"Unfortunately, the only uncertainty in the game right now lies with who's in charge of it."

GolfDigest.com blogging duo Bethpage and Garden City kick around the power struggle over a groove rule condition of competition and ultimately determine that the USGA has handed over power to the PGA Tour and that the uncertainty over 2010 implementation has the USGA acting as a follower instead of a leader.

I can tell you this, though: The rule as currently written will not be a hardship for the playing of the game by average golfers in any meaningful way, shape or form. Not now, not in 2014, not in 2024, not ever. The rule as currently written does present the possibility for uncertainty in the minds of the best players in the game, however. Uncertainty (or as most of us know it, outright fear), I think, makes for a better game at the elite level.

Unfortunately, the only uncertainty in the game right now lies with who's in charge of it.

"The great thing about this game is the fact that we have the same set of rules for everybody."

Thanks to reader jmr for this report on Dick Rugge's webcast appearance with Andy North. I guess since Andy is asking serious questions, I'm going to have to lay off him for at least a month.

While I still support the groove rule change (I know, you're relieved with that clarification), the bifurcating of golf keeps me wondering why we couldn't have done it with the ball first.

Andy North just destroyed Dick Rugge! Just eating lunch, watching the open webcast and Dick Rugge comes in the booth to talk about the new groove rules. Rugge explains that the condition will apply on Jan. 1 2010 for pros, and 2024 for ams. Andy North asks, "So if I have a favorite wedge will I have to get a new one?" Rugge says, "Yes, but only if you're a pro." Andy then asks, "So I guess I'll need 2 different sets of clubs then." Rugge nervously answers in the affirmative.

It gets better. The very next question asks Rugge about conforming clubs . . . the first sentence out of his mouth was, "The great thing about this game is the fact that we have the same set of rules for everybody." This is literally the very next comment after his stumbling bifurcation explanation. Ummm, Dick . . . 2 rules, same rules, 2 sets, 2010, 2024? Not the same game, not the same rules, not a clue about fixing this game.

North also commented on the balls going too far and that they needed to spin more (a common thought from those with experience and/or common sense). Rugge's explanation? "Driving distance has actually flatlined for 6 years on tour." Thanks Dick -- now that 80% of classic courses were destroyed about 8 years ago with the new ball and titanium face, its nice to know that the USGA has full control. Andy North +1, Dick Rugge and the USGA -100.
06.19.2009 | Unregistered Commenterjmr

Star-Ledger Answers Ball Rollback Question!

Jenny Vrentas of the Newark Star-Ledger profiles Dick Rugge, USGA testing and offers this on how a ball rollback could work...sure sounds easier than the groove rule change!

At the beginning of the decade, professionals on tour converted from wound balls to the solid-core, multi-layer models that reign today. Another way to drop maximum driving distance is to change the polymers that make up these interior layers. Doing so affects something called the coefficient of restitution, which is a measure of how well the energy from the swing is transferred to the ball. A higher coefficient means more energy is transferred and the ball travels farther. But the composition of the polymers can be modified for a less efficient energy transfer and shorter maximum driving distance.

Poulter: "the usga are insane to make us change so quickly."

It was only a matter of time before a player would elaborate on the manufacturers concerns about grooves. In this case, it's Ian Poulter of England, Orlando and Cobra Golf fame. Thanks to reader Manny for the Tweeted comments from Poulter, writing a series of posts about the new groove rules soon after Adam Barr's report that Acushnet is trying to delay the rule change:

i tested the new grooves with vokey in feb. what a difference no spinnnnnn. the usga are insane to make us change so quickly.

i guess they were all bored sitting around that table drinking coffee and smoking cigars... get a life let us have fun on the course

it will cost the manufacturers millions to develop and distribute to all the stores global, so you AMs can get them before open qualifying

Our irons already comply, but wedges need to change for start of the year. all the best... thanks R&A and USGA softer balls here we come

The players have had plenty of time to experiment and when I've asked manufacturer reps, most players have taken little interest in experimenting, preferring to wait until this fall.

The manufacturers are pleading financial hardship because they are being forced to develop and ship new grooved wedges to their most loyal customers, who, if they are serious about tournament play, have to buy.

They've been handed a nice serving of forced planned obsolescence and they are still complaining?

"According to a Titleist official, the company is trying to persuade the Tour to hold off on its plans to adopt a condition of competition that would require new groove cross-sections"

Remember a few weeks ago when Greg Norman mentioned rumors that the groove rule change was in doubt? You had to figure the Shark wasn't just throwing that out for attention.

Adam Barr reports that Titleist/Acushnet is trying to convince the PGA Tour to postpone their planned 2010 adoption of a condition of competition requiring conforming grooves in response to the USGA/R&A decision.

Still, all the major manufacturers claim to be ready to proceed with the effective date for the condition of competition the Tour wants to adopt, which is Jan. 1. (Beyond the Tour, the rule would apply to any club manufactured after that date, but clubs made before then will be permissible for use for recreational players until 2024.) Even so, Titleist is asking the Tour to push the rule implementation date back a year because of the intricacies of fitting players under the new groove rules.

