Testing Tour Drivers Isn’t a Job in Demand

The loneliest people on the PGA Tour could well be tournament officials Tyler Dennis and Mickey Bradley. They will be manning the PGA rules trailer just a pull-hook off the first fairway at Riviera Country Club for this week’s Nissan Open.

Dennis and Bradley are, among other things, in charge of a contraption that looks like a cross between a grandfather clock and guillotine. The pendulum-driven device tests tour players’ drivers to make sure they are not too “hot,” or that they are not capable of launching balls with a force beyond the legal limits prescribed by the PGA and the U.S. Golf Assn.

The machine, carted to each tour event, looks as if it belongs in the Smithsonian and, according to Dennis and Bradley, it might as well be there, for all the use it’s getting these days.

Dennis said golfers rarely get their clubs tested anymore.

“I don’t know why. My guess is, a lot of them got tested [previously] and their clubs are fine. We don’t worry about it too much,” Dennis said.

The pendulum club tester was brought to the tour in 2004 and its use is voluntary. If, however, a driver is found to exceed the legal limits, the player must replace it before the tournament or face disqualification.

By February 2004, more than 50 touring pros had volunteered their drivers for testing, according to PGA official John Mutch. But so far this year, “only a couple” have visited the rules trailer for testing. As far as the testers know, no one has been disqualified because of an illegal driver. But even if there had been a disqualification, “we couldn’t tell you about it,” Bradley said.

Besides, they say, golf club manufacturers use the same device to test their products before putting them on the market.

“Obviously,” Dennis said, “they’re not going to manufacture something that’s illegal.”

It is that kind of trust, justified or not, that rankles critics like Geoff Shackelford, a golf historian and author who has just completed a book, “The Future of Golf.”

“The tour never wanted to test drivers,” he said. “They did it strictly to appease Tiger [Woods], and the testing was never mandatory, always voluntary.”

Shackelford argues that length has replaced accuracy and shot-making ability as a prerequisite for success.

“Six years ago, Tiger was able to hit certain shots and hit them [long] distances because of his swing and athletic ability,” Shackelford said. “Now, others have gotten to his level because they have honed their equipment, balls as well as clubs, rather than their skill.”

Bradley and other tour officials concede that the only way to force a player to have his club tested is for another player to request it. And that, they agree, would be “very awkward.”

*

In his first full year on the tour, 24-year-old Justin Rose is confident he will win in the United States, perhaps even at the Nissan Open.

“I really like [Riviera],” he said Monday on the practice range. “It’s a classic course ... much like a lot of English courses.”

Rose was born in South Africa but lives in London and Orlando. The one-time wunderkind of the European Tour decided to play in the U.S. full-time after competing in 22 PGA tournaments last year.

“I like the American Tour,” he said. “The golf courses here are in great shape, and they suit my game.... I hit the ball high.”

At Riviera, he is looking for his first U.S. victory and his first anywhere since 2002.

“I’ve won four times,” he said of his victories outside the U.S. “Certainly I think I can win here. I know it’s going to happen.”

*

The rain predicted for this week calls to mind the last time the Nissan Open was shortened to 54 holes because of weather: 1998, when Tom Kite won.

In the rainy finale in 2001, Robert Allenby won a seven-man playoff on the first sudden-death hole when he birdied the 18th.

Tournament officials say the players might not have been able to continue beyond that because of the water elsewhere on the course.