Golf / Thomas Bonk : Player Doesn’t Come Off Sounding Like a Square in Groove Controversy

With the simmering controversy about square-grooved clubs apparently coming to a boil, at the very least golf has something new to argue about.

There is one side that strongly believes advancing technology ought to be given the chance to improve the game. The other side contends that golf has had all the technology it needs.

Gary Player, a professional since 1953, comes down squarely on the side of status quo.

“I’m very anti-square grooves,” he said. “The next thing is, you’ll find players who are bad putters so they make the holes three inches wider. And it’ll happen. Then they’ll put up big fans behind the tee so the ball can carry further. Where’s it going to stop? Let’s have more respect for the game.”

Player, who was in San Clemente last week overseeing the construction of the Pacific Golf Club, a 27-hole course that is the first West Coast course designed by his company, said that by looking at other sports, it’s plain to see that it’s not smart to tamper with such things.

“They don’t make the 100-yard dash downhill,” he said. “You don’t see them changing the size of the boxing ring. You don’t see the football changing its size.”

Player thinks that golf needs to stop changing the game, and that square-grooved clubs represent the best place to start.

“We are eliminating skill,” he said. “Everybody tells you today, ‘Oh, all these great young players.’ Well, they’re not the great players everybody makes them out to be. I don’t want to sound like I’m knocking the young guys. I just think it’s getting out of proportion with the equipment. It’s a shame. Let the human being improve in his mind and his body, not in his equipment. It’s just a big commercial deal.

“I just hate to see what’s happening in golf,” he said. “It really bugs me. You see a guy hit a shot out of the rough now, and the ball hits over the flag and stops within two feet. I can’t believe what I’m seeing. And then they say, ‘What a great shot.’ Hogwash.”

It’s already been called “Groovegate,” but a decision on the use or prohibition of the controversial square-grooved clubs on the PGA Tour isn’t anywhere near.

Commissioner Deane Beman, who initially said that he wanted a quick ruling by the PGA tour’s policy board, says now that more tests and studies are needed, and it’s likely that there will be no policy by the end of the year.

Beman also said that it’s possible that no action will be taken restricting the use of the clubs.

“There is fairly uniform agreement from the players that the square-grooved clubs reduce flyers from the fairway and give substantially more control from the rough,” Beman said. “There is not such a broad agreement that something should be done about it.

“Some feel that we should simply accept the advances in technology and go along with it. Many feel we cannot allow technology to go unchecked.”

The U.S. Golf Assn. recently ruled, in effect, that the Ping-Eye 2 square-grooved clubs will be ineligible for USGA competition beginning in 1996. The USGA said that grooves can be no wider than .035 of an inch at the surface. There also has to be a flat surface between the grooves three times greater than the width of the grooves.

The Ping-Eye 2 was legal and approved by the USGA in 1984 when it had square grooves, but the edges were so sharp they often damaged the cover of the ball. The ball also spun a lot more. Ping then beveled the edges, which made the golf balls last longer and also probably decreased spin a little, but failed to submit the new square-grooved clubs to the USGA.

The USGA said the grooves are .031 inches wide and that’s legal. Ping measures differently at .026 and that is also legal. But measuring at .026 leaves a space of .078 between the grooves, and the USGA’s measuring at .031 leaves .073, which makes it a violation of the 3-to-1 ratio.

So, in effect, this big controversy is over five one-thousands of an inch.

Seven California courses are on the list of the 100 greatest in the world, selected in a worldwide survey of experts and published by Golf magazine. Pebble Beach is ranked No. 3 and Cypress Point is No. 4. Another Northern California course, Olympic Club, the site of this year’s U.S. Open, is rated No. 19.

The highest Southern California course was the Los Angeles Country Club’s North Course, No. 27. Riviera was No. 28.

In order, the magazine said the world’s top 10 golf courses are: 1. Pine Valley in New Jersey, 2. Muirfield, Scotland, 3. Pebble Beach, 4. Cypress Point, 5. Augusta National, 6. Royal Melbourne in Australia, 7. St. Andrews, Scotland, 8. Ballybunion (Old) in Ireland, 9. Royal Co. Down (No. 1) in Newcastle, Northern Ireland, 10. Merion (East) in Ardmore, Pa.

The other two California courses are San Francisco, No. 48; and PGA West (Stadium) in La Quinta, No. 75.

According to the rankings, 55 of the world’s top 100 courses are in the United States.

Chi Chi Rodriguez, who is on a steady diet of victories on the Senior tour, remembers what he used to eat when he was a sickly Puerto Rican youngster: beans mixed with corn meal, black coffee and bananas.

Chi Chi’s diet has changed. He eats steak six times a week and doesn’t worry about it a bit.

“They say steak is bad for you,” Rodriguez said in a story in the September issue of Golf Illustrated.

So?

“What do the tigers and lions eat?”

Better sign up for your tee times now. Apparently, there aren’t going to be enough golf courses to go around pretty soon. Research released by the National Golf Foundation said that there are so few public golf courses that the growth of the game could be affected.

According to Golf Course Management magazine, the NGF concluded that one new course needs to be opened each day until the year 2000 or there won’t be enough courses to meet the needs of the number of new golfers expected to take up the game in the United States.

Golf participation in the United States will grow from 2% to 5% each year through 2000, which will create an additional 10 million to 14 million golfers, the magazine said.

Golf Notes Prize money of $100,000 is at stake Sept. 29-30 and Oct. 1-2 at the Wigwam, Litchfield Park, Ariz., the site of the 31st Fall Championship of the U.S. National Senior Open Golf Assn. More than 425 professional and amateur members will compete on three courses. Previous winners in the over-50 association are Tommy Bolt, Art Wall and Billy Casper. . . . Greens at both the Nicklaus courses under construction at PGA West will be sodded after Sept. 14. The Resort Course is completely planted and should be ready for a fall opening. On the Private Course, nine holes are planted and rough grading is left on three holes. Because dirt and rock has to be moved across a canal, small trucks are the biggest vehicles that can carry dirt over the bridges. About 15,000 yards of rock and gravel are being hauled across the bridges.

The LPGA event being played at Buford, Ga. is offering the highest first-place prize in LPGA history, $81,500. . . . Meanwhile, the biggest total purse and first-place prize money in PGA Tour history will be at stake in the Nabisco Championships of Golf. The top 30 golfers in the season’s individual competition will play in the 72-hole event which is worth $2 million, $360,000 to the winner. . . . The Variety Club’s 16th annual golf and tennis tournament will be held Sept. 14 at Braemar Country Club in Tarzana. The fund-raiser will provide college scholarships for underprivileged Los Angeles students. . . . The inaugural McLean Stevenson celebrity tournament is also scheduled for Braemar. The Sept. 21 event benefits the Foundation for the Junior Blind. . . . The ninth annual Bill Van Gieson Memorial tournament, to benefit a number of San Fernando Valley charities, will be held at the Calabasas Golf and Country Club Oct. 5. The Calabasas Chamber of Commerce is sponsoring the event. . . . Steve Lass defeated Randy Drake in 37 holes for the club championship at Glendora GC. . . . John Schabacker, 21, who will be a senior at the University of San Diego, won the Colorado Golf Assn. stroke play championship.