USGA's Failure to protect the game

“They’re hitting the ball too far.” “Courses are becoming obsolete”. “Will golf become little more than driver,. wedge, putt?”

Cries are coming from both players and writers alike that the incredible advances in the technology of golf equipment are changing the game. And it’s true.

Driving distance is up dramatically. Players use shorter and shorter irons for approach shots. There is hardly any such thing as a true par-5 anymore. Exotic shafts, multi-layer balls, and space technology applied to golf are changing the game, quite possibly forever.

The gulf between the professional and amateur game widens. Classic older golf courses are rendered obsolete. Soon there will probably be two sets of rules, two standards of equipment: one for amateurs, one for professionals, dividing one of the great distinctive of golf- one set of rules for all.

Why is this occurring? Who is responsible for the change? And are these changes positive?

The answer is two-fold.

First, the USGA has failed to hold the line against change and it has failed to advance in its own understanding of technological advancements changing the equipment and thus, the game.

Second, in the post-Tiger push to make golf “inclusive” and “like other sports” the distinctive golf once held dear (sportsmanship, all playing by the same rules, integrity) have been compromised and diminished.

The USGA’s failure to protect the integrity of the game results from the fact that in many ways the USGA is like the US Government. A ponderous behemoth, slow to respond to the world around it but possessing enough wealth and power that it should do much better. In fact, the USGA should have been on the forefront in preserving the game. Instead they were operating on assumptions based upon a belief that everyone involved in golf understood the game as they did. But this was hardly the case.

The USGA is predominately a “blue-blooded” organization of a small clique of old, established golf clubs in the northeast who sought to control the world of golf in the US. It is not an inclusive organization. And it is not an organization that lives in the “real world”. It steeps itself in the past and its traditions and it assumed all things would continue as they always had.

But Karsten Solheim changed all that.

In a lawsuit Solheim filed in 1989 he alleged that the USGA had used an arbitrary method of measuring the width of the grooves on his Ping Eye 2 irons and had declared his clubs illegal. This after tentatively approving the design previously.

Rather than fight an expensive legal battle the USGA caved in and settled the suit,
”grandfathering in” the Eye 2’s and proving to the equipment manufacturers that they could be “had”. Press the USGA and they’ll fold.

But why?

Maybe because they love the money they have. They love their big budgets, their golf museum, their prestige and their national championships more than they love being right.

Whatever the reason the USGA has continued to disappoint the game it is supposed to be protecting. In no particular order here are some of the failures of the USGA.

Failure to keep up with technological advancement

With the amount of money at the USGA’s disposal, through the enormous success of the US Open and it’s other championships the USGA had/has a responsibility to be on the leading edge of golf technology, rather than always bringing up the rear. When equipment manufacturers make changes, the USGA should be all over them, examining them for compliance. The USGA should have hired the best technical minds to forecast the direction of tech advancement and should have had principles already in place to keep a limit on equipment.

Then the USGA should have the strength of their convictions to defend their standards, even in court.

Manufacturers are in business to make money. The pressure to turn a profit is enormous. Knowing that golfers are highly prone to “gimmicks” (just make a list of the infomercials produced for “swing aids”) and that a lot of them want to “buy a game” they rushed headlong into pushing the “conforming equipment specs” to the outer limits. Want distance? Buy it. Want “forgiveness”? Buy it. Want a golf game? Buy it.

Each step of the way the USGA had its chance. Most manufacturers submit their prototypes to the USGA for “prior approval” before encountering the expense of tooling up for a product that might later be “DQ’d.” At many steps along the way the USGA failed to prognosticate the impact that slight changes would have on the future of the game.

The combined effect of “bit by bit” technological advancement has now congealed into a beast with its own life, driven by money and the “golfing public’s need” to buy a game.

The USGA should have been at the forefront in standing against this onslaught. Decision by decision, for whatever reasons they deemed prudent at the time, they failed to stem this tide.

The result is now the fracturing of all scoring records, the need for longer and longer courses and the skill factor being taken out of the game. Soon the professional game will be 150 Jason Zubacks hitting driver wedge to every hole. Is this golf?

