GOUGE: We knew it would eventually come to this. What we didn't realize was maybe how soon we'd get there. The problem, of course, is just what to do about it. We have reached an era when Super Bowl winning coaches cheat, when home-run king baseball players cheat, and in what certainly reeks of nefarious undertakings the acting travesty that is James Spader gets an Emmy instead of rightful master of the art form Hugh Laurie. Golf now finds itself on the verge of this most uncomfortable kind of cheating, thanks to golf technology's rapid devouring of the moment of inertia standard.

During our visits with some of golf's leading manufacturers last week, we found that some of the latest crop of drivers has approached the USGA prescribed moment of inertia limit of 5,900 gram-centimeters squared. (The rule was designed to limit clubhead stability, which mitigates the falloff in performance on off-center hits. What tragedy is this you might ask? Well, riddle me this, caped crusader: In an industry where "unauthorized manufacturing variances" have led to small production problems with drivers from Cobra, Cleveland, Nike and Callaway, we now find ourselves staring down the barrel of a rule that could be even easier to violate unintentionally. Moreover, those violations might place the full force of the law squarely on the unassuming golfer, instead of the manufacturer. Consider this: If a driver is manufactured to the USGA MOI limit of 5,900 and someone decides to buy such a driver and shorten the shaft (routinely these high MOI drivers are being introduced with 45.5 to 46-inch shafts), he or she most likely will need to add a little lead tape to restore the club's swingweight. Problem is, that little maneuver of putting two or three strips of lead tape on such a driver could push that particular club's MOI over 5,900 and most likely in the danger zone of being non-conforming. Compound this little development with the fact that the tolerance for the MOI rule is 100 g-cm2, which at least to some of the reports we've heard is less than the typical MOI manufacturing tolerance of the biggest companies. In other words, you could easily have a driver that is trying to have an MOI of 5,900 end up with a final MOI of 5,750 or even 5,700, BUT it could also have the tolerance go to the other side, pushing MOI to 6,050 or 6,100, making them of course nonconforming. And how do we know what the MOI of my new High MOI driver might be? Can't know it. Unless I take it apart and put it on an MOI machine. No word yet, of course, on whether the PGA Tour plans to purchase an MOI machine for the first tee (or more precisely scorers' tent) of the Mercedes Championships next year, let alone whether they're planning to stock up on epoxy for reassembling heads. One thing's clear, though. We could end up with a situation that makes last spring's hot-face nonconforming drivers debacle look like using the wrong fork at McDonald's.

BOMB: Well, you must have been sneaking a peek over my shoulder because cutting down clubs and the effect of such is what I wrote about for this week’s issue of Golf World. That said, know what really bothers me about the MOI rule and the proposed groove rule? That neither one can actually be enforced! And if you can’t enforce it, then why have it? Anyone who reads this blog knows I’m pretty consistent in saying that the USGA has the right to make the rules. But these two baffle me a little, especially the MOI rule. For starters, the USGA seems to want to rein in distance on tour. MOI really helps hits about 3/4-inch off center. But tour players almost never hit it 3/4-inch off center. And then no player is going to want his club taken apart to be checked for it. Some may think bifurcation is on the way, but that’s against the USGA’s statement of principles. Me, I just think it will lead to more chaos similar to what we saw this year with the nonconforming drivers.

Still, I think you’re making a big deal of not much. If there are "manufacturing variances" some company will blow the whistle on the offending party and it will be taken care of, just like those who slipped over the COR/CT limit. And as for golfers unwittingly doing something to their bats to make it go over the limit, well, that’s not the manufacturers' problem. Their job is to make a club within the rules as best they can. Seems to me that’s all they are trying to do.

But I’m totally with you on James Spader winning out over Dr. House himself. That’s just wrong.

GOUGE: In our ever-increasing quest to answer those screaming for a rollback of equipment technology, I found it interesting to look at some of the recent qualifying scores for this year's Mid-Amateur and Women's Mid-Amateur championships. Surely, if technology were rendering the game simple, it would have at least trickled down to the elite class of players over the age of 25. Surely. Just so you know, the low score of all the qualifiers at all the sectional locales for the Women's Mid-Amateur was 72, and there were 86 players who made it into the field with qualifying scores that started with the digit "8," except for the one medalist who got in with a score that started with the numeral "9." (Tough conditions, probably.) The Mid-Amateur qualifying scores surely must have been lower. Surely. Well, you bet they were. A ton of scores in the 60s, as a matter of fact, including a 60 by Steve White at the qualifier at the Black Creek Club in Chattanooga, Tenn. In a way, I have to confess I'm given pause by these low numbers (after all Black Creek Club can stretch to nearly 7,100 yards), but then he was medalist by 8 shots. So I searched further. How low did they go at the 6,659-yard Bandon Trails qualifier on the Oregon Coast? 2-under was the medalist, but 50 percent of the field shot 80 or more. And oh, by the way, they'll be playing the Mid-Amateur over Bandon Trails and Bandon Dunes at the end of the month. Neither of us believes there's room for panic, but I might need a little convincing when a part-time golfer shoots 60.

