An Inconvenient Truth?: Bomb & Gouge: Golf Digest

An Inconvenient Truth?

Tuesday, March 20, 2007 Comments

GOUGE: Here’s what’s wrong with the whole Nike deal: What if everybody is cheating, not a lot, just a little? You can either cheat by negligence or by intent. Intent is obviously reprehensible. Acknowledgement of negligence, however, should not be some badge of honor, however, despite the good intentions of the Nike Golf Sumo2 Conformance Program. Golf likes to say it’s a game of honesty and hence a game above all others. It’s a lie, especially when it comes to manufacturers. On the course, the obligation is to call penalties on yourself. But in the marketplace, the motivation seems to be to push the limits as much as possible until you go over the line, or more precisely, until you get caught.

BOMB: Strong words there pardsy. Technically everyone is, if not cheating, bending the rules. The rule, my friends, is 239 CT (Characteristic Time). Not 257. But everyone is above 239. And the reason is that there’s a speed limit but not enough cops on patrol. But my conspiracy-theorist partner, I have no doubt at all that manufacturers are merely pushing the limits, not trying to go over them. Times like these always bring to mind the Seve Ballesteros’ line to Paul Azinger during the Ryder Cup incident where the team Azinger was playing on inadvertently changed balls in violation of the rules. Azinger said, “We’re not trying to cheat here,” and Ballesteros replied, “Oh no—cheating and breaking the rules are two separate things.” But while Seve was being sarcastic, the fact is they are two different things. Cheating comes with intent. You can break the rules without intent to do so. I put Nike in the latter category in this instance. But like you said, there’s no badge of honor here. When Bob Jones was praised for calling a penalty on himself, he replied, “You may as well praise a man for not robbing a bank.” So I’m not about to give Nike kudos for inconveniencing golfers and retailers. But I don’t think there was any intent here. Cheaters get disqualified. Nike gets a two-stroke penalty for breaking the rules. And there is an upside to this. Everyone’s going to be watching a lot more closely from now on.

GOUGE: Oh, but are they? Nike President Bob Wood’s implication was pretty clear. He wants the USGA to establish a program for regular testing of previously compliant product. As in, “We’re not the only ones.” And it doesn’t end there. When was the last time we heard about golf balls being pulled off the shelves for exceeding the overall distance standard? It hasn’t happened, and we believe it hasn’t happened because golf balls aren’t exceeding the Overall Distance Standard. But we believed that about drivers two weeks ago, didn’t we? Maybe it’s a mistake, “an unauthorized manufacturing variance,” as Nike calls it. But the vendor in Asia that does work for Nike (O-TA) is a proven entity. It even states explicitly in its company guidelines: “O-TA strives to manage itself within the highest ethical standards of integrity and reliability in dealing with customers, vendors and employees.” So who in this convoluted process ain’t gettin’ it done? Or is the line between being conforming and nonconforming so fiber-optic fine that you can’t even see when you’ve crossed it? If so, how can we be sure that the guy hitting it by you in the third flight of the club championship doesn’t have a driver that’s a little hot accidentally? I’m not ready to go off the deep end as a conspiracy theorist yet, but look at it this way: Has something fundamentally been changed about the way we trust golf manufacturers to deliver product that adheres to the rules of golf? Or do we just not care enough anymore? That’s the real tragedy here. Not that a driver face helps the ball go one yard farther.

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Archived Comments (4) Click to expand

This is a sad situation for all of golf, not just Nike. Surely, the average golfer must find the alphabet soup of CoR, MoI, CT, V-grooves and U-grooves to be less than comprehensible. And not exactly welcoming as part of an enjoyable pastime.

There is a culprit here, and it is the failure on the part of the USGA some years ago, to require that golf balls actually adhere, in a meaningful way, to the already-established total distance standards in the Rules. And also to require that all golf clubs actually look like golf clubs, instead of looking like toasters, or the Robinson family's robot on 'Lost in Space.' A 300 cc limit on head size might have rendered moot all of the fussing over the aforesaid alphabet soup.