Didn’t it used to be that golf was the great “equalizer” sport? It didn’t matter if you were a long hitter or not. All that mattered was if you could get the ball in the hole. If you were a short hitter, you made up for it by having a great fairway wood or short game. Adaptation to the individual’s skills was a hallmark of the game. There were many ways to get the job done.

But now with the advent of “the long ball” shorter hitters are being taken out of the game. Reference the recent complaints of Ian Woosnam, Nick Price and Jay Haas. These veterans are joining a chorus of voices who say that something must be done. But it may be too late. How do you unscramble the egg?

Longer courses have been built. Players have switched equipment. The ball goes farther and farther. Is anyone ever going to be willing to go back? Hardly. (Have you ever tried to hit the clubs you played with 20 years ago? Try it sometime).

Failure to protect the sanctity of amateur status

Another USGA failure appears in its treatment of amateur status.

In the past, just announcing the intention of turning professional was enough to forfeit one’s amateur status. That view was completely unrealistic and needed to be changed. But what has it been changed to?

Former touring professionals regain amateur status. Some receive amateur status over and over again.

Amateur status has even been diminished so far as to allow someone to “turn pro”, attend a PGA Tour qualifying school, fail and get their amateur status back immediately. How wrong-headed is that?! Turn “quasi-pro” and then go right back to amateur? Why? What rationale can be given for that? If you’re going to turn pro, turn pro. If you’re going to be an amateur, be an amateur. Make a decision and live with it.

Failure to fight against the onslaught of manufacturer’s non-conforming equipment

As new technologies were applied to golf equipment manufacturing the USGA should have been closely examining the possible outcomes of each new “layer” of “improvement”. The USGA’s engineers should have been competent enough to predict that there would be an accumulation of technologies. Instead it stubbornly stuck by its already existing standards as though they would stand the test for all time. Instead of advancing the equipment standards with the advance of the manufacturer’s efforts, the USGA was slow to respond and jealously protected its existing standards as sufficient.

Thus we end up with 380 yard drives, irons that stop even out of the rough and putters that all but roll the ball for you.

(As regards putters, just the allowing of the “belly” and “long” putter have changed the basic nature of the game. Both these putters introduced a “fulcrum” into putting. That never existed before. That alone should have been a warning to the USGA.)

Failure to protect the history of the game and the integrity of its records

Another of the great distinctives of golf was the fact that the history of the modern era provided a fairly consistent standard for measuring the achievements of one generation of players to the next. Scores got better as even the old equipment got better (wood shafts to steel, ball improvement, course improvement) but they weren’t THAT MUCH better. The standard changed slowly.

Now, with the rapid advance of technology in all areas records are falling left and right. Average scores are way down. Annika Sorenstam shoots 59. Tiger and others are almost systematically breaking all existing scoring records.

The “career money list” used to be a commonly held standard. But the gigantic increase in purses on the PGA Tour in recent years have rendered that standard useless (Jack Nicklaus isn’t anywhere near the top yet he’s the winningest player of all time. This writer was at Doral in 1988 when it was the first million-dollar purse tournament. The whole purse was 1 million and the players were ecstatic. Now many tournaments offer first place checks for that amount.)

So what will be the standard to measure one generation of players against the next or those of the past? It used to be simply, the scores. But considering the “new game” and all it brings with it, that basis of comparison may soon disappear as well. How can any comparison be made with Gene Sarazen playing the 15^th at Augusta with a 4 wood second shot and Tiger hitting 8 iron? That’s seven clubs difference. Seven.

What difference does the seven clubs make? Both got it on in two.

True, but who will hit his shot closer and who will hit the green more often? Someone hitting 8 iron or someone hitting 4 wood?

Failure to protect the classic old courses

One example will suffice here: Merion. One of the old, great US Open courses is now unable to be used any longer. Reason? Too short. The same holds true for other classic US courses. They have become too short to offer a true test to the greatest players.

Courses are now stretched and stretched to accommodate the “long ball” . But why?

Stretching the courses is an effort to bring back the requirement of shotmaking.

“Is the public going to get tired of watching tournaments where par is a gimme and birdies come in bunches?” (Ron Sirak, “The Distance Debate” 3-17-03 Golf Digest.com).