BOMB: Need convincing? Well, as Underdog would say, "Here I am to save the day!!!" Actually, I think that was Mighty Mouse. No matter. A 60 (with a double bogey on the card, no less)? Well done Steve White. But so what? There’s nothing to get your Hanes in a twist about here. A quick look at ghin.com shows he’s a plus-2.4 index who has shot in the 60s in six of his last 14 rounds. And by the way, Stevie, better post that 60 before the boys back home get a little unruly about you not giving them enough strokes. I mean, what does this guy do for a living? My point being I don’t worry about pros or pseudo-pros. Bubba Watson is obliterating courses? Fine. We’ll find 50 layouts a year to contain him and I don’t give a flip if 50 courses have to be stretched to 8,000 yards to do so. Now, what about the other 15,000 or so layouts that the rest of us mortals play. Holding up just fine, thank you.  Little old 6,500-yard Tashua Knolls not far from our office here in Connecticut recently held qualifying for the State Mid-Am. Medalist? No 60 here boys and girls, but a 1-under 71. What did it take to qualify? 78. In all, 113 teed it up. Only 39 broke 80. A mere 11 bettered 75. Moving onto the finals at Wee Burn CC where it’s all of 6,809 yards when the tees are moved back into the trees, 9 over par won the 54-hole event. The top 32 players in the state at least 25 years old couldn’t post a single round in the 60s. Obsolete? Give me a break.

GOUGE: Gee, I shot 79 the other day. Maybe I could qualify for something.

BOMB: Oh, you qualify for something, my friend.You definitely qualify for something.

GOUGE: Let's not get into particulars, but here's a few others to chew on. 7-over was good enough to get you into the match play portion of the recent U.S. Amateur. Average driving distance on the PGA Tour is exactly the same as what it was a year ago, which was more or less the same as it was the year before and was a yard and a half farther than the year before that. So since 2003, barring something extremely bizarre in the PGA Tour Fall Series, average driving distance on the PGA Tour will have increased three yards. THREE. There hasn't been a five-season stretch with that small an increase since pre-titanium drivers and multilayer, solid core balls 1995. So what we have is the best ams aren't, for the most part, obliterating championship courses and the best pros have hit the wall. You can say we've been there before, but I'm not exactly seeing overwhelming evidence for anything like a rollback.   

BOMB: Well, playing in my club championship these last two weekends confirmed two things for me. First, after 8 ¿ rounds in the last 10 days, I have a new respect for the guys who do this for a living. It’s harder to play every day than it looks, especially when grinding on every shot. But most important was how critical set makeup is. I’ve been a member at Rock Ridge CC in Newtown, Conn., for almost two years now and I’m just finally learning how to bat it around the 6,000-yard ballpark. And a big part of that was finally matching clubs to course. Although the 3-iron had long ago been ditched for a 19-degree hybrid, a few weeks ago I canned the 4-iron, too, in favor of a fifth wedge. I carry a PW, a 54-degree, a 58-degree and my old Cobra Trusty Rusty that is so beat up I don’t know the loft. I just know I can hit it 110 yards every time and chip like a fiend with it. The new addition, a 60-degree wedge. I had found I was left with too many 65-yard shots. That was three-quarter 58-degree shot that simply wasn’t coming off very often. Next up, something to combat the tee shot on the uphill, dogleg left seventh. Hybrid barely got up the hill but 3-wood was going through the fairway. And with my normal ballflight being a modest  fade, that made things worse. The solution: a 17-degree Ping G10 4-wood—draw version, no less. Gene Sarazen would be proud.

My point being that so few everyday players think about putting clubs in the bag for the course they play. Not so with tour pros. Phil Mickelson changes his set makeup almost every week. Hell, he changed it for a playoff at BellSouth a couple of years ago. Lefty knew a playoff constituted a new round and he could change within the rules. The playoff would only be played on No. 18 so he took his sand wedge out and added a 3-iron and used that club to hit the green on his winning hole. In fact, many pros bring many clubs with them. Bernhard Langer, for example. Langer brings six—and sometimes as many as eight—wedges with him to each tour stop. When I asked Langer why, he said, "You never know what to expect. Sometimes the sand is soft, other times firm. Sometimes the rough is thicker. I have to make sure I have the right tools for the job."

The right tools for the job. Are you folks listening out there? And by the way, I actually learned three things last week. The third being that I need to work on my putting. Lost in the finals--a 36-hole affair--7 and 6. Congratulations to Jeff Ross--a most worthy club champion.

GOUGE: You learning something flies in the face of that adage about old dogs new tricks and chasing cars. Nevertheless, I think there's more here than meets the idea, as it were. Fact is, many of us could shoot the same score with fewer clubs, not more. Golf Digest's own Roger Schiffman played a 3-club tournament this weekend, shot the same score with 3 clubs (8-iron, 3-wood, putter) one day as he did with a full set the day before.  The bigger problem with set makeup for most of us normal humans is getting a pretty good gauge on how far we hit each club in our bag and whether those differences are meaningful. A good club-fitter with an advanced launch monitor (see TrackMan) will be able to chart each club in your bag and tell you what your distance gaps are. If you're hitting your 3-hybrid the same distance as your 5-wood, for instance, you might want to figure out why. One of them is clearly the wrong club. Now, back to the enlightenment of our Rock Ridge CC finalist. Five wedges?! If your game has such subtlety that you can detect meaningful performance advantages between a two-degree difference in loft, well, you're some kind of golf ball trajectory savant. But good on you. For most of us, it just doesn't matter. It also points to the fact that we continue to rely on tools to solve our own inadequacies. The truth is, the 14-club rule is an anachronism, and a completely arbitrary one at that. As Frank Thomas has offered, reducing the number of clubs to 10 or so might be as good a clamp on technology's effect on elite golf as there is. It harms no one and still reasonably identifies the best players. The truth is for a chopper like me, I could play with 14 clubs from 14 different manufacturers with half a dozen different shaft flexes and at least as many different shaft weights, and shoot my best round ever. Which is exactly what happened the last time I did that. Your revelation has merit, though. People ought to reorganize their kits, as the Brits say. Five clubs you ought to chuck right now: any fairway wood with 15 degrees or less loft; any iron with less than 5-iron loft; any driver made before 2005.