Scottie Scheffler may want a solution for the current issues of professional golf’s driver testing, but it will always be a complicated topic.
After winning his third major at the PGA Championship on Sunday, Scheffler revealed his gamer driver failed a USGA conformance test and had to be taken out of play before the tournament began. This followed a report earlier in the week that the same thing had happened to Rory McIlroy, although McIlroy has yet to confirm this.
Driver testing happens every week on the PGA Tour with the current protocols involving testing 30 drivers each week for their spring-like effect, which is measured by the CT (Characteristic Time). The USGA conducts this testing and does not reveal publicly the results. The PGA released a statement on Saturday saying the USGA tested one-third of the field last week.
Drivers failing is nothing new and it typically happens each week. Given the speeds at which Tour pros swing their drivers and hit the same spot on the face, the clubs eventually wear out, just like any other. Some drivers eventually crack or cave in, but before then, the face of the driver is going to get faster and faster as the face thins out.
When a player fails, that driver is usually taken away from them and they switch to a backup. That’s what both Scheffler and McIlroy did this week.
But Scheffler said after his victory that pro golf should get more “robust” about driver testing, if they are going to do it at all.
“I would argue that if we’re going to test the drivers, we need to be even more robust in the way we test them,” he said Sunday night at Quail Hollow. “That was a conversation I had with one of the rules officials; if it’s something we’re going to take seriously, I feel like we’re almost going halfway with it right now.
“If we’re going to test only a third of the field. If we’re going to do it right, leave it up to us as players, like the rest of the rules in the game of golf are.”
The issues with Scheffler’s solutions
If every player knows they are going to be tested every week, what is to stop someone from submitting a different head as their “gamer” for a test while keeping their actual driver hidden away until they are through testing? While that situation is unlikely and goes against the spirit of a mostly self-policed game, you do have to think of those rare circumstances.
Since the test is random and occurs when players arrive at the course for the day, it forces players to keep their gamer driver with them so they don’t sacrifice practice time with it.
Getting rid of testing in the spirit of the Rules of Golf is an interesting thought, but the only way to test for conformance is a machine and the results are clear-cut. Different from interpreting the rules of the game, where judgment is often required. Furthermore, there is no visual evidence of creep.
While reps know what to look for when seeing if a driver is getting “too hot,” they can’t catch it every time.
Like it or not, the current testing solution may be the best solution out of a lot of bad solutions out there.
What really needs to change
For one thing, the benefits of having a driver that is slightly non-conforming is pretty minimal. Tour fitters describe the signs of a driver getting “too hot” as a player hitting shots that they describe as “funky” or unpredictable. Players do not want to have drivers that are too hot and the heads on the Tour trucks are cherry-picked for slower CT measurements so they can use them longer.
But the creep is inevitable, which is why it’s such a common thing for a driver to fail a conformance test. Tour players and reps know this. McIlroy had this happen to him two years ago when he took a driver out of play because he and his gear reps sensed it had become too hot.
The problem is that fans and the media don’t because the test results are kept confidential and are only revealed by players if they want to.
The reason for this, of course, is the OEMs rightfully do not want to have information published that shows their products fail conformance tests. It’s unlikely, but maybe a hacker will see that one brand is having more drivers test hotter than another and purchase a driver from them, thinking they’ll get an edge. In all likelihood, brands with more failed tests will get erroneously labeled as not durable.
No one wants that.
This is a problem unique to Tour pros and not one a general consumer needs to worry about.
What could be a happy medium is for the USGA to release the number of failed tests per week, but keep the names of players (and thus their equipment sponsors) confidential. That way, people would see how common it is for a driver to fall out of conformance, and this wouldn’t be a story again.
Players would simply switch to their backups and go on about their week as normal, just as Scheffler did this week.
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