Mike Stachura at Golf World looks at the PGA of America giving a "generally supportive" endorsement to a proposal restricting what players can use to read greens. But as Stachura reports, the PGA Tour's official position was ambiguous at best even though their rules officials were part of the deliberations on the green-reading cheat sheets the governing bodies have seen enough of.
That news comes despite a less-than-full-throated affirmation from the PGA Tour on Tuesday, in which the folks in Ponte Vedra Beach stated that they “will collaborate with both organizations in order to get feedback on the proposal from Tour players, PGA Tour rules officials and through our governance process.”
Other than Strakaline's Andrew Tredway looking to protect sales of the books to college golf programs--and you thought text books were expensive--most big name players are saying they won't oppose a ban.
“I don't use the book, but my caddie, John Wood, does,” Matt Kuchar said. “I'm for restricting it. For guys who want to stand over it and use the aim point with their finger, you know, that's a skill. Reading a book I guess takes graphing skills or plotting skills, but it's not golf as it's meant to be—plotting your way around using a book.”
As Stachura notes though, some players are questioning how enforcement will work, including Adam Scott.
“It seems to be the theme with the governing bodies for the last 20 years that they let everything go to a place they don’t like and then they struggle to dial it back. I don’t get it. I don't get that the size of the arrows that you write down in your book are going to be judged. It’s all mad.”
Certainly there will be some who push the spirit of the rules, but I'm guessing the rules experts are confident we'll be able to tell pretty quickly who is still hooked on his book. Unless of course the players pop in the restrooms for a look before heading down the fairways.
Maybe they should just ban them after all.
