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Date: 28 Oct 2006 09:26:05
From: david s-a
Subject: All golf blog,,,very very long!
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from http://www.geoffshackelford.com/homepage/
[quote]
It's been a while since former USGA Executive Director Frank Hannigan
sent a "letter" (his previous correspondences are here and here). But
thankfully he has broken his silence with a devastating appraisal of the
current USGA that includes his reaction to the recent ESPN.com chat
comments by Walter Driver.
Take it away, Frank...
I was fascinated, if not encouraged, by the passionate arguments on
your site after the recent blowing of smoke by USGA president Walter
Driver on the subject of distance control.
The central point was missed. Rolling back distance is not a
technical issue. It’s a political matter centering on the retention of
position without annoyance or threats.
Driver and his USGA know precisely what’s happened. The average
driving distance on the PGA Tour shot up 28 yards on average in 10
years. The USGA wishes the clock would revert to 1994 so it could at
least consider behaving correctly. But it can’t even say so because
that would be an admission it has bungled its most important duty.
Two distinct happenings accounted for the new yardage. The first
was the advent of excessive spring like effect in drivers in the mid
90s. Everybody on the tour got 10 to 15 yards longer.
Then followed modifications to the ball that enabled the best
players to pick up another 15 yards even though the new balls still
conformed to the USGA’s critical overall distance standard test.
On spring-like effect, the Rules of Golf already said that clubs
designed to produce that effect, akin to what you see with metal bats in
amateur baseball, would not be acceptable. There was no specificity
however. So the USGA Executive Committee in 1998 made a craven decision.
They correctly approved a new test to measure coefficient of
restitution (COR) but instead of setting it at the level of the best
metal drivers of the early 90s they chose to write the standard around
what was already on the market.
Had the right thing been done there would have been hell to pay
since a great number of existing drivers would have failed. A prominent
member of that executive committee later said to me, “We thought we were
betting the franchise on that vote.” He and others feared a rebellion
by the owners of the springier drivers which would not then conform to
the Rules of Golf. But if you are billing yourself as the “governing
body of golf” it follows that you will occasionally have to make
unpopular decisions. For more than a decade the USGA has caved in the
face of conflict, and by no means only on equipment.
When the longer flying balls came about the USGA was already
equipped with a superb testing mechanism, an indoor device that, quite
simply, can predict the outcome of any hit.
It was as clear as day that the changed balls were exceeding the
intent of the distance tests.
Having capitulated on the driver, the USGA consistently bowed on
the ball - announcing that no ball on its list of conforming products
would be banned. Instead, it went into its fake mode and changed the
distance standard to accommodate the new and unexpected.
By the way, it’s ridiculous that the USGA should be held to a
standard whereby its rules on equipment have to foresee every
conceivable change. The founding fathers of the nation did not
anticipate that General Electric would poison the Hudson River, but GE
is damn well going to have to pay for cleaning it up.
Two points: 1. It was the USGA’s highest priority to put an
absolute cap on added distance achieved by equipment changes while I
worked at the USGA between 1961 and 1989; 2. Nobody HAS to play the
USGA’s rules. Its position should have been to reject the springy
drivers and the longer flying balls while saying “We recognize golfers
can go right on playing the other stuff but they may NOT say they are
then doing so under the USGA Rules of Golf. Take your choice.”
Rolling back distance now can be done in any number of ways. A
simple alteration would be to say that as of January 1, 2008, the fail
point for the overall distance standard would be 305 yards instead of
320 yards. Assuming the PGA Tour accepted such a change (remember,
nobody has to do what the USGA wants) driving distance on the Tour would
drop immediately and considerably.
The people who now run the USGA are unlikely to come close to
making such a change because they want to appear in ceremonies as rulers
and get to hang out with Arnold Palmer. The time has long past when the
USGA could enlist for its executive committee citizens of consequence
willing to actually take care of golf rather than amuse themselves with
toys like a leased jet.
A new and shorter ball would surely be made. But manufacturers
might very well keep on producing today’s ball.
In the pro shops of the hallowed member owned clubs - Pine Valley,
Cypress Point, The Country Club - the USGA would be backed to the hilt
with notices that only the USGA approved balls would be tolerated on
their courses. Ah, but what about Wal-Mart? Offered the chance, how
many of the long balls might it sell, and at discounted prices to boot?
What would be the outcome on daily fee courses everywhere? Might
there be chaos with two distinctly different balls in play? I think,
and over a short time, the USGA would prevail because there is an
internal drive for uniformity in equipment among golfers. It’s akin to
the monkey grip in babies. The USGA should be more than willing to bet
the franchise but it will not.
There is a great irony in all this. The modern equipment changes
are enablers only for a tiny percentage of golfers. You have to be very
good to take advantage of added spring like effect. The average golfer
prefers to think otherwise, willing to hit his credit card for a $425
driver that does nothing for him or her. You have to be a low handicap
golfer to get the added juice--good enough to make the semi-finals in a
club championship.
