Geoff:
We can only hope that Finchem and the PGA Tour get it, but based on this story, I'd say that's highly unlikely:
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R&A, USGA keep cool under pressure
by James Achenbach of Golfweek
Let us welcome a new era of peace in golf.
Center stage at the U.S. Golf Association’s annual meeting, which ended Feb. 1 on Coronado Island off San Diego, was a distinct atmosphere of goodwill. The acrimonious COR War was over. Good riddance.
The conflict started in 1998, when the USGA declared war on so-called “hot” drivers. After the USGA Executive Committee voted in November of that year to impose a limit on COR, or coefficient of restitution, the Royal & Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews, Scotland, declined to join the good fight.
Thus the USGA campaign became a unilateral effort. Four years and some 200 nonconforming drivers later, golf’s two rulemaking bodies finally ended their division in 2002 by laying the groundwork for a joint driver policy. This policy, with a universal COR limit of .830, will take effect on Jan. 1, 2008.
COR is a synonym for spring-like effect, which is the same thing as trampoline effect, which is a graphic way of describing the collision between a super-thin titanium driver face and a modern golf ball. The ball, in essence, jumps off the driver face.
A ceiling of .830 on COR is fair. The game would be damaged by drivers that propelled the ball any farther. Recognizing this, it didn’t take long for the PGA European Tour and the Japan Golf Tour to join the PGA Tour in endorsing the .830 standard. These are the three most important pro tours in the world. Europe and Japan could have waited until 2008, but they didn’t. All around the globe, there is a new unity in golf.
All things considered, golfers are very lucky to have two ruling bodies that managed to keep their cool under extraordinarily taxing circumstances. The stakes were high, and so were the emotions. Yet the USGA and R&A were calm enough and intelligent enough to survive and ultimately end the four-year COR War.
The demeanor of David Fay, the USGA executive director, and Dick Rugge, the organization’s senior technical director, served as an indicator of the strength of the USGA. They were the two primary spokesmen for the U.S. side, and they never raised their voices in anger or gave up hope of an equitable solution.
What can be said of the R&A? This grand old club always seems to reflect a prudent historical perspective. Over the centuries, the sport has weathered all its conflicts and controversies, and the R&A understands this better than any other golf body.
Cynics (I among them) occasionally ridiculed the R&A during the COR crisis. This came as much from impatience as anything else. In the end, it was the R&A that made the most gracious move in the four-year saga. Speaking out for the worldwide unity of golf, the R&A agreed to adopt the USGA standard it previously had rejected.
This amounted to taking a bullet for the good of the game. It will be intriguing to see what happens when Martha Burk buys an airline ticket and heads to the British Open. This will be another test for the male-dominated R&A. More bullets will fly.
At least the R&A, which has never adopted any mandates for social equality, should be able to avoid the hypocrisy of the PGA Tour. Although it mumbles the creed of equality, the PGA Tour repeatedly has blown the opportunity to exert itself on social issues.
Under pressure to say the magic phrase -- “Women are equal” -- the PGA Tour should say it and enforce it. If this forces the Masters off the Tour schedule, so be it. The USGA already has made the commitment: No course without minority or female members will play host to a USGA championship.
Once before, in the case of minority participation, the PGA Tour failed to take a stand. Shame on the Tour, which refused to fully support Charlie Sifford, Pete Brown and friends, and shame on golf for not uttering a long time ago what should have been uttered: “Minorities are equal.” It took a 1961 lawsuit by the state of California to persuade the PGA of America, which ran the PGA Tour at the time, to end its exclusionary policies.
Golf in the United States cannot stand apart from the society in which it exists. Such an arrogant stance could easily result in self-destruction. Only the shortsighted fail to see where golf’s bullheadedness could lead.
A time will come in the future when golf will need all the friends it can get. With much of the planet likely to become embroiled in a struggle over decreasing fresh water supplies, golf will end up as a whipping boy for politicians and social activists. In a world without enough water, it is difficult to justify the saturation of golf courses every night.
This, of course, is not news to the R&A. Anyone traveling to the United Kingdom will see an abundance of golf courses covered with brown grass. Water is not for the wasting. Nobody complains. The great game still flourishes.
Now that the COR War is over, I am betting the R&A will be ready for Water Wars. And I am betting the USGA continues to embrace the harmony and wisdom that have emerged from the COR conflict.
Whatever important issues face golf, these two organizations surely will stand together. They need each other. The peace and unity on display at the USGA annual meeting will go a long way toward addressing significant concerns in the future.