Letter From Saugerties, March 6, 2007

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Former USGA Executive Director Frank Hannigan shares his thoughts on the ramifications and politics behind a possible U-groove rule change:

The recent USGA announcement proposing to get rid of U-shaped grooves contained every self-congratulatory cliché except “Mission Accomplished.”
 
Dick Rugge, USGA senior technical director, said “These proposals represent the comprehensive, deliberate and thoughtful nature of the USGA’s equipment research.”       

It’s Rugge’s own work.
 
Whatever happened to modesty?
 
The reality is that the USGA, unable or unwilling to do anything about the surge in distance that has polluted the game, is trying to pretend it is giving birth to an elephant. In fact, it’s not even a mouse.
 
Rugge correctly observes that "the skill of driving the ball accurately has become much less important in achieving success on the Tour than it used to be.”  From there comes his quantum leap in logic that by reverting to V grooves the rich, wild and famous will get so much less spin and loft from “the rough” that they might as well leave the Tour and look for jobs.
 
The balls used on the Tour, sure enough, are predominantly urethane covered, softer than the rocks used by the rest of us, and therefore spin more. Our balls, with surlyn covers, will not be affected, so the USGA says it has discovered a win-win situation.
 
Back in 1986 the USGA, with Frank Thomas as its technical director, published a massive “Groove Study”.  It said that soft-covered balls, with balata then in use, spun some more out of short rough  when struck with U-grooved clubs, but not enough to make any difference. The key word was “insignificant.”

Rugge & Co.  say “posh” to the original groove story. The difference they say matters a hell of a lot.

Alas, they provide no specifics.  Like so:
 
1.  The average score on the PGA Tour is stuck on 71.2.  If  U-grooves matter so much the average score then must surely jump come 2009, assuming the PGA Tour accepts the proposal.  I hazard the prediction that unless the Tour modifies the way it sets up courses the average score will stay the same.
 
2.  The USGA posture seems to be that the wrong people have been winning.    One wonders who they might be.  Surely not Tiger Woods,  who shares with the USGA a deep love for business deals with American Express.
 
3.  What is “rough” and what strains of grass are we talking about?  Is it what the announcers at The Masters are required to call “the second cut.”  It surely can’t be the USGA’s own famous “primary rough” because the grooves don’t get to the ball out of 5 inches of grass.
 
4.  U-grooves became permissible under the Rules of Golf in 1984.  So how come the tilt toward power on the Tour did not cause brows to furrow until the late 1990s?

5.  The USGA has a vast archive of television tapes.  How about pulling up about 6 shots that show the perfidious results of U-grooves and offering them as a display?

Almost nobody disagrees with the USGA observation that distance matters too much now.  That’s because the USGA blew it to the extent that the average distance per measured drive on the Tour is 289 yards, nearly 30 yards up since the early 1990s.         
 
The Tour has scrambled to stabilize scoring by making courses much harder today.  But  the power hitters benefit disproportionately.  Imagine it’s 1990 and a big hitter is 180 yards from the hole while his fellow competitor, an average hitter, is 210 yards from the hole.  Fast forward to 2007.  The  big hitter is now 150 yards away and the average hitter 180 yards distant.   I contend the difference between the two in what they score on the hole has widened in favor of the big hitter.
 
If the USGA is serious about restoring the virtues of accuracy all it has to do is roll back the fail point in its vital Overall Distance Standard test. Banning U-grooves is merely a way of pretending to do something.  The proposals for change are likely to sail through because they don’t bother anybody.

The USGA can declare victory, or at least until the end of the 2009 season when it becomes understood nothing has happened.

Frank Hannigan
Saugerties, New York
March 6, 2007

To read other Hannigan letters, here was his previous piece on the grooves story, his commentary on the recent USGA-AmEx deal, his thoughts on the USGA's private jet package and his take on USGA President Walter Driver's views on distance.

"Nicklaus and Norman and Player who are whining about distance are whining about something they no longer have."

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I try not to read too much of Breach and Gulley's blog over at GolfDigest.com, but reader Charlie insisted I check out Billowy and Gnarled's take on the John Paul Newport groove WSJ story.

Besides leaving me completely confused what point they were attempting to make, this just blew me away, from the keyboard of Gouge:

Those like Nicklaus and Norman and Player who are whining about distance are whining about something they no longer have.

