Changes Are Coming For Equipment

First, I recommend that you read John Duggan's interview with Peter Dawson, the secretary of the R&A. Find it at Golf Observer or go to GolfDash and find it under the January 31 Daily Headline. I've never heard Peter Dawson speak nor have I read his comments before, but he strikes me as extremely down to earth, fair minded and generally lucid.

Towards the end of the interview, you'll find very interesting information on grooves, distance and side spin. Read his remarks carefully because more than likely this man is going to have a lot to say about what kind of clubs will be allowed in your bag in the future. Mr. Dawson did not directly give away his hand, but it's not hard to imagine that changes are afoot if you read between the lines. He's got some really interesting facts to back up his conclusions. These alone make the article worthwhile reading.

Bottom line, the USGA and the R&A are finding out that it's too easy to get out of the rough and to make balls spin when your club has the new U grooves. I'd bet a sizable sum that these will be outlawed soon. How about 70 degree wedges? The problem seems to be that they make it easy to swing hard in the rough when you only want to hit the ball a short way, greatly eliminating the skills of finesse and feel. I'm not sure I'd put one of those pancakes in my bag if I was planning on keeping in line with future club conformance rules.

Here's a very interesting fact from Mr. Dawson, 'there is no longer a correlation between driving accuracy and scoring' for the pros. I can sympathize with him wholeheartedly that this is an alarming development. The good news for driver makers is that they have seen no further distance gains in the last five years. HOWEVER, the new clubs are so good at reducing side spin that the balls don't stray off course nearly so easily. Mr. Dawson says the officials intent will not be to punish shots in the rough, but to reward those in the fairway. Given the fact that millions of drivers have been sold in the last five years, I don't see them outlawing what we already have in our bags. On the other hand, he seems very intent on getting driving accuracy and scoring to correlate once again.

Any moves the R&A and the USGA can make to save more of the original nature of the game would be greatly appreciated by this writer - as long as it doesn't cost me money to be in compliance. One last thought, I wonder if they'll ever consider outlawing the long shafted putters? I'm not sure if I really despise them or that I'm just afraid of what my friends would call me if I started using one.

Cheers