For Once, Phil Mickelson Has Too Much Groove

As of the beginning of this month, new rules were imposed by two of golf’s major governing bodies banning the use of clubs with specially cut grooves in irons, which allowed golfers to put extra spin on the ball and helped minimize the negative effect of shooting into the rough.↵↵Naturally, some golfers weren’t quite ready to relinquish the advantage to which they had become accustomed. Lucky for them, a slight loophole existed by dint of a lawsuit Ping filed against the PGA Tour and the USGA in 1993 that exempted wedges made before 1990 from rules restricting club grooves. A few high-profile players, including Phil Mickelson and John Daly, were happy to exploit that loophole.↵

↵↵Those who chose to observe the spirit of the new ruling, rather than find exceptions, indeed took exception to players using the old clubs.↵

↵↵⇥“I think it’s cheating,” Rocco Mediate told The [San Francisco] Chronicle. “All those guys should be ashamed of themselves for doing that. ... As one of our premier players, (Mickelson) should be one of the guys who steps up and says this is wrong.”“I don’t like it at all, not one bit,” Mediate said. “It’s against the spirit of the rule. ... We have to get rid of those clubs, because they’re square grooves - what else can you say?”↵↵ ↵↵Well, Mickelson says for the time being at least, they’re technically legal, so he and others will continue to use them, whether competitors like it or not. But with Mickelson being the biggest name and presumably the top player left in the sport until Tiger Woods decides to return, it’s another controversy that serves to hinder golf. Worse still, it’s one the governing bodies brought on themselves.↵

↵↵(H/T to Devil Ball Golf)↵

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