"We have no plans to add any additional golf ball rules."

Ryan Ballengee follows up with the USGA's Dick Rugge about his groovy chat with Phil Mickelson this week and shares this:

"I expect that the Tour players will deal with the reduced spin from the rough in a variety of ways – whatever works best for each individual. How their adaptation affects other parts of their games will be seen after the rule goes into effect."

Rugge is confident, though, that the players will be just fine. "These are the most adaptable athletes in the world. Their conditions of play can change from event to event, day to day, hole to hole, and shot to shot. "

And the USGA's tech czar is certain that the golf ball will not be further regulated anytime soon.

"We have no plans to add any additional golf ball rules."

Now considering we're in year six of the USGA's ball study, should we take that to mean the study is finished? Or that they went into the study with a closed mind? Or simply that they currently have not plans for the ball because the study still has a ways to go?

Comments

[Vince Spence]

Growing up in the 50's & 60's, we always figured out how to beat the public pay phones. You could insert a nickel and jam the coin return simultaneously and get a 10 cent phone call get your original nickel back. Ma Bell fixed that. You could insert a dime, get the dial tone and hold down the (O)perator button and your dime would return and the dial tone stayed. Ma Bell fixed.

Even back then, I knew I was stealing (cheating, if you will) and was trying to circumvent the system. The moral of this story is: Phil, Callaway - just shut up. You know what they mean and WE know that you know.

[Chuck]

Geoff, you might have added (as you know) that this is not merely inexplicable in terms of the "ball study"; it is also irreconcilable with the Joint Statement of Principles, which stated that any further advances in golf ball distance would be undesirable. Have there been no new advances in golf ball distance? How would Acushnet answer that question?

Dick Rugge can envelop himself in USGA-speak in response to hard questions, but really; The Joint Statement was the USGA's own pronouncement on the subject.

[Chuck]

You know, I re-read the entire story by Ballegee. There was this quote as well:

"After all, some 30 percent of clubs in play today already are compliant with the new regulation. The kicker, though, is that Rugge says that he doesn't "believe that many (if any) full sets of clubs meet the new requirements." Effectively, players may have to junk entire sets of clubs because some do not conform to the new regulation. Since entire new sets will likely be introduced because of specific non-conforming clubs, Rugge feels the impact of the regulation is still yet to be realized in a meaningful way."

Without knowing for sure, I take this to mean that even with current sets which are built to some generalized standard thought to be "compliant" (the Titleist AP-2, for example), there will be isolated clubs within a set which don't pass testing on the USGA's field scanner, or on the expenisve spec machines that the OEM's are presumably using. No one is cheating now, of course, and on one has any consumer-ready 2010 clubs to test right now...

But this is a potential nightmare if, let's say, a driving range pro from Tulsa is leading after the first round of the 2010 U.S. Open (doesn't a driving range pro from Tulsa always share the lead on Thursday night?), and it is determined, after the guy shoots a 64, that his seven-iron doesn't conform. The poor Tulsa guy was a qualifier, and hadn't been around the tour vans for 20 weeks prior to the Open in order to get all his clubs tested on a field unit.

[Ludell Hogwaller]

"These are the most adaptable athletes in the world . . ."

I think this guy broke my bs filter.

[Vince Spence]

Chuck, the USGA wants to stop expert golfers from exerting excessive spin on a ball from the rough. Nothing more, nothing less. Have you agreed with any USGA ruling in the recent past? Maybe you need to look at yourself. If you continue to cherry pick sentences from statements designed to explain the USGA's position, you will be living a very miserable existence indeed.

[Chuck]

Vince I agree with most of what the USGA does. In fact, I'd like to see the USGA stand up for more of its own authority in guiding and preserving the game.

As for the groove rules, I have all along been an agnostic. I didn't understand it; but I was willing to hear Dick Rugge out and try to understand.

My one major gripe with the USGA is that they didn't adhere to their own Joint Statement of Principles with respect to golf balls. They have an Overall Distance Standard that may be perfectly workable on its own terms; but it is a joke if anybody really thinks that golf ball overall distance is somehow technically limited in a meaningful way to 317.0 yards.

As for (driver) clubhead size, clearly the USGA's Technical Director at the time, Frank Thomas blew it when he was faced with the prospect of driver head size growing to 360 cc and beyond. He didn't think any limit was needed. He thought that drivers would never get as big as they are today. He was wrong;

My gripes with the USGA are few, but specific, and almost entirely related to the lax regulation of equipment.

If you want to posit that the USGA is purely concerned with spin from the rough, that's fine, and you might be right. Why that exercise took precedence over the length of drives in the Pro V era begs explanation, but whatever. And why the USGA could jump into the new regulations of grooves so quickly while their (unpublished) golf ball study goes on and on without explanation, also seems as odd to me as it does to Geoff.