The USGA has already weighed in on the issue of face milling on an approved driver, and their position is one that I personally agreed with.
They stated that they're aware that a conforming drive can be modified by grinding/milling/etc. and that this could possibly increase the COR to a non-conforming level. The position is that golf is a game of personal ethics that requires the player to either use legal equipment or to call the penalty on themselves for using non-conforming equipment. They will not at this time initiate testing on specific player's clubs for COR conformance. They will however retest samples of a specific model either obtained by the maker or through purchase if they believe the model has been modified to increase COR by the manufacturer after initial COR testing submittal. The equipment 'experts' at the USGA have expressed a similar position to Tom W.'s - they believe milling faces results in failure of the clubhead much more than increasing COR..... Pat K. > > From: Dave Tutelman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Date: 2003/01/28 Tue AM 09:40:37 EST > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: Re: ShopTalk: Face Milling > > At 07:21 AM 1/28/03 -0500, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > >Arnie > > I have to disagree with you as far as it doesn't due anything. If are > > able to measure ball measure ball velocity before and after the procedure > > you will definitely see an increase in ball speed. I forgot what the > > distance increase is per 1 mph increase but to tour pros every yard of > > carry is significant. Face thickness can be measured but the equipment > > costs a couple of thousand dollars. A friend of mine has it and I have > > been doing it for a few years. As far as being legal you have to maintain > > the .83 COR. > > > > Charlie > > My problem with all this is Charlie's last point about being legal. Face > grinding attacks the whole structure of golf club conformance enforcement. > > Golf club conformance is based on "type testing". The USGA (and tournament > staffs) do not test every club at every [important] event. They test a > small sample (probably a sample of one) of the model from the manufacturer. > This is based on an assumption that modifying the head is difficult to do, > and especially difficult to do undetectably. > > If people start modifying the COR of the clubheads with milling machines or > grinders, then the whole notion of type testing goes out the window. Clubs > will have to be measured at every significant tournament. And, as Charlie > notes, it is expensive to measure face thickness. Moreover, there isn't a > simple mathematical relationship between face thickness and COR. So the > USGA and the PGA tour may have to carry around an air cannon to their > events and measure COR directly every time. > > This is not an idea I'm inventing on the fly. When I raced sailboats, I was > also a fleet measurer in the Albacore class (15-foot planing sloop), was on > the specifications committee, and was on the national championship > measuring staff a few times. At the national championships, all boats were > measured before the regatta, in any dimension that was: > * Changeable from the original type test. (The hull molds were approved > by the class before Albacores could be manufactured from them, so overall > size and shape of hull was OK by type testing. That was all that was type > tested.) > * Affected performance. > For lesser regattas than the nationals, there were spot check measurements > for one or two dimensions on all boats. > > Things that were checked included position of the centerboard pivot, ALL > controlling dimensions of sails, overall weight of the boat, critical > dimensions of spars (mast and boom), and a few other dimensions. We often > found transgressions that had to be corrected before you could race. If you > arrived a day early for measuring, you had a chance to fix things up. If > you showed up the morning of the race with an outaspec boat, you were SOL. > (Well, the technical term is DSQ, but SOL is so much more colorful.) > > I'd hate to see this happen to golf. But I see two trends pushing in that > direction: > > (1) Milling the head to increase COR. This is just begging for a rule to > disallow clubs that show visible tampering. Mill or sand the face so it > looks different from the head as manufactured, and the club is > automatically illegal. (In the days of wooden heads, I'd scream bloody > murder about such a rule; I modified clubfaces all the time. BUT... such > mods did not affect the COR, or any other rule-based item.) > > (2) The USGA is about to bring one on itself: the overall length rule. This > is something that EVERYBODY changes. If you put a rule on it, you will HAVE > TO measure every club at every tournament for conformance. > > Yecchh! > DaveT > > >
