GOUGE: Remember at the beginning of the year when there was all this intrigue over the Ping Eye 2 irons and their "square" grooves and how they were grandfathered under the 2010 groove rule? Remember how Phil Mickelson used a Ping Eye 2 wedge as a sort of publicity stunt and how Scott McCarron suggested it was against the spirit and intent of the new rules? Remember how the PGA Tour staggered through the blather of the moment, hoping it might go away, hoping that maybe Ping and CEO John Solheim might somehow withdraw the Ping Eye 2 from its grandfather status, thereby eliminating the confusion over allowing one club with square grooves despite having a rule that would ban the same type of grooves on any other club. Remember how Solheim issued a statement that he was open to an agreement that "respects Ping Eye 2 owners, benefits the game and recognizes that innovation is an important tradition of golf."

WELL, unless I'm severely mistaken, now we have the first sign that compromise is on the immediate horizon. Check out this announcement from the USGA:

"March 8, 2010: Notice Regarding USGA Forum on Equipment Rulemaking

"In keeping with its mission of service to the game of golf, the USGA actively works to improve the operations of all its core functions, from conducting national championships to promoting environmentally sustainable course management practices to implementing and modifying the rules governing golf equipment.

"Now that the first rollback of golf equipment in more than 75 years has been initiated, we believe that this is an appropriate time to evaluate the process utilized for formulating equipment rules.

"In an effort to improve the equipment rulemaking process, the USGA will hold a forum on the process of equipment rulemaking in Fall 2010. The forum will be held at Golf House in Far Hills, N.J., on a specific date to be determined and announced at a later time.

"We will invite all stakeholders in the game to participate, including manufacturers, players, media, golf organizations and other interested parties. The main purpose of this forum is to allow stakeholders the opportunity to make their views on equipment rulemaking known to the USGA, and to each other. Appropriate protocols will be established to allow an efficient and fair opportunity for those wishing to participate.  

"We anticipate that the forum will provide input that can help the USGA enhance the rulemaking process, including procedures for making new equipment rules, changing existing rules, and modifying rule-associated measurement systems, as well as enhancing the associated processes for implementing such changes.

"Examples of topics for discussion include:
—The process by which new equipment rules and rule changes are proposed
—Timing and communication of USGA research projects that potentially could lead to rule changes
—Timing and communication of proposed equipment rule changes
—The process and timing for implementing changes to measurement systems and other rule enforcement methods
—Procedures for considering changes to non-performance related rules
—Consideration of the impacts of potential rule changes and the evaluation, after an appropriate time period, of the results of implemented rule changes
—The process of commenting on proposed rule changes, including confidentiality considerations
—Timing of the implementation of rule changes
—The decision-making process, including communication of the reasons for enacting new equipment rules or changing existing equipment rules
—The appropriate balance between technology and skill in player performance

"The forum can also provide an opportunity for discussing the process by which the USGA renders rulings on individual items of golf equipment submitted for evaluation, as well as consideration of the ways in which relevant information about these rulings might be communicated publicly.

"The USGA welcomes additional input on the matters that might be discussed at the forum on the process of equipment rulemaking. Those wishing to provide input are encouraged to submit ideas to Dick Rugge, Senior Technical Director, P.O. Box 708, Far Hills, NJ 07931, Fax 908-234-0138, e-mail: drugge@usga.org. So that logistical matters can be managed appropriately, please let us know if you have interest in attending this event."

BOMB: If I'm not mistaken, the day the USGA announced the rule change in 2008, it termed the groove rule process with manufacturers "very inclusive." Now, it seems the USGA is going a gigantic step further. I don't mean to get over-excited, but I don't see how the announcement of this forum (barely a month after Mickelson sparked the debate) could be completely unrelated to the Ping Eye 2 controversy.   