Yes, but they still have all those majors, their own planes and absolutely nothing to gain from their comments.

So this got me thinking about an idea that could generate some serious traffic for GolfDigest.com.

Let's get "Gouge" in a room with Nicklaus, Norman and Player, and have him say the above to their faces.

We'll videotape the moment along with the ensuing discussion and see what people think.

Jerry, Bob, I smell a million hits, easy! 

2007 Golf Writers Awards

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With my schedule of late, I was never able to post the annual Golf Writers Association writing contest winners (yes, sanity has been restored, I won nothing this year).

In a review of the winning efforts, I was a bit surprised to notice the first place entry in the Internet Feature category was actually part of a weekly press release issued by an official from a tour!

Sorry I'm going to miss that GWAA meeting in Augusta. Should be a real peach! 

The Gallery As A Match Play Venue

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Catching up on my reading, I noticed John Hawkins' assessment of The Gallery in the latest Golf World:

The move to Tucson resulted in more than $1 million in ticket sales—attendance was limited to 17,000 per day—but The Gallery-South is an awful walking course, set on a rise of earth known as Dove Mountain and woefully short of decent sightlines. If you didn't have a camel and a pair of binoculars, you were basically out there for the exercise.

 

What Happened At The Honda?

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I was out of town and mercifully didn't see any of the Honda, but judging by the winning scores, the tightly bunched leaderboard and a one-hole playoff not finishing before dark, it sounds like things got a little goofy? No?

For some unknown reason I ventured to PGATour.com to find out how the best players in the world couldn't finish on time, but no luck in their game story. A check of other game stories said nothing.

Was the pace of play that bad? How about the setup?

Spin Control

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The stories are finally trickling out on the USGA's proposed groove rule change, and I suppose it's a matter of taste, but there are three unique takes.

John Paul Newport files another of those all-over-the-place columns where he seems to have an opinion, but writes in fear of his pro-business Wall Street Journal editors. I have to admit that it's entertaining to actually read someone waivering dramatically from sentence to sentence. If you want to save yourself the trouble, it comes down to this: Newport doesn't want to give up 10 yards.

Furthermore, speaking for myself, even if someone persuaded me that switching to shorter balls was necessary for the good of the game, I can't imagine being happy about it. I'd hate to have to start laying up short of that bunker on No. 2 that I now carry. Getting older is enough of a burden without having to play a shorter ball, too.

For those of you keeping score at home, that's five self references in two sentences. Oh, and he called ball companies for perspective on the issue. Next week, Newport will be calling tobacco companies for their views on the possibility of cigarette smoking causing cancer.

Though the calls make this worth the price of admission:

Titleist has been especially aggressive in countering any whisper of support for ball rollback. Joseph Nauman, an executive vice president at Titleist's parent company, Acushnet, acknowledges that its executives have had "very pointed conversations" with media and other organizations about the issue. In 2004, at the height of the alarums about distance, Titleist started pulling all of its ads from the industry's most outspoken magazine, Golf Digest. Mr. Nauman says that wasn't a response to articles on the distance controversy, but the action had a chilling effect nonetheless on ad-dependent media throughout the industry.

Wally, you would do that? I'm shocked! Not the Wally I know!

Steve Elling does a nice job of providing a "balanced" take on the issue, considering both sides of the equation. Elling seems to buy into the USGA's logic (V-grooves will lead players to throttle back), he too concludes that the distance and ball debate isn't going away.

Finally John Huggan weighed in with is Scotland on Sunday column.

Don’t look now folks, but that nifty new wedge in your golf bag is, sometime down the road, going to be deemed illegal. It’s nothing you did – or can do – with the club you understand. But the boogie men at the Royal & Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews and their sidekicks at the United States Golf Association have, in their finite wisdom, decided that something has to be done about those nasty square grooves on the face of a club you mostly use to hack back into play after another of
those sliced tee-shots.   Ironically, it is the seeming indifference of the world’s top players to the seemingly ever-increasing disconnection between success and accuracy off the tee that has golf’s officials in a bit of a tizz.

And he quotes a former player...

“When I first started on tour back in the mid-1980s, I would watch players like Seve Ballesteros, Ian Woosnam, Bernhard Langer and Jose Maria Olazabal crap themselves when faced with a ‘jumpy’ lie from the rough,” says a former European Tour professional of my acquaintance.  “They knew that if the shot went wrong they would be 30-40 yards over the green, rather than on the back edge of the putting surface, which has invariably been the case recently. For that reason alone, V-grooves have to be brought back; we need to put fear back into the game.”

