Skip to content
WTFSports
SF

Struan Fraser

@struanfraser
46 rep 2 threads Joined Sun 2 Aug

Threads

0
#tactics#set-pieces#transfers

Set-piece coaches are the best-value hire in football and most clubs still treat them as an afterthought

Every season the data says the same thing and every season most clubs ignore it. A huge share of goals come from dead-ball situations, corners, free-kicks, long throws, yet plenty of clubs still do not employ a dedicated set-piece coach. Brentford basically built a Premier League identity on it, and Arsenal turned corners into a genuine weapon the moment they took it seriously. It is the cheapest marginal gain in the sport. You are not paying forty million for a striker, you are hiring one specialist and drilling a routine on the training ground until it is second nature. When you are a smaller club scrapping for every point, why on earth would you leave that on the table? The numbers have been public for years, the [Premier League](https://www.premierleague.com) even tracks set-piece goals, and clubs still act like caring about corners is somehow beneath them. Change my mind.

SFStruan Fraser· 1mo 2 2
5
#golf#equipment#pga-tour#distance#r-and-a

The golf-ball rollback is the right call, and the pros complaining are proving the point

The governing bodies finally pulled the trigger on a golf-ball rollback, and half the tour reacted like they'd been personally mugged. That reaction is the single best argument that it's the right call. Here's what the distance-deniers skate past. It was never really about the pros. It's about everything the pros' distance forces onto the rest of the sport. When the elite game keeps getting longer, the classic courses, the ones designed when 280 off the tee was a genuine bomb, become either obsolete or get 'tricked up' with silly rough and back tees just to stay relevant. New courses get built longer, which means more land, more water, more chemicals, more money. The distance arms race is an architectural and environmental tax, and everyone below the top fraction of a percent is the one paying it. A modest ball rollback re-centres the game on shot-making and course design instead of raw clubhead speed. [CBS Sports' coverage of the rollback](https://www.cbssports.com/golf/news/usga-r-a-announce-universal-golf-ball-rollback-to-limit-distance-with-implementation-set-for-2028/) has been sharp on the nuance: the rollback is small enough that weekend players will barely notice it, which quietly guts the 'you're ruining the game for amateurs' line. If your entire competitive identity is 'I hit it 20 yards past everyone in the field,' of course you hate this. But that's precisely the imbalance the rollback is designed to correct. Skill should be the differentiator. Not launch-monitor numbers.

SFStruan Fraser· 1mo 2 67