By Frank Pingue
OAKMONT, Pennsylvania (Reuters) -The United States Golf Association (USGA) said on Wednesday it has no plans to publish results or change protocols for driver testing after clubs belonging to two of the game’s biggest names failed conformance tests last month.
USGA CEO Mike Whan, speaking ahead of this week’s U.S. Open, said drivers deemed non-conforming through random tests are the result of overuse and “creep over the line” of what’s allowed but never raise eyebrows by those overseeing the tests.
Driver testing made headlines at the PGA Championship last month after a report said the club belonging to Masters champion Rory McIlroy was ruled non-conforming.
McIlroy, who later confirmed the report and expressed his disappointment that test results were leaked, played with a backup driver all week.
World number one Scottie Scheffler, speaking after he won the PGA Championship, revealed he also used a backup driver that week after his original one failed a test.
Whan said the USGA conducts driver testing as a service to players, manufacturers and the tours and has no desire to see results made public.
“If I’m being honest with you, I think in terms of what happened at the PGA Championship, it made us more committed to not wanting to have this be the topic of the town,” said Whan.
“Because I think when you talked about a rules violation or somebody who’s playing with a hot driver, that gets so much more sensational than the reality.”
Faces on the drivers used by current players relax over time and ultimately lead to them failing a so-called “characteristic time” test that measures the spring-like effect of the club.
Whan likened the test to someone jumping on a trampoline, saying the longer they are on the trampoline the higher they bounce off.
“So we set a limit with manufacturers in terms of how long that ball can stay on — it’s tested in terms of microseconds,” Whan said.
“There’s a test, there’s a tolerance, but at the end of the day, if it’s on there for more than 258 microseconds, we consider that club out of tolerance.”
Although Whan said the USGA conducted random tests this week at Oakmont Country Club, where the year’s third major begins on Thursday, he was not aware of any failures.
“I know that if we saw a trend that was alarming in terms of either how many or how far they were moving beyond, we would change the way we approach it,” Whan said.
(Reporting by Frank Pingue, editing by Ed Osmond)
Comments