Marsh: Manufacturers "Bamboozed Everybody" On Distance Growing The Game

Powerful stuff on this week’s Inside the Ropes podcast from Australian golf great and architect Graham Marsh, talking about how quickly bunkers he placed early in his design career are now, and how little the race to add distance has done to grow the game.

Martin Blake reports the comments for Golf Australia.

“It’s been one of the great tragedies of the game. We were given this load of guff by the industry, that if we were to go with these game-improvement clubs, that everybody was going to play better, and of course the ball was going to go further, and they kept developing that with a good commercial arrangement, to make more money. That’s what you do in that industry.

“But the problem is, the players didn’t get better, the handicaps have gone up, the equipment’s more expensive and there’s less people playing the game. It was a great lie. They bamboozled everybody, including the USGA and the R and A. Completely bamboozled everybody.’’

You can listen to the full podcast here:

Here’s the distance talk:

Technology Debate: "Those Superfast Nike Shoes Are Creating a Problem"

Many thanks to reader JH for sending Amby Burfoot fascinating look at Nike’s new technologically superior shoes causing serious rules consternation. This follows a pair of remarkable performances by Eliud Kipchoge in Vienna and Brigid Kosgei in Chicago prompting calls for more stringent rules on legal running shoes.

Here’s the part about the recent design breakthrough:

The Nike shoes also include a carbon fiber plate in the midsole. This plate might increase energy return, or it might improve foot function during the running stride. Either way, the plate is prominently mentioned in Nike’s patent application.

Nike-supported experts soon published papers in scientific journals showing that the Vaporfly shoes could improve marathon times up to 3 percent. That sounds small until you consider it is often the difference between a gold medal and a quickly forgotten fifth-place finish.

The results were so astounding, in fact, that some considered them as just another example of Nike sports marketing.

“I was skeptical at first, but then came the second and third and fourth report,” said Ross Tucker of the Science of Sport website. “I had to change my skepticism. Now I think the effect is real, and large.”

And this may sound familiar to those interested in the golf techology debate. The quote is from a rival manufacturer whose runners appear to now be at a disadvantage:

Nike is well known in the patent world for its large and increasingly frequent applications. It also has plenty of lawyers, though no one can say what might happen in any patent infringement case until it is litigated.

White said he would be unhappy if the I.A.A.F. tightened its shoe regulation policies. “We could end up limiting creativity and losing the chance to improve running shoes for the everyday runner,” he noted. “I think the ‘must be widely available’ part of the rule is the best answer.”

The everyday runner is likely not seeing the advantage that the elite runner is getting. Sound familiar?

Stenson Finally Retires His Trusty, Famous And Terribly Outdated Diablo Three-Wood

There aren’t many clubs of decade-old vintages in professional bags, especially with the history of Henrik Stenson’s Callaway Diablo Octane Tour 3-wood. The club was vital to a silver medal, a FedExCup win, a Race to Dubai victory and most famous of all, Stenson’s stunning Open win over Phil Mickelson.

PGATour.com’s Andrew Tursky with the story of how many Diablo’s Stenson went through before a caved face has him ready to move to 2019 technology.

“It’s always sad when one of the trusties has to retire,” Stenson told PGATOUR.COM on Tuesday at the Country Club of Houston.

Stenson’s Callaway Diablo Octane Tour 3-wood, initially released to the public in 2011, was famously equipped with a Grafalloy Blue shaft that came out in 2003  -- and  Stenson hit rockets with it.

Having dropped to 207th in the world at the end of 2011 after a difficult year, Stenson regained the kind of form he previously showed in winning the 2009 PLAYERS Championship. By the end of 2013, he was world No. 3.

In 2016, he was forced to change into a backup version of the club due to wear and tear. He then had to give up that backup in 2017 for the same reason but stuck with the same model.

"Kinks" Still Getting Worked Out In The PGA Tour Driver Testing

Nick Menta files a lengthy piece from Las Vegas where this summer’s driver test consternation continues: the testing is flawed and privacy has not been protected.

