Driver testing on the PGA Tour is meant to help ensure an equal playing field, but most pros find ways to get around it.
So said former U.S. Open champion Lucas Glover this week, turning up the temperature on an already hot topic.
In wide-ranging remarks on his SiriusXM PGA Tour Radio show, Glover pointed out a gaping loophole in testing protocols that he believes are too porous to begin with because they only call for testing 30 drivers each week.
Not only are those tests too limited, Glover said, but a lot of players cheat the system.
“I’ve been trying to think all morning and all day how to say this without sounding like it’s gonna sound, but most guys don’t give them their real driver anyway,” Glover offered when his co-host, Taylor Zarzour, asked why testing isn’t conducted across the board. “They give them their backup just in case. No, it’s true. And the testing is the way it is, why, and again, I know a lot of guys, they keep two drivers in their bag just in case. ‘Hey, oh, yeah, it’s this one. It’s this one right here. Yeah, do this, test this one.’”
Driver testing is nothing new. But its relevance came into sharp relief at last week’s PGA Championship, where credible reports surfaced that Rory McIlroy had been forced to put a new driver into play after his Masters-winning big stick was found to be “no longer permissible.” Why McIlroy’s club might have failed inspection is unknown. Test results are kept confidential. But it’s not uncommon for driver faces to degrade over time, especially when mashed over and over by elite players with elevated swing speeds. As a club face thins from repeated wear, the change can push its springiness past the legal limit. Scottie Scheffler, who won the PGA Championship, revealed that his driver also failed testing prior to the start of the week.
In the PGA Championship, McIlroy played the same make and model of TaylorMade driver that he used to cut Augusta down to size. But he struggled off the tee at Quail Hollow. To Glover, that variance underscored a point: no two drivers are exactly the same.
“I was told a long time ago, golf clubs are actually like snowflakes,” he said. “They may read the same. They may look the same. They may fall the same way out of the sky. They may build them the exact same in the trailer, but they’re snowflakes. There is nothing identical. To the point where, even the backups I travel with, I know it is not as good. If it was as good or better, I’d be hitting it.”
As it happens, Glover said that his own driver was tested at Quail Hollow, too. It passed.
“I don’t hit far enough to thin a face out anymore,” he said. “But mine was fine.”
If his driver had failed, though, Glover said, “I’d have been devastated.” Switching drivers — even drivers of the same make and model — can be a tough adjustment.
That’s why he felt for McIlroy at Quail Hollow. Glover said that he’d banged balls on the range beside the newly minted Masters champion on Tuesday of PGA Championship week without knowing about Rory’s club-test issues.
“And then I found out a couple days later, the next day, whatever it was, that that was an entirely new driver,” Glover said. “And I said, wow, that stinks for him because you gotta drive it there really, really, really well. And obviously, coming off the Masters and coming off playing great all winter, all spring, and you gotta do that. Yeah, I was like, man, that’s tough.”
Bad breaks are part of golf, of course. But they shouldn’t be a part of club testing, Glover said. His solution? Make testing comprehensive, and close the loopholes. This, Glover said, should start at the majors by implementing uniform testing requirements at the four big events that bring together players from a fractured game.
“(I)mmediately, I came to the realization that we’re not all playing under the same umbrella at these majors unless we did test everybody,” Glover said. “So we got LIV guys, we got other tour guys, we got tons of different players and tours being represented at the four biggest tournaments of the year. So why doesn’t everybody get tested at every major? And why don’t we somehow try to make sure it’s the driver being used?”
If big equipment companies and major golf organizations have to spend a little extra, so be it.
“If that costs X amount of dollars, great. Let’s do it,” Glover said. All these organizations got plenty. Look at the tents they build every week. If we’re going be on an equal playing field, and the four biggest events are going to bring all these people and all these tours together, let’s make sure we’re playing under the same rules.”
