Phil Mickelson a cheater?

Phil and a few other pros found a loophole that alows them to use old (pre-1990) grooved wedges over ones that were recently banned by the R&A and USGA.

http://sports.yahoo.com/golf/blog/devil_ball_golf/post/Tour-players-accuse-Phil-Mickelson-of-cheating-?urn=golf,216497

I don't think he is cheating. And I don't really have a problem with it.

 

Yes.

Ohhhh, you mean ON the course? My bad.

 

Not what I was expecting either.

 

If you don't have a problem with his choice of wedges, why the inflammatory headline?

No one is cheating. The Ping wedges in questions are conforming clubs for use in competition.

 

I think the thread headline refers to the fact that Mickelson's opponents are saying he cheats. Legit use of the word, to me. (Allenby says he doesn't want to call it cheating, then he proceeds to do exactly that in other words. Kind of cowardly.)

However, the USGA and PGA ruled explicitly that these clubs were allowed. It isn't even a "spirit of the rules" gray area. Much as I'd like to see Mickelson run up the flagpole, there's no case here.

Man, golfers are a bunch of whiny brats. Big revelation, I know.

 

Anything other than wood heads on the drivers should be cheating.

 

That's right, dammit! Bring back the leather helmets, too. And the peach backets.

 

But those clubheads are like letting baseball players use metal bats at the major league level.

The game is different and impossible to compare from generation to generation.

 

I'm no fan of Mickelson but I don't think he's breaking the rules.

 

Not to mention the feathery.

That much aside, as Hondo pointed out, these clubs were ruled OK for use in pro events this year. John Daly and Dean Wilson used them two weeks ago at the Sony, so this is much ado about nothing.

It's also -- according to several technical people I've read on this subject -- much ado about nothing regarding Phil's game... or anyone else who uses those clubs. Apparently, the grooves on Ping Eye-2s are as comparable to today's grooves as a slingshot is to a Stinger missile.

Disclosure... I have a set of Ping Eye-2s that I bought used and love.

Warning: TechSpeak from Bob Harig's notebook on ESPN.com last week.

"The Ping square groove from [the 1980s] was great then with the balata balls," said Keith Sbarbaro, the vice president of Global Sports Marketing for TaylorMade. "I don't have any data but I would guess it's not even close to any square groove from the last 15 years and it's probably not even better than the current 2010 groove.

"When this groove came out the original Burner was the greatest technology and Ping didn't even have the technology to make a metal wood. I highly doubt they had the engineers then to make a grove anywhere close to as good as this 2010 groove."

Benoit Vincent, chief technical officer for TaylorMade, did an analysis of a Ping Eye 2 wedge and said that the "grooves have been worn out which is certainly the case for the majority of wedges produced so long ago." Vincent also said the club had 18 grooves, compared with 14 on a contemporary TaylorMade version.

His conclusion: "The Ping Eye 2 groove is not optimum for three reasons: no fresh grooves; inconsistent geometry obtained by hand polishing of casting and random tumble finish process wearing the edge of the groove; and last, the high number of grooves on the face imposes the groove to be narrow then the overall volume to be small compared to a modern groove."

 

Yeah, he's just gettin' his groove on.

 

Doug Ferguson did a pretty good story on this when Daly used them at the Sony a couple weeks ago. Apparently, Daly has a garage full of these. He snaps them up off eBay whenever he sees them, and fans and friends send them to him. Ping keeps a registry of all its clubs, so a golfer can call the company and check the serial number to see if it's legal.
If every golfer has that same kind of opportunity, what's the big deal?