Over the Green

TV rules
There nothing good about a disqualification and LPGA veteran and Hall of Famer Julie Inkster certainly wasn’t happy after being seen using a training weight on her club while waiting to hit after a very long delay during her second round at the Safeway Classic. Her use of the weight was inadvertent but no official called her on it until a TV viewer sent an email asking if that wasn’t against the rules.

It’s ironic that for the second week in a row television played a major role in a tournament outcome after Dustin Johnson was confirmed to have grounded his club in a bunker on the final hole at the PGA Championship through the use of television replay.

Attendance up
The PGA of America says the number of golf apparel and equipment buyers (many of them club professionals) attending the 2010 PGA Fall Expo two days last week in Las Vegas was up 16% from last year. Attendees were from 46 states and 19 foreign countries.

The Fall show in recent years has become more orientated towards apparel with this years exhibitors including Cutter& Buck, Greg Norman Collection, AHEAD, Fila, Peter Millar, LIJA, Pukka, Sport Haley-Ben Hogan, PUMA, Cleveland Classics, Imperial, Fairway & Greene and PIMA Direct though most of the major golf equipment companies also had exhibitions. Notably absent were apparel giant adidas and their equipment company TaylorMade Golf.

No attendance figures are available but the Fall Show is a pale comparison to the annual PGA Merchandise Show held in January each year in Orlando, Fla. when attendance is in the range of 40,000 with over half the cavernous Orange County Convention Center devoted to golf equipment booths.

Changing show dates to mid-August from Sept. and a move to the Venetian Resort have been cited as causes for more buyers showing up many in the industry believe business may be on an upswing so the expense of the trip to Las Vegas can be justified.

Maruman Majesty
Maruman Golf has announced a new line the Majesty Vanquish VR clubs which includes drivers, fairways, hybrids and irons. Featuring Maurman’s Fullerene Titanium using nanotechnology the driver has an MSRP of $1,399, the fairways $1,099, hybrids $749 and an 8-iron set (five iron through sand wedge) is $4,299.

Has anyone noticed? The past couple of weeks in the world of golf have been very unusual if not down right weird.

An Oklahoma amateur shoots a score of 56 in a local member-guest tournament, an Alabama teen records a 57 in his state’s Boys Junior Championship plus of course Stuart Appleby humbles the field with a 59 at the Greenbrier Classic for a classic come-from-behind win. Kind of makes David Frost’s 61 yesterday up in Minnesota to take his first Champions Tour event almost irrelevant…except presumably to Frost.

In the race for number one ranking in the world Tiger Woods played the four days at Firestone like his was trying to give away his top spot to Phil Mickelson and Mickelson played like he didn’t want to take it. If it’s of any significance or what may be a preview of the coming PGA Championship, Tiger won the two man battle of the fourth round Sunday with a 77 to Lefty’s 78. One could compare these two efforts to winner Hunter Mahan’s 64, but that would be labeled cruel and unusual punishment.

And by the way, Woods personal problems have not fallen out of the media but then again gawkers drive slowly past a car wreck too.

Not to be out done in the unusual department, the LPGA’s triple A league Future’s Tour saw a rules official disqualify Sarah Brown during her round from the International at Concord for carrying a nonconforming Ping wedge, which the world now knows was conforming to the Rules of Golf. Tour management tried to compensate Brown with the laughable sum of $2,000 which Brown refused. However Brown and the Tour did eventually reach an undisclosed settlement. No one is blaming Ping or Brown and everyone is beating up on the Future’s Tour and the two officials who acted with world class stupidity. The USGA so far has escaped public outrage as the cause of this fiasco due to the “groove rule” they instituted last year.

And then as if to provide icing on the cake, Acushnet is suing TaylorMade Golf for trumpeting TMaG’s signing of Camilo Villegas. The young superstar is presently under contract with Acushnet’s Footjoy and Titleist brands and used in advertising for those products. TMaG inked a deal with Villegas starting in the 2011 season and put out a press release telling the world.

This is not normally done as it does lessen the endorsement value of any golfer to the company he is currently accepting a paycheck from and who knows when the shoe may be on the other foot.

Acushnet is asking for an injunction to stop TMaG from any further mention of Villegas until the end of the year and will ask for money to compensate for the loss of his endorsement for five months. Of course Villegas probably isn’t too happy either since he’s included in the law suit.

