Follow up includes yours truly nominating Rustic Canyon. Shocking, I know.
The highly anticipated second volume comes to America for more design analysis and stunning photography.
SI Golf Plus calls this the #1 golf book of 2008.
New and updated, including contributions from Ran Morrissett and Daniel Wexler.
A summer in Dornoch.
Beautiful images of the classic Irish links.
Golf golfing temperament falls somewhere between taking it with a grin or shrug and throwing a fit. SAM SNEAD
E. Michael Johnson tells us about the latest groove rule change debacle, this time on the Duramed Futures Tour where 18-year-old Sarah Brown was DQ'd for having an illegal wedge that it turns out wasn't non-conforming. Thanks to reader Troglodyte for raising my blood pressure and finding this.
So much great stuff in John Huggan's profile of Tom Weiskopf, and I'm quite sure where to begin (though it's worth reading for all of the stuff beyond distance rants):
"The problem stems from the fact that the USGA lost a lawsuit with Ping over the grooves on clubs all those years ago. Now the authorities are scared to get involved in another. But they are smart people. I don't see why they can't come up with a 'tournament specification' for the ball. That wouldn't mean that the amateur couldn't play or buy that ball. It would be just like it was over here when you guys had to change from the small ball to the big ball. Or they could roll the ball back over a period of time until they reach a predetermined point.
"The saddest thing is that the ball has taken so many wonderful courses out of play for the professionals. Look at what is being done here at the Old Course, with all these tees that are not even on the premises. I don't know what the solution is, but I can't believe the R&A and USGA can't get together with the manufacturers and come up with something that is for the betterment and protection of the game and those who play it at the highest level. Maybe they should have stopped the ball as soon as it became clear that they were going to have to mess with the Old Course.
Sunday, July 18, 2010 at 02:15 AM 9 Comments | in 2010 Open Championship, R&A, State of the Game, Technology, USGA That's Gary Player, outraged by the R&A moving the 17th hole back, talking to an audience this week and on video for those who can see BBC videos (not you, America).
Thursday, July 15, 2010 at 11:22 AM 15 Comments | in 2010 Open Championship, State of the Game, Technology ;)
The R&A clubhouse two nights before another Open Championship.The Association of Golf Writers Annual Dinner assembled off the first fairway at St. Andrews for a traditional stained-tie gathering of suits and those who only wear them once-a-year. The celebration kicked off with drinks and mingling, followed by a delicious meal, a few awards presentations and two speeches from former Golf Magazine editor George Peper and the Duke of York, Prince Andrew.
Lee Westwood picked up his award for most excellent golf by a European in 2009 and displayed wit, charm and a quick sense of humor in addressing the audience, highlighted by his congratulations of good fortune to Tim Finchem on Steve Stricker's win at the John Deere last Sunday: "Lovely to see an American win on your tour."
Monty then accepted on Seve's behalf the Michael Williams Trophy for outstanding services to golf and delivered a nice tribute to the former Open Champion, who could not accept the award due to his health problems.
Emcee and current Chairwoman Lewine Mair introduced the American transplant to St. Andrews, George Peper, who spoke lovingly about his attachment to St. Andrews 21 years after buying a pad on the 18th fairway. Peper talked about the difference between the spectacle of the game and the spirit, and warned the audience not to confuse the two with a little Frank Hannigan tribute. He said it was Hannigan, when talking about pro golf, who stated it was nice, but not necessary.
This little challenge to an audience generally inebriated by the self-assurance of administering and writing about the sport surely got turned some heads. Peper then moved in with a killer portrait of a God forbid moment of the sea overtaking St. Andrews and that very building full of suits. He noted that the next day golfers around the world would set aside a few seconds of silence before going on with their regular game. The message: the game is bigger than whatever the assembled might believe is the sports center, even St. Andrews.