First, this is a wrong-headed premise because the needs or desires of the “audience” should NEVER be allowed to be the determiner of the standards of the game. Golf existed long before TV and before it was viewed as “the show” and “entertainment”. Golf was played by “fellow competitors”. Players against the course by the rules. That was and is golf. (see “Golfers are NOT Entertainers” ProGolfTalk.com)

Second, stretching golf courses in order to bring back shotmaking is a self-defeating and self-propagating endeavor.

If course are lengthened to add the need to hit a “cut 4 iron” from 214, why couldn’t it just have been kept a “cut 4 iron” from 188? What’s the difference? Is it more aesthetically-pleasing to the fan to see a “cut 4 iron” sail 214 rather than 188? Isn’t the flight shape the same? Isn’t the skill the same? Why does it have to be longer?

Longer courses cost more money to build, a lot more. Longer courses take the enjoyment out of the game for average players, necessitating multiple sets of tees to accommodate different ability levels. Longer courses require more grass, more fertilizer, more labor hours to cut the grass. Longer courses usually have more trees, and more bunkers, requiring even more maintenance. That too adds cost. And those costs are passed on to the players in the form of higher greens fees.

The questions that someone needs to answer are, why is longer better? Why is longer needed?

The USGA should have asked those questions and provided definitive answers long ago.

It did not.

Failure to end the problem of slow-play

Finally, the USGA has failed to set a meaningful standard against slow play both at the professional and amateur level.

It is in this area that the wrong-headedness of the USGA is most painfully evident.

Virtually all modern golfers rely upon knowing exact yardages in assessing their shots. How do they obtain those yardages?

They go to the course and use either the yardage book the club provides, or they buy one from vendors who specialize in providing them. Sprinkler heads, bunker edges, trees, all serve as “landmarks” and yardages are recorded.

When the player in the tournament needs a yardage he/she finds a “landmark”, walks to the landmark, steps off the distance to their ball, “does the math” and comes up with the yardage. All this can take anywhere from 5 to 40 seconds. If a player is in “no man’s land” off the fairway finding a yardage can be difficult and even more time consuming.

What’s the answer to this “game slowing” procedure? Simply: allow laser rangefinders.

By allowing rangefinders the stepping off process is eliminated and the yardages are exact. Instantly.

But the USGA sees the rangefinder as absolutely taboo. Why?

If yardages are allowed then why does it matter WHEN they are obtained? By outlawing rangefinders the USGA is saying nothing. Rangefinders are allowed as long as you use them the day before and transfer the information to paper. The only thing the USGA outlaws is the IMMEDIATE use of rangefinders. And that is a distinction with no difference.

A yardage is a yardage. What difference does it make when it was obtained?

By continuing to outlaw rangefinders the USGA in many ways places an intentional impediment in the way of many low handicap amateur golfers. How so?

Most competitive, low handicap amateur players also have jobs. Practice and play time is something they have to “fit in” to the rest of their lives. For the love of the game they make the effort. But consider this in detail.

If an amateur wants to play in a tournament at “Fox Bend GC” he must go to the club before the tournament and obtain yardages. The accuracy of the yardage book at the club must be tested. And some clubs don’t even have yardage books, so the player may has to write his/her own. Add another day to the tournament preparation. A day in some cases the amateur, due to work, does not have to give.

Consider also that the amateur uses a rangefinder to obtain accurate yardages every time he plays for “fun”. He’s a good player and wants to know how far it is.

Tournament day arrives. No rangefinder. Not today.

What is the end result of this? Either show up early at the course to get those yardages “the old (hard) way” or play “guess golf”. On a day when yardages are MOST IMPORTANT, the USGA takes the rangefinder away and forces the player to guess.

That is neither fair nor necessary.

If yardages are legal, rangefinders should be legal. They are merely a measuring device, just the same as a “wheel” or a tape, or stepping off.

In allowing rangefinders the USGA will also speed up the pace of play.

Get to the ball, shoot the pin with the rangefinder and in 2-3 second you have an accurate yardage. No stepping off. No hunting for landmarks. No “doing the math”. Just an immediate, accurate yardage.

The USGA will allow changes that alter the nature of the game, require longer and more expensive courses and eradicate scoring records but it won’t allow immediate legal yardages.

Does anything more need to be said about the backward thinking and failure of the USGA?