GROOVY GOLF PROBLEM FOR PROFESSIONALS

Press, 31 August 1977, Page 22

GROOVY GOLF PROBLEM FOR PROFESSIONALS

An observation by the renowmed United States golfing professional, Jerry Heard, during the Greater Hartford Open tournament earlier this month led to frenzied activity by a large number of the world’s best players on the eve of the United States P.G.A. championship.

Al the Hartford tournament, Heard, after receiving an iron from his playing partner, George Burns, regarded it suspiciously. Heard considered the grooves in the clubface were too wide and Burns, on his own volition, had them inspected with a calliper by the assistant commissioner of the P.G.A. tour.

They were found to be too wide and Burns withdrew because he was playing with illegal clubs. The issue followed the field to Pebble Beach for the P.G.A. championship and there was speculation about the legality of Tom Watson’s clubs as he used the same brand as Burns. Watson was one of the favourites afier successes

this year in the British Open and United States Masters tournaments. The tournament co-or-dinators of the New Zealand Airlines-Shel) Open, which will be held in Auckland in October, Messrs Lawrie Blair and Paul Gleeson, were at Pebble Beach in order to finalise overseas players for New Zealand’s richest golfing event. Mr Blair said that between 60 and 70 players who had the grooves of their clubs tested found that they were illegal. The rules specify that the grooves must be no wider than 35-thousandths of an inch, and that the distance between the grooves must be three times the width. The discovery of the illegality led to hectic measures before the P.G.A. tournament by many top golfers who were worried that they might be disqualified after shooting a low round because the grooves were fractionally wide.

One of the worst affected was Watson. His clubs were found to be illegal and they were returned to the factory. Another set was built overnight but they, too, failed to meet the requirements. So Watson produced the set of clubs which he used in winning the 1975 British Open and they were also declared illegal.

Watson was forced to use a borrowed set of clubs for the first round and proved that “clubs do not always maketh the man” by shooting 68.

John Lister, of New Zealand, was one of the many who had his clubs checked and found that they did not comply with the regulations. Because it was the same set of clubs that Lister had had for five years, it was only to be expected that the

grooves would be worn. But he took the precautionary step of having the faces buffed off.

In a statement issued by the president of the corporation that manufactured the brand of clubs mostly involved, it was said that the grinding of the grooves met the required specifications but the fault occurred when the clubface was inadvertently ground a fraction less than the specifications. All clubs affected hv the discrepancy were to be corrected or replaced immediately.