It’s hard to imagine what PGA Championship week will bring.

The debate about the distance the best players in the world are hitting the golf ball seems for now to be on hold. In the entire world the number of professionals and elite amateurs who pound the ball past 300-yards is certainly less than 1,000 and but even that small a number have caused the USGA to adjust the rules of golf.

First it was the about the driver face coefficient of restitution followed by club length and moment of inertia. Then it was ball’s overall distance which resulted in the new standards to rein in how far the ball travels when struck by a trained athlete landing on fairways groomed so as to allow the ball to run like it did on greens 50 years ago. MORE…

The British Open at St. Andrews last week showed the future of golf; bump and run rather than hop and stop. In general terms, the Scots, the English and Irish think of the game as being played on the ground and Americans think of it as being played through the air.

The answer to why is easy and on display for four days in Scotland. When golf is played on a course where the turf is firm and the wind blows, the best way to hit it close comes from being able to control distance through the proper trajectory. Firm turf and high winds mean hitting the ball up in the air makes it difficult if not impossible to control distance. As anyone who has played golf in West Texas knows the wind may hurt or even sometimes help a shot but always it magnifies the slightest miss hit or incorrect line often with very bad results. When the ball lands on firm greens it tends to bounce and roll, not stop and certainly not stop and suck back. There is no one from West Texas who is a high ball hitter.
More…

An interview on Golf.com with Dick Rugge, Senior Technical Director of the United State Golf Association, revealed a couple of interesting facts amid the criticism of the change in the allowable configuration of grooves in irons 25 degrees and higher loft.

Rugge says the USGA doesn’t like the idea of two sets of rules, one for “elite golfers” and one for the rest of us, however it was necessary in the case of grooves to soften the change for non-elite players. In essence postponing implementation of the V-groove replacing the U- or box grooves until 2024 for everyone but tour players and those few amateurs that play in USGA competitions gave us two sets of rules but having one set of rules is still desirable.

He did not address the obvious fact every golfer will buy a new set of irons in the next 14 years thus making them play with irons of lesser performance…just like the elite players.

He confirmed box grooved irons had decreased the need to drive the ball in the fairway – box grooves have been around for more than 20 years since the Ping Golf law suit. Looking at the situation the Association felt the game had changed so much with the advent of driver clubheads of titanium with graphite shafts hitting the solid core balls ever farther, something had to be done.

Speaking of law suits, rolling back groove cross section thus hurting performance from long grass, is probably the only thing they realistically could have promulgated without a scream from both players and club makers. Can you imagine Titleist giving up the Pro V1? Or how about TaylorMade discarding the Tour Burner? Not likely without a heck of a fight. So grooves took the hit.

Rugge also talked about rolling back the performance of balls and clubs.

“Strictly based on their potential to change the game, two other rollbacks could be considered—reducing golf ball distance and reducing clubhead size. However, in both cases, a rollback would impact virtually every golfer, not just the very best players, so we have no plans to roll back either.”

“… if driving distance once again began to increase significantly, there may be a need to consider changes to the rules governing clubs or balls. It’s purely hypothetical, but there could also come a time when environmental issues place such significant burdens on building or maintaining golf courses that reducing distance could become a necessity.”

Sounds like he setting up the case to rationalize just what he said is not needed. It certainly doesn’t let me sleep any more soundly.

It was the opinion of many, this writer included, the United States Golf Association’s changing of the allowable dimensions of grooves on club’s with more than 25 degrees of loft (essentially 5-iron and up) was a bad idea.

Golf’s ruling body provided for a staged implementation – January 2010 for professionals and amateurs in USGA championships – with most golfers given until 2024 to comply…unless of course one were to buy a new set of irons sometime in the next 14 years.

The arguments against this ruling were and are twofold. One of golf’s many charms is no matter how bad or good a player was, he or she played on the same competition ground and with the same equipment as everyone else. Secondly for the majority of golfers, i.e., the less skilled, decreasing the “bite” of grooves on a wedge and other short irons makes it measurably and disproportionately more difficult to stop approach shots near the pin or for that matter on the green when playing from either the rough or fairway.

>>To read the rest of this story click on the title “Groove Effect” in Exclusive Feature Articles above.

Bobby Jones described Pinehurst as, “the St. Andrews of United States golf,” and the best known venue in this small North Carolina village is Pinehurst Resort, home to Donald Ross’ famous Course No. 2.

