Ed Mitchell, PGA
Editor With the recent announcements of Non-Conforming drivers being sold from 3 of the prominent club manufacturers, the question must be asked, is it time to check for illegal clubs on the 1st tee? I know golf is a gentleman’s game and we play with honor, but that is not the problem here.

Club manufacturers have an obligation to manufacture clubs within the specifications allowed by the USGA. It should not be the responsibility of Joe Golfer to determine if his clubs are conforming. After all, when he makes the purchase from the club performance professional, he should have the confidence that the clubs conform. But the problem is deeper than that. You see the club performance professional selling the club should have the assurance that the club manufacturers sold him conforming clubs in the first place.

Unfortunately, we are seeing that is not always the case. Nike’s square-headed SQ Sumo (2), Callaway’s Big Bertha 460 13 degree and Cobra’s HS9 F/ST 9 degree drivers have recently been added to the USGA non-conforming drivers list. All three companies have explained the problem was due to manufacturing ‘error’. We naturally can assume with all of the hype for distance manufacturers will push the envelope to be the longest driver on the market. So I guess ’errors’ can happen.

How do you know if your driver is conforming? You can check the USGA non-conforming driver list. That should be easy enough. There should not be many non-conforming drivers, right? I admit I had not checked this list before because I thought it was short and if a driver was non-conforming, it would not get to the market.

Well, I was wrong. I was in disbelief when I viewed the list online at http://www.usga.org/playing/clubs_and_balls/driver/non-conforming_driver_list.html. You may want to check the list to see if your driver is legal.

I did a recap of the posted May 14, 2007 USGA non-conforming driver list that you may find interesting. Here is the scoop; there are 426 non-conforming drivers on that list. You probably did not know there are that many driver models available, let alone non-conforming. But add this to your amazement; there are 940 different drivers when you add up the different lofts available. Wow, there can’t be that many different drivers manufactured, can there?

Yes there is. Oh, by the way the USGA has a conforming driver list too. The conforming list must have more than 3000 drivers listed. There are 307 pages and can be sorted by either manufacturer or model. So one could surmise there may be as many as 4000 different drivers available in different models and lofts. That suggests it may be impossible to monitor who is playing with non-conforming clubs unless it is done on the 1st tee with a computer linked to the USGA website.

Both lists are updated weekly on Monday morning. It is interesting to note that Callaway has 12 models with 49 lofts, Cobra 11 models with 38 lofts, and Nike 11 models with 23 lofts that are non-conforming. Taylor-Made has non-conforming drivers too. They have 19 models with 72 lofts listed including the r7 Quad in 5 lofts. The manufacturers names range from Action to Yonex. It appears that every manufacturer has non-conforming drivers.

Granted, some of the clubs on the non-conforming list are no longer in production and others are made for markets outside the jurisdiction of the USGA rules. But there are many questions that need answers. How many times are scores posted for handicaps using illegal drivers, or how many local club tournaments are won using them? And you can ask, how many events like PGA Tour tournaments have been won with non-conforming clubs? Is it possible that major tournaments like USGA Opens have been won with illegal clubs? How could this be? Quite simply, no one is checking clubs on the 1st tee.

Do clubs ever get checked? And whose responsibility is it? Should Golf Professionals monitor all of their events at their respective clubs? Should tournament directors have their starters checking clubs? Should the PGA Tour implement a club check on the 1st tee? All of these are legitimate questions.

But the most important question is, "Has the time come for an equipment check on the 1st tee?" I would say yes. The USGA states it is the player’s responsibility to carry clubs that conform to the Rules of Golf, and all relevant Conditions of Competition. With the many non-conforming drivers it is virtually impossible for the average golfer to know if they are using one, and for that matter, the golf professionals who generally oversees the club’s handicaps and tournaments has no way of knowing who plays with non-conforming drivers. It will be very difficult for anyone to remember what particular brands and models of clubs with certain markings are legal or not.

Cobra, for example has placed the Letter C in a box on the hosel for the conforming HS9 models while Callaway has put 3 dots in the stem of the letter B in Big on the Big Bertha drivers. Nike has placed a small circle following the SQ mark on the sole. But who would know that unless you were checking drivers on the 1st tee and you had access to the USGA website?

With the proliferation of clubs being manufactured today, is it even possible to knowingly abide by the Rules of Golf? In the global world of eBay and with clubs being sold worldwide, new and used, it is possible that illegal drivers intended for foreign markets could be winning the club championship at any country club in any town, USA.

However, this problem is not limited to just non-conforming drivers. The Rules apply to all clubs. Putters have lie and loft restrictions. Who is checking to see if they conform on the 1st tee? In particular long putters. I checked the lie angle on a long putter of a prominent tour pro one year at the TPC and it measured 86 degrees, which is clearly outside of the 10-degree rule. He had played in tournaments with the putter but was unaware of its lie angle. This was at a time when I first introduced the Mitchell® Steelclub® Putter Angle Machine. Prior to that time, no one was performing putter fitting to any extent and it was not important to check putter lies, tournament or no tournament.

In the February/March issue of this publication, Playing By The Rules addressed legal grips. Specifically reminders. The May 18th issue of Golf World reported that Brad Faxon was using a Lamkin grip with a rib that exceeded the Rules. The Rules specifically call for the reminder to be no more 0.040” difference in the minimum and maximum diameters of the grip’s cross-section at any point. Lamkin explained that the problem was in the core size of the grip designed for a few tour players and does not affect any production grips. Okay, how many other tour players were using illegal grips. Did a tour pro win with illegal grips?

Was someone checking grips on the 1st tee? Actually, in this case a tour official noticed the size of the reminder and approached Faxon about it. Not sure if he was on the 1st tee. Faxon then brought it to Lamkin’s attention who sent grips to the USGA to be tested, and were found to be illegal, according to Golf World.

This does point out the need in my opinion for clubs to be checked on the 1st tee. After all, the Darrell Survey people look at every club on Thursday mornings at PGA  & LPGA Tour events to report on who is playing what brands of clubs, shafts and grips. Maybe they should be checking for illegal clubs too. What do you think?

It is one thing for the USGA to govern the game with Rules, but apparently it is another to police them. Perhaps the USGA should implement a procedure for checking clubs, balls, shoes, gloves, tees and anything else used to play the game on the 1st tee before any tournament contestant tees off or any golfer posts scores for handicap purposes. Yes, this would be a monumental task, but the integrity of the game is at stake. Doesn’t that make it worthwhile? The game needs to be protected and the Rules of Golf adhered to, don’t they?

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