This week, Golf Digest’s crack equipment team traveled to lovely Sandestin Resort in Destin, Fla., for the 2010 Golf Ball Hot List Summit. During three days of intense testing, 10 low-handicap player panelists are putting more than 50 models of golf balls through their paces at the resort’s Raven course. Here’s the hitch: the balls’ logos have been covered with ink, so no one knows what balls they’re testing on any given group of holes. The raters are asked to judge the balls in three categories: performance on full shots, performance on and around the greens, and overall feel. No easy task, according to tester Liam Branagan, head pro at one of the courses down the street. “It’s really tough to tell a difference between the different balls in the same category,” he says. Indeed, the exercise is an eye-opening experience for the whole group as the logo-free balls had them focusing strictly on the performance benefits of the spheres. “I’d never played anything but one brand my whole life,” admits Joe Knight, a local-senior-tour player, “but I can tell that there are others that work just as well.”



Every twosome of testers is accompanied by an editor who takes down notes and scores. These are no ordinary rounds of golf: each tester hits some 25 to 30 approach shots, chips, pitches and putts per hole. It wears on their bodies, but part of the selection process for testers are finding those able to withstand the grind. Still, those who spent an hour warming up on day one spend less time with the clubs on the range the second morning and opt to focus on stretching instead.

So what happens to the balls after the player testing is done? “We’ll send them back to the office in Connecticut and keep them in our equipment closet until the list has been decided,” says assistant editor Ashley Mayo. “Then we’re planning to pack them up and send them to the U.S. troops in Iraq as practice balls.” Little will these troops know that some of the ink-covered balls they’ll be hitting into the desert cost four dollars a pop retail.  

-- Stina Sternberg

ORLANDO, Fla. -- A trend among golf shoes is thinner outsoles, bringing them lower to the ground. The idea is, the lower to the ground you are the more stability you'd have during your swing.

But one thing has stopped outsoles from reaching their ideal thinness: spike receptacles. So PrideSports has released a new spike system with a receptacle that is about 20 percent shorter than the receptacle in the popular Fast Twist system. Called Performance Insert System (PINS), the shorter spike allows the outsole of the shoe to be thinner. All Adidas shoes this year will have this new spike.

--Ashley Mayo

ORLANDO, Fla. -- It's not a headcover, it's a bag cover. MiniZoo's covers debuted at the PGA Merchandise Show, and they transform your entire golf bag into a furry dog or cat. The head of the covers wrap around your driver, and it has zippers to make your animal-bag fully functional during your round.

MiniZoo's founder, Alexander Roberts, is a longtime caddy who has worked at Riviera, Bel-Aire and Aronomink. He hopes the covers, which he'll start selling in mid-March (www.minizoogolf.com), will ignite interest in kids who don't already play.

--Ashley Mayo

ORLANDO, Fla. -- The folks at Cleveland Golf/Srixon are giddy proud of their latest clubfitting contraption, tentatively named the SCUBA (for Self-Contained Universal Bending Apparatus), which has been on display at the PGA Merchandise Show. A portable, foldable lie-and-loft bending machine that fits inside a small suitcase and features a hand-drill-driven bending arm, the SCUBA allows you to bend a stone-cold cast wedge as much as four degrees flat and six degrees upright (and possibly even more than that -- no one has figured out what the true limit is yet) without breaking or even slightly cracking the club. That has to be music to any clubfitter’s ears.

-- Stina Sternberg

With all the buzz coming out of Orlando about the latest advances in new golf technology, I thought it prudent that we put it in some perspective. The fact is, all the hype is still not reaching the masses.

Witness the flood of notes and pictures we're getting from readers and friends with nominations for the most OBSOLETE collection of clubs. Mind you, these are not some relics retrieved from attic or garage, these are every-Saturday-morning-tee-time gamers. We all know the economy is tough, but I'll say it again, playing these clubs is like using mud-stained pond balls.
 
For instance, Virgil Beshears writes in: "I am the most obsolete player I know. When I was in high school, my dad got new clubs and gave me his old ones. I have been using the irons ever since. I graduated high school in 1988." That's four Presidents ago.View image

Or maybe you'd prefer Daniel Kuhlman, whose driver purchasing philosophy goes like this: "My newest club is as recent as 1999 or so. That club would be my replacement driver, a Knight TiRANT 285cc with a titanium insert that I may have found on the bargain counter at K-Mart." Nice. View image

Virgil, Daniel, everyone: Pay attention to our reports from the PGA Merchandise Show. There's a better world out there.

