That\u2019s done using a clubhead speed in testing of 120mph, but a rollback would change that to 125mph. It\u2019s estimated tee shots for the average tour professional would be reduced by 11 yards and up to 15 yards for the very biggest hitters.<\/p>\n The R&A and USGA estimate the impact of a reduced distance golf ball for club players will be \u201cfive yards or less\u201d for most.<\/p>\n The ball rollback plan as it stands sees the professionals, and some elite amateurs, playing the new ball in top events from the start of 2028, with club players changing in 2030.<\/p>\n But the R&A and USGA have been looking at that timeline and asked for opinions on bringing everyone under the new rules at the same time at the start of 2030.<\/p>\n Lee Westwood: \u2018Something has to be done\u2019<\/p>\n Talking about distance as a whole, Westwood said: \u201cI think golf courses can\u2019t keep getting longer and longer, right? It\u2019s unsustainable. So something had to be done.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m just a little bit disappointed that it\u2019s taken all these different organisations so long to do it. It\u2019s a bit like shutting the door after the horse\u2019s bolted, right? Surely they saw it coming 25 years ago?\u201d<\/p>\n Asked whether he believed the rollback would make any difference to the amateur club game, Westwood said: \u201cPeople will make adjustments, won\u2019t they? The last thing anybody wants to do is make the game harder for amateurs, because it might drive people away.<\/p>\n \u201cBut at the same time, if the golf ball does start to go shorter, then that\u2019ll bring shorter golf courses back into play that we\u2019ve not been able to go to and play at.\u201d<\/p>\n He added: \u201cI can think of quite a few where you\u2019d be like, \u2018it\u2019ll be nice to go back there\u2019, but you could never go back there because four or five of the par fours were drivable.<\/p>\n \u201cOne of the most famous golf courses in the world, St Andrews<\/a>, was starting to get like that, isn\u2019t it? You look at it and some of the longer hitters must be looking at driving four or five of the holes on there now.<\/p>\n \u201cI can think of 3, 9, 10, 12, 18, and there\u2019s probably some other holes in there that they get really close to. So you don\u2019t really want those old masterpieces to be butchered like that.\u201d<\/p>\n Main image: Lee Westwood at Close House | Source: Close House<\/p>\n Now have your say<\/p>\n What do you make of Lee Westwood\u2019s views on the golf ball roll back? Should governing bodies have acted sooner? Do you agree we need to protect our \u201cold masterpieces\u201d? Have your say in the comments, or get in touch with us on X<\/a>. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lee Westwood reckons \u201csomething had to be done\u201d about golf ball distances \u2013 but says he\u2019s disappointed it\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":663695,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[566],"tags":[64,63,755,85],"class_list":["post-663694","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-golf","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/663694","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=663694"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/663694\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/663695"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=663694"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=663694"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=663694"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Lee](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/SOCO_CloseHouse_LeeWestwood-224-1024x683.jpg\")
Lee Westwood on the 10th at Close House | Source: Close House<\/p>\n