Faxon: PGA Tour May Urge USGA To Drop Anchoring Ban
Brad Faxon has penned an exclusive for golf.com/SI regarding a PGA Tour Policy Board conference call that Commissioner Bifurcation has convened Monday to discuss the proposed anchored putting ban. 
Faxon is predicting that the Commish is gathering a consensus to urge the USGA and R&A to withdraw the proposed rule change.
The USGA and the R&A, the world's governing golf bodies, have an open comment period about the proposed rule change that concludes at the end of this month. If you're so inclined, try to influence the debate-send an email to the USGA, R&A or PGA Tour and let them know how you feel. That's why Tim is having his Tour Policy Board meeting on Monday. I believe he's going to try to persuade the board to that the Tour should urge the USGA to withdraw the proposed ban.
Faxon also feels the USGA won't back down.
In the end, I believe the USGA will not back off the proposed ban, and that the ban will be accepted on the PGA Tour. I have to think that the USGA anticipated this level of pushback from the Tour. But it really is also possible that the USGA will back down. It's so hard to know. This is completely unchartered territory.
Sunday, February 17, 2013 at 10:53 AM
Reader Comments (32)
And if the pga tour does this & the usga/r&a cave, what does that say about their rule making power in the future? What if they wanted to roll back the balls, and the tour doesn't like it? Regulate drivers?
Please, please, please don't let them change your position.
You are making the right call for the good of the greatest game of them all.
Or what could be the escalation of a power struggle for control of the game - at last at the top level. The USGA/R&A only "rule" because entities such as the Tour and club companies let them. The USGA/R&A declared themselves the game's "ruling bodies" years ago and everybody has just follow along.
Women didn't get to vote, and often there was a chance to rectify that. When the call to change came, did some come out and say ''women haven't voted, why change it now?'' Yes they did, but women now vote, and it is a good thing. The analogy is far from perfect, but the list of change that came late in the race is long, and as I have said time and time again, the REASON the long club was not outlawed in the 1989-1991 study that was done, was to not embarass a POTUS, a move by the way, which I understand and support.
The last thing our counry needs is some 2 bit dictator saying our President cheats at golf, so how can he be trusted. Now however, the time has come.
Davis, do it, and then get a ''pro spec'' for PGA/Pro play- All the companies have them boxed and ready to ship. Let's end this million s of dollars ruining of golf courses, and if a n AM wants to lay the ''tour spec'' ball, do it. If an am wants to play a long putter, if everyone in his group is ok, then fine....
since golf cart are used on the senior circuit, then let them use the broomsticks. They play executive tees anyway.
Now, I don't much like the idea of the PGA Tour deciding that it will reject the USGA -- after all the thankless hard work that the USGA has done in regulating equipment, for the benefit of the PGA Tour among others.
But this effectively looks like the "reverse bifurcation" that I have been proposing on Geoff Shackelford's web page. My "reverse bifurcation" would be to start the anchoring ban in junior golf, now. Let it stay in place for a few years, and then step it up to all of amateur golf and the NCAA. And only then would it apply to the professional golf tours. In that way, no competitive golfer grows up relying on an anchoring method. The USGA gets years to experiment with the application and enforcement of the rule in unknown venues like the Western Junior and the AJGA. And after that, the Sunnehana and the North-South. And the Walker Cup and the NCAA Championships. We won't have any embarassing Rules kerfuffles over anchoring at the Masters, or the PGA Championship in the first year(s) the anchoring ban comes out of the box.
This is why I call it "reverese bifurcation." Bifurcation is a neutral term, but in golf we think of it as implying a harder standard for the elite players, and relaxed rules for recreational players. It would be an astonishingly perverse result, to have recreational golfers play under any harder set of rules than the Tour players.
But one other thing. No argument like this, in which Brad Faxon inserts himself, can ignore the fact that Brad Faxon has been a paid flunky of Acushnet, for years. It has made Brad Faxon rich. And Brad Faxon has long been an advocate in the ball debate. Faxon is not a neutral expert. He's a hired gun. I don't mind if anybody wants to listen to Brad Faxon. If he can make sense, more power to him. But he's essentially a paid advocate, for a client, and the client is Titleist. And Titleist has a very big axe to grind with the USGA.
Which raises an interesting question about the Masters, the U.S. Open, and the Open Championship. Indeed I suppose that the question might even to apply to the PGA Championship (which is a property of the PGA of America, and not the PGA Tour). And the question is this; if the Tour decides it will ignore a USGA anchoring ban, what will happen in the major championships, all of which are not run by the Tour? Steve Pike observed this same issue just above in his comments.
USGA and R&A at the 1972 Open, The new ball, which had been built & tested, was to be l.66" in diameter. a tilt toward the USGA in the split between l.62" of the R&A and the USGA l.68'. On the eve of what was to be the USGA final internal vote on the issue Tour commissioner Joe Dey, who personally favored the creation of the i.66" ball, notified USGA President Lyn Lardner that
the players simply would not play a 1.66" ball (even though they couldn't tell the difference in tests). The players were surely
strongly influenced by ball manufacturers. That was the end of the l.66" ball.
Back inthe mid 60s the USGA & R&A created what was called the "continuous putting" rule in an effort to expedite play, The 1966 US Open, for instance, was played under the "continuous putting" rule. The tour used it too = for a time, then dropped it. Once that happened the USGA and R&A got rid of it too,
I have not seen a copy of Tour by-laws for years, but the critical operational point was that nothing of substance could be changed on the Tour without the approval of 3 of the 4 player members of the tour policy board, no matter what the other 6 members or the commissioner wanted/
SOLD.....to the highest bidder....this ruling is for you.
You could buy this one for $9.99 and use it to order a better one online.
http://www.staples.com/Gear-Head-107-Key-Windows-USB-Keyboard/product_943697
Looking forward to March Madness and Florida swing.
Its a done deal! The Rule is going into effect 2016 and I'm certain all Tours will follow (70/30 on the Champions Tour though).
My opinion is that it is a "done deal". I think that the achoring Rule will go in effect in 2016 and all major tours will abide by the Rules of Golf as written jointly by the USGA & R&A.
The PGA Tour will not create their own set of Rules because they want to follow the Rules of Golf and they understand that if they didn't follow the Rules that the best players in world would have to jump back and forth between two sets of Rules when playing non-PGA Tour events (like the 4 majors). (Steve, this is all my opinion of course)
In case you missed it this what he said....the last sentence being the key sentence:
In point of fact, the rules-making process is remarkably democratic. There are 5 members of the committee proper drawn from the USGA executive committee. They have no axes to grind. They are influenced and to some extent educated by the USGA staff. Additionally, there are 4 advisory members representing the PGA Tour, the LPGA, the PGA of America and the country's regional golf associations. They matter. I can't conceive of the 5 regular members shoving a rules change down the throats of the advisory people.
The Tour representative, named by Finchem, especially matters. For better or worse, the Tour has come to have something close to veto power,particularly when it comes to equipment. If there is a discussion about a rules change and should the Tour's man says "We will not play that rule," the discussion is over.
Frank Hannigan
Saugergties, New York
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Personally I hope we get the chance to find out whether or not Mr. Hannigan has called it correctly ;0)
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