A New Driving Range Beyond the Average Golfer

NASCAR puts restrictor plates on its stock cars. Major League Baseball requires wood bats. But the PGA Tour relies on the United States Golf Assn. to make its equipment rules. For now anyway.

In a year that was predicted to begin a slowing in golf equipment’s technology boom, the widening gap between the recreational game and PGA Tour play has many declaring that the tour needs to create its own golf ball restrictions to keep the sport entertaining and relevant to the average fan.

“The jump in the golf ball this year is ridiculous,” said Jack Nicklaus, who has advocated a competition ball with flight-limiting specifications for 20 years. “Look at the statistics per average player. It’s something like 11 yards per player. You take 11 yards and add that to 18 holes, it’s almost 200 yards. I think every golf course that was done in 2002 is already obsolete.”

Nicklaus appears tired of discussing the reasons for longer, straighter shots. As an architect, he is more concerned with the effect on the quality of golf played.

“I’m playing roughly the same clubs, and maybe less, into a green that I did in my prime,” Nicklaus said. “If I’m doing that, what are guys like Ernie Els and Tiger [Woods] doing? ... There’s only one thing to do and that’s to change the golf ball. Get control of the golf ball.”

Nick Faldo, winner of six majors, targeted the USGA, the rule maker for American golf, and the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews, governing body for the rest of the world.

“The R&A; and the USGA have just blown it,” he said. “The horse has bolted so far past the gate that it’s in stud.”

Paul McGinley of Ireland, a 2002 European Ryder Cup hero, compares the emerging emphasis on hi-tech equipment to the build-the-best-car philosophy that has undermined the once hugely popular Formula One racing.

“They’ve got to find a way to slow the ball down,” McGinley said. “They have to sit up and realize that this is getting to be a problem and if they don’t, we’re going to fall into the same trap as Formula One, and that has me worried.”

A tournament ball was suggested as early as 1927, when Bobby Jones believed such a distance cap would let architects construct character-rich golf courses in the 6,300-yard range. He feared a wave of 7,000-yard “championship” courses would take too long to play and overemphasize hitting distance. Talk of equipment regulation has surfaced intermittently through the years, but never has a restricted ball been more frequently advocated.

“I am not totally against technology but they do have to put a governor on the golf ball,” Els said recently after his fifth victory in six starts, during which he has scored 100 under par.

In 2002, Els averaged just under 282 yards a drive in the United States and 298 yards in Europe. This year, after changing to the new Titleist driver and Pro V1x ball, his average has risen to nearly 320 yards in his two PGA Tour events, both of which he won, and 314 yards in his European Tour starts.

At the Phoenix Open in January, 40 players averaged more than 300 yards for the week. Through last week’s Nissan Open, the 10 longest drivers in Europe and the U.S. are all averaging better than 300 yards. Only John Daly finished the 2002 U.S. season with an average driving distance of 300-plus yards.

One of pro golf’s longtime selling points has been everyday players using the same rules and equipment as the tour professional. The PGA Tour leans on this connection because such a bond encourages regular golfers to follow the weekly professional events. The $1-billion golf equipment industry centers marketing campaigns on tour players because of the parallels between recreational and pro golf.

Sensing a growing separation and a potential long-term threat to viewer interest, PGA Tour Commissioner Tim Finchem has recently hinted that golf needs to reconsider the shift toward the kind of one-dimensional power game that has made professional tennis less interesting to watch.

On Jan. 22, Finchem remained emphatic that he wanted no part of equipment rulemaking.

“There are lots of reasons we should not be in that business,” he said. “If at some point it appears that they’re not going to come to pass, we would have to reevaluate whether we ought to become involved in equipment rulemaking.”

Two weeks and a 376-yard Els drive later, Finchem seemed less opposed to the idea of writing equipment rules for professionals.

“We are anxious because we are continuing to see some distance enhancements in a short period of time,” Finchem told the Palm Beach Post. “Unless something happens, we may have to move toward a system of bifurcating the equipment specs for amateurs and professionals.”

Finchem probably did not share the USGA and R&A;’s recent euphoria over ending their nearly five-year tussle over spring-like drivers. Compound that saga with the USGA’s apparently inefficient ball testing, with several PGA Tour venues appearing overmatched, and Finchem may have to intervene.

Galleries are undoubtedly thrilled by long drives. But Finchem believes that television viewers will be unable to relate to drives like Phil Mickelson’s recent tee shot that reached the green on the TPC Scottsdale’s 403-yard par-four 10th hole. Creative approach play, short-game wizardry and heroic recovery shots translate better to television, the PGA Tour’s $850-million partner.

“There is some point -- nobody knows where it is -- when the amateur player feels divorced and doesn’t really appreciate the game at this level, just because it’s so different that it doesn’t become particularly relevant,” Finchem said. “The second thing is, if everybody is driving every par-four, it’s not particularly interesting to watch.”

The USGA has long insisted that one set of rules for all is the essence of golf and any such split would be bad for the sport. Until last week. The organization posted an online interview with Executive Director David Fay in which the USGA head hinted that “bifurcation” might be an option.

“I believe a burning issue facing the game is whether the talent gap between the best players in the world and the rest of us is widening to the point where we need to consider a more restrictive set of equipment rules for the most highly skilled players,” Fay said. “Whether this is a ‘problem’ or a natural evolution of a healthy sport depends on your point of view -- and, quite often, your age.”

One issue lately has been the USGA’s inability to modernize the longtime “Iron Byron” test for golf balls with a suitable replacement. Using a persimmon driver striking the ball at 109 mph to replicate Byron Nelson in his prime, the Iron Byron device seems to have been outsmarted by equipment manufacturers and their former NASA engineers, who have created solid-core balls that pass the test when hit at near-normal club-head speeds. But when hit at extreme speeds, the physics change.

“This new x-ball, if I just swing at it regular speed, I don’t get much out of it,” Mickelson said of the new Titleist ball, the one to which Els attributes his distance increase. “But when I go after it, I get a ton out of it.”

The USGA’s “optimization” ball test was scratched at the end of 2001 in the wake of complaints from manufacturers. Instead, the USGA announced that 27-year-old Iron Byron would be modified. More than a year later, Iron Byron has still not been brought into the 21st century under what was to be called the “indoor test range” procedure. Even when the test is up and running, it will work around balls in the marketplace so that no current product will be ruled out, including the Pro V1x and soon-to-be-introduced balls from Nike and Callaway.

If he pushes for “bifurcation,” Finchem may face litigation from manufacturers. Titleist’s CEO, Wally Uhlien, is legendary for sending confrontational letters when ball restrictions are broached by golf publications, the USGA or the PGA Tour.

Finchem may also struggle to sell a golf ball rollback to players who may not want to upset their endorsement deals or hit shorter drives for the long-term health of golf. But other than the top stars, successful players will earn far more in PGA Tour prize money than equipment company endorsement money.

“You’re seeing an evolution occurring and I don’t know if you can change the evolution of the game,” says Olin Browne, a player and member of the PGA Tour policy board. He does not see a tournament ball on the horizon but concedes that the issue needs to be watched.

If ratings decline or fans defect because professional play becomes less interesting, however, the PGA Tour may stop watching and enter the equipment-regulation business.

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*--* Top Drivers A look at the top five players in average driving distance on the PGA Tour this year, and their numbers last year Player 2003 2002 Ernie Els 319.6 281.4 John Daly 310.2 306.8 Vijay Singh 308.9 285.6 Phil Mickelson 308.0 288.8 James McLean 305.0 291.5* * Did not play on PGA Tour last year; number comes from Nationwide Tour

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