"Like throwing a deck chair off the Titanic" - Masters legend Jack Nicklaus on golf issue

Multiple major champion Jack Nicklaus has warned rule makers their proposals to limit how far the golf ball will travel may not be enough. 

The distance debate in the men's game was reignited 24 hours before The Masters began when Augusta National chairman Fred Ridley doubled down on the club's position. 

As far as Ridley is concerned, elite men's professional golf is becoming too one-dimensional and shouldn't just be about hitting prodigious drives. 

The 73-year-old admitted he was stunned one of the amateurs in the 91-man field at the year's first men's major, Jackson Herrington, managed the 320-yard carry on the first hole to clear the bunker, despite playing into the wind.

Golf's rule makers, the Royal & Ancient and United States Golf Association, announced in December 2023 that professionals - from 2028 - will see their tee shots shortened by around 15 yards. 

Minimal change is expected for the amateurs two years later.

The PGA Tour has never supported the plan whilst another governing body, the PGA of America, are in the same camp. 

Major champions Nicklaus, Gary Player and Tom Watson were asked for their thoughts on the topic after getting the 90th edition of The Masters underway on Thursday morning. 

Player said the ball should be cut back by 60 yards. 

Nicklaus agreed, explaining: "What they're doing right now is throwing a deck chair off the Titanic, and it's not getting enough done. It needs to really come back.

"I know a lot of people don't like that, but I think Gary is absolutely right. 

"It's land costs, water, fertilisation, the cost to play the game of golf, the time it takes to play – all those things are factors in why the golf ball needs to come back.

"My feeling is that they're never going to bring it back to the level they need to bring it back to. 

"Bobby Jones and his – I don't know which book it was, one of his last books – he wrote in and he said, the biggest danger we have in the game of golf today is how far the golf ball goes and where it may go. 

"Now, that's back 1930 sometime, and it really hasn't changed.

"So, it needs to come back just for the sake of the game and preservation. Augusta's had the ability to be able to go buy part of another golf course to lengthen the 13th hole. 

"The 13th hole is one of the great holes in the game of golf if the ball went the right distance without having to change it."

Player said the amateur game shouldn't be tinkered with. "Leave everyone to golf as it is," he said.  

"They're the heart of the game, but professional golf is not. With regard to professional golf, cut the ball back 60 yards.

"It's a tragedy. We got away from the concept of golf when it started originally, a par-5, a par-4, and a par-3. 

"There is no such thing as a par-5 in the world today. We saw Rory with a 7-iron last year when he won The Masters, they're hitting 8-irons and 7-irons to par-5s."

Player added: "Now I remember Jack, who's as long as anybody playing golf today other than [Bryson] DeChambeau, at the third hole it's vivid in my mind. He used to hit a driver and a wedge, and now they drive over the green.

"We were in our infancy. We've never had a big man play golf of note. Wait until LeBron James comes out, Michael Jordan, and they are because incentivisation is so great. 

"There's so much money that people around the world are exercising and going to the gym, which originally, I was criticised and condemned for doing that.

"They're lifting weights now. They'll drive the first green here very easily. They’re going to be driving many, many par-4s. So where are we going?"

Watson, who also criticised the PGA Tour for their soft approach to allowing LIV Golf players return to the fold, agreed with Player and Nicklaus. 

"I'm in agreement with the move to reduce the distance to the golf ball," he said.

"How far that is removed is a question.

"I know when we started playing on the Tour with the balata and wound golf balls, many of them are like eggs. You'd hit a golf ball, and it would waver in the air.

"Today's modern golf balls, they're all good. With the event of Titleist's Pro V1 in 2001, the game changed because everybody then produced golf balls that conformed to the USGA standards but went further.

"You add the equipment, the large-headed drivers, and you also have to add the fact that the players are stronger, and they work out, and they create more club head speed.

"Where do you draw the line on the distance is the real question? But I do believe it should be drawn back."