Thanks for the leadership, Phil

[Dan Kelly]

The Palmer situation is far more serious and hurtful to the game than what Phil is wrongly accused of doing by his critics.

Start a thread about that, then!

[Ron Csigo]

Phil showing leadership.  

http://www.pgatour.com/2010/tournaments/r007/02/03/mickelson_grooves/index.html

[jeffwarne]

Phil showing leadership.  

http://www.pgatour.com/2010/tournaments/r007/02/03/mickelson_grooves/index.html

So now that Phil's not playing the PING wedge, will McCarron forsake use of the long putter?

As I said last week, Mickelson's doing more to close the loophole than any other player.
Too bad McCarron took the bait-to his credit he did apologise.

The same as player's have a gentleman's agreement not to use the long putter for drops, the same could be applied to the PING wedges.......and........long putters.

[George Pazin]

In any event, is Mickelson's statement today the stuff of a leader?

Tough to say, imho. Only Phil can know what's in his heart and what prompted his earlier actions. Is he doing this because he thinks it's right, or because he didn't like the perception surrounding his actions? Therein lies the difference between a leader and a follower. My gut says follower, but having never met the man, that's probably not fair.

McCarron's logic wasn't terribly strong, but how many can intelligently argue a point in the limelight? Not many. He probably wasn't expecting the GC announcer to question him on the long putter. He should have simply said the analogy is flawed for many reasons.

[C. Squier]

My 8 year old son was watching the Golf Channel yesterday (I believe... maybe the day before) when he exclaimed, "Hey Daddy..... there's that nice guy we met." So I started watching and Scott McCarron came up next and started talking about the difference in "spirit of the rules" between the Pink Eye 2 wedges and the long putter. His response caused me to stop in my tracks: something along the lines that eveyone can get or build a long putter but only a few folks can get their hands on the wedges. While it seemed to me to be a completely foolish answer, I give SM the benefit of the doubt and chalk it up to his being tired or just tired dealing with the media on this subject. Have never met the guy so not really qualified to give an opinion about him.

In any event, is Mickelson's statement today the stuff of a leader?

What a bunch of crap, SM.  Ever hear of eBay?

[Ron Csigo]

My 8 year old son was watching the Golf Channel yesterday (I believe... maybe the day before) when he exclaimed, "Hey Daddy..... there's that nice guy we met." So I started watching and Scott McCarron came up next and started talking about the difference in "spirit of the rules" between the Pink Eye 2 wedges and the long putter. His response caused me to stop in my tracks: something along the lines that eveyone can get or build a long putter but only a few folks can get their hands on the wedges. While it seemed to me to be a completely foolish answer, I give SM the benefit of the doubt and chalk it up to his being tired or just tired dealing with the media on this subject. Have never met the guy so not really qualified to give an opinion about him.

In any event, is Mickelson's statement today the stuff of a leader?

What a bunch of crap, SM.  Ever hear of eBay?

Exactly Clint. 

There are plenty of Ping Eye 2 wedges available on eBay.  They start at about $50.  While the Baryllium Copper ones start at $200.

I would also have to guess that each and every pro probably has one or two in their garage.  Charles Howell III said he had a few and might consider putting them into play.

[Chuck Brown]

It's a shame that Scott McCarron didn't begin, and end, all of his comments on Phil Mickelson this way:

"I'm disappointed in Phil.  Of course, what he is doing is within the Rules.  He's not cheating, and I'd never think of calling Phil a cheater.  But what Phil is doing right now is an act of Rules-vandalism.  Phil's trying to make a point.  He's angry (or maybe it is just Callaway that is angry, and Phill is a willing vehicle) about how the USGA dealt with some Callaway prototypes last fall.  And now, Phil is using this tournament, and our Tour, to make his point.  I find that personally disappointing.  The fact is that the Ping Eye 2 wedges are a very minor issue, they are not widely used, and unless Phil makes this story into something bigger, it should not be an important issue.

If Phil wants to be the public face of professional golf and the de facto leader of the Tour in Tiger's absence, he's lost my vote."

[TEPaul]

I must say, even though I haven't read everything in this thread I am very impressed with the extremely detailed knowledge of a few on here particularly to do with the specific details, legal and otherwise, of those Ping lawsuits and settlements back then and how they may either encumber or potentially serve as a resolution for this latest Ping Eye 2 flap. I'm speaking particularly of Jim Sweeney and Chuck Brown and some others have brought up some good question and discussions for them to deal with via those details.

I did speak with Chuck Brown on the phone the other day for quite a while on the history of those lawsuits and their ramifications. I think he knew it but did the rest of you know that out of the Ping Vs PGA Tour suit settlement came the formation of a sort of blue-ribbon five man "disinterested party" committee? I know one of the men who was on it and probably still is. This committee, as far as I know has never been asked to do anything but now maybe a good time to tap them.

