PORTRUSH, Northern Ireland – The R&A said Wednesday that its Distance Insights project has been completed and will be published later this year.
The project, initiated in 2018 to provide the most comprehensive look into the impact of distance on the game, should be released in October or November, according to R&A chief executive Martin Slumbers.
Slumbers didn’t offer any hints on the report’s findings, only to say that they’ll “work from that point” once the study is made public.
Spearheaded by the R&A and USGA, the report was designed to review every aspect of the distance boom in golf, using global stakeholder engagement, third-party data review and research.
“We have looked at distance in every single way you could possible think about it,” Slumbers said. “Where were golf courses a hundred years ago? How long have they been? What has happened to golf balls? What’s happened to equipment? We’ve gone to players, architects, all aspects of the golfing world and asked for their perception on distance. So we think it’s probably the most concise and detailed research into the topic that’s ever been done.”