FAYd Away
USGA executive director David Fay announced that he’s stepping down after 21 years.
It’s been a rewarding, satisfying and fun run. My heartfelt thanks to all of you, with a special salute to the women and men of the superb USGA staff, who helped make it so.
Some of the accomplishments Fay has to be proud of are bringing golf to the Olympics and bringing U.S. Open play to public courses like Torrey Pines and Bethpage Black.
I just got a nice package in the mail yesterday. It was my “member benefits” package from the USGA (United States Golf Association) for signing up for the 2010 season. This membership is just about the biggest no-brainer in golf.
Included in even the most basic membership, with is $15, is the following:
- USGA Member Bag Tag
- Rules of Golf Book
- Member card
- 2010 US OPEN Pebble Beach Golf Hat
- US OPEN program
- Discounts on golf
- USGA Newsletter
There are multiple membership levels which can be found here.
Ping’s Chairman John Solheim is standing up for square grooves and I don’t blame him. I can really benefit from square grooves, which I do have in three of my four wedges. They help me enjoy the game.
I also think that PGA Tour pros have it too easy with the “bomb and gouge” way of playing, hitting 300 yard drives, missing the fairway and somehow getting spin out of the rough with their wedges to the green. So I can see implementing or backing up some of the technology for their games.
It is a quandary for sure, because most players like myself want to compare my game to the world’s best and therefore want to play the same equipment.
Ping’s/Solheim’s statement released yesterday:
“The new groove rule harms the game and golfers and should be dropped. The recent uproar about it from PGA Tour players demonstrates this fact, however, the PGA Tour’s proposal to delay implementing the rule is not a solution. You can’t turn a bad idea into a good one by waiting an extra year to adopt it. We hope everyone who cares about the future of this game keeps that simple concept in mind.”
(more…)
The USGA was looking pretty bad after Thursday’s rain out. 40,000 or so people who watched a max of 11 holes of US OPEN golf Thursday (lead group made it to #11) were SOL and couldn’t use their tickets to see any other rounds.
Friday the USGA reversed that decision and saved face IF there’s a Monday finish. Unfortunately they told people to throw away their tickets but the USGA has a provision for that as can be read in Rand Jerris’ (USGA director of communications) statement below.
“Those people who no longer have their tickets can go to will call, where we have records of ticket buyers. We have 20,000 e-mail addresses of ticket buyers, we have credit card receipts. There are a number of ways to identify our ticket buyers if they threw away their tickets.”
I’m sure there are a lot of peoople who’s tickets were not acquired directly. They may have been sold, gifted, ebayed (that is a word), scalped… I guess those people are out of luck.
HOGWire – Golf Industry News