After a few stellar St. Andrews stories complete with excellent impersonations, Peper left the crowd fulfilled. Little did anyone know that the Duke of York would be offering the official "response," as the program described. And what a response it was, a marathon release of hot air that I was sure would lift the temporary tent and cart us all into the sea, almost as Peper had forecast!
Prince Andrew, errr...HRH, opened breezily enough by suggesting that he had "no idea why I'm here." The first few chapters of his speech, which was reportedly long enough to have been printed by special royal printers and flown in by his chums in the Royal Navy, first touched on the UK version of the First Tee, called On Course. It was all of the usual stuff about reaching out to the underprivileged youth, with a few twists. And then the former R&A Captain announced he would be touching on the subject of technology.
As the forlorn looks turned to sheer horror at the prospect of their least favorite subject coming up, the Prince dug in for a strong defense of the game.
"I would suggest the technology debate is nothing new," said HRH.
He acknowledged the pushing "of boundaries of innovation" and proceeded to make his case that technology debates were as old as the game itself, from the days of the featherie (which was still in use at the start of his speech) to the "days of urethane." The Prince then noted the constant change in some courses and the calls for a tournament ball, which he shot down because the evolution of technology has made the game easier and more fun for the masses. Golf, the fourth in line to the throne reported, "is a story of evolution and innovation and will continue to do so."
But, the former husband of Fergie said, "golf is not one-dimensional" and remains a game played "through the ears even for top professionals," and he said, it's simply a matter of finding a balance. He noted this balance may have been found since over the past decade there has been as much legislation from the governing bodies as the previous 150 years. He also noted that since 2002 there has been little or no distance expansion of note on the professional level.
In fact, Andrew contended, the new groove rule was doing a wonderful job returning a premium on accuracy, restoring the elements of risk and reward and most of all, that the R&A and USGA were fulfilling the difficult task of upholding the integrity of the game. This appeared to be the place in which he expected applause to break out, but the audience, not plied with enough libations to be that delusional, merely maintained their horrified expressions as the new honorary chair of the Drones Club seemed to be digging in for more. Or perhaps they recognized the irony of the Prince pointing out a suddenly regulatory surge just moments after suggesting that technology unregulated has taken the game to new heights.;)
The slimmed down Road hole (Click to enlarge)"I believe golf is fundamentally not broken," the Rear Admiral in the Royal Navy announced. "Like any tightrope walker, we need to balance a fine line." He was not referring to the tightrope walking necessary to navigate the 20 yard stretch of the 17th fairway that required single-file passage because the R&A is fearful of a long drive setting up a wedge approach shot.
As any speaker must do, the Prince then evoked the children, noting the need to cut out this business of building new courses longer as well as the need to speed the game up so that we can hand a better sport off to the next generation.
So just to clarify for those of you trying to keep score at home: don't regulate distance that might keep the courses shorter, faster and less expensive to play, but pick it up lads!
It was at this point I think I heard the first few snickers interspersed with the f-bombs and other snorts coming from Table 9. My own excluded.
The Prince, for the record, does not believe the pro game is to blame for slow play and that we all just need to be ready to play. Granted, this discounts that there might be three groups on a hole, all because too many folks are waiting for the formerly unreachable par-5 green to clear. But let's not get into details like that!
Furthermore, these every day courses do not need to all be championship length and "set up for the Sunday medal like the final round of the United States Open." Good advice from the man!
At this point the audience was no longer able to hide its pain or desire to catch a few z's as Andrew belched on about the joy of golf in the 2016 Olympics and the great hope he has of a special week at St. Andrews. And special is defined by? Why a win by a player from Great Britain or Ireland. It was so Chariots of Fire of him, and particularly respectful to the tour professionals present not of that pure GB&I stock.
Mercifully, the words "in conclusion" were uttered and the crowd managed to stave off a collective cheer. But 26 minutes in the Prince had managed to generate plenty of post-dinner conversation. For all of the wrong reasons. Cheerio!