So, as Menta reports, the PGA Tour and USGA testers are still working through elements as the manufacturers believe the testing is targeting clubs differently, depending on make.

From Menta’s report:

A second player expressed similar concern to GolfChannel.com, wondering why the USGA was testing parts of the face that would make for poor contact and thus a poorer result, regardless of Characteristic Time.

“That doesn’t make a whole lot of sense,” Thompson said, “because, as golfers, we’re trying to hit the center of the clubface. So why not test the center of the clubface?

“So I think that was a big issue with a lot of the manufacturers, because they weren’t told that going into this year of testing. … They were told how it was going to be done, and the manufacturer’s testing is done to replicate what the USGA is going to do. And I was under the impression that last week [the test] was not done the way they said it was going to be done.”

Of course, if they just made the ball a little bigger and the driver head a little smaller for professionals, no one would care about Characteristic Time.

Analyzing The Distance Debate's Latest Fuel To The Distance Debate

With the latest news on failed driver tests and Rory McIlroy’s follow-up remarks shedding a bit more light on what he was really getting at, I penned a short column for Golfweek on what this means for the Distance Insights study.

Random Testing Finds Multiple Non-Conforming Drivers From Multiple Manufacturers

Andrew Both reports for Reuters on multiple drivers failing the 30-driver random testing that began with the PGA Tour’s 2019-20 season. As promised, the tour would not comment on the failed tests or makers of the clubs, but Both says at least five belonged to players using a variety of clubs.

The non-conforming drivers are from across the manufacturing spectrum, including major brands such as Titleist, TaylorMade and Cobra, two insiders with knowledge of the matter said.

It is believed that Corey Conners, Robert Streb, Jason Dufner, Michael Thompson and Mark Hubbard were among those whose drivers did not pass the test.

That nearly twenty percent of the clubs tested failed has to be a shock to the system. Then again, it’s late in the hear and the “creep” factor that likely led to Xander Schauffele’s now-infamous failed test at the 2019 Open may be heightened near year’s end. Many players are likely to be soon switching to 2020’s latest-and-greatest drivers.

Still, the sheer number speaks to how close to the line manufacturers are taking the clubs and why the testing is both necessary, and likely to generate plenty of attention in spite of efforts to keep the results private.

Rory Apologizes: “Strategy, course management and shotmaking…are being slowly taken out of the game at the top level...worldwide"”

Realizing he barked a little too loudly after his Alfred Dunhill Cup appearance about European Tour course setup, Rory McIlroy posted an Instagram apology. But it was the last paragraph that suggests he did not lose sight of the bigger picture matter as it relates to skill and whether today’s equipment is having too much influence.

The full post:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by RORY (@rorymcilroy) on Sep 30, 2019 at 12:00am PDT

Justin Timberlake: "I hit the ball with an old ass club and it was chill."

Add Justin Timberlake to the list of hickory converts or technophobic anti-capitalists, depending on your world view.

Neat moment in the Dunhill Links practice round posted by the entertainer:

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When they ask you to hit a hickory wood club from the 1800s and you stripe it down 18 aka for my non-golfers: I hit the ball with an old ass club and it was chill.

A post shared by Justin Timberlake (@justintimberlake) on Sep 25, 2019 at 12:32pm PDT

"Somewhere in the last three years, we’ve crossed the transom from being a sports industry to being a media industry"

As part of their “Sports Visionaries” series, the New York Times’ Ken Belson talked to sports psychologist Rich Luker about the world of sports and his polling company that works with “professional sports leagues and teams.”

He’s not wild about what he’s seeing in sports as leagues, teams and individuals soak up the numbers while distancing themselves from the core tenets of their “product”.

First off, this…

I do all I can to encourage sports to continue to be sports in the same way classic rock is classic rock. It was something that was part of the definition of the times, and it stood the test of time regardless of how things have changed. Sports in America, particularly the traditional sports, should be the same. Be the classic sports and provide the social context that is being lost on the internet.