Now, while all of the above is just fine by me, it must be added that even this welcome move by the game’s ruling bodies is, at best, only a start in the on-going battle to restore elite golf to its former glories. The ability to spin shots from long grass is, after all, merely an effect; the real problem is the nonsensical distances the world’s best players can propel their tee-shots using balls that a) go too far and b) fly too straight. Which is why you don’t see any of today’s big names shaping shots like Ballesteros and Lee Trevino used to do. Sadly, golf at the highest level has become a science rather than an art.
Still, it would be wishful thinking on our parts to see this latest development in the technology war doubling as a prelude to the R&A and USGA hauling the ball back 40-50 yards for Tiger and the gang. That ain’t going to happen as long as the tacit threat of legal action from club and ball manufacturers hangs over their graying heads.
Sadly, cowardice – albeit understandable - rules when it comes to taking on high-powered lawyers employed by the likes of Titleist, Callaway and TaylorMade. Even this latest development has come to pass only because the manufacturers know full well that square grooves or V-grooves make no difference to the average golfer (when was the last time you ‘sucked’ a wedge shot back to the pin?). Which is why the ban is only going to apply to so-called ‘elite players’ and why the club makers were thrown a bone in the shape of a rules change that will allow adjustable lofts and lies on clubs.

This is an interesting question he raises...

There are, however, wider implications in that a line has to be drawn somewhere. When and where will a golfer magically become ‘elite’ having previously been, eh, ‘non-elite?’ Until now, the R&A and USGA has been vehemently opposed to what they call ‘bifurcation,’ a situation where amateurs and professionals would play the game under different rules (despite the fact that, largely due to the exponential benefits available to those who can swing modern clubs over a certain speed, the gap between the two codes has never been wider).

 

The Nicklaus Golf Digest Article, Vol. 5

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Finally, there were Jack's comments on Augusta National which I found interesting because last year he appeared to back off of his original assertions made during the Golf Digest Panelist Summit (and subsequently published in the April 2006 Digest).

No grey area here:

I miss the old Augusta National. Is the radically redesigned golf course a good one? Yes. Is it the golf course with the design principles that Bobby Jones and Alister Mackenzie intended? Absolutely not.

Augusta was generous off the tee, which made it great for everyday member play. But to score—to really play golf—you had to position the drive to get a good angle at the green. It was a second-shot golf course.

Now the tee shot is more restricted. Trees and new bunkering have narrowed the landing areas, making Augusta a tight course with few angles or options. I know the changes were made to provide an increased challenge for modern pros and keep them from overpowering the course, but it has taken the charm out of the Jones/Mackenzie design.

So much for any possible misinterpretation that Nicklaus thinks they are upholding the integrity of the original design.

I was disappointed that in doing the redesign, Augusta didn’t consult the five oldest multiple Masters champions who also are course designers [Palmer, Player, Nicklaus, Watson, Crenshaw]. We would have had a lot of good ideas, and we wouldn’t have clashed. We would have come to an agreement because we all have so much respect for what’s there.

Well, I don't know about the part about not clashing...but those five would be a lot better than what they've been doing! 

Buried Lede Department: PGA Tour Press Release Division

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From PGATour.com:

TOUR forms alliance with Heritage Golf Group

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. -- The PGA TOUR's Policy Board announced Thursday that the TOUR has formed a strategic alliance with San Diego-based Heritage Golf Group, Inc.

The extent of the alliance remains to be fully defined, but is intended to leverage the assets and strengths of both companies to provide expanded golf experiences for members and guests throughout the TOUR's TPC Network of 22 premier clubs and Heritage Golf Group's portfolio of 16 distinguished private and resort courses located in California, Texas, Georgia, Florida and South Carolina. These facilities include Valencia Country Club in Valencia, Calif., host site of the Champions Tour's AT&T Champions Classic; Oyster Reef Golf Club in Hilton Head Island, S.C.; Atlanta National Golf Club and White Columns Country Club in Atlanta, Ga.; and Weston Hills Country Club in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., former site of the PGA TOUR's Honda Classic. In the coming months, both management teams will work together to develop member and guest programs that are mutually beneficial.

So you ask, why announce this? And now a word from our MBA's.

