Laser Link
Thursday, August 26, 2004 at 10:44 AM SI’s Gary Van Sickle plugs the Laser Link range finder
and implies they should be legal for tournament play: “ if golf's
governing body can get its head out of its blue blazer. It is one nifty
and dare I say, fun, gadget.”
Van Sickle likes it for a good reason: improving pace of play. He quotes Rob O’Loughlin, who runs the company pushing the $239 gadget. O’Loughlin trashes the USGA for not making the Laser Link legal for tournament play.
Can you blame them?
Sadly, the USGA has caved on so many other issues, the marketing and “progress” stampede will probably get the best of them here too.
*** Update: A quick poke around the Laserlinkgolf.com site reveals a Golfweek story from June where the USGA is very much in favor of legalizing the Laser Link and it's the R&A that is against it. As usual, there are some fascinating quotes from the USGA's David Fay, Fred Ridley and Reed MacKenzie and a funny line from Peter Dawson. The home page also features photos of Jack Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer posing with Laser Links...not their finest hour.
***Update2: At the end of his column on 10 things you should know about the world’s # 1 golfer, Vijay Singh, SI’s Gary Van Sickle goes where few golf writers go, admitting that he wasn’t entirely correct in his original piece. Kudos to Van Sickle for the correction.