Geoff
Tuesday, July 13, 2010 at 05:03 PM 18 Comments | in 2010 Open Championship, State of the Game, Technology In Doug Ferguson's account of Tiger's switch to a slightly harder cover in preparation for the Open Championship, it is suggested that his improved driving distance is a combination of ball and improved mechanics.
"The more I keep playing, the better I get," Woods said Saturday after recovering from an atrocious start to shoot even-par 70, making up little ground in the AT&T National. "It has a little bit to do with the ball."
Woods still uses a One Tour, this ball marked with a star symbol between the two words. He started using it this week at Aronimink, most likely as part of his preparations for the British Open in two weeks at St. Andrews, where the wind is often a major factor.
The world's No. 1 player often has talked about how he uses one of the softest golf balls on tour, which gives him greater control around the greens. This version would be helpful in windy conditions because it spins less.
This is the real eye-opener:
Once among the longest hitters in golf, Woods was 21st in driving distance last year. Going into the AT&T National, he was ranked 78th based on two measured drives per round. Through two rounds on a fast, firm Aronimink course, Woods was leading the tournament in driving distance at just over 328 yards.
His additional length was most evident during the second round, when he was playing with Dustin Johnson. On consecutive holes, Woods hit one drive 26 yards past Johnson, and another 10 yards past him. Both led to birdies.
So, we've heard all of these years that the ball is not the real reason for distance gains over the last decade. And we've been told that rolling back the Overall Distance Standard via new ball rules would be complicated and in general, not feasible. Yet here we have Tiger switching balls (and perhaps improving his swing), but we are seeing a serious difference in his driving distance with a simple switch.
Why can't we contemplate a future with a ball that has the characteristics of the pellet Tiger's been using? A little spinnier, but sharing many of the components that make the modern ball last longer?
There's a new Golf Magazine Q&A with the USGA's Dick Rugge who confirms that a rollback isn't on the radar but offers this in response to a question about future rollback scenarios:
Rugge: If it were determined that the game could be improved by implementing an equipment rollback. For example, if driving distance once again began to increase significantly, there may be a need to consider changes to the rules governing clubs or balls. It’s purely hypothetical, but there could also come a time when environmental issues place such significant burdens on building or maintaining golf courses that reducing distance could become a necessity.
Haven't we reached that point?
Ron Kroichick interviews Robert Trent Jones Jr. and the distance chase comes up.
Q: People talk a lot about the technological advances in the game and the lengthening of courses. Should there be more restrictions on the ball or clubs when courses are forced to constantly lengthen themselves?
A: If the course is designed with a serious championship in mind, length is a definite part of our era for the reasons you talked about - the technology, the aerodynamic dimples on the ball, the athleticism, the big-headed drivers, all that. So what we've been doing since about 1992 is making courses longer and longer for championships. That's the easy answer and it's not one I like - because as I said, there are four or five major elements of defense and we're focused on one.
So there are other things people do, like what Augusta did - very strongly contoured greens. The pros hate that. They assume they can make every 20-footer, and if they miss, it's usually the architect's fault. Deepening bunkers is another thing, or smaller targets as at Pebble and the Olympic Club. ... Everyone is saying, "Bring the ball back," but I don't think you can. The genie is out of the bottle. It's expensive to change everything, and the ball manufacturers would not be happy.
Now, didn't he just describe several things you can do to a course to offset the distance explosion, all of which cost a lot of money. Yet to roll back the ball would be expensive and would make ball manufacturers unhappy.
First, it would not be expensive to modify courses to accommodate a shorter flying ball. In 99% of the cases, you simply pick up tee markers and move them forward.
Second, does the game exist to service the disposition of golf ball manufacturers? After all, they've gotten their way and they aren't happy now because play is down.
Jason Day wins at 22 as Jordan Spieth contends at 16, just weeks after Rory McIlroy wins the ninth major and Ryo Ishikawa shoots 58 to win on the Asian Japanese Tour. Just as we predicted, reverting back to grooves reacting like late 80s non-PING's has really swung the advantage to the scrappy vet....err...guys who weren't born until after the Reagan Administration?