"Our strategic alliance with Heritage Golf Group is a logical extension of our efforts to provide PGA TOUR Experiences for our members and guests," said David Pillsbury, president of PGA TOUR Golf Course Properties. "By harnessing the natural synergies between our companies, we can deliver a better, more valuable golf experience for our collective members and guests. Ultimately, we envision a network of more than 40 affiliated clubs, all of which share similar quality and service standards. This represents a significant step towards making this unprecedented alliance a reality."

Heritage Golf Group President and Chief Executive Officer Bob Husband, a 25-year golf industry veteran who is a current member of the PGA of America and a former PGA TOUR member, added, "On behalf of Heritage Golf Group and our more than 1,000 dedicated ambassadors, we are thrilled to work in collaboration with the PGA TOUR to continue our pursuit of providing members and guests with the best possible club experiences, while at the same time preserving the integrity and rich heritage of the game of golf."

Translation of harnessing those synergies? The PGA Tour is selling Heritage some of it's dogs less wonderful TPC's...

Under the terms of the strategic alliance, in addition to the development of joint programming, the PGA TOUR Policy Board approved the sale of four TPC Network assets to Heritage Golf Group, Inc. Included in the transaction are the sale of TPC Eagle Trace in Coral Springs, Fla.; TPC Michigan in Dearborn, Mich.; TPC Piper Glen in Charlotte, N.C.; and TPC Prestancia in Sarasota, Fla.. Under the terms of the sales transactions, which are expected to close sometime in the second quarter of 2007, the clubs will be managed by Heritage Golf Group, Inc. but will continue to operate under the TPC brand. In addition to their current membership benefits, members of TPCs and Heritage clubs will enjoy additional access privileges that will add value to their memberships.

The Nicklaus Golf Digest Article, Vol. 4

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Some more comments of interest from his co-authored piece with Jaime Diaz:

I hope we’re not running people out of the game. As it has become an easier game to play for the pros, the trend toward more severe courses has made it harder for the amateur.

In most cases, the farther the amateur is able to hit the ball, the farther the ball goes off line. The old average drive was in the 190-yard range, but now it’s more like 210 to 220. And on many of the newer courses, off line means searching for golf balls. It’s making the game slower, and a lot less fun.
Oh and don't forget Jack, more dangerous for the townhomes on the rim. Sorry, continue...
The game is more popular than ever among avid golfers with the income and leisure to play a lot, but most people have less free time than ever. The current generation of younger parents spends a lot more time supervising their kids than previous generations, and it means they find it harder to justify a weekend round of golf. Leaving for the course at 7 in the morning and coming back at 3 in the afternoon is a hard sell for a family man. But getting back in time for lunch wouldn’t be.

That’s why we should consider the possibility of making 12 holes a standard round. It might mean breaking up 18-hole facilities into three segments of six holes. Of course it would meet resistance, but eventually it would be accepted because it would make sense in people’s lives.
And this is the best part, addressing the ridiculous attacks made against him over the years by folks who, if confronted by the greatest of them all, would never dare to question his motives and would blabber all over him about being their hero. But behind his back...he's just bitter...right!
Those who say that my comments are intended to help my course-design business are wrong. As a designer, I benefit financially from more land used, more renovations, more penal features. As for people thinking I favor a rollback in equipment because I don’t want Tiger to break my record, going back to older-style equipment would help, not hurt, Tiger because his skill level would make a bigger difference. If we took equipment back today, he might win 30 majors instead of 20.
I’m more interested in the game of golf than in my records. I did what I could do in my time, and it was the best I could do. Now I just want what’s best for the game.

Rack Up A Perfect Club Rerun...

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...because another hour of the Honda isn't worth it?

This is an odd one, reported by Craig Dolch in the Palm Beach Post:

TV air times returned to three hours: A week after saying it would cuts its Thursday and Friday telecasts of Honda by an hour, Golf Channel officials announced Wednesday it has returned its air times to 3-6 p.m.

Last week, the network announced the air times had been changed to 4-6 p.m. in the first two rounds, without giving a reason. The Palm Beach Post reported the reason for the change was Golf Channel was trying to persuade American Honda to buy more advertising, but the car company balked.

A source Wednesday said the Golf Channel made its change after receiving a phone call from PGA Tour Commissioner Tim Finchem, who didn't want to lose two hours of golf coverage.