USGA Backtracks... The Defenders

[Lou Duran]

The relatively cool reception to the ERC II here in the U.S. seems to suggest that the public will follow.

[TEPaul]

Lou:

The cool reception might say something about the public's desire to follow the rules but it probably says a lot more about the ERC2 itself! The club's performance obviously didn't live up to Callaway's BS hype! That's true probably 99% of the time--it's just marketing hype!

But clearly that would not be true for a totally unfettered and unrestricted high technology ball--at least from what I've been hearing they could do with the ball if they decided not to abide by the B&I rules!

Some tell me it would be so significant as to be a joke--probably damn dangerous too!

[Tim_Weiman]

Lou Duran:

I fully expect any company to try and maximize profit, just like Callaway and Titleist are trying to do.

But, a market place also includes consumers who should be equally aggressive in trying to pay the lowest possible price for any product.

I think that the more we repeat "the golf technology arms race only raises playing costs" the better.  We have a right to be consumers.  The USGA should be sensitive to manufacturer's intersts but basically more pro consumer in its approach.

Also, peraps I didn't make clear enough that I see a relationship between the technology of ball and equipment and the price of green fees.  Longer balls and drivers require longer courses which inevitably lead to higher green fees.

Here in Cleveland there is a developer who built a 7.100 yard course and wants to hold tournaments.  The course isn't even open yet and he fears he didn't make it long enough.

The sad part is that this guy started out wanting to provide a quality course at a reasonable price for Joe Sixpack.

[Rich_Goodale]

Tom

You make "hush-hush" references to this super ball from time to time.  Let me ask you, if there were such a thing as a 400-yard ball, I can see where someone like yourself who never deviates more than one tenth of degree from dead-solid-perfect would benefit.  I could see you standing on the 1st tee at Gulph Mills saying to yourself:  "Well, I can't quite drive that 430 yard elevated green today, but if I lay up with my 1-iron to about 50-60 yards short left, I'll have a makeable pitch to that short right pin position and should have a tap-in 3 at the worst."

How about the rest of us who live in the real world?  Take me, for example, who hit it 270 on that mother of all wide 1st fairways into the trees and had to pitch out.  With the super ball I'd go for the green and probably hit it one time out of 20.  The other 19 times I'd have to have a full time trial lawyer on my payroll to sort out my potential liabilities.

Rich "Fat, Happy, and not at all worried about the real world effect of all these new "technologies." Goodale

[TEPaul]

Rich:

Nothing "hush-hush" about the super ball from me, it's just that I don't know much more about the possibiliy other than what a good number of tech people (in the industry) have mentioned to me about it. It seems they feel the potential is there to make a ball that could go 400yd--actually some said farther than that! I think they mean the technology is there now--and they should know I guess.

Of course we will never see anything like that unless the manufacturers really do decide to trample the USGA's B&I rules to death and produce and sell in an unlimited "super-ball" world. They probably never would but just to know that they could is scary. Oh and the ultimate question--would the public buy such a ball? You bet your sweet bibby they would! Of course I wouldn't for two reasons. First I'm Quakerish which means thrifty and second on principle due to my respect for the game. I would either borrow or steal one of yours though.

And if they did produce a ball that went 450yds, the first green of Gulph Mills would still be out of the question for me since maybe I could manage about 270 max with a 400yd ball. I dont know where this idea of such wildness came from with you--you hit it great when I played with you.

[Tony Ristola]

TEPaul:  Would love to read anything you would have at anytime for USGA consumption... if it's rough, no problem.

The USGA wouldn't take anyone to court, but having made their case to manufacturers...telling them this is the law, and manufacturers not wanting to accept the changes to existing rules would be a... see you in court situation.  

END

The ball could be grandfathered like the PING's box groove irons.  