Sunday, May 23, 2010 at 08:47 PM 12 Comments | in 2010 PGA Tour, Grooves, State of the Game, Technology Thanks to reader Andrew for the new Met Golfer roundtable on rules. It seems Arnold Palmer is now getting official credit for the groove rule change.
Dick, can you take us through the process of how the 2010 condition of competition on grooves came about:
Rugge: It started with Arnold Palmer, who came here to the USGA offices in January 2001 for a meeting to talk about a lot of things regarding equipment. He sat next to me, and near the end of our meeting, he stuck his finger in my face and kind of scolded me and said, "The biggest mistake the USGA ever made was to allow square grooves in the game." That's how it started.
As reader Andrew noted, "I wonder what would have happened had Palmer said the biggest mistake they made was letting the ball go so far."
Besides a nice rant about the modern ball (I always enjoy those), John Huggan makes a couple of worthwhile points when considering the play of Europeans at this year's Masters.
In defense of the current band of better-than-average European players, coming up well short (so far at least) isn't all their own faults. Tiger and Phil Mickelson apart, standing out from the pack isn't easy these days. Look at both the PGA and European Tours. So far this year, only South Africans Charl Schwartzel and Ernie Els have won more than once on either. Parity is king. Of course, much of that all-too prevalent stalemate has been caused by the high level of quality control involved in the manufacture of today's clubs and balls. For one thing, bigheaded metal drivers have made mastering what should be the hardest club in the bag almost routine for virtually every professional. So separating oneself from the rest is more difficult. The deserved edge previously enjoyed by the likes of Greg Norman and Nick Price -- the best drivers of their generation -- has been diminished greatly.
And this about Augusta National's design and setup:
When those relatively unimaginative players -- their senses dulled by all of the above -- pitch up at a major championship venue like Augusta National (where short grass still prevails and many holes can be played in a variety of ways) they are suddenly faced with a test paper that is, to paraphrase the great Bobby Jones, "unfamiliar." It was no accident that last weekend's Masters leader board was almost exclusively filled by players either exceptionally thoughtful or prodigiously talented or both.
Tom Doak posts at Golf Club Atlas about the World Golf Architecture Forum in St. Andrews last weekend where the assembled archies heard from Steve Otto, head of the R&A's equipment testing...
who showed a bunch of raw data to assure us all that the average driving distance on all the tours has been unchanged since 2003. It's 287 yards on the PGA Tour and about the same on the European Tour, and 240 on the LPGA and WET tours. [Unfortunately, I didn't understand for sure whether that is the average length of every tee shot on par-4's and 5's, or whether it really is the average for every time the players hit driver.]
I was able to ask the first question after his presentation, so I asked: "Accepting that your data is correct, and there has been no gain in distance among Tour players since the last Open at St. Andrews, then why did anyone feel there needed to be a new tee 30 yards back on the Road hole?"
He responded that the change was not about lengthening the hole but about "strategy," an official position which he was at pains to explain. He was clearly uncomfortable trying to defend it, because the tee obviously isn't his doing.
However, in his subsequent remarks, he warned all the golf course architects that a shorter ball would be unpopular and might cause players to quit the game -- which is the manufacturers' p.r. line. And he casually mentioned an agreement with the manufacturers that the R & A will act on the ball only if their data shows that the driving distance is increasing from the 2002 standard of 287 yards.
I can certainly understand the notion that a rollback would scare off some, but has anyone with the governing bodies ever explained the decline in participation while driving distances were increasing?
E. Michael Johnson raises all sorts of interesting questions in considering whether manufacturers should offer non-conforming lines of equipment.
"We've looked extensively at possibilities in the nonconforming category," said Nate Radcliffe, metalwoods development manager for Cleveland Golf. "We'd be foolish not to consider it, although it is extremely controversial."
It's a category?
