[PHOTO: Michael Owens]
The perils and peccadillos of testing drivers for getting too springy are not going away. After both Rory McIlroy, according to a report, and eventual champion Scottie Scheffler, according to the winner himself, were found to have drivers that failed the CT test at the PGA Championship two weeks ago, talk has swirled that the random testing procedure is at best problematic. Now, heading into the US Open in a couple of weeks, a former champion is suggesting the test might not even catch all the players getting tested.
Lucas Glover, the 2009 US Open champion and a six-time winner on the PGA Tour, told SiriusXM PGA Tour Radio’s Taylor Zarzour that the CT test protocol might need an overhaul. Currently, the USGA administers the field test for evaluating the springiness and conforming status of driver faces is administered at the request of either the PGA Tour at tour events or the organisation running a tournament, like the PGA of America at the PGA Championship. In the test procedure, as much as a third of the field is chosen at random to have their driver tested the week of the tournament. Glover suggested that the drivers being tested may not be the drivers the summoned players are actually using that week.
“I’ve been trying to think all morning and all day how to say this without sounding like it’s going to sound, but most guys don’t give them their real driver anyway,” Glover told Zarzour when asked why the entire field isn’t tested. “They give them their back-up just in case. No, it’s true. And the testing is the way it is, why, and again, I know a lot of guys, they keep two drivers in their bag just in case. ‘Hey, oh, yeah, it’s this one. It’s this one right here. Yeah, do this, test this one.’”
Glover further wondered why testing couldn’t be universal, which he thinks is especially important now with fields at majors particularly involving many players from different tours.
“Immediately, I came to the realisation that we’re not all playing under the same umbrella at these majors unless we did test everybody,” Glover said. “So we got LIV guys, we got other tour guys, we got tons of different players and tours being represented at the four biggest tournaments of the year. So why doesn’t everybody get tested at every major? And why don’t we somehow try to make sure it’s the driver being used?
“If that costs X amount of dollars, great. Let’s do it,” he continued. “All these organisations [have] got plenty. Look at the tents they build every week. If we’re going to be on an equal playing field, and the four biggest events are going to bring all these people and all these tours together, let’s make sure we’re playing under the same rules.”
After his victory at the PGA Championship, Scottie Scheffler said that he had to switch drivers during the week after his “gamer” was deemed non-conforming during testing at Quail Hollow. [Photo: Andrew Redington]
There has been no indication from either the PGA Tour, the USGA or the R&A that full-field driver testing is going to be implemented any time soon. The PGA Tour had not yet responded to a Golf Digest request for comment regarding Glover’s comments. Speaking at the US Women’s Open on Tuesday, USGA chief executive Mike Whan addressed driver testing, saying that at this time there is no driver testing for women’s events, largely because the idea that driver faces used by players swinging at elite women’s speeds are not going to experience the wear that leads to the “CT creep” that pushes a driver face from conforming to non-conforming. But he also indicated no alarm that some kind of bait-and-switch is going on during testing at men’s events.
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“I read something where somebody said that people can doctor the system, but we keep serial numbers of the driver that were given us, and 90 percent of the drivers that were given us in those practice facilities when we test are played on the first tee, and we expect 10 percent of players to be making changes anyway,” Whan said. “I don’t think that’s a real concern for us.”
Glover, who said his driver was tested at Quail Hollow and was found to be fine (“I don’t hit far enough to thin a face out anymore”), believes that the subtleties from one driver to the next, even from the same manufacturers and the same model, are more noticeable and impactful than people realise.
“I was told a long time ago, golf clubs are actually like snowflakes,” he said. “They may read the same. They may look the same. They may fall the same way out of the sky. They may build them the exact same in the trailer, but they’re snowflakes. There is nothing identical. To the point where, even the back-ups I travel with, I know it is not as good. If it was as good or better, I’d be hitting it.”
Glover said losing a trusted driver the week of a major like McIlroy did is a bigger adjustment than it appears. He hit balls next to McIlroy early in the week and was surprised he was using a new head. “I said, ‘Wow, that stinks for him because you gotta drive it there really, really, really well,’” Glover said. “And obviously, coming off the Masters and coming off playing great all winter, all spring, and you gotta do that. Yeah, I was like, Man, that’s tough.”
