DUBLIN, Ohio — An issue that nobody paid much attention to or even knew much about became controversial not only because it involved one of the game’s most popular and successful players but due to the lack of transparency that surrounded it.
Golf has a way of needlessly harming itself like this. And the “driver testing” story that came to light at the PGA Championship—it was confidential information that was leaked to a news outlet, SiriusXM PGA Tour Radio—that Rory McIlroy’s driver was deemed non-conforming after random testing is the perfect example of so much needless hand-wringing.
First, let’s set it straight that it is highly improbable that anyone is trying to get away with something via their “hot” drivers and gaining some advantage.
That has never been the case but because the words “non-conforming” and “illegal” have been associated with the process, it has led to some unfortunate chatter that could also have been avoided if the process were out in the open.
“I just don’t believe there’s any guy out here that’s intentionally saying ... because the whole problem is when your driver is hot, it will break just shortly after that,” said Xander Schauffele when asked at the Memorial about the process. “That’s just how it works. So do I think any guy is out here is like, ‘Oh, I have a hot driver. Like, I’m going to hit it a mile this week?’
“No. It’s just, this is my driver that I’ve been hitting for a year and I love it, and no, I don’t want to switch. So I think that’s kind of more the attitude. And yeah, I thought it was kind of crazy when you test 30 guys and the other 120 get to kind of roam around. It’s kind of weird.”
Schauffele ran into an issue at the 2019 British Open at Royal Portrush where his driver was deemed non-conforming in testing prior to the tournament. The reason it’s an issue—and was with McIlroy—is not any kind of cheating implication, but the fact that a player must then switch equipment.
Testing has been occurring regularly since 2019 and yet nobody knows about it. The results are confidential and why McIlroy’s test was leaked is unclear. Him not talking about it didn’t help matters but the questions would have almost certainly centered on the difficulty of having to play with a new driver, not any dubious intentions.
Schauffele said his big issue at the time was the fact that so few players were tested. It is generally believed that about one third of the field, randomly, gets their driver tested and it might not be at all tournaments.
Lucas Glover, who won the 2009 U.S. Open, said on his SiriusXM radio show that players sometimes have their backup driver tested, a notion that Schauffele disputed but also said could be easily handled.
“I would test everyone and make sure I would get everyone’s serial number with a driver,” Schauffele said. “Pretty easy.”
“It really is normal,” Schauffele added. “I didn’t even understand sort of the public’s negative opinion on it. It didn’t really register in my head because I know, one, it’s like, we hit our drivers a lot so, like, they creep and then they go over a line [in which case they no longer conform]. We don’t know when. We have no clue. Unless our driver physically cracks and you start hitting these knuckleballs off the tee that kind of disperse everywhere, then you know your driver’s broken.
“But in the terms of this creep thing, it’s not like you’re going to be a guy who has 170 [mph] ball speed and then all of a sudden your driver’s hot and you have 185. It’s not like a corked bat [in baseball]. That’s just not how golf works. You either swing it hard and hit it hard or you don’t.
“I think the trickiest part is no driver’s the same and no shaft is the same. They can have all the same writing and logos on them, but the makeup of each head and shaft is slightly different. A lot better now than they used to be, but we have a trusty, our trusty club, and then you take it out and switch it. Same thing with a putter, you know. No club is exactly the same. So as soon as you make us change, there’s a little bit of a grace period where you have to get used to it.
“But by no means do I think anyone is, like, trying to have some hot driver out here. That’s not really how this works. It’s, like, your club and you want to use that club because you know it like it’s your best friend.”
Does it make sense to test every player every week? Perhaps it is not practical. But it seemingly make sense to say where you are doing it and announce if any didn’t pass. What’s the harm? If you are up front about how it occurs, there should be no problem.
“It’s just the amount of shots people hit, the reps you take, you keep hitting it in the center and they have lifespans,” said Collin Morikawa, who said he does not believe players switch out backup drivers as Glover suggested. “If they do, is it going to help? I don’t think it’s going to help. When these fail, we’re on such fine margins that they give us this green, yellow, red [classifications in testing]. We want our drivers to be in yellow, it’s passing. But if it’s close to failing and it’s close to cracking, what are you gaining? Guys aren’t going to hit it 25 miles further. It’s just that they have to have a line somewhere and that’s where they drew the line.”
Surging Scottie
Six weeks ago, Rory McIlroy was coming off a Masters victory and there was nobody close to him on the PGA Tour. He was actually gaining ground on Scottie Scheffler in the Official World Golf Ranking and setting up for a monumental year.
All of that is still possible but things have changed considerably since.
Scheffler has won three of his last four starts including Sunday’s Memorial Tournament, where he became the first player other than Tiger Woods to defend his title at Jack Nicklaus’s tournament.
And now you’ve got an interesting debate going forward as to who might be the PGA Tour’s Player of the Year.
McIlroy: won the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, a signature event; the Players Championship, the Tour’s flagship tournament; and the Masters.
Scheffler: won the CJ Cup Byron Nelson, PGA Championship and the Memorial, a signature event.
McIlroy, who won all three of his events with Scheffler in the field (Scheffler’s only win with McIlroy in the field was the PGA) would have a slight advantage in just looking at those tournaments alone.
But Scheffler’s recent won puts to rest his “slow” start to the year when he was coming back from a Christmas hand injury.