No. 2 has been the site for many epic golf battles and for more than 100 years host to the North-South Championship, the second most prestigious amateur event after the U.S. Open. Jones, Nelson, Snead, Hogan, Palmer, Nicklaus and virtually every other member of the Hall of Fame competed over the Ross layout while in modern times there is the memory of Payne Stewart’s emotional 1999 U.S. Open victory four months before his death.

Ross lived in the Village of Pinehurst and considered No. 2 his favorite course continuing to tweak and tinker the design from its opening in 1907 until the end of his life in 1948. MORE…

With Tiger Woods making his announcement that he will be competing in the Masters the entire world, not just the golf world, is atwitter. However there is another golf topic deserving of our attention.

The announcement John Solheim of Ping Golf will allow the PGA Tour to ban the use of Ping Eye2 wedges manufactured prior to a law suit against the PGA Tour and USGA 20 years ago is not “a magnanimous act” as some commentators are portraying the decision.

It’s a good business decision on the part of Solheim to stop the use of the clubs with very aggressive, i.e. square, grooves which violate the latest regulations from the USGA, even though use of the clubs was grandfathered as part of the original grooves suit settlement in 1990.

Ping and Solheim look like good guys interested in advancing the game and making a level playing field for all players on the Tour. This waiver from Ping applies to the PGA Tour, Champions Tour and Nationwide Tour and significantly the U.S. Open but not other USGA events so as of now nonconforming Eye2 wedge could be seen at, for example, the U.S. Amateur.

Just as the Tiger Woods debacle, this thing isn’t dead, not by a long shot.

Solheim’s action again points out how misguided the USGA is and how they have mishandled the situation for the past ten years or more.

When golf’s governing bodies, the USGA and R&A, decided to allow the use of distance measuring devices (DMDs) there was wide spread applause led by the makers of laser range finders and GPS receivers. This wasn’t a blanket permission since a local rule has to be in place and DMDs can’t be used for USGA championships. But nevertheless it was progress and recognition of the fact technology has replaced yardage books and pin sheets.

There are restrictions though on the use of some really neat stuff found on some models of DMDs. Only the measurement of yardage is allowed – not wind speed nor ground slope nor temperature – but at least golfers are allowed to post scores for calculating handicaps from rounds played using a DMD.

Good so far but a joint statement from the USGA and the R&A says,

Multi-functional devices such as mobile phones, PDAs, etc (i.e., devices that are primarily communication devices, but which may have other potential uses) may be used as follows:
The device may be used for any non-golfing purpose (e.g., as a communication tool to phone, text or email), subject to any club/course regulations and the rules on accessing advice-related matters – see Decision 14-3/16.
When the local rule is in effect, a distance-measuring application may be used, provided the specific application is restricted to “distance only” and the device does not have any other “non-conforming” features. This is the case even if these other features are not being used. As above, the rules on advice-related communications (including the use of the internet) still apply.

The bottom line is it’s OK to use your iPhone to talk to your mother or as a GPS DMD. But if it also has an app for measuring slope, i.e. a level or a clinometer, even if the app is not turned on, you aren’t allowed to use the iPhone GPS distance measurement app.

The irony is it’s permissible to use your iPhone to access the Internet for a swing tip but not to call you club pro for a quick swing fix. Go figure.

At last week’s PGA Merchandise Show two topics dominated many conversations with the first being the Tiger Woods debacle. His fall from grace and his return to the PGA Tour was discussed endlessly with a significant minority raising the question of “if he will return” rather than “when.” However, since speculation is at best only grist for tabloids, the second and less sensational topic was the controversy over the groove change imposed on short irons.

Briefly, since the USGA failed to stop the equipment makers from producing vastly improved drivers and balls resulting in what the rules makers consider unacceptable driving distance increases by PGA Tour professionals the Association decided to make it more difficult to generate spin on approach shots. The logic being that, especially from the rough, the ball would be harder to stop on the green. The method chosen was to decrease the allowable size of grooves on medium and short irons with an attendant dulling of the groove edges. Using the new grooves less spin is imparted to the ball so though it may hit the green there is a greater chance of it being unable to stop and running over. A neat solution but it doesn’t take into account amateur golfers just the 1,000 or so touring professionals around the world. MORE…