Yeah, but Jack Nicklaus didn’t live under par dude! Sorry, go on to the really good stuff that may ring a bell, or not…

The people who run the sports are business people. They love their sports. But they are looking at what’s going on and see people developing new technologies that surpassed things in their own sports, so the logical temptation is instead of trying to beat them to join them.

If they dedicated 5 percent of their time, energy, effort and resources to the heart of their games, as well as doing the technology, they’d be just fine. My fear is that somewhere in the last three years, we’ve crossed the transom from being a sports industry to being a media industry. They are focusing more on the technology and the media than the sport itself.

But chicks dig the long ball, so we’re told without any actual spike in audience numbers to prove it.

What obstacles do you face in your field?

It’s something every social scientist faces. Some people are in research in sports who are only collecting behaviors and they do that using machines — Nielsen boxes and clicks on web pages and so on. There’s no interaction with human beings, they’re only collecting outcomes without knowing why. The biggest obstacle we face is that the research I do has always been about why you do what you do, it’s never been just what you do. It’s about understanding the motivations and your fulfillment and what detracts from your fulfillment.

If only Dr. Luker could get his hands on golf executives…

Flashback: Remember When "Flogton" Was A Thing To Save The Game?

Actually, I forgot about this doozy of a grow-the-game program, too.

Al was hatched in high-profile fashion eight years ago when former CEO Scott McNealy and friends appeared at the PGA Show, followed by a media tour to promote this game savior—including a lively episode of Talkin’ Golf with Rod Morri and yours truly debating McNealy.

I’d blissfully forgotten about this grow-the-game initiative until seeing it mentioned in this Golfweek item on McNealy hosting a President Trump fundraiser.

The group behind Flogton (Notgolf backwards) wanted to sell you non-conforming equipment to make the game more accessible. They believed excessive regulation by the USGA was stifling growth.

Some of their ideas sound incredibly absurd just eight years later and in a world more open-minded to distance regulation:

Probably the best aid right now is a low-friction face, created by either lubricating the face of the club and ball or by applying a stick-on face to the driver. By simply reducing the face/ball friction, you can reduce slices and hooks by over 50 percent.

Ah, a lubricant. Why didn’t I think of that?

Flogton has test wedges that increase spin 100 percent, just by improving the grooves and adding friction-inducing surfaces. With new, soft-but-durable-skin balls, we believe we can give “the rest of us” the ability to stop a well-hit ball on the green just like the pros.

The entire push faded fast. Which should be an important reminder for the governing bodies this fall when issuing their distance report: golfers want to play a version of the game in line with the traditional golf as we know it. The majority value rules to protect a reward for skill.

Flogton failed because the founders were attempting to profit off the game and blow a hole in the rules for a buck. Golfers, or aspiring ones, were not attracted to a dumbed-down, Al Czervik-friendly version of the sport.

It’s heartening to know something so short-sighted was a failure. It’s even more heartening that just eight years later, the array of “solutions” praised at the time no longer seem welcome now that so many more realize the game’s issues have more to do with time and cost than with ease of play.

So where is McNealy’s in 2019?

When you want to read about flogton from the AltGolf.org site it has vanished. Even the domain is now available, however, given the rise of the Alt Right, here’s guessing no one is in a hurry to claim this URL:

New Driver Testing An Upgrade, Except In The Dreaded Transparency Department

We know the PGA Tour does a lot of things well, transparency when it comes to player violations isn’t one of those. While Commissioner Jay Monahan moved the organization into the 21st century with some improved clarity on who fails drug testing, the public still may be in the dark on a number of fronts about about player fines and suspensions related to things like slow play, club tosses, recreational drug use and courtesy cars abandoned in airport loading zones.

And now drivers failing improved and more regular testing.

Golfweek’s David Dusek rightly praises the tour for upping their game in conjunction with the USGA. And focusing on catching clubs and manufacturers possibly flirting with the rules is absolutely the correct priority. However, that’s where things shift to a protectionist mindset that doesn’t seem to actually discourage cheating.

