Has Cameron Young's golf ball flipped the script on the rollback?

NEWTOWN SQUARE, Pa. — The USGA and R&A spent three years selling the golf world on a number. First it was 20 yards, back when the 2023 proposal called for a 127-mph test speed and a model local rule reserved for elite competition. Then it became 13 to 15 yards once the testing conditions softened to 125 mph and an 11-degree launch angle. Then bifurcation got scrapped entirely, the timeline potentially slid from 2028 to 2030, and the rollback became a universal problem for every golfer on earth.

Cameron Young has been quietly torching the whole premise for 15 months.

According to a Golf Channel report, the lower-spinning Titleist Pro V1x Double Dot that Young put in play at the 2025 Wyndham Championship—the week he broke through for his first PGA Tour victory—was built and tested to conform under the new ODS conditions. Higher clubhead speed, higher launch angle, same 317-yard ceiling (plus a three-yard tolerance). The ball reportedly passed the test, but Young had no idea.

"At no point was that a consideration," Young said on Wednesday. "It was just really me trying to optimize my golf, and it's the ball that seems to work the best for me."

Titleist has not offered any comment on the conforming status of Young's version of the Pro V1x, and the USGA also declined comment. At the moment, there is no list of balls conforming to the new Overall Distance Standard, but it has been the case that manufacturers have been submitting prototypes for several years to see what kinds of designs might conform to the new test standards.

Here's the part the rule makers don't want to hear. Young ranked 17th on the PGA Tour in driving distance at 313.2 yards before the switch. His 2026 average? 312 yards. Almost identical numbers. And the longest tracked drive in the ShotLink era—375 yards on the 72nd hole at the Players—came off the face of a guy playing a ball the USGA's own framework says should cost him a club and a half.

Two yards. That's what Adam Scott said he lost testing a similar ball. Young, by his own account, also lost nothing meaningful off the tee.

There's a thicker layer of irony here, too. When the ruling bodies first floated the bifurcated MLR in 2023, Acushnet was one of the loudest voices in opposition. CEO David Maher framed bifurcation as something that would "divide golf between elite and recreational play, add confusion, and break the linkage that is part of the game's enduring fabric." Three years later, it's the Pro V1x Double Dot—an Acushnet ball—that quietly clears the new testing bar and exposes the rollback's central assumption as wishful thinking.