OAKMONT, Pa. — While two-time major champion Xander Schauffele and others have called for the United States Golf Association to examine all golfers’ drivers before tournaments, USGA CEO Mike Whan said Wednesday that the governing body has no plans to change the way it conducts testing.
Driver testing became a hot topic at last month’s PGA Championship after world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler’s and Masters champion Rory McIlroy’s drivers were deemed nonconforming.
“I know that if we saw a trend that was alarming in terms of either how many or how far they were moving beyond [the permissible limits], we would change the way we approach it,” Whan said in a news conference at Oakmont Country Club, the site of this week’s U.S. Open. “But with what we’re seeing today, it would be a greater interruption. The juice wouldn’t be worth the squeeze.”
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Whan said the USGA tested drivers at Oakmont this week but didn’t say how many were deemed nonconforming. The test results are supposed to be confidential.
The USGA tests drivers’ characteristic time creep, which is essentially how long a ball stays on the face, according to Whan. If a ball is on a driver face for more than 257 microseconds, the club is considered too flexible and nonconforming.
“Think about a kid jumping on a trampoline, and the longer they’re on the trampoline, the farther they bounce off,” Whan said. “So we set a limit with manufacturers in terms of how long that ball can stay on. There’s a test, there’s a tolerance, but at the end of the day, if it’s on there for more than [257] microseconds, we consider that club out of tolerance.”
Driver faces become more spring-like the longer they are used. Scheffler, who picked up his third major victory at the PGA Championship, was aware his driver was getting close to being nonconforming because he had used it for more than a year. He had been practicing with a new one.
According to Whan, PGA Tour golfers’ drivers are tested two or three times per season; the USGA tests about 30 drivers at each tournament.
“We think the testing that we’re doing is commensurate with both the degree of failure that we see, which is pretty minimal,” Whan said. “Quite frankly, when we see failure, at least currently, we’re seeing clubs just literally creep over the line. We aren’t seeing drivers that are, ‘Oh, my gosh, look where that one went.'”
At last month’s Memorial Tournament, Schauffele said if he were in charge of driver testing, “he’d test everyone and make sure I would get everyone’s serial number with a driver.”
“It just depends if you want anyone playing with a hot one or not,” Schauffele said. “It’s pretty simple.”
Former U.S. Open winner Lucas Glover suggested on his SiriusXM PGA Tour Radio show that some golfers don’t provide the USGA with the actual drivers they are going to use in competition.
“They give them their backup just in case,” Glover said. “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.'”
Whan told reporters at the U.S. Women’s Open that “90% of the drivers that were given us in those practice facilities when we test are played on the first tee.”
“I can tell you as a rules body, if we had concern about this incredible advantage, we would change the degree in which we test,” Whan said. “But we think the testing that we’re doing now is commensurate with the size of both the issue and the size of the reality of the issue.”