My understanding of one of their potential functions was if the PGA Tour ever decided to get into the area of I&B administration they would have to take their proposal to do so to this committee who would consider it, make their recommendation back to the PGA Tour Policy Board (apparently made up of players) who would then consider that proposal and apparently make a decision on the matter.

[Chuck Brown]

I must say, even though I haven't read everything in this thread I am very impressed with the extremely detailed knowledge of a few on here particularly to do with the specific details, legal and otherwise, of those Ping lawsuits and settlements back then and how they may either encumber or potentially serve as a resolution for this latest Ping Eye 2 flap. I'm speaking particularly of Jim Sweeney and Chuck Brown and some others have brought up some good question and discussions for them to deal with via those details.

I did speak with Chuck Brown on the phone the other day for quite a while on the history of those lawsuits and their ramifications. I think he knew it but did the rest of you know that out of the Ping Vs PGA Tour suit settlement came the formation of a sort of blue-ribbon five man "disinterested party" committee? I know one of the men who was on it and probably still is. This committee, as far as I know has never been asked to do anything but now maybe a good time to tap them.

My understanding of one of their potential functions was if the PGA Tour ever decided to get into the area of I&B administration they would have to take their proposal to do so to this committee who would consider it, make their recommendation back to the PGA Tour Policy Board (apparently made up of players) who would then consider that proposal and apparently make a decision on the matter.

Tom, the committee members (minus one) were all just listed a couple of hours ago in an Alex Micelli GolfWeek story, per Geoff Shackelford's Blog, including another link to some biographical background.  It's a fascinating thing.  I cannot profess to understand it; it looks to me like a kind of a pet project of ol' Karsten himself, but I don't much understand the motives or the thinking behind it.

I like to think that I had a rudimentary understanding of the Ping litigation story.  I feel certain that I had very little by way of legal insight that you didn't already have.

--------------------------
Edit. - handy link:

http://www.golfweek.com/news/2010/feb/03/finchem-players-weve-got-options/

[TEPaul]

"I like to think that I had a rudimentary understanding of the Ping litigation story.  I feel certain that I had very little by way of legal insight that you didn't already have."


Chuck:

Thank you but I doubt I have much understanding of those Ping lawsuits in legal way---I'm certainly no lawyer or legal mind. What I do have is a pretty good recollection of the suits and the players in them because I, for whatever reasons over the years, happened to talk to a number of them about it and some at considerable length (all totally unplanned).

But here's a legitimate question for you as a lawyer----generally speaking with a lawsuit such as the Ping Vs PGA Tour would a transcript of the suit court record as well as a transcipt of the settlement be public record or wouldn't it? And if it wouldn't what would be the legal reason?

[Chuck Brown]

"I like to think that I had a rudimentary understanding of the Ping litigation story.  I feel certain that I had very little by way of legal insight that you didn't already have."


Chuck:

Thank you but I doubt I have much understanding of those Ping lawsuits in legal way---I'm certainly no lawyer or legal mind. What I do have is a pretty good recollection of the suits and the players in them because I, for whatever reasons over the years, happened to talk to a number of them about it and some at considerable length (all totally unplanned).

But here's a legitimate question for you as a lawyer----generally speaking with a lawsuit such as the Ping Vs PGA Tour would a transcript of the suit court record as well as a transcipt of the settlement be public record or wouldn't it? And if it wouldn't what would be the legal reason?

No, most of it woud be unavailable and not part of the regular court file.  There might well be transcripts of court proceedings; but in Gilder v. PGA Tour Inc., the only court proceedings were pre-trial matters.  Motions, mostly, in which the Tour asked that the case be dismissed for the reason that only the Tour itself had the right to make decisions about what kind of equipment.  Preliminary, pure legal issues, essentially.

I recall, as you probably do, Tom, that the parties in the "Tour" lawsuit, as opposed to the "USGA" lawsuit, got very close to trial.  Just a matter of a week or so.  And therefore, I am confident that much testimony would have been taken by way of depositions.  Those would all have been transcribed, but the transcripts are not usually filed with the court.  Portions of transcripts might be included in briefs, which would get filed with the court.  And, all Notices for the taking of depositions would get filed with the court.  So it might be possible from a review of the court file to see who was deposed -- Dean Beman, Karsten Solheim, Frank Thomas, Bob Gilder, Ken Green, etc.  The parties would also file witness lists with the court, and those (along with deposition notices) would identify key experts for both sides.

Significantly, in the Tour case, there was an extensive, three-day Evidentiary Hearing.  There would be a transcript of that proceeding, which featured some notable testimony.  Like a mini-trial.  Perhaps the closest that this whole matter ever came to a real trial.  It is detailed here, in a 9th Circuit opinion:

http://openjurist.org/936/f2d/417

Tom, in our very pleasant telephone conversation that I enjoyed very much, I told you that my memory was that the original case filing had been in the U.S. District Court in Phoenix.  I am quite certain now that I am correct about that.  It is in the federal courthouse in Phoenix that one would go to, to get any public records.