In a letter sent to players and manufacturers this week that Golfweek obtained, the tour said, “While this testing program will test the clubs in use by players on the PGA TOUR out of necessity, it is important to note that the focus of the program is not on the individual player but rather on ensuring conformity level of each club model and type throughout the season.”

That’s fine for a player’s organization to protect their own, and I’d guess 99.9% of the time players are not aware they have a juiced club because of wear and tear changing the club’s dynamics.

However, without any transparency, what’s the punishment for a clubmaker to obey the rules when all of this is kept behind closed doors free of the public shaming necessary in place of any fine system? Because Dusek writes:

There have been whispers in locker rooms and parking lots that this player’s driver is too hot and this company’s drivers are dangerously close to being non-conforming. Random testing should stop the suspicion and spare players the embarrassment and humiliation that Schauffele must have felt in July.

Random driver testing is easy, quick and long overdue. Golf may be a gentlemen’s game, but even gentlemen want to know that the playing field is level.

That includes the public and other stakeholders, no?

To put it another way: the reaction to 2019’s Xander Schauffele episode seems to be a search for a way to prevent player embarrassment, not from reigning in clubs that cross the line, whether intentional or not. Isn’t the first priority to protect skill and the competition, not egos?

Little League Putting An End To Launch Angle Chase With New "Deader" Bats

The Wall Street Journal’s Amanda Christovich looks at the crackdown on what had been a speed and distance chase in youth baseball. Home runs are way down in the Little League World Series two years in a row now since “deader” bats mimicking wood were introduced for a variety of reasons.

Thanks to reader LS who detected the many things golf can learn from the USA Baseball moves, which seemed determined to keep the sport sane and safe both instead of emphasis on exit velocity, particularly since most young lads may not be physically ready for the emphasis on speed.

But that kind of power surge is not likely to happen at this year’s Little League Baseball World Series, which is now underway. Regulation changes—most notably, the switch to a “deader” bat that mimics wood bats—mean home runs in Williamsport this year are on the verge of becoming extinct.

“The difference is astounding,” said Patrick Gloriod, who coached the Peachtree City Little League team in the 2018 LLBWS and witnessed the steep decline in home runs at that tournament once the new bats went into use.

None of this would be a problem, if not for the fact that the best youth players have spent the last few years developing a swing designed for one thing: to hit as many home runs as possible. 

They’ll get over it. Will TV?

“Telling everyone to swing up is the same as telling everyone to swing down,” said Bleecker. 

If last year’s trend continues, those dismayed that the major-league ball is juiced can rejoice in how the Little League bat is deadened.

“I’m not sure how much ESPN is gonna like watching small ball,” said Gloriod.

Distance Debate: Focus Is Turning Away From The Ball And Toward Drivers

The Mauling At Medinah is Mike Clayton’s label for the shock and awe at the 2019 BMW, where Justin Thomas and many others overwhelmed the rain-softened 7600 yard course.

(Random thought interruption here: I thought it was the improved agronomy that meant tons of roll, yet Medinah was a sponge…anyway, we now return to our regularly scheduled distance post).

After looking at past Medinah majors and what scores were needed to succeed, Clayton writes:

Justin Thomas was unquestionably brilliant this past week at Medinah, where he answered all the questions the course posed. His 263 represents amazing golf, but is it a full 24 shots more compelling than Graham’s 287 was 44 years ago?

The question for the game, for the professional tour and the administrators in New Jersey and St Andrews is: How will you manage the technological assault on the game’s great courses and a game so out of balance at the top level?

Or do they abdicate their responsibility to restore the balance MacKenzie and his great contemporaries understood and built?

The evidence of what we watched from Medinah is the golf isn’t so interesting when the questions are so easily answered with power and wedges.

Much was made of Adam Scott’s comments calling out designers and officials to set courses up to require shaping the ball, but that’s tough to do overnight.

But it was his comment as reported by Evin Priest about drivers that accelerated his previous public statements about driver head size.

Scott warned superstar drivers may no longer stand out, such as Australia's Greg Norman and American Davis Love III did in previous eras.