But even if I’m wrong so that the average golfer is getting a few
more yards, if there was a rollback in distance the matter could be
leveled out by putting the tee markers up a few yards.
The USGA has been allowed to stand pat because what has happened is
akin to a victimless crime.
The PGA Tour, God knows, has not been harmed economically by the
distance explosion.
The Tour exists only (forget the First Tee nonsense) to enrich its
members and it has done so sensationally. The USGA, on the other hand,
exists to define golf.
Accordingly, there is no pressure on the USGA to act honestly.
I do not blame the manufacturers. They too have one purpose - make
money for their owners. Many are not tortured by brilliance. When
it comes to balls, one company, Acushnet, dominates the market. The
rest fight over slices of market share. It would be in the best
interest of every ball maker save Acushnet to jump all over a new ball,
to start the game from scratch with ads proclaiming “our new ball is
more like the old ball than X’s ball.”
The contributors to your site made much of the 2002 Statement of
Principles issued jointly by the USGA and its partner in victimless
crimes, the R&A of Scotland. They proclaimed they would not tolerate
any “significant” increase in distance. To clarify when they meant to
clamp down they used the word “now.”
The very next year, 2003, witnessed an enormous increase in driving
distance: 6.5 yards.
By any reasonable standard, that increase was “significant”. It
happened because the manufacturers were playing out the law of physics.
They’d gone as far as they could go. The USGA and R&A did nothing.
Driver has fallen back on saying that distance has been “nearly
flat the last 3 years.” He’s right, but all the horses have left the
barns.
I think stability is likely for some time. In honesty, though, I
must report that if someone had asked me in 1989, when I was managing
the affairs of the USGA, if spring-like effect was likely to have an
adverse consequence, I would have said “No chance.”
There has been no upside to the collapse of the USGA on distance.
Golf, as a recreational activity, has been flat nationally for a long
time. But in terms of being both artistic and competitive courses
like the San Francisco Golf Club, Colonial and the Chicago Golf Club,
they have become toys and museum pieces. I fear the same has happened at
Shinnecock Hills which was tortured by the USGA at the 2004 U.S. Open in
order to produce high scores.
Clubs that want to entertain big events have done what clubs from
time immemorial have done when the ball was juiced. They have lengthened
their courses significantly and sometimes comically (see the Old Course
at St. Andrews which had a tee added on another course.)
As for new courses with thoughts of grandeur, the standard has
jumped from 7,000 to 7,500 yards in a short time. That requires more
real estate and increased maintenance costs.
The USGA, charged with protecting golf, has caused it to become
more expensive.
The only way the fervent minority who care about the failure of the
USGA could grow and become effective would be to mount a direct
challenge to the USGA as it is. That means ousting the current
executive committee. A revolt.
The USGA by-laws specify that any 20 USGA clubs, out of 10,000, can
submit a slate of 15 to oppose the 15 nominated by the establishment.
(The number used to be 5 until I called attention to the by-laws a few
years ago).
The slogan for the slate should be “It’s the distance, stupid.” An
actual ballot would have to be sent to all member clubs. (Potential
insurgents take note--the deadline for submitting a rump slate is Nov. 30.)
Internally, the USGA is a mess. The Executive Committee, instead
of intensely monitoring the work of the staff and establishing policy,
is in a hands-on mico-managing mode. They like to play at golf
management and pretend that their presence is essential whereas, in
truth, all they should be doing is read what’s sent to them and attend
three meetings a year.
Would an effort to get this crowd out, however noble, succeed?
Not at first. But it would scare the hell out of those who drool at the
thought of traveling on the leased jet. Above all, it would cause there
to be a debate on the subject. The USGA has been more than effective in
keeping its malfeasance quiet.
Shareholders revolts sometime work, even in non-profit entities.
The eastern division of the US Tennis Association, its largest, has had
a splendid internal fight which has already reached the court and appeal
stages.
Even the American Civil Liberties Union is in a quarrel on the
issue of who should be on its board. If the ACLU can tolerate a touch of
democracy, why can’t the USGA?
[unquote]
cheers
david
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Date: 28 Oct 2006 08:49:43
From: annika1980
Subject: Re: All golf blog,,,very very long!
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> In the pro shops of the hallowed member owned clubs - Pine Valley,
> Cypress Point, The Country Club - the USGA would be backed to the hilt
> with notices that only the USGA approved balls would be tolerated on
> their courses. Ah, but what about Wal-Mart? Offered the chance, how
> many of the long balls might it sell, and at discounted prices to boot?
>
If they indeed came out with new rules forcing manufacturers to make a
shorter ball for tournament play, I think you'd also see the
manufacturers come out with even longer illegal balls "just for fun."
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