Montgomerie believes golf balls should be downgraded on Tour

Bryson DeChambeau significant body transformation has made him one of the longest hitters on the PGA Tour. He has bulked up 45lbs in the last nine months and averaged 340 yards off the tee in the Charles Schwab Challenge, which were the best driving stats of the week.

However, European Tour stalwart Colin Montgomerie believes the distance players are hitting it are ruining the game because courses are becoming too short. He would like to see the Tour switch to a ball that goes 80 to 85 percent as far as the top-of-the-line balls the players are currently using.

He said in an interview with the BBC: “I’m an advocate of what Jack Nicklaus proposes — a tournament ball for professionals, that goes only 80 to 85 per cent as far. The time has come, because we can’t be building courses at 10,000 yards.

“We haven’t the money or the space and there are the obvious ecological reasons. A tournament ball would be a massive step, because of that term ‘bifurcation’ (professionals playing by different rules than amateurs). Yet haven’t we reached that stage, now? We’ve seen at Colonial that something has to be done or these classic courses cannot be used.”

 

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Monty also reflected on DeChambeau’s physique and how impressive it was when he played alongside Dustin Johnson last week.

“The transformation has been amazing, I could not believe what I saw when I switched on in the first round — even Bryson’s XL shirts are looking tight now,” Montgomerie said. “Bryson played with Dustin Johnson the first two days and he was giving him 25 yards off the tee — and Dustin is no slouch … Extraordinary. He is huge.


“It’s great to see athleticism in the game, but to see him carrying 330 yards in the air and with the bounce you are up to 350, 360? This is getting unreal, something we haven’t seen before, a whole new game we are beginning to witness.

“On Friday, Bryson had 10 holes on which he was within 100 yards of the green for his approach. And if you include the four par threes, that means there were only four holes on which Bryson was more than 100 yards away for his approach. The game has changed dramatically. It’s now brute force and a sand-wedge.” 

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