No Local Rule!**
Tim Finchem cancelled his Tuesday press conference in favor of briefing the PGA Tour players in a "highly encouraged" 4 p.m. meeting before Wednesday's scribe gathering at Riviera. The question before the tour: would he invoke a local rule banning PING non-conforming/conforming wedges or backpedal out of the tour's initial position.
Apparently it was the latter--no local rule--with caveats that will be fleshed out Wednesday.
;)
Players settling in for fun with the Commish (click to enlarge)After about an hour in Riviera's main ballroom, frustrated players started filing out of the closed-door meeting.
"Bull#$%%" said one veteran with a propensity for wearing really awful shirts.
"Get ready for a lawsuit," said another who plays PINGs.
"That's enough," another said.
A few moments later the meeting was adjourned and players filed out to be met by the 10 or so reporters and Golf Channel crew awaiting word.
;)
Scott McCarron goes on Golf Channel to issue an apology as golf's finest journalists standby (click to enlarge)Scott McCarron and Phil Mickelson talked for a solid ten minutes after the meeting, with Lefty clad in shirt and tie. Eventually the two finished the air-clearing and Mickelson was escorted out by two security guards. Finchem eventually left, refusing to answer media questions but did have SVP Rick George in tow holding Finchem's suit bag before the two hopped in a Town Car en route to a dinner with George W. Bush, Mickelson and reportedly, McCarron, among others.
McCarron, meanwhile, stayed around to do a Golf Channel on-air apology to Phil.
"I'd like to apologize to Phil Mickelson for the comments I made," he said from the club balcony with 10 scribblers looking on.
The most informative player after the odd post-meeting scene was Stewart Cink, who said the USGA/PING/PGA Tour agreements involve many layers and will require a committee to study the issue and negotiations with PING's John Solheim. But Cink was clear that there would be no local rule invoked, that "nothing changes" right now and that the Commissioner will support players using the otherwise-non-conforming wedges for now.
McCarron did predict that a resolution in the next 90-100 days is the goal. What that means, we'll find out Wednesday when Finchem meets with the media.
Geoff
**Reports from today's bizarre little circus. All were fun to read since each writer captured the scene and outcome in their own unique way.
Steve Elling writes:
McCarron and Cink said Finchem admitted the tour was caught with its pants down on the issue. Tour brass knew for more than a year that the Pings would be permitted for play even after the new rule went into effect Jan. 1, but never anticipated the firestorm the clubs would cause.
"I don't think they believed many players would use a 20-year-old club," McCarron said.
E. Michael Johnson fleshes out some tech details (as you'd expect) and notes this:
"It appears the vast majority of players want to play with 2010 grooves," said Stewart Cink. "The meeting was really about the course of action we can take and why can't the commissioner just say no more Ping Eye 2 1990 wedges. There are rules against that because of this lawsuit. It doesn't just say we have to allow Ping Eye 2 clubs. It's very complicated and has a lot of aspects to it and that's what we have to go through.
"The process already exists because of the ruling in the 1990s. It won't be instantaneous. It's laid out in the documents. It's something where we have to get a committee involved. The committee is already in place and has been since 1994. It appears that may be the way it goes. Ping could also step up tomorrow and we could see an agreement between Ping and the [game of] golf. We don't know right now. One thing for sure is that there is a course of action that we can take that is in the documents."
Jeff Rude writes:
He did the right thing by apologizing. Last week he created a firestorm by saying the several players who have used the Ping Eye2 were “cheating” even though the old model is on the USGA approved list because of lawsuit settlement.
He’s also right in saying he thinks the Tour should have resolved the Eye2 issue before the season began.
And I’ll give him five stars for this comment: “With all that’s going in the world, I can’t believe we’re talking about grooves and a golf club.”
Mark Lamport-Stokes writes:
"There are many guys out here on Tour who are under contract and who can't play those (Ping wedges), they don't have an option to play them."
McCarron, a veteran of 16 years on the PGA Tour and a member of the circuit's player advisory council, expected the rule to be changed "within 90 to 120 days".
Tuesday, February 2, 2010 at 05:42 PM 16 Comments | in 2010 Northern Trust Open, 2010 PGA Tour, Grooves, PGA Tour
Reader Comments (16)
1) Phil and Scott talk, with guards? What is there going to be a fist fight? Or will Scott brandish a weapon?
2) Phil and 41 played LACC, thought LACC had no celebs ?
3) Whats a matter Scotty, I thought you were not going to be silenced?
4) McCarron makes predictions on when this will be resolved? Barf
There will be a lawsuits flying soon, tour can't ban the EYE2 and comply with prior agreement. What a bunch of little baby b*tches, all the whining going on, its a great message to send to the 10%++ who are out of work.
Jim, as I understand it the film related celeb's are the ones that are blackballed.
I still see Ping as the villain in all of this. They are NOT acting in the best interests of the game. Not now, and not in 1990.
Layers, but it could have been both!
[Note to Geoff -- we gotta get a copy of that thing. I have wanted to see it for years. There'd be nothing embarassing or salacious in it, I expect. But Joint Release and Settlement Agreements like that are almost never filed in the Court file. The court file will only have a brief dismissal order in it.]
Anyway, this is where it all could have been expected to go. Right back to Ping. Let Ping preside over this odd incongruity, and in the meantime, see how many players really use the old Pings. I still don't see it; I don't see that many players doing it. We've got a BIG controversy over a very small number of players dabbling with the Eye 2's. Will Mickelson continue to use a PIng? Will Harrington use one at all? Both of them had used Pings as young players. This is the thing. I think that the USGA and the Tour were aware of this possibility, but never thought that many players would have any interest in the old Eye 2's. They'd probably be quite happy to be proven right over the course of 90 days or so, with a small and diminishing number of players actually using the Pings. But I sure don't know that will happen. The Tour apparently doesn't really know, either.
