One mightly long post. Wonder if anyone will actually get to the end of this post. But it's all typed so I might as well paste it in the box.
TEPaul writes:
Nice to hear from you again, glad you're back!I’ve been around. Just haven’t had as much time to post lately. That last post of mine got me up to full GCA membership. I’m getting ready to be a 44-year-old freshman in two weeks and that’s been taking up most of my time. I’ve also been busy catching up on my reading. My stack of books to be read has shrunk considerably over the last few months.
What if the manufacturers flooded the market with non-conforming equipment and the American golfer started to buy it and continued to buy it bigtime? What is the USGA going to do then? Would that effect golf's future more than the way you layed it out in your post?I’d be more concerned if the Callaway club had been a huge success in the U.S. It hasn’t been. Callaway gambled that a large number of golfers would bolt from the USGA and it didn’t happen. But it could. If the USGA were to go to reduced distance specs and the PGA Tour didn’t follow suite, I could see manufacturers using PGA Tour players to market their non-conforming balls, and it could be a success.
Right now there are plenty of manufacturers making non-conforming balls. They aren’t threatening Titleist’s market share are they? Right now many casual golfers are ignoring USGA rules in casual play. Most casual golfers ignore the stroke and distance penalty for a lost ball in casual play, is this causing USGA problems?
David Boies? He didn't lose the election for Gore.I never said he did. But lets assume Boies is the best lawyer in the world. Even with all his talents he didn’t win when his case was poor. I believe any sort of rollback on the distant standard would be a poor case for the USGA, a case they will probably lose, regardless of the talent of the lawyer.
I’m not a lawyer, nor a Supreme Court judge expert, but since Supreme Court justices get to play politics, I figure I should get to play Supreme Court judge. So let’s imagine in a few years time Titleist vs. the USGA does get to the highest court in the land:
Marshal of the Supreme Court: Oyez, oyez, oyez. All persons having business before the honorable, the Supreme Court of the United States are admonished to draw near and give their attention for the court is not sitting. God save the United States and this court.
Chief Justice Guiliani: Mr. Boies, it is your claim that distance has adversely effected the game of golf and the USGA was justified in rolling back the distance standard on golf balls.
Mr. Boies Your Honor, that is correct.
Chief Justice Guiliani: Do you have any documentation to back up that claim.
Mr. Boies: Your Honor, if you will look at the stats for the PGA Tour over the last 10 years you will see that the distance the Tour players are hitting the ball has increased at a dramatic rate faster than other periods when stats were available.
Justice Scalia: And how is this hurting the game of golf?
Mr. Boies: Your honor, it requires longer courses and greater expense.
Justice Scalia: Isn’t the PGA Tour now playing only their own 8,000 yard TPC courses and having no effect on courses they don’t play. Isn’t it also true that the TPC courses also have full tee sheets and can charge top dollar for green fees?
Mr. Boies: Your honor, that is true, but other courses want to compete with TPC for the golfers that want PGA Tour experience and are being made longer. Torrey Pines added yardage that makes the course 7,600 and other top courses are following suite. Many of the rankings of golf courses won’t even consider a golf for top honors unless it has the ability to stretch to over 7,500 yards. Our older courses such as Merion and Cypress Point can’t compete because they don’t have the ability to add that sort of yardage.
Justice Scalia: So you are saying courses such as Merion and Cypress Point are no longer popular with golfers?
Mr. Boies: No your honor, they are still very popular, they just aren’t challenging enough to the top golfers in the world.
Justice Scalia: But they still are very popular to the vast majority of golfers who would pay most any price to play these courses.
Justice Souter: Let’s look at how distance has hurt golf. You bring up the PGA Tour and their driving distances. If we look at the stats for 2001, the year before Titleist brought this suite, the top players on the driving distance stats were: John Daly, Brett Quigley, Davis Love, Tiger Woods and David Duval. The golfers in position 120 through 124 were: J.P. Hayes, Bradley Hughes, Brian Henninger, Craig Kanada and Steve Jones. Wouldn’t you say the top group is much more popular than the lower group?