Now, 10 years later, might Callaway revisit nonconforming clubs? "Some think we may be likely to go down that path," said Dr. Alan Hocknell, Callaway's senior VP of research & development, "but one thing we hold highly at this company is authenticity. Playing by the rules is perhaps the most authentic part of golf. I'd say we're more likely to stay inside the rules than go outside them."
Which isn't to say Callaway hasn't looked at the landscape. Hocknell said the company has done consumer research and found golfers split on the topic. Then there's the business aspect. Any company entering the nonconforming arena is likely to be branded by its competition as making clubs for cheaters. "To have our brand positioned that way would be a huge risk," said Hocknell.
Two questions. Do you think this is a good idea for the game and would it be wise for manufacturers to go down this path?
It doesn't bother me much since the game is bifurcated with the groove rule change and if nothing else, just think, we wouldn't have to listen to the manufacturers whine about the big, bad USGA impacting quarterly profit margins!
Monday, March 1, 2010 at 08:40 AM 24 Comments | in Grooves, R&A, State of the Game, Technology, USGA Jim Achenbach files notes from the USGA annual meeting and this was discouraging (but not surprising) from the USGA's Dick Rugge:
Some golfers maintain that new groove rules are a poor substitute for golf-ball legislation. The real problem, they say, is a modern golf ball that goes too far.
Not so, Rugge said, with conviction. His conclusion is that driving distance has stabilized.
Okay I'm just going to interrupt with a small question. Uh, the word stabilized? Here's one definition:
2 : to hold steady: as a : to maintain the stability of (as an airplane) by means of a stabilizer b : to limit fluctuations of (as prices) c : to establish a minimum price for
To limit fluctuations. Now, in the ball's case, wasn't there a big fluctuation? So, might we do something to offset the earlier fluctuation that made a total mess of things?
Looking at major professional tours around the world, he cited statistics that show that average driving distance has gone up only about 1 foot in the past six years.
On the PGA Tour, for example, the average driving distance was 286.3 yards in 2003 and 287.9 yards in 2009. Driving distance on the Japan Tour actually went down by a half-yard in the same period. The LPGA tour was up seven-tenths of a yard.
I guess that's a no to my question.
Also guess this means year-seven of the ball study isn't going to end with a conclusion to the one-and-only ball study?
Meanwhile, in the buried lede department, the fruitless look into banning wedges of certain lofts is dying a premature death, Achenbach reports.
After a week of listening to depressingly out-of-touch tour players and manufacturer reps whine about the big, bad USGA stripping away the opportunity for the companies to innovate and therefore line player pockets to endorse the latest stuff, it was heart-warming to read the following two columns. While both are wondering why the grooves were selected for regulation, both make it clear that had areas of greater priority been selected the manufacturers probably could have carried on innovating with clubs. But instead, the desire to protect the ball led to the groove rule change that they hate.
Larry Bohannan writes in the Desert Sun:
Clearly someone has to have some control and exercise some limits on golf equipment. Otherwise we could be on the golf course with laser-guided shoulder-mounted rocket launchers that belch fire as they stick golf balls near pins 400 yards away. And manufacturers are hardly the best judge of what should be the limits of technology, since they are mostly interested in making an extra buck and helping the price of their stock. So the USGA probably is the best organization to help keep golf from total equipment chaos.
But more than a few critics are wondering why the USGA decided grooves should be where it draws the line in the sand rather than some other controversial advances of the last few decades.
John Huggan is more direct. Changing the ball would have allowed everything else to be left alone.
For this whole affair – all of it – has little or nothing to do with whether or not "square" grooves impart more spin on the ball from rough than do "V" grooves. That folks, is but a peripheral issue, one that, for 99.9999999 per cent of the golfing population, is all but irrelevant 99.9999999 per cent of the time.
Oh no, this is ultimately about the ball, the little white sphere Woods and his mates routinely launch unprecedented distances; the small, 1.68" diameter globe that has rendered so many of the planet's truly great course designs obsolete for championship play; the petite pellet that has caused club committees the world over to spend unnecessary millions in whatever currency you care to mention on "improving" and lengthening those same courses.
