8:00 AM, EST: In a joint statement with the R&A rules committee, the USGA, after exhaustive research, has decided to increase the size of the golf hole from its current size of 4.25 inches to 7.25 inches. This ruling will affect all amateur play, but, will exclude national amateur events such as the US Amateur, the Publinx Championship, The British Amateur, etc. The new rule will go into effect on May 1st, 2012 in order to give course superintendents time to buy new hole cutters. The USGA says that it will subsidize the cost of the new hole cutters if needed.
Mark Mywords, spokesman for the USGA rules committee, said the two organizations did extensive research and found that golf participation on the amateur level has been stagnant over the past 10 years. For every golfer that starts playing golf, they found that one golfer quits. The study also found out that the top two reasons why golfers quit the game are that it is too difficult and it takes too long.
Studies found that reducing the cup size would lower the average score for eighteen holes from 6 – 9 strokes and the time per round would be reduced anywhere from 30 – 45 minutes. In conclusion, they surmised that most golfers would now break 90 on a regular basis and many would see their handicaps fall into the single digit range.
Among other changes the USGA and the R&A considered were: allowing for one mulligan per hole per player, eliminating all three putts or more, eliminating all penalty strokes, allowing players to throw one shot per hole and allowing manufacturers to increase ball distance by 25%. In the end , they thought that the simplest change would be the hole size.
###04/01/2012###
