PGA Works OT to Quell Wedge Firestorm

Admitting PGA Tour leadership never saw the controversy coming, Tim Finchem now can do little more than wait.

"The lawyers are evaluating," the commissioner said Wednesday from Riviera Country Club, where the Northern Trust Open is being played outside Los Angeles.

Life has been anything but groovy for the PGA Tour since Scott McCarron -- a member of the player advisory council -- last week ignited a wildfire of controversy by suggesting Phil Mickelson was cheating by using a loophole to play the non-conforming pre-1990 Ping Eye2 wedges.

For a sport needing to put on its best foot forward in the wake of Tiger Woods' image issues, the resulting infighting was pretty much everything golf did not need -- its on-course action being upstaged by a top player having his integrity questioned. Even worse, it most likely could have been avoided.

"The assumption was made last year that very few, if any, players would use that club," Finchem said. "It's 20 years old, a lot of good clubs have been made. I think we underestimated that a little bit."

The big deal is that new U.S. Golf Association rules put in place on tour this year restrict the groove design on all irons. It was a move intended to reduce the amount of spin a player is able to put on the golf ball -- particularly important when attempting to stop a shot on the green when coming out of the rough.

The old U-groove Ping Eye2s do not conform to the new rules, but because of an old lawsuit, were grandfathered into what's legal.

"If a wedge club a year ago, legal, could spin the ball at 100 RPMs, the Ping Eye2 wedge, relatively speaking, would spin it at approximately 60 RPMs, and a wedge under today's rules would spin it at 50 RPM," Finchem said. "So there's roughly a 20 percent differential between what you're allowed to do this year and what a Ping Eye2 wedge from pre '90 can do."

Finchem outlined three possible avenues the tour can take to address the issue. "These are the rules of golf. Any player is fully entitled to play a Ping Eye2 wedge designed before 1990 if he so chooses. There is nothing wrong with that. There is nothing that violates the rules."
- Tim Finchem

One, is to do nothing -- unlikely because on the fairness issue.

"It is a club that is not generally available to everybody, No.1," Finchem said. "And it is a club that some players by contract can't play because they have agreed with a manufacturer to play the other club, and in those agreements they implicitly understood that all clubs would be monitored the same way. So that's a problem."

Another option involves asking an independent committee for an evaluation of promulgating a rule that would differ from a USGA rule.

Basically, it would take forever.

That suggests Finchem would like to reach an agreement with Ping CEO John Solheim that would make the old lawsuit go away.

"We were very interested in the comments by John Solheim over the weekend that he recognizes this issue, and given certain circumstances he might be open to at least evaluating a way to deal with this from a contractual standpoint," Finchem said. "And obviously if he were to take that step, it would be a terrific gesture on his part to deal with an issue that is troublesome."

In the meantime, players do not have to like it, but they will need to accept the clubs as technically legal until further notice.

Finchem met with players for an hour Tuesday night in L.A., to outline the situation, and to calm emotions.

"There was some unfortunate commentary by other players in the media in the last week or so," Finchem said. "These are the rules of golf. Any player is fully entitled to play a Ping Eye2 wedge designed before 1990 if he so chooses. There is nothing wrong with that. There is nothing that violates the rules. There is absolute no basis to criticize a player for doing so. None. To do so in our view is inappropriate.

"And in respect to a particular player who used a particular unfortunate choice of words, I will say there is perhaps a mitigating factor to the amount of reaction, but no justification for the language used."

Finchem, as is tour policy, would not say if McCarron faces a fine or other discipline.

However, the hurt feelings apparently have been soothed.

Following the players meeting that Finchem called, Michelson and McCarron were seen shaking hands and chatting.

McCarron later said they he had offered an apology.

Mickelson said it was accepted, and said he would not use the wedge this week.

"The reaction was stronger than it could have been had we more intensely last year gotten in front of players with the details of this rule," Finchem said. "What I mean by that is, two years ago when we instituted our drug policy, we made sure we were in front on every single play on the ramifications of drug testing, and the reality you could be suspended and the dos and don't of staying in compliance. Players paid attention.

"We didn't act (this time) with that level intensity. Had we, the reaction might have been lesser."

That does not mean the issue could have been totally avoided, only that players might have been more prepared.

"I think there would have been still guys that would have used them," Steve Stricker said. "I do. They're legal. That's the bottom line. They're not doing anything wrong by using those clubs, and I think that's the whole point of this is that those guys weren't -- they're still playing under the rules, and right now the issue is that most of the players don't think that the rules are quite right.

"We just want to make sure that it's consistent -- some players can get that club, some players can't. I just think the USGA adopted this rule, and we ought to try to get there to that rule as quickly as possible, I think, and have all of us players playing consistent grooves with one another."