GOUGE: There is no doubt that a 300 cc limit on head size would resolve the MOI question. But it wouldn't prevent manufacturers from trying to maximize spring-like effect to the limit. In fact, they might be forced to push faces to (and beyond) the limit even more. Of course, I wouldn't assume that a return to a 300 cc head size is beyond the realm of possibility.

Posted by Chuck March 20, 2007 2:27 PM

Gouge: Your comments about the Nike drivers and integrity are very interesting, and they are sure to confuse those in the "Bomb-and-Gouge-are-corporate-shills" crowd. As anyone who has spent a little time assembling, repairing, and reshafting clubs knows, the degree of consistency of basic club specs like swingweight, flex, etc., is variable. It is much, much better today than 20 years ago, but there is still variance, and to ever achieve near-perfect consistency of the CT would be very difficult.

Add in the expense of making these multi-piece club heads and probable reluctance to reject many pieces, and you can see that the manufacturers would be asking to have non-conforming clubs slip through, unless they set their tolerance well below the USGA limit on CT.

GOUGE: I'm glad we've added a little confusion to the "Bomb-and-Gouge-are-corporate-shills" crowd.

Posted by 86general March 21, 2007 11:36 AM

Chuck has chosen 300 cc. Why? Old persimmon drivers were typically about 180-190 cc. I guess steel Big Berthas "look like golf clubs," but bigger titanium heads look like toasters.

The same arbitrary process will follow if they roll back the ball.

But Chuck is right that the USGA had their chance to tackle this years ago, within the framework of the overall distance standard. But they've let it go for so long, going back now is going to be much more traumatic. That is if they try.

GOUGE: The USGA clearly is not done with its research. But before we throw the game all the way back to the Stone Age, let's think about what the game might be like without at least the perception of equipment innovation. Not sure it would be better. But also, I'm not sure it would be worse. But it would clearly be in a different place than it's ever been before.

Posted by LD March 23, 2007 9:20 AM

LD, my suggestion of a 300cc clubhead size limit was as arbitrary as you suggest. I'd be happy to hear from you if you had any different number in mind. 460cc is just as arbitrary a limitation, I am sure you would agree.

For me, however, there is an aesthetic consideration that underlies the science. There is a point at which golf clubs no longer look or sound like traditional golf clubs. The USGA has a museum filled with artifacts of people's ingenuity in stretching the bounds of golf club design. And sometimes the rules have to adjust, in order to bring us back to a game which links us to the traditions of the game. Remember there was a time when, before the 14-club limit, that some players might carry 20 or 30 different clubs. If we were at that particular rules crossroad today, would we be hearing from the manufacturers that "a 14-club limit will ruin the equipment industry"? Or how about, "It is un-American and an offense to free choice if people were limited to 14 clubs."

As for "technological progress" I'd be happy to admit that there have been circumstances in which it can benefit the game, and I could recount some good examples. Uncuttable surlyn golf balls. Steel shafts. Metal clubheads. Modern clubbuilding epoxy. Lightweight two-strap golf bags. Stand bags. Modern greens mowers. And now, perhaps, club adjustibility to allow recreational players to easily change out driver shafts, etc.

I'm no Luddite. All of those developments have made golf cheaper and more accessible to more players.

The same cannot be said for balls that go so far that courses need to be redesigned. Or $600 titanium-alloy driver heads. Or $1000 composite shafts. And $175 greens fees to play a 6-hour round of golf on a resort course with GPS-equipped carts is not my idea of making the game more accessible.

GOUGE: Newsflash: If you think you need to buy a $600 driver with a $1,000 shaft and play all your golf on $175 green-fee courses, I'll go get Bomb and we'll play you, as he likes to say, car-car-house.

Posted by Chuck March 25, 2007 2:30 PM