At last month's Masters the Augusta National chairman Hootie Johnson announced that the club would lengthen some of the par four holes, presumably to keep apace with the frightening increases in distance brought about by modern-day golf equipment.
During the 62nd PGA Seniors Championship at Ridgewood last weekend, Tom Watson's stirring victory over Jim Thorpe overshadowed the fact that one of Watson's playing partners had been booted out of the tournament two days earlier for playing with an illegal driver.
And, two days after Watson wrapped up his first Senior Major title, the United States Supreme Court rendered its verdict on the Casey Martin case, ruling that the disabled professional was entitled to ride a buggy in PGA sanctioned events.
Although Tom Fazio eventually wound up with the commission for the Augusta National redesign, a number of prominent golf architects were privately consulted beforehand. One of them, the outspoken Pete Dye, essentially refused the job, but not before imparting his own advice.
"Gentlemen, let me remind you that you are Augusta National. You make your own rules. You tell people how fast they can drive on Magnolia Lane, you tell them what they can and cannot wear, you don't even have a course rating because you won't let the USGA on your golf course to evaluate it. You don't have to answer to anybody, which puts you in a unique position among high-profile events. You've got a great golf course that's stood the test of time, and all you have to do is rummage around in your pro shop, find the balls they were using 20 years ago, and say `Gentlemen, this is what you're playing this week.'
"Those balls will cost you two bucks apiece," added Dye as he excused himself from the meeting, "and I just saved you $30 million." At Augusta in April Jack Nicklaus added his voice to those who believe that the USGA and the R&A, golf's rule makers on either side of the Atlantic, need to curtail aerodynamic properties of today's balls before all of the great courses are overtaken by technology. Thus far, neither group appears to have the stomach for what would be the inevitable next step - a protracted court battle with the folks who make the Titleist ProV1.
Moreover, the USGA and the R&A dovetailed when it came to outlawing several new drivers, most notably Callaway's ERC-II, which are legal in Europe. After testing over 1,000 drivers, the American body ruled that the club's performance was enhanced by a trampoline, or "spring-like" effect on the ball coming off the club-face. The banning of the ERC-II resulted in one of the uglier contretemps in some years, when elder statesman Arnold Palmer subsequently endorsed the "non-conforming" club and said that he saw nothing wrong with its use by "recreational" golfers.
When a competitor was disqualified for using an illegal driver at Ridgewood last week, it wasn't Palmer, but Jersey's Tommy Horton. Horton was playing the third hole in Friday's second round at Ridgewood when he was approached by PGA rules Official Don Essig, who told him: "I've got some bad news for you. That driver you are using is non-conforming."
"What do you mean?" protested Horton. "It's the 360 TaylorMade."
"No," Essig pointed out. "It's got the `R' stamped on it, which means it's not the standard 360."
The TaylorMade R360 driver with which Horton played is made in Japan, and is on the United States Golf Association's list of non-conforming clubs. TaylorMade markets a modified version of the 360 in the US which is within the bounds of the rules, but the model preceded by the `R' is prohibited from use in golf competitions in the United States, Mexico, and other countries under USGA jurisdiction.
Horton said it was all an innocent mistake.
"I simply was interested in the R360 and at one of the tour events in the United Kingdom, the guys at the TaylorMade truck said `Why don't you try these?'," said Horton. "They gave me a couple to try, and I liked the one I've got now. I had no idea it was non-conforming. Absolutely no idea at all."
Whether he was aware that his driver was in violation of the rules or not, Horton might have gotten away with it had he not drawn a pair of high-profile playing partners for the first two rounds. Being paired with Watson and Lanny Wadkins ensured that his group would spend a lot of time on television, and it was apparently one of the TV announcers who spotted the club.
Initially suspicion had fallen on Watson (a stickler for the rules) as the one who reported Horton, but in a subsequent conversation Watson told me he hadn't even noticed what driver Horton was playing.
Casey Martin's attorneys successfully argued his case on the basis of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Personally, I don't think they even needed it, because history was on their side in the first place. I have in my possession a book with an 1870 painting of General Sir John Low of Clatto, "riding the links at St Andrews on his faithful cream pony."
Five years earlier, it might be noted, Sir John had served as the Captain of the Royal and Ancient Golf Club.
"Other R&A members were never seen on the links without their ponies," relates present-day St Andrews caddie master Rick Mackenzie in A Wee Nip at the 19th Hole, his seminal history of the caddie's role at the home of golf.
Mackenzie recalls another St Andrews member who "employed two caddies, one to carry the clubs and one to hold the pony while he got off to play his shot, a practice which led to intense arguments between the caddies about who should have the easier job of holding the pony."