In contrast to Jeff's secretary getting a call from a high-up USGA member, professionals and managers in Europe received a letter from R&A HQ several years back asking (if not telling) us not to call them but to contact our local sections (national GA's).  I'd say if this is what the USGA HQ's upper echelon spends their time doing, they are wasting their time...big time.  Those issues can be handled locally or by a standard form (email or snail mail).  

Titliest can confiscate maximum profits because they have a recognized brand and a history of excellence.  When someone else comes out with a better or as good a product for significantly less, then you may have some action on price.  That is the EXACT reason manufacturers like Titliest would not want a rollback of the ball because there would be no significant competitive advantage and they would have to drop prices drastically to compete.

[Rich_Goodale]

Tom

I don't know where this idea of shortness came from you.  From what I saw you hit every shot just as far as you wanted to, no more, no less.  I have no doubt that if you had this super ball and if you ever really needed to and wanted to drive the 1st at Gulph Mills, you would take off our sweater, just like Nicklaus v. Sanders on the 18th at St. Andrews, and smooth it sweetly onto the middle of the green.......

Rich

[Lou Duran]

Tom Paul:

I confess to hitting the ERC and ERC II out of curiousity in the driving range, and without question, I hit it 15+ yards further.  I don't think that the marketing ever gained momentum because of the cloud of illegality/non-conformity placed over the club by the USGA.  While I stand by what I posted earlier-that the most golfers don't hold the USGA in high regard, they see the need for rules.  I know that my group would not tolerate anyone playing an illegal 400 yard ball, though most do not understand why some of us are making such a fuss about balls that go a few yards further and clubs that seem to propel the ball higher and straighter.

[Tony Ristola]

Thought this poll was interesting.

The question is:  

What brand name do you trust most in the golf biz?

Titliest
Callaway
Taylor Made Cleveland
PING
Wilson Hogan

Results at http://www.golftipsmag.com/cgi/dispresult.pl?brandpoll1

[TEPaul]

Tony:

The top two on the list of most respected does not bode well, when you consider the top two have been far and away the most disrespectful of the USGA recently!

I've gotten so depressed about the entire USGA subject in the last few days I can hardly see straight!

[Tony Ristola]

TEPaul...keep your chin up, stay positive... when you're trying to replan Rome, it takes a while.  Step, by step, by step.  

I could understand the PING issue with box grooves.  It has been a while... some 17 years since the box groove issue, and if I remember correctly (may be 100% wrong) the measuring for the grooves was not clearly defined, causing the heated discrepency, and this is the funny point...the screams about box grooves from golf commentators then were about the changing values in the game...in shotmaking...in identifying the best players, that skill was reduced. Remember Mark Calcavecchia (sic) stirring up a hornets nest by hitting an 8 iron from thick rough at Eagle Trace and stopping it quickly on the green?  Would be nice to have the same response about today's balls or?

Since then PING has been an upstanding citizen.

Currently there are 26 manufacturers producing no-conforming clubs...PING is not amongst them.

For the USGA list of non-conforming clubs:
http://www.usga.org/press/list_of_clubs.html

[JohnV]

Illegal golf balls have been available for years.  Everyone once in a while I find one.  They were even advertised in the latest Golfsmith's catalog I got.  While most of these are just knockoffs of the old British ball and don't go 400 yards, they definitely do go farther.  Put one with a ERC II swung by someone who can figure out how to hit that monster and you might get close.  I'm sure that the manufacturers could easily come up with a ball that would outperform these.

Most golfers won't use a illegal ball, just like they won't buy an ERC II.

I have some faith that if the USGA worked with the ball manufacturers and set a good time limit in the future, they could roll back the ball.  After all, what difference does it really make if the ball goes 250 or 300 to a manufacturer.  They will still claim that their ball is longer than their competitor's ball and we will still need to buy new balls every few rounds.

Ping sued because they were in a position to lose business to their competitors because their clubs were deemed illegal.  Why should Titleist or Spaulding care?  They will probably still have the same share of market and since balls are a product that must be replaced frequently they won't lose business.  Actually they might care because they have all kinds of patents on golf balls and they might not be able to use some of the technology they own with a rollback.

