Masters legends agree with Augusta National chairman on golf ball<\/a><\/p>\nIn March, PGA Tour CEO Brian Rolapp was asked for the Tour\u2019s position.\u00a0His answer did not endorse the governing bodies\u2019 plan, nor did it reject it. What it did was leave the door open for the Tour.<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, I got this question last August [when Rolapp started as the PGA Tour\u2019s CEO], and I knew virtually nothing about it,\u201d Rolapp said. \u201cI learned a lot, lot since then. But I think this is clearly a complex issue. From what I can tell, it comes down to two questions. Is distance a problem or should it be addressed? That\u2019s question number one. Question number two, does the current rule being proposed accomplish that?<\/p>\n
\u201cAs far as the PGA Tour is concerned, we have not taken the position. We have not made our mind up on where this is. When we get comfortable with the rule and the data, at that point, we\u2019ll make a decision.\u201d<\/p>\n
The PGA has been vocal in its opposition to the rule change but it has new leadership with Terry Clark taking the helm as CEO after\u00a0Derek Sprague resigned. Clark hasn’t spoken publicly yet. He will certainly be asked to comment on the golf ball at the PGA Championship next month, if not sooner.<\/p>\n
Ridley hasn\u2019t wavered in his belief that distance at the professional level needs to be controlled to preserve certain elements in the game.<\/p>\n
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\u201cThe greats of the game are defined not merely by how far they hit the ball, but their extraordinary skill in all aspects of the game. Their ability to shape shots, to take on risk, and to execute under pressure is at the heart of championship golf and is best displayed through a full spectrum of shot-making opportunities,” he said. \u201cRegulation of the golf ball is not an attempt to turn back time or stifle progress. It is an effort to preserve the essence of what makes golf the great game that it is.”<\/p>\n
There is the possibility of the PGA Tour and PGA of America opposing the rule, which would leave the three of the majors \u2014 Masters, U.S. Open and British Open \u2014 playing by one set of rules and the PGA as well as the Tour\u2019s schedule adopting its own policy that permits a different ball. That would be an utter disaster for the game.<\/p>\n
\u201cTough issues like this require compromise, and I think there has been some compromise to date. There’s certainly commercial interests that are at play here, and we all know what those are, but at the same time, I think, if we can look at this from the standpoint \u2014 and it’s not just trying to \u2014 it’s not the good old days. That’s not what we’re trying to do. What we’re trying to do is to protect the integrity of what makes golf so great. I think I tried to articulate it in my comments, and that’s that it’s more than about just hitting prodigious drives,\u201d Ridley said. \u201cI talked to Jackson Herrington, one of our young amateurs, and he told me that yesterday he hit it over the bunker on 1 and 5, which is about a 325-yard carry, and one was into the wind. I’ve said that we can make changes, but there’s not much we can do to make changes, number one, unless we tear down the Eisenhower Cabin, and we’re not going to do that. We’ll make changes when we can, but I think it’s time to really address this issue. It’s been talked about for a long time.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Updated April 11, 2026, 3:06 p.m. ET AUGUSTA, Ga. \u2013 Augusta National Golf Club Chairman Fred Ridley reiterated…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":597771,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[443],"tags":[159202,49,48,622,82,226645,226646,226648,162432,226647,168135,213571,159750,159794,159089,159085],"class_list":{"0":"post-597770","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-golf","8":"tag-accessfree","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-golf","12":"tag-sports","13":"tag-sstssportsgolfmajorsmasters","14":"tag-sstsnthe-masters","15":"tag-taggeorgia","16":"tag-taggolf","17":"tag-taggolf-equipment","18":"tag-tagmasters-tournament-2025","19":"tag-tagmasters-tournament-2026","20":"tag-tagoverall-negative","21":"tag-tagpga-tour","22":"tag-tagsports-news","23":"tag-typestory"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/597770","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=597770"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/597770\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/597771"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=597770"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=597770"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=597770"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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