Follow The Vancouver Protocols

The PGA Tour and PGA of America are trying to disrupt a distance rule change even after getting bifurcation scrapped. Meanwhile the USGA and R&A are respecting the outlined process.

As the golf world suffered through a weekend of misinformation and meltdowns over the forthcoming distance decision, it’s become clear two powerful entities involved in the process all along are not very astute readers.

Or they’re wildly disingenuous and untrustworthy.

Meanwhile, fans of the USGA and R&A are perplexed at the lack of pushback at critics and those peddling scare tactics on the forthcoming distance news. The two governing organizations in charge of the Rules of Golf would (again) not comment to The Quad and other outlets regarding Friday’s report that had social media abuzz and grown men throwing public conniption fits. They would not even confirm Wednesday as announcement day. Nor have they provided a sample of updated testing data that might highlight how the proposed new testing parameters will have a small or indiscernible impact on every day golfers.

But they have very sound reasons to stay quiet for just a few hours longer. We’ll get to that shortly.

Global Golf Post’s Jim Nugent offered a balanced assessment of where things stand following Golf Digest’s report on a USGA and R&A decision finally arriving this week. It comes after five years of study, meetings, memos, public comment intake, surveys, more meetings, gobs of hours wasted by volunteers who just love the game, and finally, revising proposals to confront technology-driven distance gains. The organizations have reportedly decided to introduce new golf ball testing procedures for all instead of creating two sets of rules.

Meanwhile, we learned Monday that the PGA Tour and PGA of America have continued to write protest letters as recently as last week. This, despite the publicly announced comment period having expired months ago and after having been at the table throughout the process. Best of all, the PGA’s got their way and are still unhappy.

The USGA and R&A decision to impose a testing standard for all golfers was clearly influenced by complaints from the two PGA’s who waited until the last week of the comment period to protest a “Model Local Rule,” a.k.a. bifurcation. This would have created an option for different equipment rules in elite compeitions choosing to adopt them.

You know, like we see in every other serious professional sport with integrity and not beholden to an industrial complex.

Before addressing the disconcerting last minute push from the PGA’s—all over a few lost yards off the tee years from now and as the Tour faces a more grave existential threat to its existence as a functioning entity—keep in mind the backstory:

• The “Distance Insights” study and the proposal process to this point has been dictated by a 2011 document dubbed the Vancouver Protocols. Essentially and wisely, the governing bodies convened stakeholders and anyone who wanted to fly to Vancouver in order to hash out a better way of making equipment rules. An agreement was reached to have an orderly and disciplined process for exploring rule changes so that no one was surprised or unable to adapt or inspired to litigate over a decision.

• During the Tim Finchem years, the PGA Tour wanted little part of the rules after some hiccups during the Deane Beman years. More recently the Tour has had a seat at the table throughout the current proceedings on distance, rules and anchored putters, with at least one representative at countless meetings during major championships and other gatherings as this process played out. The Tour provided ShotLink data along with the expertise of rules team members Tyler Dennis and John Mutch. Both men have spent time at the USGA: Dennis as an intern and Mutch in equipment and rules. Mutch and other rules officials currently carry out driver testing at PGA Tour events and regularly work with the governing bodies on a whole host of issues. They are sharp as it gets when it comes to the rules. They represent the Tour very well by all accounts and in my time covering the game, relations between all organizations have seemed sound and productive.

• Jason Gore, the PGA Tour’s SVP of Players Relations and Advisor to Commissioner Jay Monahan, is the former USGA player relations director who also is respected for his big picture views along with his understanding of the game. After joining the Tour this year, he said this to Michael Breed’s Sirius radio show regarding Tour opposition to a “Model Local Rule”: “I'm still absolutely pro-USGA, but I think what we came down to was we didn't feel like this proposal was warranted. We're not against, you know, not doing something. We agree with [USGA CEO] Mike Whan that doing nothing is not an option. We just don't think that this is the best path forward.”

• As the PGA Tour has become run by the players during its LIV-induced troubles, the R&A and USGA have religiously followed the “Vancouver Protocols” throughout the “Distance Insights” project even as the protocols require an emphasis on an elaborate, cumbersome and a multi-tiered process of notification, communication and documentation when assessing a rules change.

• The PGA Tour has, for the last year or so, made things up as they go and based on leaked memos and the latest last minute pleas, appears to no longer respect the “Vancouver” process the organization once endorsed.

• The governing bodies have not strayed at any point from following the protocols throughout the search for a distance solution. Except in one area: they have yet to make publicly available any of the distance feedback received, as stipulated in the protocols. That information may come with the announcement expected Wednesday or in the days following. But overall, the USGA and R&A have remained disciplined in not pushing back at critics out of respect for the process (as wisely outlined by counsel). Such discipline should make it hard to suggest the process was somehow tainted.

• The Rules of Golf, as governed by the two governing organizations, are entirely optional to play by and just as optional to employ when running an event. The PGA Tour and PGA of America continue to have the option to make their own rules if they so desire. They have not (but have threatened at times to do so before realizing the inmates would make a mockery of the sport). The PGA of America regularly invokes Local Rules at its championships or ignores ones used elsewhere in tournament golf, usually in the name of supporting the golf industry (one ball rule, rangefinders, etc.).

Throughout the long process of attempting to cap the pursuit of buying distance at the expense of golf’s sustainability, leadership of the two PGA’s has been consistently in favor of what they believe to be best what’s best for their memberships by ensuring PGA Tour players continue to get paid for endorsing equipment and that PGA of America professionals continue to be in the good graces of manufacturers. The PGA’s appear determined to maintain the synergy between equipment consumerism and the pro game regardless of whether the average golfer receives proportional benefits from expensive equipment that members of these organizations get for free.

However, as Rory McIlroy noted in Sunday’s Twitter post expressing his surprise at how the world was handling the news of stronger distance rules, “Elite pros and ball manufacturers think bifurcation would negatively affect their bottom lines, when in reality, the game is already bifurcated. You think we play the same stuff you do?”

Oops. Let the Fairhaven bad-mouthing of McIlroy begin!

McIlroy was the longest driver on the PGA Tour in 2023 with a 326.3 average on measured holes. Until this year he has been against acting on distance. But he also abruptly resigned from the PGA Tour Board of Directors just three weeks ago. What we’ve since learned about late-in-the-game lobbying against a distance conclusion, one dictated by the Tour’s anti-bifurcation stance just months ago, may have made McIlroy even more uncomfortable representing the confused organization.

Nugent writes: “In a letter to governing bodies last week, the PGA Tour made clear its objections. The crux of the mater is that the tour believes that all affected stakeholders need to be part of the process, to have a seat at the tables as it relates to equipment regulation. They are concerned that the governing bodies are listening to their concerns but not actually hearing them.”

Not actually hearing them?

After five years, multiple papers, countless meetings and months in between announcements to hear all views? While dropping the proposed bifurcation at the urging of the two PGA’s?

Apparently this constitutes “not actually hearing them” to the PGA Tour.

Nugent says the PGA World Alliance of club professionals also—mitzvah alert!— “wrote to the governing bodies late last week, expressing concern with the decision, sources told GGP.”

I wonder if PGA of America CEO Seth Waugh has to get Jay’s permission to use the restroom? I digress.

Again, the decision reported on by Golf Digest seems like what most people thought the two PGA’s wanted: no bifurcation.

If the report is accurate, this means the final forthcoming decision was leaked to Golf Digest by an entity that had signed on to the Vancouver Protocols and was expected to respect the process. Pathetic but not surprising.

It gets worse.