None of the major manufacturers would speak on the record for this story. But sources close to the situation have said that the refitting process will be much more complicated than switching out some “old” wedges for new ones. It has been suggested that the performance of wedges with new grooves might even require swing changes, which could lead to the use of a different ball model and, in turn, encourage a driver switch. In other words, the ripple effect of the groove rule could be felt throughout the entire bag. That has some manufacturers and players thinking they need more time to experiment and adjust than the post-season stretch usually reserved for incorporating such new equipment.

So much work drama! Over some grooves. Who knew?

So these big, all knowing manufacturers can't keep up with the USGA now?

“Some manufacturers have said they’re not going to be ready [for the change],” said PGA Tour player Brett Quigley, a member of the Player Advisory Committee. “[But] there’s also the argument that players won’t test until they have to. So why wait another year until 2011? Guys still won’t bother to do it.”

This is really funny:

Of course, players these days won’t stand for any loss of yardage off the tee from the new generation of higher-spinning balls, said the ball manufacturer source. That will be the chief engineering challenge, he said.

"These [current] guys have never hit fliers in their lives."

Steve Elling looks at Jack Nicklaus's endorsement of the groove rule change after initially dismissing the grooves rollback as "throwing a deck chair off the Titanic."

Nicklaus said he had a lively conversation on that subject with a fairly decorated fellow traveler, Tom Watson, at a tournament function this week, in fact.

"Watson was saying last night that he had been fiddling around with some new clubs and played with them most this year, actually, with the new grooves," Nicklaus said. "He said, 'Man, did I hit some fliers last week.'

"These [current] guys have never hit fliers in their lives. They are going to say, 'I don’t want to do that anymore. I am going to hit the ball in the fairway.' Or they are going to have to learn how to play fliers."

"Our testing showed me that the majority of PGA Tour distance increases attributable to equipment have likely come from changes in the driver, not the ball"

There have been a couple of good pieces on technology-related issues and both struck me as interesting because we've crossed a threshold of some kind where no one seems to be scared to write about the subject any longer. Perhaps that's a testament to how the discourse has evolved or maybe it's simply a matter of writers finally taking more interest in the impact side of the issue.

Either way, here's what John Paul Newport wrote in Saturday's Wall Street Journal about persimmon v. titanium:

But how much have we really gained? This is a philosophical question with no definitive answer, but you can’t say my father-in-law didn’t have fun with his wooden clubs. He was a life-long avid golfer, which fact I couldn’t help but reflect on last weekend when our family toured the Amish country in central Pennsylvania. The most observant Amish (a Christian Mennonite sect) really do still drive around in horse-and-buggies and live in houses with little or no electricity. My fascinated 14-year-old daughter spewed forth factoids from the Internet that she pulled up on a BlackBerry. “The Amish don’t have phones in their houses because they want to encourage face-to-face conversations,” she read. “They don’t allow tractors because they want their farms to remain human-scale.” In other words, they’ve decided what they want of the modern era (they can use phones outside the home and avail themselves of modern medical technology) but reject what doesn’t contribute to the values they hold highest.

I’m not tempted to adopt the Amish lifestyle, believe me, but I’m not sure I’d mind going back to wooden clubs and less modern balls, provided everyone else did the same. (You can keep balata, which cuts too easily.) In terms of challenge, based on my experience, there really isn’t that much difference between the old and the new. Trying to keep a short, spinny ball in play with a wooden driver is not easy, but it’s no more formidable a task than trying to keep a longer ball in play with a metal driver.

Mike Stachura was inspired by Chad Campbell's recent bout with persimmon and balata to make the case for the poor, beleaguered golf ball's innocence in the bastardization of courses around the club. He says the numbers suggest shafts are the real culprit and who can argue with that?

It is worth theorizing that a larger percentage of the improvement might just be attributed to the shaft's effect on swing speed. Today's modern shaft usually weighs 75 grams or less, about half what the steel shaft on the MacGregor Byron Nelson driver weighed. But the 200 grams on the end of that shaft is the same force on today's heads, although the weight is better distributed. The faster you can swing that mass, the more it can improve your distance. Moreover, shaft technology has elevated to the point where the same stability that better players with faster swings found in steel shafts years ago is nearly the same today in graphite shafts that weigh half as much.

And...

Though the USGA has been conducting research on shorter golf balls for the last three years, that project has not yielded any announcement of a proposed rollback in the golf ball in the way groove performance was rolled back late last year. Rugge simply says today that the research project is "ongoing." For now, Rugge believes that current research suggests that the ball need not be singled out as the root cause of distance in the modern game.

"Our testing showed me that the majority of PGA Tour distance increases attributable to equipment have likely come from changes in the driver, not the ball," he said.

It's not clear whether one set of numbers and a few swings through history on the range of a PGA Tour event last week confirm that idea or call it into question. But isolating the effect to either club or ball seems impossible. Rather, today's club-ball system seems to exceed the sum of its parts.