In other words, this whole grooves thing is but a smokescreen erected by the USGA and the R&A to disguise their collective incompetence and inactivity in dealing with a ball that goes way too far when struck by a leading professional. And that, of course, is what the world of golf should currently be talking about, not the tedious subject of grooves on the faces of clubs. Were the ball to be "fixed" so that, say, 50 yards came off Mickelson et al's future drives, then nothing else need be done in the realm of equipment. Nothing else would matter. Not even a little bit.
;)
Tim Finchem (click to enlarge)Fighting off of a profusely bleeding paper cut, Tim Finchem joined us in the Northern Trust Open press center at 10:30 with a Mickelson presser set for 11, so naturally he kept that in mind with his opening remarks.
COMMISSIONER FINCHEM: Thank you, Laura. Good morning, everyone. Laura tells me we're on a hard stop here at 11:00, so I'm going to make some brief remarks and see if I can answer your questions.
18 minutes and the entire history of groove squabbles in golf later...
During these first four weeks, we have had five players we've had 218 different players play those four tournaments. Of those 218 players, five different players have actually used a Ping Eye 2 manufactured before 1990; not a huge amount of usage, but a number that was sufficient to create a fair amount of interest, particularly when one of the best players in the world in the short game area chose to use it, which he was fully entitled to do.
And that focus on the rule has led to a couple of things. One is that there was some unfortunate commentary by other players in the media in the last week or so, and let me just pause there and restate, as I issued my statement last week, these are the rules of golf. Any player is entitled under these rules to play a Ping Eye 2 wedge designed before 1990 if he so chooses. There is nothing wrong with that. There is nothing that violates the rule. There is no hidden direction to players or side direction not to play that club, so there is absolutely no basis to criticize a player for doing so. None. And to do so in our view is inappropriate.
No grey area there. Makes me wonder if McCarron faced a possible suspension?
With respect to a particular player that used a particularly unfortunate choice of words, I would say that there is perhaps a mitigating factor to the amount of reaction. There is no justification for certain language being used, but the reaction was stronger than it could have been, had we more intensely last year got in front of players with the details of this rule.
Now, what do I mean by that?
We screwed up?
Well, two years ago when we instituted our drug policy, we made sure that we were in front of every single player in dialogue on the ramifications of drug testing, on the reality that you could be suspended if you violated the drug testing rules, and the dos and don'ts of staying in compliance. Players paid attention. They came out and performed, and we haven't had drug issues on this TOUR. That's not to say we haven't had a violation; that's been reported. But we haven't had issues.
We didn't act with that level of intensity. In my view, had we, the reaction to the use of these clubs might have been lesser. But that is what it is, and I think we're about to close the chapter on that part of the history of this.
Well there you have it, an admission of error, Finchem style.
In this particular case, the most striking thing about the difference between the groove discussion in 1989 and '90, which was based on some tests and led to a lack of confidence on the part of the PGA TOUR or the USGA that you could win a lawsuit, in this case there have been years and years of very careful measurement of data, of the lack of correlation of hitting the ball in the fairway and performing well on the PGA TOUR, so it's a very strong case, and I think that's one of the reasons you didn't see a lawsuit amongst manufacturers here, because there is a strong case.
But the byproduct I know I've read some people say this is a backdoor attempt to create softer balls. I'm not aware of anybody that believes that.
Uh Tim, that's Dick Rugge, USGA for starters.
But I do think that with this rule we really could relax a little bit about the need to fool around with the ball and the driver for an extended period of time. That's my only view.
Well good to know that after five weeks you were able to draw a conclusion from the data.
Wednesday, February 3, 2010 at 03:06 PM 19 Comments | in 2010 Northern Trust Open, Grooves, Technology, Tim Finchem, USGA Ryan Ballengee reviews Golf Digest's PGA Show unveiling of a digital publication suitable for tablet devices and manages to obtain a video clip of the presentation.