Probably the people who stand to lose the most are the ones who spent a fortune building the 7500 yard courses in anticipation and find that people wouldn't want to play them from the back tees anymore.  Along with a good player I know who has used every gift certificate he's ever won to buy golf balls.  He has stacks of balls in his garage.  Imagine if they all became illegal.

[TEPaul]

JohnV;

I hope the USGA works with the manufacturers too, and I think they might be able to but they will have to be clever about it now--much cleverer than about five years ago. And the vast difference between five years ago and today all has to do with the new and aggressive attitude of the manufacturers that did not exist five years ago, in my opinion.

Sure, we all know there have been hot balls around for years and there always have been some hot clubs. Many of both are prototypes that never really went into serious production for obvious reasons--and the ones that did were very limited.

The difference between those and what Callaway tried to do or did is like night and day. Those hot balls and various limited production "nonconforming" clubs are a very limited market and were always intended to be.

But Callaway is a mega manufacturerer who had an entirely different agenda, in my opinion. Eli Callaway researched, produced and marketed an illegal club willfully to either bully the USGA into accomodating their club by backing off on their B&I rules and regs and failing that in testing the golfing public to see if they could get the golfing public to buy their product in clear contravention of the B&I rules with the hopeful result of making those rules irrelevant.

There is a huge difference in what Callaway did and those little nonconforming companies have been doing for decades. The entire heretofore nonconforming "fringe" companies probably constituted 1/10 of 1% of the product market if that. Callaway on the other hand is a huge player on product market and was out to test, bully or destroy the USGA's B&I rules. They haven't gotten away with it this time but clearly the attitude and atmosphere has changed dramatically when another mega manufacturer begins to poll the public on their opinion on playing with "nonconforming" equipment en masse, and even another one runs a major ad campaign to satirize the USGA in effect! These few companies make up a huge percentage of the product market

There's a major difference here, in my opinion, and if one of these mega manufacturers gets away with this the others will follow in a heartbeat. The big boys are nothing like those little companies that have been around for years that advertized their hot balls on 1/10 of a page in the back of some discount golf magazine.  

[TEPaul]

JohnV:

I couldn't agree with you more about what the difference would really be if the USGA got the manufacturers to roll the max distance back to something like 250yds instead of 300yds! I think you're absolutely right that they could still say their ball went farther than the next guy's!

I ran this fine line distinction past a very savy friend of mine about a year ago and he said he wasn't too sure it would work. The idea of the fine line distinction was for the USGA to somehow convince the manufacturers to talk less about "how far" (in actual yardage) and more about just "farther" (than the other guy)! The latter would mean both other manufacturers and other golfers too.

The basic idea being; does the golfer really care more about "how far" he actually hits the ball in real yardage or more about whether he hits it "farther" than some other guy? In other words, is it actual yardage or just in relation to other golfers?

[Chris Kane]

Found this Titleist propoganda at their website this afternoon.

Some reasons, in addition to space age golf balls and golf clubs, why today's tour professionals hit the ball farther and occasionally establish new course records:

Bigger, stronger and better-conditioned athletes

Today's professional golfers are bigger, stronger and in better condition than their counterparts of yesterday. Guys today spend many a free hour working out and pumping up. Don't let anyone kid you. Size is relevant. Everything else being equal, Phil Blackmar (6'7" and 245 lbs.) is going to be longer than Willie Wood 5'7" and 150 lbs.)

On-site swing doctors

Talented individuals such as David Leadbetter, Butch Harmon, Jim Flick et al, have made prolonged swing slumps a thing of the past. And let's not forget the role and contribution of current day sports psychologists such as Dr. Bob Rotella and Dr. Richard Coop.

