Illegal Golf Clubs

The United States Golf Association is in charge of creating, interpreting and maintaining rules for golf games played under their jurisdiction in the United States and Mexico. One area that has garnered a great deal of attention over the years and especially of late is the topic of non-conforming or illegal golf clubs. The reason for this heightened interest is a recent determination by the USGA and R&A in Scotland regarding the spring like effect of the clubface.

Some Rules About Clubs
Foreign material must not be applied to the clubface for the purpose of influencing the movement of the ball. Woods and irons must not be designed to be adjustable except for weight. There are rules about length of clubs, alignment, club head size and shape, grips, shaft design, just about anything you can change on a club is regulated by the USGA. The intent is to ensure that the game of golf be as fair and equitable as possible; that it be about skill and experience rather than equipment and unfair advantages.

There are all sorts of tales and legends in the world of golf involving the use or accused use or illegal golf clubs and equipment. Perhaps one of the most famous occurred when Ben Hogan was accused of using clubs with a raised groove clubface during the 1947 Ryder Cup. No illegal grooves were found on Hogan’s clubs. Hogan himself made the same accusation against the British team in 1949 only as it turned out some of the members of the team did have grooves that needed to be removed.

Spring Effect Rule
This latest rule issue relating to the spring effect of a clubface relates to Appendix II, section 5a of the Rules of Golf which says in essence that a face of the clubhead cannot be made or altered in such a way that it adds too much spin or behave like a spring upon impact. The problem is that most clubs indent slightly and then spring back when hit, so the question becomes how much action is too much?

The spring-like effect is measured by something called the coefficient of restitution (COR). The higher the COR, the greater the effect. The USGA finally established a measurement of According to the USGA, the COR of a driver may not exceed a measurement of .830 as the limit for golf clubs being used in any competitions or in handicap rounds. Higher than that and the club is deemed an illegal golf club.

An interesting aspect of this controversy is that the R&A chose a COR limit of .860, but has since agreed to change it to .830 on Jan. 1, 2008. In the meantime, the R&A has instituted a "condition of competition" that limits the COR in drivers played by highly skilled players to .830. So in effect, the two organizations are in agreement on the pro level for now and will coincide across the board on what constitutes and illegal golf club for all players after 2008.

List of Illegal Drivers
According to the USGA, “Since inception of the spring-like effect standard, the USGA has examined thousands of golf clubs to determine compliance with its spring-like effect standard. The non-conforming driver list is provided on a weekly basis to the PGA Tour, the LPGA Tour, the Champions Tour, and the Nationwide Tour. It is maintained and updated each Monday for public examination on the USGA web site.” The organization is careful to point out that the spring-like effect is only one of several criteria considered in determining whether or not a driver conforms to the Rules.

There are nearly 300 drivers alone listed on the USGA's non-conforming golf clubs list, including several made by top club manufacturers such as Titleist, TaylorMade, Nike, Mizuno, Kasco, and Callaway. It is very important to note that several models of the illegal clubs are also made in a USGA conforming version. And those versions that are non-conforming to USGA Rules are usually not distributed in locations under the USGA jurisdiction. Check out the list to see if you have an illegal golf club.