Scheffler has nine top-10 finishes and three victories in 11 starts. Starting with the Houston Open, he’s gone T2, 4, T8, win, win, T4, win in his last seven starts. And the U.S. Open is up next week.
He now has 16 PGA Tour wins, which matches Justin Thomas and trails only McIlroy among active players (not including Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson).
After the Masters, I wrote that it seemed unlikely for anyone in the future to join McIlroy in the 30-victory club. And while Scheffler still has a long way to go, the idea seems far more feasible now.
Scheffler’s OWGR average of 18.34 points is more than seven points ahead of McIlroy’s 11.19.
“He has the ability to bring his level to whatever level it needs to be,” Nicklaus said afterward. “That’s what good players do. And, you know, he’s not ‘good players.’ He’s a great player. I mean, look at the record that he has had the last few years. It’s unbelievable.”
Scheffler gets a weak off to prepare for another tough test at Oakmont. McIlroy is back in action this week at the RBC Canadian Open.
An anniversary with no celebration
This week marks the two-year anniversary of the controversial “Framework Agreement” that was announced just days after the Memorial Tournament and less than a week before the start of the 2023 U.S. Open.
To say it was shocking does not do justice to the term. The vitriol coming from the PGA Tour toward LIV Golf—and vice versa—suggested that any kind of peace was not possible. Certainly not then.
But the “agreement” that was supposed to a yield a working relationship or an alliance has yet to materialize. Both sides dropped litigation. There have been numerous changes at the PGA Tour, including Tiger Woods becoming a board member and a separate for-profit entity known as PGA Tour Enterprises being formed. It has its own board of directors and has been infused with $1.5 billion of private equity funds from Strategic Sports Group.
But so far, there has been no reported use of the funds to grow the business and thus get a return that would help facilitate player equity shares that have been granted.
Also, after optimism in February that a deal was close when the sides twice had meetings at the White House, that quickly faded. There was some media speculation that President Trump’s recent visit to the Middle East and a possible meeting with leaders in Saudi Arabia—which back LIV Golf through the Public Investment Fund—might push the issue along.
But so far, nothing publicly has come of that.
“I don’t think there’s been any communication since the President’s visit over to Saudi Arabia,” said Adam Scott, who is a member of the PGA Tour Policy Board.
So the two sides forge on. This week is the RBC Canadian Open on the PGA Tour, where there was considerable acrimony in the wake of the news two years ago.
LIV Golf is also in action at the LIV Golf Virginia event to be played at Robert Trent Jones Golf Club. It is LIV’s eighth event of the season and its 44th overall. This week also marks the three-year anniversary of when LIV Golf played its first event in London in 2022.
Jack speaks ...
Jack Nicklaus was good on numerous topics last week. One was his belief that golf tournaments should not be all about putting, even though he was considered an excellent putter. He told a story about the Hartford Open that was played at Weatherfield Country Club, an event he had never played because he believed the scoring was too low.
“And finally, they said, ‘Jack, you need to play.’ I said, ‘Well, I’ve never played. I’ll go play. I think you’re right,” Nicklaus said. “I got to try to go to places that I haven’t been.’ So I went to Wethersfield, and I shot 68 the first round, and I was in 17th place. I shot 67 the second round, and I was in 25th place. I shot 67 the third round, and I was in 35th place. I finished with 67 and finished 42nd. That’s why I didn't go to Wethersfield.
“Now, it had nothing to do with Wethersfield. It was a very nice golf course. I just didn’t like the putter being what—I’ve never believed that the putter should dictate what the golf game is. I never believed in the thing you ‘drive for show and putt for dough.’ I always believed that part of the game is being able to get the ball to the green, on the green, and if you make some putts, that’s part of it. Sure, some guys are better putters, some guys are better hitters of the ball, but it’s the combination. And when it becomes a putting contest, that’s where I wanted to get out of it. Even though I was a good putter, I just didn’t like it being a putting contest.”
Another topic: writing letters to major champions. Nicklaus said he’s been doing it for some 30 years. After a major, he sends the winner a hand-written note. He did so this year for Rory McIlroy after the Masters and Scottie Scheffler after winning the PGA.
Nicklaus said the practice began because of the letters he received.
“I got quite a few letters when I won tournaments from Bobby Jones and people like that,” he said. “And I just thought that—I appreciated it, and I thought that they might appreciate it. I just saw Scottie in the locker room, and I said, ‘Have you gotten my letter yet?’ He says, ‘No, I haven’t been home, but I’ll get it.’”
On being prepared: Nicklaus said he never felt so confident that he knew he’d win. In fact, he relayed a story about a time when he felt he wasn’t properly prepared at the 1988 PGA Championship, where he missed the cut.
“Friday night after I missed the cut, Barbara went to McDonald’s with my son Michael for dinner, and they came home and the next morning I had a little glass of orange juice in front of me in a sippy cup that she got from McDonald’s,” Nicklaus said. “And it said, ‘There is no excuse for not being properly prepared.’ It was right, absolutely right. Still got that sippy cup, incidentally. Because there isn’t any excuse.
“As long as you go out and you make an effort and you make your effort to be the best you can be, and you give it your best effort, then you have nothing to be ashamed of. You just might get beat. And you might win.”
This article was originally published on www.si.com as Driver Testing Continues to Be a Conversation Topic, and That Is Golf’s Fault.