Which is why all of the calls to alter the golf ball have been made. If you have to pick between club and ball for the simplest way to make courses relevant while restoring elements of skill, isn't it just easier to alter the ball? That doesn't make it guilty in a court of a law, just a victim of convenience.

"In fairness, over the last couple of years we have started to see that the USGA, R&A and Augusta are starting to see the picture."

Interviewed by Robin Barwick using questions questions from Mark Reason, there was an entertaining round table to promote the Ballantine’s Championship. The participants were Paul McGinley, Ernie Els, Henrik Stenson and Fred Couples. Plenty of highlights, including talk of Bethpage, golf in the Olympics, Stanford Financial (awkward!) and this technology exchange:

In the arena of equipment technology, is the golf ball flying too far now?

McGinley: I think the horse has bolted. The problem should have been addressed 10 years ago, when the scientists that the USGA and R&A had were not as good as the ones the manufacturers had. The manufacturers basically broke through the gates and went too far with the ball.

Els: I am against stopping technology, but people also need to be careful how they set-up golf courses. Look at Oakland Hills last year [in the US PGA Championship]. Some of those fairways were un-hittable. Look at Shinnecock Hills. A great golf course, but they were scared of the technology and scared of a low score winning, and they screwed up the golf course.

Stenson: Longer is not always better.

Els: Exactly. They need to be careful not to take a great, classic golf course, and just for the sake of stopping someone going low, screwing up the golf course.

McGinley: In fairness, over the last couple of years we have started to see that the USGA, R&A and Augusta are starting to see the picture. Augusta was great this year, Torrey Pines was great last year and Birkdale was great last year, so they are starting to get it now. Mistakes have been made in the past though, no doubt about it.

Stenson does point out that not everyone thought Birkdale was so great last year. But more importantly, it is interesting that when this topic comes up, almost no one suggests that improved athleticism was the cause. Even better, you have folks like Els openly making the connection between over-the-top setups and poor regulatory practices. Just a few years ago only select players like McGinley understood the connection. 

"The issue is that few older courses are capable of staging the Canadian Open."

Thanks to reader John for Lorne Rubenstein look at all of the reasons why the Royal Canadian Golf Association can't consider some classic venues for the Canadian Open. Actually, there's only one reason in Lorne's view.

Last week's announcement that the RBC Canadian Open will return to Shaughnessy Golf and Country Club in Vancouver in 2011 should be cause for celebration. After all, it's a classic old course, the kind tour players say they love. And it will mean the tournament will have been played at a grand spot two years in a row. (St. George's in Toronto will be the venue in 2010.) So why did I feel some sadness upon hearing the news? It had nothing to do with the choice of course or the Royal Canadian Golf Association's commitment to taking the tournament, as often as possible, to traditional layouts. It had everything to do with what's happened in the world of pro golf tours.

The issue is that few older courses are capable of staging the Canadian Open. This is because the United States Golf Association and the R&A dropped the ball in allowing the golf ball to go so far that it's made superb courses that have held the Canadian Open obsolete for the tournament.

Here's something even the governing bodies understand, without telling it to some of the modern masters to their faces.

At least the RCGA realizes this. Its executive director, Scott Simmons, made it clear last week during the Shaughnessy announcement that the commitment isn't to a fixed rotation, but simply to quality courses. He said that could include new courses, but the message remains clear that tour players prefer traditional layouts.

"We have been on a journey of renewal," then-RCGA president Andrew Cook said last June, when it was announced St. George's would play host to the 2010 Canadian Open. "We want the tournament to get back to the stature it once held on the world stage."

The RCGA is trying. But it would have a better chance of reaching the goal if the courses of the past weren't so ill-suited to the tournament game and demands of the present.

Such are the unintended consequences of "progress."

Well they could look to the R&A solution: proudly alter the courses.

"Never has a change of such consequence been made with such a lack of transparency or without appropriate input from those affected."

Frank Thomas pens a guest opinion piece for the Sunday New York Times and blasts his former employer over the groove rule change. He notes bifurcation without using the "B" word:

This means that for the first time, golf will have different rules for different levels of players. Golf is different in that the finest professionals and middling amateurs can compete side by side, as they do in tournaments like the AT&T National Pro-Am. For many golfers, part of the game’s appeal is knowing that they are playing the same game on the same courses as the world’s best.

Didn't that really go out the window about 10 years ago?

No matter where you come down on the grooves issue, I do think Thomas's statement about transparency is worth considering, though I'm not sure how accurate it is considering the documentation posted online.

The U.S.G.A. has not shared its evidence that a problem exists, nor has it demonstrated that this solution addresses the problem while doing the least damage to the golfing population as a whole. Never has a change of such consequence been made with such a lack of transparency or without appropriate input from those affected.

Here's the problem I have with Frank's argument:

Golf participation is declining, and we have yet to hear of people quitting the game because they found it too easy. We do not need equipment rules aimed specifically at making it harder for Tiger Woods or anyone else.

His solution in the past was to advocate reducing the number of clubs in the bag to ten and to grow more rough. And I don't think either of those ideas will bring too many new players.