"The driver is the most forgiving club in the bag now; it's just swing as hard as you can and get it down there far," he said.

"It's not a skilful part of the game anymore and it's really unfair for some guys who are great drivers of the golf ball.

"I don't think their talents are showing up as much as they should."

And there was Tiger as well at Medinah, echoing comments he’s been making all year:

“Now you just pull out driver, bomb it down there and you’re looking for three to four good weeks a year,” Woods said. “That’s how you play. It’s not the consistency, it’s not about making a bunch of cuts. It’s about having three, four good weeks a year. That’s the difference. Guys understand that.”

These comments have all presumably been made to the USGA and R&A as part of their distance insights research. No one mentions the ball much these days—calm down Wally!—some because they are paid not to, while others genuinely believe it’s maxed out.

So are we seeing a shifting focus to reducing the driver head size for elite players and would it make a difference? There is only one way to find out, once the manufacturers stop kicking and screaming about the massive R&D expenditures needed to knock 75 cc’s off their current models.

Taylor Made has a jump start with this mini-driver released earlier this year. Anyone test it out on a launch monitor?

Shark: Take The Ball Back To 1996 Specs

Greg Norman has been a consistent advocate for a golf ball that spins more. But unlike his recent shift away from shirtless Instagram posts, he has remained consistent on the distance matter.

And now he’s responding to Instagram posts on the hot button topic that became popular again as PGA Tour pros made a mockery of 7,600 yard Medinah.

This is the Shark we know has the game’s best interests at heart:

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Do you agree with @shark_gregnorman’s suggestion to wind the ball back rather than redesign courses for Tour events?

A post shared by GOLF.com // GOLF Magazine (@golf_com) on Aug 19, 2019 at 10:26am PDT

Readers Questioning Clubs That Start Over The Speed Limit, But Within Testing Tolerance

Callaway CEO Chip Brewer issued a lengthy statement to explaining the Xander Schauffele non-conforming driver situation at the 2019 Open.

Brewer’s admission that the company handed their player a driver over the 239 CT limit but within the tolerance limit did not sit well with some observers.

Reader Chris writes:

Geoff, I am staggered at this statement:

“We know Xander’s driver was conforming when he received it. Probably in the range of 245 – 250 CT. At the Open we tested it at 255 CT, still conforming but close to the limit. The R&A tested it at 258, one over the limit.

The limit is 239, with a tolerance of 18 presumably for exactly the sort of circumstances Brewer describes in the statement. To hand a player a club they know to be beyond the limit is extraordinary negligence!

And Scott on Twitter also noted this issue with an analogy:

@CallawayGolf deserve everything they cop over this. The limit is 238 no? So why send one out at 245-250? Pelicans at best. Cheating maybe. Like complaining u were fined for speeding at 108 in a 100 zone with 10% tolerance. YOU WERE SPEEDING AND U GOT CAUGHT!

— Scott Hayes (@sthayes74) July 31, 2019

It’s hard not to wonder if both Schauffele in revealing his positive test and Brewer in admitting the company handed a driver to their player over the limit, brought all of the scrutiny on themselves. Particularly given the likelihood of “CT Creep” as outlined by Brewer in his statement.

The CEO’s statement could also backfire given the shots at the governing bodies about their testing suggesting some sort of possible tampering or illegitimacy (“Part of the issue is the testing location, a tent on the back of the range, where folks not directly involved in the specific testing can walk in-and-out too freely.”). That alone could invite more scrutiny, more required disclosure and more headaches for the manufacturers. This is trending toward ERC 2.0 by challenging the competence and very generous procedures of the enforcers.

As I noted just after The Open, all of these parties would have been wiser to admit their mistake and expressed gratitude at the lack of serious punishment. Because now it sure seems like they’ve kept this situation alive and festering, perhaps even warranting more scrutiny, more consideration and maybe tighter testing.

Given that the governing bodies have wrapped up their distance study and may take action this fall, this situation could help them make a case that the equipment rules need tightening and more public disclosure of those who fail tests. That would be an amazing turn of events.