The Settlement Agreement that is now the subject of global interest would likely not be in the court file.  Settlement agreements do not need to be filed and generally are not filed with the court.

[JMEvensky]

 I'm speaking particularly of Jim Sweeney and Chuck Brown and some others have brought up some good question and discussions for them to deal with via those details.

Amen to that.Thanks for taking the time to make the legal issues understandable for lay people.

[Brent Hutto]

So does it really take all this lawyering of ancient civil suits and settlements to make the stupid golf ball not fly as far? Frankly, it is totally mind-boggling.

Surely the golf ball could just be required to fly less far, spin more, cut like a Balata when you hit it thin and generally behave like the Powers That Be are wishing it would. But instead we get to argue over whether some Tour player ought to be using a 20-year-old wedge instead of shiny new one. A truly amazing display of reasoning.

[Chuck Brown]

So does it really take all this lawyering of ancient civil suits and settlements to make the stupid golf ball not fly as far? Frankly, it is totally mind-boggling.

Surely the golf ball could just be required to fly less far, spin more, cut like a Balata when you hit it thin and generally behave like the Powers That Be are wishing it would. But instead we get to argue over whether some Tour player ought to be using a 20-year-old wedge instead of shiny new one. A truly amazing display of reasoning.

I think you are right, Brent.  And consider; you are among the cognoscenti, the top-one-percentile of informed golfers.

It concerns me that the largest net effect out of all of this will not be any detailed ruling on the Ping Eye 2, which is a near-irrelevancy in terms of determing winnig and losing on the PGA Tour (which itself is of outsized importance in the larger game of golf).  What worries me is that the largest net effect will be a general feeling that the USGA is prone to making silly and incomprehensible rules, without any competent ability to enforce those rules.  That, I think, is unfair, and is destructive to the greater task of getting to the point where the USGA is empowered to do something about what really matters; the golf ball.

When we have popular figures like Phil Mickelson and popular brands like Callaway (yes, that is not a typo; I am putting Callaway front and center in this debate) taking the position that they are engaged in a technological arms race and that their enemy is the USGA, that is one of the worst things imaginable because the USGA will always be on the defensive; tryng to make rules to check R&D departments that are constantly attacking the limits of technology.  I don't much mind all of the R&D, nor do I mind technology that will help golf to grow, and become a better and more affordable, more accessible game.  But right now, what we are seeing is equipment technology driving us toward a more expensive game, a more technologically confusing game, and thereby a less accessible game.

Until people understand that the USGA absolutely DOES have to have the power to regulate equipment in the spirit of the game, this probably won't get much better.

[TEPaul]

Chuck:

The quote below I cut and pasted from some reporter whose article was linked onto the GeoffShack site: I haven't been following this thing very closely and so I don't know when it was first mentioned but as you can see, here is the mention of that interesting committee I was telling you about the other day on the phone. They are option 3 below. Frankly, I would just love to see the actual wording from that lawsuit settlement that set up that committee and perhaps even legally created what is referred to as their "protocol."

What I am wondering is how broad or narrow that so-called "protocol" is of that committee. If it is narrow it may just give that committee purview over Ping or Ping products such as grooves as far as something like a special or local rule pertaining to "Coniditions of Competition" only banning them but if it is really broad it may reach past the PGA Tour and all the way to the USGA and who really does have the authority to both write and enforce certain special or local rules that pertain to "conditions of competition" and perhaps even I&B conformance in a more general sense. This could get really interesting. Lastly, I wonder who it was who told the reporter (Johnson) of some of the particulars of what that committee can do. Whoever it was must have pretty carefully read that lawsuit settlement language that set up that committee.



"As to where the tour goes from here, Finchem said there were three options. First, maintain the status quo, something he deemed, "not a credible option" long-term. Second, Solheim could intervene by agreeing to rewrite the clause in the settlement with the USGA and PGA Tour regarding the grandfathering of Ping Eye 2 grooves. "Obviously if he were to take that step, it would be a terrific gesture on his part to deal with an issue that is troublesome," said Finchem.

The third option is more complex. As part of the settlement, a special equipment committee was established in 1994, consisting of five members independent from the PGA Tour or equipment manufacturers. The board currently is headed by Gordon F. Brunner, the retired chief technology officer of Proctor & Gamble, and includes Samuel Skinner, a former White House Chief of Staff under President George H.W. Bush, Donald B. Rice, former secretary of the U.S. Air Force and Douglas McCorkindale, retired chairman of Gannett. A fifth opening is currently unoccupied.