Someone should play a full set of Ping Eye 2s and 2010 wedges. Really mess with 'em. :-)
I have a Ping Eye 2 (not the + kind either). It's a 2-iron. How much could I get on eBay for that? I think it has 16 degrees of loft. ;-)
PING is in the business of pursuing their interests - as PING percieves them. Years ago, PING felt threatened by new rules and went to court and WON. The USGA and Tour LOST.
PING is a private company and John Solheim and family are the only ones qualified to decide the best course for PING.
The villain in this case is Scott McCarron who calculatedly used the incendiary term "cheating". What an idiot. There is no way Phil could let that pass.
And you guys think PING is the villain because they won't swallow and give Timmy an easy way out. Uh huh. Dean put the Tour in their box and I bet PING LOVES the attention.
PINGPINGPINGPINGPINGPING How much would PING have to pay for the advertising?
Ping didn't "win" its lawsuit versus the USGA. They settled that lawsuit. What terminated the lawsuit was a Settlement Agreement, which remains in force and effect today, but which is not a public document. And, Ping (with Bob Gilder, Ken Green and some other pros as plaintiffs) sued the PGA Tour, Inc, when the Tour took the position that it could regulate equipment played on Tour, apart from any USGA ruling. And again, the parties settled. Ping didn't "win." Nothing was adjudicated. There was no judgment (as distinguished from pre-trial rulings in the District Court and the (th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.)
I don't want to "ciminalize" Ping. I don't care what happens with the USGA's general grandfathering of the Ping Eye 2. I don't like what Ping did in its lawsuit with the USGA 25 years ago, and I have always regretted the fact that the USGA settled and allowed Ping's lawsuit to impact what is legal equipment in golf. But the Ping Settlement Agreement with PGA Tour, inc., is separate and apart from the USGA grandfathering, and there could easily be a reworking of the Tour's Settlement Agreement that does not impact recreational players' use of Ping Eye 2's. So there is no reason to worry about the Joe Average 18 handicap player who owns a prized set of 25 year-old Ping Eye 2's.
If this new groove rule seems complicated to average golfers and non-golfers, I'd say this; First, tell every golfer you know that they do not need to worry. Their old equipment remains legal for recreational play, through 2024 and maybe forever, and any new equipment that they buy from mainstream equipment companies will be legal for all play. Yes, there may be details of this rule that will seem complicated. A ball rollback would be so much easier to implement. The USGA, the Tour, Golf Channel, Tour Players -- they could all do much more to explain this for the public's benefit.
Now, Jim; back to you. Last time we tangled in Geoff's comments pages, you challenged me on my assertion that Ping has no current commercial interest in defending the grandfathered Ping Eye 2 clubs anymore, because they aren't sold at retail. You said that's wrong. I said check it out with Ping. YOu said you didn't need to check it out with Ping. So I did for you. And here's the story. It IS possible to special-order a new set of Ping Eye 2's, for approximately $154/club, through your Ping retailer. That's about a $1500 set of irons. Ping's charges might be understandable, since indeed the Eye 2 is not a regular retail item; it is essentially a custom item. And, moreover, it is not the Eye 2 that is the subject of current debating. It is configured with post-1991 conforming grooves. So any Ping action, now, to legally 'protect' the grandfathered Eye 2 does NOT truly protect any current retail product. Just as I had said. (You were technically correct, I admit, in stating that retail buyers could obtain clubs called the Eye 2 or the Eye 2+. Trouble is, with respect to the one feature that makes the grandfathered Eye 2's unique and distinct -- the non-conforming grooves -- that feature has been eliminated for current retail purchase. Sort of like saying you can buy a bottle of 1961 Lafitte-Rothschild at auction, but it is filled with Gallo.)
so, to my mind, this makes the tour's current floundering even worse. the tour's apologists are asking ping to give up something they bargained for, something which presumably has value to ping, "for the good of the game" as defined by the fine folks who brought us the fed ex cup. what do you think these same guys would be saying if ping put on a pr campaign and threatened suit to get out of their obligations to the tour under the settlement agreement?
this is all a tempest in a teapot. i don't think we're going to see any appreciable advantage in terms of tournaments won accruing to those players who choose to play the eye 2 wedges (for those scoring at home, remember neither mickelson nor any of the other "cheaters" won last week using the clubs). eventually the existing supply of old clubs will run out and the whole thing will go away.
Ping sells 10%-20% of new clubs in the world. They sponsor many tour pros and give equipment and support to thousands of young amateurs and dozens of college golf programs. They invented and sponsor the Solheim Cup. They are an extremely important player in the golf ecosystem.
They have been portrayed by some as an insolant non entity who should leave the big think stuff about the direction of the game to the pros in Far Hills and PVB. What a joke. More people play Ping clubs than watch the pga tour on tv.
Obviously Ping is a major major player in the world of golf and frankly has a bigger stake in growing the game than the blue coats or the tour. Ping sells stuff to actual golfers. There is a direct benefit for them to grow the game.
The tour sells tv advertising. That's it. It has no impact on the number of people going to Dicks to buy clubs. Don't believe me? Ratings rose from 1998-2008 and the number of golfers fell.
As for the USGA, well, if someone explains what they have done to grow the game, let me know. Oh wait, ther's that cute commerical where the kid makes a hole in one. I take it back, they DO grow the game.