Kudos to John Huggan, my colleague at GolfObserver who has this excellent interview with Titleist’s Wally Uihlein about the distance dilemma and bifurcation.
From the interview:
“JH: How about the bifurcation argument? Isn’t the grooves thing a step down that road?
WU: It is a de-facto bifurcation, yes.
JH: So why not have a tournament ball for the professionals? And a ball for the rest of us. Then we can stop screwing with all these great golf courses.
WU: You have to capitulate to me a little bit when it comes to saving the great courses. The professional game is only played on about 100 of the great courses.
JH: True. And believe me when I say that I have no desire to hurt your bottom line. I’m all for you making lots of money.
WU: I know. But there has been a lot of hyperbole written and spoken about us obsoleting all these courses.
JH: The trouble is that it tends to be the great courses.”
As a lawyer, In think a suit bt Titleist would be a nuisance suit: there is no “right to have your voice heard by a ruling body” or due process. The USGA runs the national championships, they make ther rules, end of story. Titleist has no contractual standing – called privity – with which to claim malfeasance. Indeed, it would be the worst kind of nuisance suit: a spite suit.