The purpose of the committee is to consider whether a special rule relating to balls or equipment is necessary for PGA Tour competitions. The committee would not recommend such a rule unless, based on the results of its investigation, specific criteria are satisfied. Among the requirements: the committee concludes the equipment under consideration "significantly affects the nature of the game" at the PGA Tour level; the current USGA Rules of Golf are not adequate to address their concerns; the legitimate interests of tour players, manufacturers and others have been considered; the recommendation is considered to be the most reasonable means of addressing the problem; and a majority of the committee is in favor of the recommendation."

[Chuck Brown]

Yes, Tom; I think the issues are pretty well summarized there.  And yes, my general feeling is this -- it might be a relatively easy thing to just with the use of grandfathered Eye 2's on Tour.  (Letting stand the grandfathering of them in recreational play.)  And yes, it becomes a MUCH bigger issue if it morphs into a larger question of whether there is going to be some serious, larger breakdown of the old agreement (tacit or explicit) that the PGA Tour would simply and categorically abide by whatever the USGA determined in terms of equipment.

I feel certain, as I gather you do too, that that is what is being discussed, very seriously if not urgently, right now.

[TEPaul]

"Until people understand that the USGA absolutely DOES have to have the power to regulate equipment in the spirit of the game, this probably won't get much better."


Chuck:

When you suggest that until people understand that the USGA absolutely DOES have to have the power to regulate equipment in the spirit of the game, what kind of specific power are you thinking of that would be any different from the power they have always heretofore had in this particular area? Of course the only power they have heretofore had in that area is the fact that just about everyone, including all golfers and manufacturers have been ultimately willing to follow what they say in this area. Their power has always been that everyone has VOLUNTARILY chosen to follow them and not ignore how they interpret I&B conformance.

Like you, I'm very concerned about their ability to stay relevent in this. If some of the major manufacturers decide to voluntarily not conform to what the USGA says in this area and enough people buy and use that non-conforming equipment, essentially the USGA will become irrelevent in this area.

I can't really imagine what could increase their power beyond just comprehensive voluntary agreement of everyone to follow their lead, as it has always been. What else do you have in mind to increase their power to require conformance compliance?

[TEPaul]

"And yes, it becomes a MUCH bigger issue if it morphs into a larger question of whether there is going to be some serious, larger breakdown of the old agreement (tacit or explicit) that the PGA Tour would simply and categorically abide by whatever the USGA determined in terms of equipment.

I feel certain, as I gather you do too, that that is what is being discussed, very seriously if not urgently, right now."


Chuck:

So are you saying you think they are all discussing this in a much broader and bigger context, beyond just this Ping Eye 2 thing?

By the way, did I happen to tell you both how and why I became so familiar with that interesting committee quite a few years ago?

[Chuck Brown]

"Until people understand that the USGA absolutely DOES have to have the power to regulate equipment in the spirit of the game, this probably won't get much better."


Chuck:

When you suggest that until people understand that the USGA absolutely DOES have to have the power to regulate equipment in the spirit of the game, what kind of specific power are you thinking of that would be any different from the power they have always heretofore had in this particular area? Of course the only power they have heretofore had in that area is the fact that just about everyone, including all golfers and manufacturers have been ultimately willing to follow what they say in this area. Their power has always been that everyone has VOLUNTARILY chosen to follow them and not ignore how they interpret I&B conformance.

Like you, I'm very concerned about their ability to stay relevent in this. If some of the major manufacturers decide to voluntarily not conform to what the USGA says in this area and enough people buy and use that non-conforming equipment, essentially the USGA will become irrelevent in this area.

I can't really imagine what could increase their power beyond just comprehensive voluntary agreement of everyone to follow their lead, as it has always been. What else do you have in mind to increase their power to require conformance compliance?

Tom, what you say here, and again below, is important and, to me, most agreeable -- I think we can agree that the USGA must have "the consent of the governed," but the USGA must also stand firm on basic assertions of its authority/

Litigation "losses" for the ruling bodies in golf have been well-publicized; the Ping Eye 2 settlements, which weren't losses but which were portrayed that way, and the Casey Martin litigation.  Casey Martin won his decision at the U.S. Supreme Court 7-2.  Weighing heavily in that decision were political considerations about disability rights, about federal statute construction, etc.  The Tour had an uphill battle.  And in the Eye 2 litigation, they had some bad facts.

I'd very much like to think, that if the USGA laid out a very carefully-crafted ball rollback, that the USGA could make it stick, even if Acushnet sued the USGA for eleventy gazillion dollars.  I think Scalia and Thomas (the 2 in Casey Martin) would bring Kennedy, Roberts ("balls and strikes") and Alito with them.  I'm not to sure that they might not also get Breyer.  And we might have two all-new Justices, or more, by the time we get there...

Re: the Ping-Agreement Committee.  I recall your telling me that you knew one of the members of the committee.  I'll let you volunteer the rest.