Spitzer Named To Replace USGA's Rugge

Mike Stachura with the Inside Baseball news of John Spitzer's promotion to the job as USGA technical director Managing Director of Equipment Standards. Meaning he'll be the one making the technical case for a rollback if it happens. Lucky guy!

His boss endorses him:

"He's a very solid engineer, and I've relied on his technical skills throughout my time here," Rugge said. "He is a familiar figure to manufacturers and that will be helpful in our relations with them."

Rugge said Spitzer has been an integral part of the "high performing team" that has fundamentally improved the efficiency of the test center in evaluating products for conformance. He pointed specifically to a timer on his his computer that reflects the current "time to decision." "When I started here, that number was 60 days," Rugge said. "Now, it's 17. You can expect that under John this department will continue on a trajectory of making continuous improvement."

Comments

[Wendy]

John Spitzer is a class act! I'm very happy for him! He will do a great job in this position. He has a fantastic ability to make difficult to understand ideas understandable even for the likes of me.

[David Hayes]

Well said, Wendy. The Technical Dept. will be in great hands with John at the helm.

[J]

Great choice -- John is a class act and extremely intelligent. An easy choice.

[Mr. Goat]

Sounds like a fall guy for when they roll back the ball.
He has been responsible for ball testing for a long time.

[pete blaisdell]

I spent a few days at Golf House last March and was accorded the great opportunity of John giving me a personal tour of the Tech center. It was the highlight of my visit and John could not have been more gracious in taking me through the various areas of the technical aspects of club and ball testing . I'm not totally ignorant of the tech side of golf but John made me aware of so much information on not just the purpose and the why but how this is done. Some of the machines and calibration and testing units are one of a kind and fulfill a single important purpose. I felt like a schoolboy at times in the first day of calculus class but John was great in the manner that he explained the science in lay terms that I could understand.
Great personality and most affable, I appaud the USGA in elevating John to the top spot at a most precarious time in equipment standards.I have no doubt that he will be successful in his new position and the game will be better for it.
I wish him all the best!!

[comput]

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