ORLANDO, Fla. -- No longer do you need a power source and an extension cord to run a Doppler radar-based launch monitor at a driving range. FlightScope has introduced Prime, the same operating system as their previous Kudu, only it runs on a chargeable five-hour capacity battery and transmits data wirelessly via Bluetooth to a laptop.

Custom-fitting just got less messy.

-- Max Adler

ORLANDO, Fla. -- - At country club tournaments and outings, generally you never know how you or your team stands until you finish. The golf cart company Club Car is introducing fleets of carts with Visage R+ Technology screens, which in addition to giving the usual distances to holes and hazards, offer real-time scoring between groups, akin to television tour coverage.

No more waiting by the markerboard by the pro shop for the slow groups to come in.

-- Max Adler

ORLANDO, Fla. -- Among the categories surprising most people this year at the PGA Merchandise Show is rain gear. AnnMarie Dodd, a longtime golf fashion writer, says fashion in rain gear is finally meeting up with function. Rain jackets are lighter, stretchier, less noisy and have more golf-related extras than ever before. A few companies to pay close attention to are Zero Restriction, Greg Norman, RLX Outerwear and Sunice. I've seen a few pieces today, and my favorite is Zero Restriction's Chino pant. It's made with patented Tech Wear Epic fabric, which is essentially cotton that's injected with silicone, making it breathable and totally rainproof.

So there you have it. A classic-looking cotton Chino you can play with in the pouring rain.

--Ashley Mayo

ORLANDO, Fla. -- Like it or not, it looks like the colored golf ball may be making a comeback.

At the PGA Merchandise Show, Srixon is unveiling its line of Tour Yellow Z-Star golf balls. Hardly a novelty, the Z-Star is the company's flagship premium ball. So what gives? Why make a tour-level golf ball in a color normally reserved for range balls?

For starters, the ball isn't actually yellow, but rather a green/yellow combination. According to Chris Beck, brand manager for Srixon, studies have shown yellow to be the most visible color in the spectrum. Additionally, studies have correlated that green/yellow colors have a calming, stress-relieving effect on people.

For those who think that is hogwash, Beck is quick to point out the reason many talk shows have a "Green Room," that is, indeed, green, is to give guests a place to relax before going out in front of a camera on live television.

Visibility, however, was the driving force. According to Beck, the company did several tests that showed the yellow ball was easier to spot atvirtually every distance. "It was twice as easy to see at 210 yards and three times as easy to spot at 250 yards," he said.

Although intriguing, colored balls for better visibility are not exactly new. In fact, colored balls have a long, if inconsistent, history. Living in Vermont in the 1890's, writer Rudyard Kipling "invented" what many believe to be the first colored golf ball when he slapped a coat of red paint on a white sphere in order to make it easier to see while playing snow golf. In
1928, Wilson ran full-page ads in Golf Illustrated touting its "Oriole-Orange and Canary-Yellow" Hol-Hi ball -- at a whopping $10.75 per dozen (about $109 in today's dollars) but they never caught on.
 
Fifty years later, Ping began producing golf balls, including its Ping Punch ball, where one hemisphere was one color and the other side another. That effort failed, but the use of colored balls exploded when Wayne Levi (at the 1982 Hawaiian Open), and then Jerry Pate (at the 1982 Players Championship), won using orange-colored Wilson ProStaff balls. Pate also made noise earlier in the year when he used the carrot-colored sphere to card the first ace ever by a professional during the Bing Crosby National Pro-Am on Cypress Point's famed 16th hole. More recently, Nike brought on its Nike One Black in a limited black color -- even getting some of its tour players to use the ball in competition.

Will that happen with the Srixon Tour Yellow Z-Star? Too early to tell, but Jim Furyk was seen eyeballing the spheres during an appearance at the Srixon booth. If Furyk were to put the ball in play that would be high visibility, indeed.

-- E. Michael Johnson