No Local Rule!**
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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.
**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".