Mr. Boies: Yes Your Honor, but…
Justice Souter: And isn’t the PGA Tour more popular than ever? Even the Tour Commissioner, Mr. Finchem believes it will some day surpass the NFL as the most popular sport in the U.S. I fail to see how distance is hurting the PGA Tour.
Mr. Boies: But we attribute that more to the Tiger effect than the distances the players are hitting.
Justice Souter: But Mr. Woods is up near the top of driving distance leaders and has been ever since he turned professional. I fail to see how amazing distances these players hit the ball has been detrimental to golf.
Mr. Boies: Your honor, it is our position that it has been detrimental to golf, not to the Tour. It is our position that the growth of golf has been flat over the last decade, and we believe the problem is the cost of the game and that golfers are buying game improvement instead of doing it the way it should be done, by working on their game. Because of the distance the ball travels golfers aren’t sufficiently challenged and they miss that challenge.
Justice O’Connor: But hasn’t passed technology improvements in golf led to eventual growth in golf? The advent of the Gutty, the Haskel, the larger American ball, suryln covers, steel shafts, game improvement clubs, metal heads, all led to surges in golf popularity. It never happened overnight, but the surge did happen. With the Titleist V1 coming out in 2000 and the USGA attempt to roll back in 2002, is it possible that you didn’t wait long enough for the surge in popularity to catch up?
Mr. Boies: We don’t believe that to be true, besides we also believe it is up to the USGA to regulate the game as they see fit and to maintain the traditions of the game.
Justice Thomas: (Not clear from the transcripts if Justice Thomas was clearing his throat or his mic was on when he snored.)
Justice Ginsberg: But weren’t these balls that fit within your overall standard when you tested them and approved them?
Mr. Boies: Yes Your Honor, but the USGA wasn’t prepared for the advances in swing speeds that would happen over the last decade.
Justice Ginsberg: But isn’t swing speed advances a tribute to the work and conditioning of the athletes? Isn’t that what golf should be testing? It seems to me that distance has always been an advantage in golf and I fail to understand why now the USGA wants to penalize those that worked hardest.
Mr. Boies: (Tom maybe you can come up with some words to put into Mr. Boies mouth for this question.)
Justice Scalia: Lets get back to the desire to make balls that the USGA approved now non-conforming. How exactly will that work?
Mr. Boies:Your honor, the USGA is willing to give the manufacturers a grace period where they will know the new parameters a few years before the new tests are implemented.
Justice Scalia: Titleist claims there is no sufficient grace period. If they decide to continue to only manufacture USGA conforming balls they will be stuck sitting on their R&D hands during the grace period. Meanwhile a company like Spalding could come out with new balls during the grace period that are advanced from current technology. Since Spalding works on smaller margins and smaller inventories they could get out newer generation of balls during the grace period that would eat into Titleist market share. Spalding could even advertise their new ball as currently conforming and more advanced than Titleist V1, meanwhile Titleist is stuck in a holding pattern waiting for the grace period to end. Would this be fair to Titleist?
Mr. Boies: (Another question I can’t think of a sufficient answer for)
Justice Kennedy: I know when I play golf I love it when I really connect. There aren’t many more thrilling experience in golf than when you really tag one out there further than you usually do.
Chief Justice Guiliani Justice Kennedy, was there a question some where in that statement?
Justice Kennedy: No there wasn’t. I’m just still upset I didn’t get the big chair. If it wasn’t for 911, I’d be sitting in your chair right now, so don’t count on a lot of cooperation from me.
"Had the gutta-percha golf ball not been invented, it is likely enough that golf itself would now be in the catalogue of virtually extinct games, only locally surviving, as stool-ball and knurr and spell."
--Horace Hutchinson, 1899