Producing optimum launch conditions. Prior to the publication of the seminal work "The Search for the Perfect Golf Swing" by Cochran and Strobbs (1968), understanding of the optimum launch condition was limited to a knowledgeable few. Today every tour professional knows the variables that make up his launch condition 'fingerprint' and know to how to best combine these variables (launch, spin and speed) for maximum distance.

Near-perfect week to week course conditions
Today's tournament sites feature near perfect fairway and green conditions. Bad lies are a thing of the past. And the closely cut firmer fairways contribute to maximum roll off the tee.

More exposure to the game's greatest players

Yesterday's players were introduced to the game via Jimmy Demaret and Shell's Wonderful World of Golf. Today we have 300 hours of PGA Tour exposure per year and the 24 hour per day Golf Channel. Golf is an imitation experience. The more exposure you have to the greatest players in the world, the better chance you have to improve your game.

Competition and improved performance

In every athletic activity known to man, performance is getting better. For the player ranked #2 to become #1, player #2 has to develop superior skills and abilities compared to those possessed by the player currently #1. Competition leads to improvements in performance. In the real world this is also known as progress.

Yet in spite of all of the above and in addition to the space age golf balls and golf clubs available to today's PGA Tour players, the fact is that the average score on the PGA Tour has improved but one stroke over the past seventeen years. How can this be? Many are convinced that every player on tour averages 300 yards plus. Fact: Last year was the first time any player averaged over 300 yards plus. The 50th ranked player in distance averaged 272 yards. Many are also convinced that each week just about everyone shoots nothing but 64's and 65's. Fact: Last year the winner of the Vardon trophy averaged 68.98. The 50th ranked player in scoring averaged 70.60 for every round played. What's my point? My point is that the changes in the landscape on tour are not limited to golf balls and golf clubs. And in spite of the tour reflecting the progress befitting the end of the 20th century, that the game has not experienced the transformation into "Gattaca-golf"* that certain forces would lead us to believe.

There are those who believe that if we make everyone play with a golf ball that flies ten yards shorter and force everyone to return to smaller metalwoods, that this will change the competitive landscape on tour. The net effect would be Tiger Woods and Davis Love III hitting #5 irons into par fives where today they hit #7 irons and Justin Leonard and Billy Andrade would be hitting #2 irons and fairway woods into those same par fives where today they hit #3 and #4 irons. Have those USGA forces contemplating these changes to the equipment rules asked Justin, Billy and others in their peer group if they think technology is a threat to their game? They should. They might be interested in their response. *Gattaca. A futuristic city from the movie of the same name where DNA is managed to produce genetically perfect humans engineered to produce super human performance.

If this is the attitude the equipment companies are going to take, it indicates we have a very serious problem.  To their credit, Titleist havn't marketing non-conforming equipment or challenged the rules: yet.

[Robert_Walker]

So...
Are there any lies in the above "Titleist propaganda"?
Can you describe this "Titleist attitude"?

[Rich_Goodale]

I'm with Robert on this one.  I think it is a fair and reasoned series of statements.  We may not like them, but they are very hard to refute.

[Lou Duran]

I too can't fault Titleist's analysis, though it begs the question as to why we should invest in all the new, high priced equipment which apparently has little impact on how we score.  Some evidence that the high tech revolution has had minimal impact for most golfers is the lack of improvement in the average handicap over time.

That golf professionals and top tier amateurs are better, stronger athletes than their predecessors is hard to argue (I wonder if someone has already not documented the height/weight differences, say 1950 vs. 2000).  A look at another professional sport, basketball, clearly shows the evolution of the athlete.  BB makes this development more apparent because of the fixed field of play and relatively minor rule changes.  Today a guy like 7' Dirk Nowitzki can key the fast break, pull-up on a dime behind the 3-point line, and hit with consistency.  Can anyone here remember a tall player 30 years ago who could dribble and shoot outside of 15'?