Randall Mell posts an entertaining Q&A with Tom Weiskopf on a variety of topics ranging from Torrey Pines to his possible return to the booth at the Open Championship again. But he didn't hold back on the topic of the new groove rule.
I don’t know if the V-groove definition today is identical to the V grooves I played with in the 60s, 70s and 80s. But it is a copout, in my estimation. They aren’t addressing the problem. It is a way for the USGA to get around the ball issue. They lost that groove ruling (to Ping) in court. The USGA and the R&A have a responsibility to protect the skills of the game that the players possess. It’s in their rule book. Consequently, they are definitely afraid of another lawsuit. The major issue is the golf ball. It goes too far. They won’t address that because if they go to court they’ll lose it.
Do you think the USGA and R&A are living up to their responsibilities?
No, I don’t think so. What happened was their technology wasn’t as good as the manufacturers. So the manufacturers turned the definition of rules concerning equipment to the finest line they could. It got away from the USGA and R&A. The ball got away from them. I could go on and talk about this, which I have.
The ball is still the issue. It’s the No. 1 component and element of the game that’s transformed scoring since the feathery golf ball. Go through time, it’s been the golf ball. This (new grooves rule) isn’t going to wipe the mustard off their red, white and blue ties or brush the dandruff off their navy blue sport coats. They are not living up to their responsibility. They are afraid of a lawsuit.
Let’s get a tournament ball, every manufacturer can make it and let’s go on with life. Then we won’t have to build these golf courses that are 7,500 or 7,600 yards where nobody but the best who play the game can play them. They’ve eliminated so many classic golf courses from competition.
I've devoted two hours of my life today listening to late 90s style audio feeds and live blogs to soak up the Apple "iPad" announcement and without touching a device, it's still pretty easy to get excited.
The good news? For book lovers, it looks fantastic and they've already lined up relationships with book publishers. I can already envision ways that books will come to life on the device. Golf architecture books could be really neat with loads of interactive touches.
The yet-to-be-determined news? There wasn't much in the way of demos for how magazines would work, though a New York Times demo appeared nice. I'm sensing they haven't ironed out itunes relationships with magazine publishers yet. Apparently the publishers want to hang onto control so they can harvest information about subscribers while Apple wants to use the itunes store to sell either subscriptions or magazine apps. Let's hope the magazine folks don't resist iTunes the way the music business did.
The bad news? No camera, which means golf instructors won't be able to capture a swing and then analyze it on top of the pad. That's something to look forward to in iPad 2.0, and something I suspect will happen if Apple is as serious as they claim in making this a device used by doctors and hospitals.
Did any of you techies watch and have any thoughts?
It's been way too long since Peter Kostis wrote some non-sensical, credibility-crushing fluff for his friends at Titleist, but the "Golf Products Design Consultant" for the company put together quite possibly the lamest and most inevitable argument one could make about the groove rule change: you're hurting the average man who won't be affected by this rule change anytime soon!
This groove change was a knee-jerk reaction to distance gains that have mostly leveled off in the past six years, and it takes us into the dangerous territory of making the game more difficult for amateurs because we're trying to reign [sic] in Phil or Tiger. That's ridiculous. Yes, the groove change won't take effect for amateurs for 14 years,
Wait, what was that Peter? 14 years? Oh please do tell us how it impacts the everyday man since your company won't be selling that soft, spinny ball that could drive little old men from the game because they lost five yards on their drives.
but if the plan is to roll back technology so that 50- and 60-year-old players can't hit the ball well enough to enjoy the game, then we've messed up.
Whoa there big guy. How is it again that this rollback of a spinnier ball (not sold to the public) and a groove rule only impacting competitive golfers, is rolling things back for 50-to-60-year-olds and driving people to take up tennis? That was quite a leap, even for you.
The game needs growth, which won't happen by making it harder. Not so groovy, baby.
Because it's grown so much in the age of revolutionary technical advances.