All this is not to say that the USGA should be unconcerned.  I strongly favor a tournament ball for professional and scratch amateur competition.  I also support limitations on equipment, though the rationale behind these should have a sound scientific basis.  If the average golfer chooses to use other balls and equipment, he is free to do so.  Other than his partner, I've never heard anyone complain about a golfer's handicap being too low.  Ego gratification does have its price, and most casual club games are self-governing anyways.    

[Tim_Weiman]

Robert Walker:

Chris Kane was absolutely correct to use the word "propaganda" in reference to Titleist.

The intent of Titleist's words is to obscure the reality that all the golf technology arms race is doing is increasing the cost of playing the game.

The fact that they are clever in obscuring this reality only makes it worse.

[Rich_Goodale]

Tim

My dictionary definitons of propaganda say nothing remotely close about "obscuring the reality."  It's all about advocacy, which Titleist has every right to do.  And, there is nothing in the piece quoted by Chris that seems at all unreal or even distored to me.  I have long advocated the competition ball on this forum, but as long as the authorities chose to not go down this route, I see no reason why Titlest and others cannot try to optimize their profits within the rules as they exist, and advocate their positons on various issues to their various publics.  Do you?

[TEPaul]

What Chris Kane posted there is really no different than the way manufacturers have always responded to the question and concern about distance issues. That press release or "propaganda" could have been written 80 years ago!

Doing what they are doing in that "release" is what they've always done! It's both defending their products and also "postitioning" themselves for the future!

And that's fine as long as they stay within the USGA's B&I rules. As for the USGA, it's up to them to define the B&I rules! And frankly, the USGA has ALWAYS said--and still does, that it's OK if the ball goes farther--as long as it's the athlete that is making that happen!! The USGA does not want a ball to go farther due to technology alone!! (although unfortunately there has always been a scant recognition from them of how technology advances may be acceptable under very miniscule circumstances)--but nothing like what we're seeing!

So what I read in the Titleist statement that Chris quoted really does not disturb me.

EXCEPT! Except for Chris's very last sentence!!! That's what scares me to death for the game! That's the difference between the way golf in America has always been throughout its history from what it has become in the last few years! And that specific difference revolves entirely around the manufacturers' aggressive new attitude! That's the sum and substance of what I've been saying for the last two years!! They seem poised to break the USGA's B&I rules and regs for the first time in history!! That's where the real and immediate danger to golf is!!

These major manufacturers may be poised to do exactly that and en masse!! This has basically never even been thought of in the history of American golf, not even with the manufacturers themselves, until the last few years!! Everyone has always lived within the B&I rules of golf!!

We're not talking here some little hot ball manufacturer in Connecticut that has been around for years or some limited production hot club manufacturer--we're talking Titleist, Callaway, Nike, some of the biggest manufacturers of golf equipment in the world!! That's entirely different!

There is a great deal to think about in Chris Kane's last sentence alone! Up until a few years ago anyone would have dismissed that sentence--but I, for one, am not dismissing it now!! And the last word of Chris's last sentence is by far the most chilling of all!

[Patrick_Mucci]

TEPaul,

The start to the USGA heading down the wrong path began in
1951.  Bring back the STYMIE and watch everything else start to fall in line  

Chipping, pitching, implements and balls, the decline all began in 1951.

[TEPaul]

Now listen Pat, enough joking around about the loss of the  stymie and the beginning of the demise of golf! Things are getting serious here, and I'm now behind you on this!

So here's what you do. Somehow you've got to get them to reinstate the stymie! If you can do that anything else will  not seem so anti-progress! If you can do this you can lick this distance problem! A 50yd distance rollback will not seem in the slightest bit antediluvian compared to the reinstatement of the stymie. A 50yd rollback might even seem like real progress compared to the reinstatement of the stymie!!

You can do this Pat! Matter of fact the future of golf is in your hands alone!!

[Rich_Goodale]

Tom

I think you should get Ran involved in this "rollback" campaign.  He seems to have rolled me and Patrick back to "Senior Member" status again, and does so with alarming regularity and ruthless efficiency.

Rich "Once they were God's" Goodale